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The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids | 
| Author: Madeline Levine
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
List Price: $13.95
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Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 006059585X
Dewey Decimal Number: 649
EAN: 9780060595852
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In recent years, numerous studies have shown that bright, charming, seemingly confident and socially skilled teenagers from affluent, loving families are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders—rates higher than in any other socioeconomic group of American adolescents. Materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, and disconnection are combining to create a perfect storm that is devastating children of privilege and their parents alike. In this eye-opening, provocative, and essential book, clinical psychologist Madeline Levine explodes one child-rearing myth after another. With empathy and candor, she identifies toxic cultural influences and well-intentioned, but misguided, parenting practices that are detrimental to a child's healthy self-development. Her thoughtful, practical advice provides solutions that will enable parents to help their emotionally troubled "star" child cultivate an authentic sense of self.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Thoughtful, practical advice January 1, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As the mother of four children ages 7 to 17, I found Dr. Levine's The Price of Privilege to be an invaluable book. Written like a close, wise, warm friend, Dr. Levine tells it like it is, does not sugar coat the responsibilities that parents have, and where they tend to mess up, but maintains a sympathetic tone throughout. Most important to me was the chapter for women about the challenges of parenting when you "have everything" (which I certainly don't have) but feel lost and alone. Wish she was my local shrink, I'd consult her in a heartbeat even though I usually shy away from the advice of "professionals" (who often have lots of opinions and little common sense).
Great guidelines for kids of all ages and parents of different parenting strategies. Highly recommended
 Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are NOT Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids December 28, 2008
Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are NOT Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. The problem is disconnected and unhappy parents who do not have appropriate relationships with their kids and do not take their children with them into honest, supportive communities. The book presents some good ideas for improving conditions, but Dr. Levine has misdiagnosed the problem in the title of her book. Too many parents (people) in our culture are isolated and in their isolation they are incapable of teaching children to participate in community life and to be happy. Parents have to improve their own connectedness in adult communities before they can make real progress with their kids. Wealth is a minor distraction.
 Teens are fine; grownups (and psychologists) are messed up November 24, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
If author Levine reversed her book's title and emphasis to warn about the epidemic of parents inflicting their own materialism, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, divorce, and other ills on their teenaged kids, this would be valuable book. Just look at the misguided, favorable reviews to see how badly this book miscommunicates the realities facing teens today.
I taught at a big university near Marin County and saw hundreds of these "priveleged" (and not so privileged) students at close range. As a generation, they're fine, generally coping well with stresses. Their parents' generation, however, is not all right. I'm convinced from the growing stack of books like these that psychologists desperately need to get out of their offices and spend time in homes and real-life environments to see how a variety of young people (not just the tiny fraction they see as clients) are coping.
Or, at least, psychologists should stop citing anecdotes and self-praising cases and study the social statistics for the areas they live in. Let us take public health and crime figures for Marin County and compare adults ages 40-49 (the average parents) with teens. About 10 times more parents than teens die from drug abuse, 50% more 40-agers are arrested (including nearly TWICE as many for felonies) than teenagers, FIVE TIMES more 40-aged parents than teenaged youths are arrested for drug and alcohol related offenses, and seven times more parents than teens commit suicide. Those are just a few indicators among many to suggest that it isn't the teens--it's the grownups of Levine's generation who are messed up. You can explore more of these shocking statistics for yourselves. For example, see California tabulations at:
http://stats.doj.ca.gov/cjsc_stats/prof06/21/18.htm (crime)
http://www.applications.dhs.ca.gov/vsq/screen1a.asp?Year_Data=2006&Stats=1 (health)
Levine's claims that teenagers today are more materialistic, selfish, money-hungry, etc. are just garbage. The same surveys she cites actually show that as a result of their parents' generation's greedy refusal to pay taxes to support schools, teens and college students today face massive debts and must work more in college to pay skyrocketing tuitions than their more generously supported parents did 40 years ago. By the best measures, students today are much more community oriented, happier, and less materialistic and troubled than their parents were or are.
So, my modest suggestion is that if you mistakenly bought this book, rip out 90% of the pages and keep only the few in which Levine urges parents to cut out their own bad behaviors and values. Reviewers: stop buying into these books, even if they do flatter your personal demographic. Publishers: we've got a big enough stack of psychologists' narrow, bubble-world misconceptions derived from fixating on their most troubled clients and failure to engage the realities of the larger world.
Mike Males, Ph.D.
http://www.YouthFacts.org
 Excellent read October 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this for a parent's book club. I breezed through it and found it really useful. Great examples, really brought the book to life. I gained some very good insights and tips from it. And the book club had a long, involved discussion. The book was a perfect launching point.
Loved it!!! September 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was chosen at our high school for a book discussion. Dr. Levine really knows what she is talking about. This book was interesting all the way through and very insightful. It helps me to understand my adolesents and the adolescents I work with better. Hopefully, I have become a better mother because of this book. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is a parent or who works with kids. There were certainly issues that came up that are also common in the middle class, it is not only about rich kids.
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