The results of the longest study of American children in day care were published this week. The study followed more than 1,300 children from birth to age 16 to track the effects of day care on children’s behavior.
“The effect was slight and well within the normal range for healthy children,” according to the report. And as expected, “parents’ guidance and their genes had by far the strongest influence on how children behaved.”
But 16 years of observation and research didn’t provide much practical information to guide parents. A more useful study might look at the effects of indulgent parents on children’s behavior.
Posted by Patrice Hein
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21 Comments
Once again, my suggestion for a “Wichita Parents’ Academy” … where information from thousands of studies could be taught to Wichita’s parents in seminars. Might even be required by the courts in lieu of jail time. And might pay for itself.
Most people I talk to say the #1 reason for behavioral problems in the schools is lack of parental guidance in the home.
Another observation from the study:
“A much-anticipated report finds that children who were in high-quality child care centers before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower-quality care.”
If these kids come into school better prepared academically than their ‘non-daycere’ peers might they then be getting bored while the teachers are trying to get the other kids caught up? Might that boredon be the root of behavior issues?
This is a good topic. There was an opinion piece in the USA Today this month, I wish I would have saved it. The woman talked about how fear parenting is ruling the day and kids are too darn insulated from the world.
It started out with a group of her children’s friends hovering in her pantry, amazed at the fat-free potato chips and cookies that their moms won’t let them have. She went on to everything bad mommies do now that our own parents did.
Everything under the sun is now the parent’s fault. From allowing their children to drink red food color and McDonalds, to no peanuts in the sandwiches, to letting the kids walk alone to the park.
Quite frankly, I’m sick of it too. Danger in your food! Danger in the water! Danger when taking a bath! Danger in the car!
Shoot, it’s amazing our grandparents are living to 100 years old now, considering how awful their own parents must have been huh?
A child is largely the product of their parents and their environment. Yes, there are exceptions and yes, I know families where children turn out radically different than each other BUT the general rule is that either sucess or failure run in families. The quality of daycare or schools has little to do with it. All it shows is that more sucessful parents are more likely to seek out higher quality institutions for their children. One thing I don’t buy into is this “gene” argument. People are more a product of their environment and not their genetic make up.
A parent or parents provides the levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If they fail at the bottom, most of the children will never reach the top of the pyramid which is actualization.
If they fail at the top of the pyramid, then children will fail at meeting their own basic needs.
My philosophy is simple, raise them like a cowboy that is, to be independent, even-handed, able to fend for themselves.
Treat them like royalty so they appreciate respect and mind the customs and courtesies of societies and your heritage.
Admire their achievements as if the won the Nobel prize no matter what level they may be at.
Give them them thoughts that is someone is always smarter, richer, faster and stronger, but putting yourself in a category of superiority is never a good idea to do.
Show them that you can be an adult at all times but can when the opportunity arises show them your inner child that likes to have fun.
Remind them constantly that they are loved, liked and will always be precious to you.
Republican – that is the best post of the day.
Every parent ought to print that out, frame it – and put it by their bedside.
That really was a good post.
But I disagree with the nature/nurture. Genes are showing to have the bigger influence, whether or not you agree. But nurture does play a role as well. I’m going with about 60-40 in favor of genes.
fap fap fap
What a bunch of clap trap
“Admire their achievements as if the won the Nobel prize no matter what level they may be at.”
Is this one of those “applaud mediocrity.” That the kid should be given a parade because he happen to hit the toliet during potty training. Or paid because he went to school. Oh brother where does this crap end.Unfortunatly you got parents out there who think that a kid is a person, INSTEAD of a piece of property of the parents until they reach 18 AND the parents responsibility.
Republican – well said!
GS – we grampies should print it out too!
Thank for the compliments and kind words. Not that anyone would be interesting in really get a copy of what I wrote…
but just in case they did… :)
Here is a copy in PDF format with a graphic.
http://republikan.typepad.com/republikansan/2007/03/raising_a_child.html
Child behavior = A walking, breathing, living recorder.
I think the watchword is to reward accomplishment, but not mediocrity. Progress, yes, but not stagnation. If you continue to over-reward your kids for doing a half-assed job, they will never learn to strive for greatness. However, parents that punish anything shy of a 4.0GPA are bad to the other end of the spectrum. Encouraging continued achievement should be the goal, not just being ultra praise happy. In the really real world, not everyone gets a trophy for last place.
I don’t think what Republican said contradicts that in any way – at least not my reading of it.
My boys loved it when we all showed up for their little Christmas program. They work hard for that and they deserve praise for it.
Gene Raston,
Achievement does not have a letter grade or something one can mark up on a lattice of graphs.
It is rather something that can be accomplished through effort.
A child who makes no effort and pulls down a B in class because the classes come learning to him or her could do better because they are putting forth no effort.
It is effort that will pull you through the tougher times. A lot of college kids have a hard time because they “coasted” through classes and put in no or little effort in k-12.
It is the reason why Colleges have classes that teach kids how to study. Their coasting techniques won’t work at the University level because it is not rote memory, it is Critical Thinking plus rote memory and the practice of study.
