Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up

I want to read INTELLIGENT perspectives that differ from my own, and this is not that. I was curious about the title and had never heard of the author… I made it 3 chapters before I said “that’s enough nonsense.”

Imagine if someone dared to ask questions or suggest a Karen’s kid might benefit from therapy. Now create an atom bomb of that ignorance, lack of self-awareness and defensiveness. And that’s just the preface.

She appears to extrapolate her own (lackluster) experience with a single therapist into a massive pile of bad faith arguments and calls it a book. Again, I only made it to chapter 3, so take my review with a grain of salt.

This book is a case study in how to cherry pick anecdotes. The example that sticks in my mind is when she mentions a principal who doesn’t want to take kid’s phones away because it “keeps them calm.” WTF. Where’s the rest of his statement? Point me to any single school administration official who LIKES kids to have phones in class. She wants to cherry pick? Ok, well I just read about a school district who completely banned phones. And my kid’s school has had to send emails saying kids should never have phones in class. So there’s two, lady, your move. This is the level of intelligent discussion you might have with this book. So none.

Assuming she ever got around to making any valid points I wouldn’t have been able to take her seriously because of the rest of it. Even with the small amount I read she still managed to rant about lockdowns, claims of systemic racism, and climate ("But is climate anxiety—dare I ask—rational?")

Don’t waste your time with this rage bait. I should note this is coming from someone who does not agree with our helicopter parenting, intense child optimization culture. There are things I probably do agree with her on (emotions change, don’t make happiness the goal, for example), but even then I would expect actual valid sources for those conclusions. This book was written purely to massage the ego of a certain type of person, nothing more.