Ties That Stress: The New Family Imbalance

by David Elkind

A renowned psychologist--author of The Hurried Child--looks at what has happened to the American family in the last few decades, putting together all the puzzling facts and conflicting accounts to show what this instituion has become. "Sums up the changes we are all witnessing and their cost to children" - T. Berry Brazelton, author of Touchpoints.

Genres: Parenting

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 1993

About the author

David Elkind is an American child psychologist and author. His groundbreaking books The Hurried Child and Miseducation informed early childhood education professionals of the possible dangers of "pushing down" the elementary curriculum into the very early years of a child's life. By doing so, he argued, teachers and parents alike could lapse into developmentally inappropriate instructional and learning practices that may distort the smooth development of learning. He is associated with the belief of decline of social markers.

He also wrote Ties that Stress: The New Family Imbalance (1994), All Grown Up and No Place To Go (1988), and Reinventing Childhood (1988). His most recent article titled, "Can We Play?", is featured in Greater Good magazine (published by the Greater Good Science Center), and discusses how play is essential to positive human development but children are playing less than in previous eras.

from wikipedia.org

Reviews

[Steph Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't rush through this book. This book is a sociological/philosophical/developmental masterpiece. I like all of Elkind's writing, but this one especially tied EVERYTHING together for me from a historical/developmental perspective. If anyone can situate pre to post modernism within a family-system perspective, Elkind has done it here. It is so interesting and apropos. We like to think that parenting is instinctual, natural, above cultural constructs, but it is absolutely not. Loved this book and I love the way Elkind instructs without judging, insinuating sides, or blaming. GOOD read.

[Kiersten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elkind is reknowned for his work in family systems. I used this book for one such course and found his views on topics that mostly are brushed under the rug: imbalance and the roots of "imperfect perfection" was quiet interesting.