In this edition of the Where Parents Talk podcast on 105.9 The Region, Lianne Castelino speaks to Dr. Leonard Sax, family physician, psychologist, author and father about his book, The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups — five years after it was published. Discussion topics include: the parent-child relationship, the child-peer relationship, the culture of disrespect and more.

Dr. Leonard Sax
Family Physician
Psychologist
Author, The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups
Father

“All my work with parents, all my recommendations are based in evidence, and we have a lot of good evidence about what’s happened in Canada in the United States over the last 30 years. And what are the consequences, and what the research is telling us is that when parents are authoritative, meaning parents can be too hard, parents can be too soft. Parents should be just right in the right place between too hard and too soft. And what researchers in Canada in the United States have found is that over the last 30 years, parents have drifted largely in the direction of being too soft.

The parent child relationship has to matter more than the relationship between peers, and in most cultures of which we have any record, that has been the case. But in North American Anglophone culture, it no longer is.

If the regard of your peers is the most important construct in your social universe, you are fragile, and you are terrified, you’re going to be looking at your phone every second, make sure you haven’t left anyone’s text go unanswered. You are fragile. But if your most important priority is the relationship with the app with your parents, then you can relax. Because if your parents are good parents, they’ve made it very clear, they will always be on your side.”