{"id":6882,"date":"2015-10-06T07:59:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T14:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/3.0\/?p=6882"},"modified":"2015-10-06T07:59:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T14:59:24","slug":"trying-to-be-cool-makes-kids-unhappy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/trying-to-be-cool-makes-kids-unhappy\/","title":{"rendered":"Trying to Be Cool Makes Kids Unhappy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/3.0\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/cool-kids.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6883 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/3.0\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/cool-kids-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"cool kids\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" \/><\/a>As the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1402203462?keywords=Your%20children%20are%20under%20attack&amp;qid=1444142516&amp;ref_=sr_1_1&amp;sr=8-1\">Your Children are Under Attack<\/a>, I&#8217;m no fan of popular culture. Its aim is not to support healthy development of young people, but rather to profit from selling kids junk and attitudes wrapped in &#8220;it&#8217;ll make you happy&#8221; vibes.<\/p>\n<p>Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/09\/150911094908.htm\">recent research<\/a> from the UK provides painful support for my views. The study had several unsettling findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Although friendly and helpful children were ultimately more popular over time, young people mistakenly predicted that the route to being liked was in having a reputation for disruptive behavior, having &#8216;cool&#8217; stuff and looking good.<\/li>\n<li>Depressive symptoms in boys tends to predict increases in their materialism, whereas depressive symptoms in girls tends to predict the internalization of appearance concerns.<\/li>\n<li>Consumer culture may be perceived as a coping mechanism by vulnerable children, but it is one that is detrimental to their well-being.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The bottom line is that kids are being led to believe what will make them happy and popular and mentally healthy is actually doing just the opposite.<\/p>\n<p>The bigger bottom line is that it&#8217;s up to parents to ensure that they help their children resist rather than embrace these harmful messages.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the author of Your Children are Under Attack, I&#8217;m no fan of popular culture. Its aim is not to support healthy development of young people, but rather to profit from selling kids junk and attitudes wrapped in &#8220;it&#8217;ll make you happy&#8221; vibes. Well, recent research from the UK provides painful support for my views. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1525,1758],"tags":[1092,40,67,873,45,68],"class_list":["post-6882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","category-popular-culture","tag-being-cool","tag-child-development","tag-consumerism","tag-materialism","tag-parenting-2","tag-popular-culture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}