Questões de Inglês

When did the central aim of parenting become

preparing children for success? This reigning

paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing

be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child

toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies

the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture,

with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the

future. When each nurturing act is administered

with the distant future in mind, what becomes of the

present? A child who soaks in the ambient anxiety that

surrounds each trivial choice or activity is an anxious

child, formed in the hand-wringing, future-focused

image of her anxious parents.

“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the

Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for

Success” seems to lie at the precise crossroads of this

inherently conflicted approach. Like so many others,

Julie Lythcott-Haims has identified overparenting as a

trap. But once you escape the trap, the goal remains

the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults.

Whether a child is learning to ride a bike or doing his

own laundry, he is still viewed through the limited

binary lens of either triumphant or fumbling adulthood.

The looming question is not “Is my child happy?” but

“Is my child a future president poised to save the

environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his

fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?”

Lythcott-Haims, who brings some authority to

the subject as Stanford’s former dean of freshmen

and undergraduate advising, has seen varieties of

extreme parental interference suggesting not just

a lack of common sense, but a lack of wisdom and

healthy boundaries (if not personal dignity) as well.

Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn

from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re

not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on

school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught

up in what the author calls the “college admissions

arms race,” parents treat securing their children a

spot at one of 20 top schools (as decreed by U.S.

News and World Report’s popular but somewhat

dubious rankings) as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school

transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write

or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers,

dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors,

SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”

(26 percent of college applicants reported hiring these

in 2013). Even after kids graduate, the madness

continues. Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents

touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for

their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés

to potential employers, sometimes without their

children’s knowledge. These behaviors do more

than mold kids into dependent beings, she argues;

they corral and constrict their possibilities and their

imaginations. “We speak of dreams as boundless,

limitless realms,” Lythcott-Haims writes. “But in reality

often we create parameters, conditions and limits

within which our kids are permitted to dream — with

a checklisted childhood as the path to achievement.”

Lythcott-Haims takes pains to demonstrate that

overparenting doesn’t merely threaten a child’s future

income; it also does enormous psychological harm.

She cites a 2011 study by sociologists at the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga that found a correlation,

in college-student questionnaires, between helicopter

parenting and medication for anxiety or depression.

One researcher at a treatment center for addicts

in Los Angeles found that “rates of depression and

anxiety among affluent teens and young adults

correspond to the rates of depression and anxiety

suffered by incarcerated juveniles.” Other studies

suggest that overparented kids are “less open to new

ideas” and take “less satisfaction in life.” For Lythcott-

Haims, the message behind this research is the

same: Kids need to sally forth independently without

constant supervision. They need to try and even fail.

And when they fail and look around for a parent to

bail them out, they need to hear the words, “You must

figure this out for yourself.” 

By Heather Havrilesky, (with slight adaptations). On 6/15/2015; The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/books/review/how-to-raise-an-adult-by-julie- -lythcott-haims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

In the fragments “Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for their shy, passive children,” (lines 50-52) and “We speak of dreams as boundless, limitless realms,” (lines 57-58) the words mouthpieces and realms mean, respectively

When did the central aim of parenting become

preparing children for success? This reigning

paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing

be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child

toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies

the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture,

with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the

future. When each nurturing act is administered

with the distant future in mind, what becomes of the

present? A child who soaks in the ambient anxiety that

surrounds each trivial choice or activity is an anxious

child, formed in the hand-wringing, future-focused

image of her anxious parents.

“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the

Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for

Success” seems to lie at the precise crossroads of this

inherently conflicted approach. Like so many others,

Julie Lythcott-Haims has identified overparenting as a

trap. But once you escape the trap, the goal remains

the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults.

Whether a child is learning to ride a bike or doing his

own laundry, he is still viewed through the limited

binary lens of either triumphant or fumbling adulthood.

The looming question is not “Is my child happy?” but

“Is my child a future president poised to save the

environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his

fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?”

Lythcott-Haims, who brings some authority to

the subject as Stanford’s former dean of freshmen

and undergraduate advising, has seen varieties of

extreme parental interference suggesting not just

a lack of common sense, but a lack of wisdom and

healthy boundaries (if not personal dignity) as well.

Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn

from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re

not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on

school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught

up in what the author calls the “college admissions

arms race,” parents treat securing their children a

spot at one of 20 top schools (as decreed by U.S.

