National Review Online has published a blog post of suggested summer reading entitled,"Beach Bag Books." The book that most grabbed my attention is one suggested by Nancy French. She writes:
Think Britney Spears, peer pressure, and Twitter are making modern kids
sullen, detached, and 
generally rotten? Think again. Richard
Weissbourd’s book about modern parenting trends places the
responsibility for kids’ moral well-being squarely where it belongs —
on the parents. In his book, The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development,
the lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education talks about
popular parenting techniques such as being “positive parents,” focusing
on self-esteem, and praising our kids excessively.
And the shock is? He’s against these things.
Weissbourd’s countercultural parenting advice suggests that parents’ intense focus on their children’s happiness actually makes kids less happy, that excessive praise stunts character development, and that “over-parenting” can turn children into “fragile conformists. Additionally, he challenges the “self-esteem” craze — the belief that if parents bolster their kids’ sense of self, they’ll invariably turn out to be good people. This is the first time in history that people have succumbed to this backwards idea about morality and explains that bullies, delinquents, and gang leaders often have the highest self-esteem.
( Nancy French is the author of A Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle.)