>>>>There have been a number of recent books with the common theme that American parents are guilty of overparenting. They (we) are so focused on giving our children the best of everything they often grow up without the necessary coping skills for successful adulthood. The parents do things for them that they would be better off doing themselves. An example in one of the books describes an 8 year old girl in a primitive tribe who is responsible for stacking the leaves that are the family's crop and for making the family dinner every day. It isn't that American kids are not capable of doing the same, it's that they are so seldom asked. Give them everything so they know how much they are loved. And yes, I think I was guilty of this myself (although IMO both my daughters turned out well).
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>>>>UPDATE: Here is a link to the article. And I see the girl was not 8 but 6.
>>>>
>>>>http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert
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>>>aka "affluenza"
>>
>>I don't think it's just the affluent. Even folks like me who can broadly be described as middle class have been guilty of it.
>
>Your example of the 6 year old girl actually makes my point. If she lives in a developing country she's probably living on the equivalent of a few dollars per day; almost anyone in the US or Canada is incredibly affluent compared to her.
>
>Even staying within NA, the middle class here today is incredibly affluent compared to, say, 100 years ago. And that same middle class lives better than any king did 200 years ago.

OTOH, that kid and that king have something most of people nowadays don't: responsibility and feeling of being relied upon by the community. Which is sorely lacking in the overprotected or overparented children - that's one thing that is not given to them. And they grow seriously insecure of their own skills (social, manual, mental - take your pick) because they weren't, for the most part, even nudged into trying them out. OTOH, the confidence boosting techniques applied in the (public?) schools are mostly political rectification of anyone's failures (both those of the kids and of the system) and once these kids get out of the school system into real life - they'll have all the chances to reexamine their sense of self-worth at the first obstacle.

And that kid in the tribe is not in a prison-like school, separated from actual life, but rather immersed in the very fabric of her society, he mingles with the elders and learns things on the fly. Much better, in respect of developing social skills, contacts and whatnot, than spending so many hours every day secluded behind the walls and rules.