News and World Report’s popular but somewhat

dubious rankings) as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school

transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write

or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers,

dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors,

SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”

(26 percent of college applicants reported hiring these

in 2013). Even after kids graduate, the madness

continues. Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents

touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for

their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés

to potential employers, sometimes without their

children’s knowledge. These behaviors do more

than mold kids into dependent beings, she argues;

they corral and constrict their possibilities and their

imaginations. “We speak of dreams as boundless,

limitless realms,” Lythcott-Haims writes. “But in reality

often we create parameters, conditions and limits

within which our kids are permitted to dream — with

a checklisted childhood as the path to achievement.”

Lythcott-Haims takes pains to demonstrate that

overparenting doesn’t merely threaten a child’s future

income; it also does enormous psychological harm.

She cites a 2011 study by sociologists at the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga that found a correlation,

in college-student questionnaires, between helicopter

parenting and medication for anxiety or depression.

One researcher at a treatment center for addicts

in Los Angeles found that “rates of depression and

anxiety among affluent teens and young adults

correspond to the rates of depression and anxiety

suffered by incarcerated juveniles.” Other studies

suggest that overparented kids are “less open to new

ideas” and take “less satisfaction in life.” For Lythcott-

Haims, the message behind this research is the

same: Kids need to sally forth independently without

constant supervision. They need to try and even fail.

And when they fail and look around for a parent to

bail them out, they need to hear the words, “You must

figure this out for yourself.” 

By Heather Havrilesky, (with slight adaptations). On 6/15/2015; The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/books/review/how-to-raise-an-adult-by-julie- -lythcott-haims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

The pronoun they in the fragment “…where they’re not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on school trips or shadowing them on campus.” refers to (lines 35-37):

When did the central aim of parenting become

preparing children for success? This reigning

paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing

be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child

toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies

the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture,

with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the

future. When each nurturing act is administered

with the distant future in mind, what becomes of the

present? A child who soaks in the ambient anxiety that

surrounds each trivial choice or activity is an anxious

child, formed in the hand-wringing, future-focused

image of her anxious parents.

“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the

Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for

Success” seems to lie at the precise crossroads of this

inherently conflicted approach. Like so many others,

Julie Lythcott-Haims has identified overparenting as a

trap. But once you escape the trap, the goal remains

the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults.

Whether a child is learning to ride a bike or doing his

own laundry, he is still viewed through the limited

binary lens of either triumphant or fumbling adulthood.

The looming question is not “Is my child happy?” but

“Is my child a future president poised to save the

environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his

fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?”

Lythcott-Haims, who brings some authority to

the subject as Stanford’s former dean of freshmen

and undergraduate advising, has seen varieties of

extreme parental interference suggesting not just

a lack of common sense, but a lack of wisdom and

healthy boundaries (if not personal dignity) as well.

Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn

from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re

not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on

school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught

up in what the author calls the “college admissions

arms race,” parents treat securing their children a

spot at one of 20 top schools (as decreed by U.S.

News and World Report’s popular but somewhat

dubious rankings) as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school

transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write

or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers,

dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors,

SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”

(26 percent of college applicants reported hiring these

in 2013). Even after kids graduate, the madness

continues. Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents

touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for

their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés

to potential employers, sometimes without their

children’s knowledge. These behaviors do more

than mold kids into dependent beings, she argues;

they corral and constrict their possibilities and their

imaginations. “We speak of dreams as boundless,

limitless realms,” Lythcott-Haims writes. “But in reality

often we create parameters, conditions and limits

within which our kids are permitted to dream — with

a checklisted childhood as the path to achievement.”

Lythcott-Haims takes pains to demonstrate that

overparenting doesn’t merely threaten a child’s future

income; it also does enormous psychological harm.

She cites a 2011 study by sociologists at the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga that found a correlation,

in college-student questionnaires, between helicopter

parenting and medication for anxiety or depression.

One researcher at a treatment center for addicts

in Los Angeles found that “rates of depression and

anxiety among affluent teens and young adults

correspond to the rates of depression and anxiety

suffered by incarcerated juveniles.” Other studies

suggest that overparented kids are “less open to new

ideas” and take “less satisfaction in life.” For Lythcott-

Haims, the message behind this research is the

same: Kids need to sally forth independently without

constant supervision. They need to try and even fail.

And when they fail and look around for a parent to

bail them out, they need to hear the words, “You must

figure this out for yourself.” 

By Heather Havrilesky, (with slight adaptations). On 6/15/2015; The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/books/review/how-to-raise-an-adult-by-julie- -lythcott-haims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

In the second paragraph of the text, by posing the question “Is my child a future president poised to save the environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?” (lines 25-27), Lythcott-Haims exposes the binary situation into which most parents are trapped.

