Well-off, smartly dressed and displaying an impressive array of talents in and out of school, they seem to have perfect lives and be destined for exciting futures doing important things. Yet a growing number of children from wealthy backgrounds are suffering stress, not because of their friends or worrying about whether they will get a boyfriend or girlfriend, but because of their over-ambitious parents.

A controversial new book— which has sparked a massive debate in America about the relationship between money and parenting— has blamed high-earning, high-achieving mothers and fathers for inadvertently causing their children's problems by pushing them so hard to succeed that they feel like failures.

Parents interfere in their children's lives so much that they cannot look after themselves. They give them every gadget and luxury imaginable but far too little time, love and affection.

In The Price of Privilege: How parental pressure and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and unhappy kids, American clinical psychologist Dr. Madeline Levine accuses middle-class parents who earn at least GBP 63,000 a year of failing to prepare their offspring properly for the adult world because they are so obsessed with ensuring their sons and daughters excel at everything they do. While superficially well-developed, their children are actually sad, lonely, confused and lack self-confidence because they have not fulfilled parental expectations, Dr. Levine says.

"Why are kids who have everything doing so poorly?" asks Dr. Levine. "We know that this group of kids has three times the rate of depression and anxiety disorders as ordinary teenagers, as well as substantially higher rates of substance abuse, cutting and suicide. The most dangerous feelings a child can have are of self-hatred, yet middle-class parents are unwittingly instilling those feelings by expecting so much."

According to Dr. Levine, parents should take care not to pressurise their children to try to be outstanding at everything and accept that they will be only good or average at certain school subjects or extra-curricular pursuits, allow them enough time on their own to find out more about who they are and, crucially, always to be on hand to talk to their children about their day, their thoughts and how they are feeling.

Dr. Levine criticises over-intrusive `helicopter parents', so-called because they constantly hover over every aspect of their children's lives, for example going into their school to challenge a teacher about a mark their child has received.

Although they are trying to help, they are actually damaging their offspring's development because, she says, leaving children alone, and learning how to handle difficult situations, helps them acquire independence, coping skills, a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of who they are.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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