"The children of the dream" are flesh-and-blood young people of Israel, the first new generation to be born and brought up on a kibbutz. The Children of The Dream is a masterful analysis of some of these children, reared from birth through adolescence in a revolutionary new way. It is based on intensive research in a representative Israeli Kibbutz, visits to several others, and also on many interviews with a wide variety of people. It is a brilliant explication of a whole new concept of child-rearing which will be of vital interest to everyone concerned with children today--educators, sociologists, psychologists, and, most of all, parents. Through his professional activities, Dr. Bettelheim has long been aware of the serious shortcomings in our own child-rearing methods. Nowhere in The Children of the Dream does he recommend that we should emulate the kibbutz methods in toto in our society, since kibbutz life is radically different from what prevails in our large urban centers. However, he does pose the question: 'Why is this method of child-rearing of such importance to us? Because, I believe, its relevance goes beyond the disadvantaged sector of our society ... I believe that the present problem faced by middle-class parents in raising their children, even much of the malaise, the alienation of Western man, are caused by the growing distance between adult and child.' There are, he writes, 'no neglected children in the kibbutz, none whose physical needs in sickness and health are not well taken care of, none who could not learn in school because they had no decent place to sleep, or enough to eat. There is no child who fails because of too much pressure to compete and perform ... I think my point is clear. These protections the kibbutz can offer precisely because, in return for its protection, its members grant it so much control of their lives.' One of these areas of control which American readers--especially if they are mothers--will consider drastic and debatable is the handing over of the newborn for communal rearing. The babies are separated from their mothers when five days old, are weaned at six months, and cast through adolescence into an environment in which their contemporaries prove far more important to their emotional growth than any adult. In return, however, the kibbutz system produces no juvenile delinquents, no drug addicts, and very few children with serious emotional disturbances. The implications for our methods of child-rearing in the slums, and even in middle-class homes, are tremendous. The Children of the Dream is written with beauty and clarity, and with the feeling of warmth for all children which permeates Dr. Bettelheim's many books. It is a pioneering work, exploring new territory and shaping new though that could materially change our society and our world."--Publisher's description.