This binary situation is the one of

When did the central aim of parenting become

preparing children for success? This reigning

paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing

be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child

toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies

the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture,

with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the

future. When each nurturing act is administered

with the distant future in mind, what becomes of the

present? A child who soaks in the ambient anxiety that

surrounds each trivial choice or activity is an anxious

child, formed in the hand-wringing, future-focused

image of her anxious parents.

“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the

Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for

Success” seems to lie at the precise crossroads of this

inherently conflicted approach. Like so many others,

Julie Lythcott-Haims has identified overparenting as a

trap. But once you escape the trap, the goal remains

the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults.

Whether a child is learning to ride a bike or doing his

own laundry, he is still viewed through the limited

binary lens of either triumphant or fumbling adulthood.

The looming question is not “Is my child happy?” but

“Is my child a future president poised to save the

environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his

fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?”

Lythcott-Haims, who brings some authority to

the subject as Stanford’s former dean of freshmen

and undergraduate advising, has seen varieties of

extreme parental interference suggesting not just

a lack of common sense, but a lack of wisdom and

healthy boundaries (if not personal dignity) as well.

Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn

from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re

not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on

school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught

up in what the author calls the “college admissions

arms race,” parents treat securing their children a

spot at one of 20 top schools (as decreed by U.S.

News and World Report’s popular but somewhat

dubious rankings) as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school

transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write

or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers,

dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors,

SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”

(26 percent of college applicants reported hiring these

in 2013). Even after kids graduate, the madness

continues. Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents

touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for

their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés

to potential employers, sometimes without their

children’s knowledge. These behaviors do more

than mold kids into dependent beings, she argues;

they corral and constrict their possibilities and their

imaginations. “We speak of dreams as boundless,

limitless realms,” Lythcott-Haims writes. “But in reality

often we create parameters, conditions and limits

within which our kids are permitted to dream — with

a checklisted childhood as the path to achievement.”

Lythcott-Haims takes pains to demonstrate that

overparenting doesn’t merely threaten a child’s future

income; it also does enormous psychological harm.

She cites a 2011 study by sociologists at the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga that found a correlation,

in college-student questionnaires, between helicopter

parenting and medication for anxiety or depression.

One researcher at a treatment center for addicts

in Los Angeles found that “rates of depression and

anxiety among affluent teens and young adults

correspond to the rates of depression and anxiety

suffered by incarcerated juveniles.” Other studies

suggest that overparented kids are “less open to new

ideas” and take “less satisfaction in life.” For Lythcott-

Haims, the message behind this research is the

same: Kids need to sally forth independently without

constant supervision. They need to try and even fail.

And when they fail and look around for a parent to

bail them out, they need to hear the words, “You must

figure this out for yourself.” 

By Heather Havrilesky, (with slight adaptations). On 6/15/2015; The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/books/review/how-to-raise-an-adult-by-julie- -lythcott-haims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

In the fragment “But once you escape the trap, the goal remains the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults” (lines 19-20), thriving can be substituted, without change in meaning, by

When did the central aim of parenting become

preparing children for success? This reigning

paradigm, which dictates that every act of nurturing

be judged on the basis of whether it will usher a child

toward a life of accomplishment or failure, embodies

the fundamental insecurity of global capitalist culture,

with its unbending fixation on prosperity and the

future. When each nurturing act is administered

with the distant future in mind, what becomes of the

present? A child who soaks in the ambient anxiety that

surrounds each trivial choice or activity is an anxious

child, formed in the hand-wringing, future-focused

image of her anxious parents.

“How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the

Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for

Success” seems to lie at the precise crossroads of this

inherently conflicted approach. Like so many others,

Julie Lythcott-Haims has identified overparenting as a

trap. But once you escape the trap, the goal remains

the same: to mold your offspring into thriving adults.

Whether a child is learning to ride a bike or doing his

own laundry, he is still viewed through the limited

binary lens of either triumphant or fumbling adulthood.

The looming question is not “Is my child happy?” but

“Is my child a future president poised to save the

environment, or a future stoner poised to watch his

fifth episode of ‘House of Cards’ in a row?”

Lythcott-Haims, who brings some authority to

the subject as Stanford’s former dean of freshmen

and undergraduate advising, has seen varieties of

extreme parental interference suggesting not just

a lack of common sense, but a lack of wisdom and

healthy boundaries (if not personal dignity) as well.

Instead of allowing kids to experiment and learn

from their mistakes, parents hover where they’re

not wanted or welcome, accompanying children on

school trips or shadowing them on campus. Caught

up in what the author calls the “college admissions

arms race,” parents treat securing their children a

spot at one of 20 top schools (as decreed by U.S.

