Fall 2024 Book Club- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
The OHMS Parent Book Club is an opportunity to discuss shared experiences and challenges facing students and parents. The 2023-2024 meetings have led to some fantastic informal conversations in which parents have established common ground and found community.
In Fall 2024-2025, the OHMS Parent Book Club will be reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
One of the four pillars of the OHMS strategic plan is focused on amplifying our efforts to promote good mental health in our students. In The Anxious Generation, author Jonathan Haidt “...shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism.
He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the 'collective action problems' that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.” (Penguin Random House).
When does the OHMS Parent Book Club meet?
There is a fall and a spring session for the book club. The spring selection will address topics of diversity, inclusion and belonging, and equity.
Fall meetings will take place monthly from September through December, and spring meetings will run from February through May.
Meetings will be held mostly on the first Tuesday of each month from 6-7pm. (Exception: April session will be held on April 8, the 2nd Tuesday, after we return from Spring Break.)
What is the structure of the OHMS Parent Book Club?
The group will discuss a few chapters from the book at each meeting, with guiding questions provided ahead of time.
The group will meet in the school’s library, with light refreshments provided.
If needed, childcare, with snacks, will be provided for OHMS students only.
The OHMS Parent Book Club will be parent-led with support from Head of School Laura Haskins.
A parent moderator will help curate a list of spring book selections in partnership with the school. Book club participants will select the final title.
How do I sign up?
If you are interested in joining the OHMS Parent Book Club, please complete this form. We appreciate your signup—it helps us prepare for room setup and refreshments, as well as send out any materials ahead of time.
You may attend as many or as few meetings as you are able—we get that life happens, and we want to hear your input even if you're not able to make it to every discussion.
