India, April 20 -- Many parents whose children are at present nine or 10 years of age will shortly find themselves in an unknown territory. This was not so two decades ago.

Research on adolescence had generated, over the previous half-century, a considerable amount of knowledge about this turbulent period of life. Teachers were told about its typical characteristics in different cultures. Some who became school counsellors knew what to do when faced with difficult behaviour or the emotional turmoil that children experience when adolescence sets in. The changes their minds and personalities go through were viewed with confident familiarity by staple psychology texts.

This is no longer the case. A new book, The Anxious Generation, argues ...