News and World Report’s popular but somewhat

dubious rankings) as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Concerned about the effects of a flawed high school

transcript, parents do their children’s homework, write

or heavily edit their papers, fire questions at teachers,

dispute grades and hire expensive subject tutors,

SAT coaches and “private admissions consultants”

(26 percent of college applicants reported hiring these

in 2013). Even after kids graduate, the madness

continues. Lythcott-Haims offers anecdotes of parents

touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for

their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés

to potential employers, sometimes without their

children’s knowledge. These behaviors do more

than mold kids into dependent beings, she argues;

they corral and constrict their possibilities and their

imaginations. “We speak of dreams as boundless,

limitless realms,” Lythcott-Haims writes. “But in reality

often we create parameters, conditions and limits

within which our kids are permitted to dream — with

a checklisted childhood as the path to achievement.”

Lythcott-Haims takes pains to demonstrate that

overparenting doesn’t merely threaten a child’s future

income; it also does enormous psychological harm.

She cites a 2011 study by sociologists at the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga that found a correlation,

in college-student questionnaires, between helicopter

parenting and medication for anxiety or depression.

One researcher at a treatment center for addicts

in Los Angeles found that “rates of depression and

anxiety among affluent teens and young adults

correspond to the rates of depression and anxiety

suffered by incarcerated juveniles.” Other studies

suggest that overparented kids are “less open to new

ideas” and take “less satisfaction in life.” For Lythcott-

Haims, the message behind this research is the

same: Kids need to sally forth independently without

constant supervision. They need to try and even fail.

And when they fail and look around for a parent to

bail them out, they need to hear the words, “You must

figure this out for yourself.” 

By Heather Havrilesky, (with slight adaptations). On 6/15/2015; The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/21/books/review/how-to-raise-an-adult-by-julie- -lythcott-haims.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

The main purpose of the text is to

Children Caught in a Racist System

 

The Justice Department cast the St. Louis County, Missouri, law enforcement system in a harrowing light in March when it documented entrenched racism and unconstitutional policing in the town of Ferguson, which erupted in riots last year after a white police officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

Now comes another Justice Department report documenting equally deplorable violations in the county’s juvenile court system, where children, often without basic legal representation, are routinely railroaded and mistreated.

The department opened the investigation in 2013 to protect the constitutional rights of children in the justice system and to discourage unnecessary incarceration. The department has undertaken similar investigations in Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.

In St. Louis County, officials examined 33,000 juvenile court cases over a threeyear period and found that the system regularly treats black children more harshly than white children and routinely denies indigent children — no matter their race — basic constitutional rights.

Regardless of the severity of the offenses, the Justice Department analysis concluded that “black children are subjected to harsher treatment because of their race.” For example, black children were two-and-a-half times as likely as white children to be held in custody before their trials.

Black children were also more likely to be placed in the custody of the   juvenile system than white children were and less likely to be diverted into communitybased programs. White children were significantly more likely to get less restrictive sentences, like probation with services provided to them at home. This disparate treatment may not be intentional, but it is clearly racist in its effect.

The Supreme Court has ruled that states must provide lawyers to defendants who can’t afford them and that juveniles have the same rights as adults. But the very structure of St. Louis County’s family court system seems designed to deny due process and representation.

For starters, there is only one public defender for juveniles in the entire county. A result is a staggering caseload for that one lawyer, who cannot possibly meet the needs of hundreds of children. For some who are not eligible for the public defender’s services, a family court judge will appoint a lawyer and order the parents to pay a “retainer”; often, cash-strapped parents persuade a child that no lawyer is necessary. Moreover, more than half of the lawyers who represented detained children entered the cases many days or weeks after the child’s detention hearing — too late to be of much help.

This appalling situation means that many juveniles are essentially representing themselves in complex legal proceedings that typically require them to plead guilty. Some of these children face the possibility of being transferred to adult courts, where a guilty verdict could have lifelong consequences. This is  inconsistent with the Constitution and with basic principles of human decency.

The report offers dozens of recommendations for remaking this egregious system, starting with developing a strategic plan that sets clear goals to end discriminatory treatment at all points. As part of that process, the court has to train its employees to understand “the subtle ways that racial bias, conscious or unconscious,” affects policy and practice, the report says.

One absolutely essential step is for the county to create a defense system for poor juveniles that passes constitutional muster and affords them access to competent representation. The Justice Department should haul the county into court if it fails to make these changes.

(Adapted from www.thenytimes.com, August 08th ,2015)

 

The words disparate, ruled, appalling, bias, boldfaced in the text, can be best replaced by: