The scared generation

This leads a lot of parents to spend a lot of their parenting energy simply being scared. The problem is that they are often scared of the wrong things. ItБЂ™s not their fault, really. Separating facts from rumors is always hard work, especially for a busy parent. And the white noise generated by the expertsБЂ”to say nothing of the pressure exerted by fellow parentsБЂ”is so overwhelming that they can barely think for themselves. The facts they do manage to glean have usually been varnished or exaggerated or otherwise taken out of context to serve an agenda that isnБЂ™t their own. Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. MollyБЂ™s parents know that AmyБЂ™s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at ImaniБЂ™s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. MollyБЂ™s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter. But according to the data, their choice isnБЂ™t smart at all ...»