"With keen sensitivity to family dilemmas reflecting her years of practice as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Ehrensaft shows how our culture has created a new kind of child - the "kinderdult," half miniature adult, half innocent cherub - whose new set of problems includes pseudomaturity, infantile behavior, a divided sense of self, and chronic anxiety.

Martine, mother of three-year-old Laurel, expects her little girl to negotiate her own terms for visitation with her father, but at the same time grants her screaming requests for baby bottles throughout the night. Gwendolyn, age eight, is encouraged to interact with her mother as an equal, but dissolves into wild tantrums when they disagree.

While Martine and Gwendolyn are extreme examples, their stories and others so memorably introduced in these pages help readers examine their own parenting paradoxes in a spirit of optimism and change.".

"Insightful and compassionate, Spoiling Childhood offers a saner vision of how we can bring up our children. Dr. Ehrensaft helps us move toward a society where we can overcome the treacherous balancing acts of work and family demands: where "good-enough" replaces perfect parenting, harriedness is traded for harmony, and the kinderdult is replaced by a child who grows on a healthy continuum from infancy to adulthood.

This book is invaluable reading for parents, prospective parents, concerned professionals - and anyone interested in the perils and possibilities of family life today."--BOOK JACKET.