This isn’t a funny or folksy post for a change, but a review of a book that I think is brilliant, and incredibly important for parents! The book is The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman.
Years ago there were many dangerous childhood diseases like Polio that haunted childhood leaving many kids dead and many more with the legacy of a lifetime of disability. I feel really lucky to live in a time and place where, thanks to modern medicine, almost all of these diseases have been eradicated!
However, in the affluent west we are in the middle of an epidemic, one which will cripple and kill many off our children! The name of this epidemic is depression. There has been an explosion in depression since the 1960s. Studies of women born in the 1950s, have shown that by the time they were 30 years old 60% of them had been severely depressed. By contrast only 3% of women born in 1910 had severe depression by the time they were 30. The statistics for males shows the same ratio of a twenty-fold difference! I should note that severe depression means marked symptoms of low mood, cognitive impairment, passivity, and bodily changes.
Alarmingly the studies also showed that not only is severe depression more common now, but it is attacking victims much younger. A study in southeastern United States showed 9% of 12- 14 year olds had full blown depressive disorders!
Ha you say - perhaps people are more aware of depression so “reporting” has gone up, not the actual problem! This is not the case, the studies didn’t ask about depression as such but symptoms over a lifetime. It also wasn’t a case of elderly people forgetting their symptoms, as they remembered to report their alcoholic and other symptoms at a high rate!
Enter Martin Seligman, a man who has made it his lifes work to find a way to psychologically immunise people against depression! If you are interested in his work in the areas of depression, optimism and happiness check out his website.
The Optimistic Child takes all of this and applies it to raising kids. We need to look at how our kids analyse the world and teach them to view things with optimism and engender them with a feeling of mastery over their lives and events. The buzzword is of course resilience, which is what we all want our kids to have - and I believe this book can actually help us do it!
One really interesting aspect of the book is that Martin Seligan actually blames (in part) the self esteem movement for the rate of depression as it stands! Meaningless praise and reward regardless of action or outcome is actually damaging, so is overprotecting your child so they avoid the difficult and painful aspects of life.
I found this really liberating as a parent, I realised that I didn’t have to produce a perfect world for my kids, I actually had to let real stuff happen to them! The challenge then is to support and guide them to deal with events, seeing them in a positive framework and accepting themselves unconditionally!
Let’s ask the government to hand out a copy at every babies immunisations!
depression, happiness, Martin Seligman, optimism, parenting, psychology, resiliance
