Dr. Sax begins with a description of a grossly disrespectful kid:

Kyle was absorbed in a videogame on his cellphone, so I asked his mom, "How long has Kyle had a stomach ache?" Mom said, "I'm thinking it's been about two days." Then Kyle replied, "Shut up, mom. You don't know what you're talking about." And he gave a snorty laugh, without looking up from his videogame. Kyle is 10 years old.

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The challenge of raising children in America today is different from 30 or 50 years ago. Back then popular culture supported the authority of parents, whether it was the "Andy Griffith Show" in the 1960s or "Family Ties" in the 1980s. Kids are not born knowing how to be respectful. They have to be taught.

That last point is an important one.  I'll get back to it shortly.  Let's continue with Dr. Sax's piece.

Multiple lines of evidence, including cohort studies such as the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, now demonstrate that disrespectful children are more likely to grow up to be anxious and depressed, three times more likely to be overweight, more likely to be fragile, less healthy and less creative, compared with respectful children.

But don't give up hope. Just as I see children like Kyle in my office, I also see children who are courteous, respectful, happy and confident. Same race, ethnicity and household income. But the parents are different, and they parent differently.

For the past seven years I've been talking with parents and their children, trying to understand why some children are respectful even though most of their peers are not. The difference is in the parents.

Here's some of what those parents have taught me: Require respectful behavior at all times. It's OK to disagree. It's never OK to be disrespectful. Prioritize the family. The family meal at home is more important than piling on after-school extracurricular activities. Instead of boosting self-esteem, teach humility. Fight the cultural imperative to be "awesome."

We have long known that permissive parenting is bad parenting.  The pioneering research on parenting style was done way back in the 1960s by Diana Baumrind of U.C. Berkeley.  She identified three styles of parenting which she labeled authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive.  Authoritarian and permissive are pretty much what you would think they are.  Later, Baumrind subdivided the permissive style into permissive-indulgent and permissive-neglectful.  ("Don't bother me, kid, I'm watchin' the game.  Go play in the street.")

"Authoritative" was the word Baumrind coined to describe the style we saw modeled on television in the shows Sax noted and others.  Authoritative parents are engaged with their children and listen to what they have to say, but in the end the parents have standards, and the children must conform to them.  Respect is one of those standards.

Authoritative parenting is associated with the best results on many measures.  This result is fairly robust, although there is some evidence that authoritarian parenting may be needed for kids growing up in rough areas.  There is nothing to be said for the permissive style, though.  For example, this 2009 study found, "Support was found for a model in which maternal permissive parenting contributed directly and indirectly to antisocial behavior, through its effects on cognitive and emotional empathy development."  Translation:  Spoiled rotten brats don't care about others and are more likely to wind up in juvenile hall.

So why is a belief that permissive parenting is actually good for kids so widespread?  I believe it ties in with the quasi-religion that I call naturalism.  That is the unshakable belief, unaffected by evidence, that all things natural are good and wonderful, and it is civilization that ruins everything and causes all problems.  This is, of course, complete nonsense.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Chez Naturale.  My name is Wildflower, and I'll be your server tonight.  For your dining enjoyment we are featuring poison ivy salad with snake venom dressing.  Guaranteed 100% natural!

Naturalism is a large part of the antivaxx nonsense that I commented on almost a year ago.  Whooping cough is a horrible disease, and its conquest through vaccination is a triumph of civilization, but some of the all-natural crowd would rather expose their kids to it than get the shots.

As applied to parenting, this concept leads to the notion kids will bloom into wonderful people naturally if we only refrain from screwing them up.  It is a dangerous fallacy.  People are basically wild animals, only a small step removed from the beasts from which we evolved.  To live in society, people have to be civilized, and that is a process that trains us to think and behave differently than we would in a state of nature.

Carole King expressed the natural-bloom philosophy of parenting musically in "Child of Mine":

You don't need direction, you know which way to go
And I don't want to hold you back, I just want to watch you grow
You're the one who taught me you don't have to look behind
Oh yes, sweet darling
So glad you are a child of mine

No, no, no, Carole, you got that completely wrong.  Of course children need direction.  How could they possibly know which way to go?  Such knowledge is not innate.  If they don't learn values, respect for others, and respect for basic standards of behavior from you, who will they learn these things from?  Snoop Dogg?  Of course you don't want to hold your children back, but where did you get the crackpot notion that giving kids guidance is holding them back?

There is no doubt that permissive parenting is bad parenting.  It is a root cause of crime.  Parents who do not teach their children respect and standards of behavior increase the chance they will wind up in prison.  That truth needs to be more widely known.