Can the “Me Generation” of baby boomers raise a “We Generation” of consciously compassionate, less self-involved kids? Canadian psychologist Ungar believes so and has written this guide for parents to help them foster in their offspring a spirit of volunteerism, a willingness to “give back” and a directive to do well by doing good. Each of these eight, action-oriented chapters offers anecdotes, self-evaluation tools, lists of activities and boxed tips as it addresses part of a plan for overcoming the problem of self-centered kids, starting with recognizing and learning that kids want to help and make changes; that compassion leads to connection, which leads to responsibility; how grandparents, neighbors and other parents can join forces; why parent-child affection is so important; how to guide kids spiritually and emotionally; how to avoid kids' isolation and anonymity in society; and strategies for generating excitement about being part of a wider world. Critical to all this is parents' commitment to model what they want to see in their kids. While this book may raise more questions than it answers—can kids who do community service only for college application profiles grow a conscience? or what about rebellious kids who do the opposite of their parents?—it is timely. Just as cardigan-clad Mr. Rogers embodied this concept in his PBS neighborhood, Ungar reframes it for today's families.

Read the original review here.

Book Review: The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids by Michael Ungar
Blogcritics: November 1, 2009
By Sahar

The world has the potential to be amazing, but apart from glimmerings of awesomeness here and there, the overwhelming conditions are pretty terrible (sorry, Mother Earth). One of the reasons behind such a terrible state of affairs is the pervasive effects of both individualism and consumerism, which has led us away from what human nature is about: advancing both at the individual and at the community level.

Author Michael Ungar does a brilliant job of painting why, in a world that offers them more social connections in one year that a mere couple of generations ago would have had in an entire lifetime, children still feel alone, since they are inherently social creature with a desire to help others. He also does a brilliant job of explaining how parents (as well as teachers and coaches) can help children develop this inherent sense of altruism, enhanced by the shockingly contradictory reality offered by today’s "Me-society."

The fact of the matter is that parents work day and night to provide their children with tuition to a great school, all basic material amenities and some extras, like a TV, a computer and more toys that they can play with, but nothing can make up for the basic, human one-on-one contact that was such an important part of the lives of previous generations of children.

Ironically enough perhaps, the fact that these children only have an abundant number of superficial connections makes them want to reach out even more, while the decreasing number of deep in-person connections has robbed them of the environment they need to develop the skills and capacities to do so.

So what can parents do? Is everything that they do wrong?

Read the full review here.