How over-parenting can harm your child's development

The micromanaging starts
This is the first generation to star in its own version of The Truman Show. It starts with the printout from the ultrasound scan and moves on to eavesdropping on the womb with prenatal heart listeners. Actor Tom Cruise was so desperate to monitor his unborn daughter that he reportedly bought his own sonogram machine, despite warnings from doctors that his amateur spying could harm the fetus.

After birth, every moment is then captured in digital and Dolby. Like paparazzi, modern parents are always lurking, finger on the shutter release or the record button, waiting for that perfect shot – or seeking to engineer it. I catch myself barking orders from the director's chair: "Just make that face one more time for the camera." Or: "Everybody stop playing for a second and look at me with a big smile."

And it doesn't stop
The micromanaging no longer stops at the end of school. Many Britons now plan every detail of their children's "gap year" before university. Parents in China take on average a week off work to settle their offspring into college, with many moving into makeshift accommodation on campus. North American universities are assigning full-time staff to field the deluge of calls and e-mails from moms and dads who want to help pick courses, taste-test cafeteria food, proofread essays and even screen Junior's roommates.

The umbilical cord even remains intact after graduation. To recruit college students, blue-chip companies such as Merrill Lynch have started sending out "parent packs" or holding open house days when Mom and Dad can vet their offices. "Our candidates and our interns look more and more to their parents when they're making career decisions," says Dan Black, director of campus recruiting in the Americas for Ernst & Young. Employers even find parents tagging along to their children's job interviews. One candidate recently turned up at a leading consultancy firm in New York with her mother in tow. "Mom asked all about the salary, promotion prospects and vacation package," says one of the interviewers. "It was like she just couldn't hold back."

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Excerpted from Under Pressure by Carl Honoré Copyright © 2008 by Carl Honoré. Excerpted by permission of Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.