Anyways, that’s my view on it. :)
As I read this thread, another thought just struck me. As someone mentioned above, we all know families where the parents were to busy and pre-occuppied to give much attention to their kids. But, somehow, the kids excelled anyway.
Perhaps the example for good, mediocre or bad is set by the oldest child and might be as important as the influence of the parent(s).
Anybody out there agree? Disagree?
jw – I think it can be a lot of things. Even when parents have to work they can give ‘quality’ time; also if the child knows parent has to work rather than is just ‘out playing’ the effect is different. As you said, there are also other influences – older siblings or other kids.
The phrase “it takes a village” has stirred a lot of controversy but it very true. A teacher who can be a mentor, a scout leader, the pastor, the storekeeper. All sorts of people can add to the mix.
APRIL FOOL’S, WINGNUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t try to pretend you didn’t miss us. Else, why would so many of you slither over to The Other Place—some to chat, some to troll? Right-Wing solidarity? Feh. Evidently, y’all aren’t any better at not breaking ranks than your liberal adversaries.
Well, the liberals you love to hate are BACK. Slap CF2K some skin, people! And in honor of the big reunion, CF2K (same old CF + 2K + Typekey—let’s see Repubican try to steal CF’s name NOW) wants to serenade all of you Wingnuts with a little ditty he composed just for you this very morning.
The tune is one you all should know, though it may be one you’d rather forget: “The Brady Bunch.” Play a verse of it in your heads, and then join in. It’ll be fine—just pretend this is church. Get ready for a tune, and some snappy asides, that CF2K calls…
THE WINGNUT BUNCH
“Here’s the story of a lovely lady,”
(That’s Mom, or GSheridan, resplendent in her patented Carol Brady mullet and Xanaxed, welded-on, Laura Bush smile)
“who was bringing up three very lovely girls,”
(Girl #1. Marsha also = GSheridan. Can you say, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest Marsha of all?” Or “Marsha, Marsha Marsha!” It’s a safe bet GSheridan does. Frequently)
(Girl #2. Jan = ksgrm. I grant this breaks the pecking order, but ksgrm is TOTALLY Jan. She’s second best, First Runner-Up, attendant to the Queen Bee, and is a bit, well, loopy. Can’t say whether there’s a wig involved, though, so maybe she’s not TOTALLY Jan. CF2K’s bad)
(Girl #3. Cindy = Fleetwood. Self-explanatory)
“All of them had hair of gold, like their mother,”
(Well duh—they’re all WHITE REPUBLICANS)
“The youngest one in curls.”
(Fleetwood—sans his two front teeth or any semblance of adorableness)
“Here’s the story, of a man named Wingnut,”
(Dad = Repubican / JM / Eier, sporting all the repressed gayness and badly permed hair of his namegiver)
“Who was busy with three boys of his own,”
(Boy #1. Greg = GMC70—same first initial, not to mention the fact that GMC70 thinks that he looks most fetching in the Johnny Bravo jumpsuit made famous by Greg)
(Boy #2. Peter = Nathan AND Outlander—both included for the nicest reason possible. Nice guys, after all)
(Boy #3. Bobby = KSGolfnut—included for some reason other than the nicest one possible. Smug guy, after all. Uber-smug, really.)
“They were four men, living all together,”
(Must not take obvious homoerotic cheap shot, must not take obvious homoerotic cheap shot…)
“Yet they were all alone.”
“Till the one day when the lady met this fellow,”
(Given Mike Brady’s real-life gender confusion and the questions that have arisen regarding GSheridan’s identity, it is less than clear who figures as the “lady” and who figures as the “fellow.” No matter: a Love Connection ensued. I will leave you to imagine the details. Doing so is more than I can bear)
“And they knew it was much more than a hunch,
That this group would somehow form a family,”
(And here, to echo Ben Huie upthread, CF2K thought It Took A Village. Ain’t that just like a Liberal)
“That’s the way they all became the Wingnut Bunch.The Wingnut Bunch, the Wingnut Bunch,That’s the way they all became the Wingnut Bunch.”
Hold up. There’s a bit of housekeeping / due diligence yet to be done. This “Bunch” isn’t complete yet. There’s:
1. Tiger = Hank Price: always talkin’ ’bout his “bitches.”
2. Fluffy = SOB: markedly less than manly. Screeching and feline, in fact, as demonstrated by his sniveling troll posts on The Other Place.
3. Alice = Joe Williams: half the time he’s totally on the ball; the other half he’s trying to drag Sam the Butcher to the altar.
So, Wingnuts and Wingnut fellow travelers, I hope you like your new names. Get my drift, fellow Lefties?
Daddy’s home, Wingnuts. Time to get real. Your unctuous, fatuous, disingenuous “civility” is as over as George Bush’s “Presidency.” So over, in fact, that, as Carrie Bradshaw said on “Sex in the City,” “we need a new word for ‘over.’”
Be seein’ ya. Got church in the morning. It’s Palm Sunday, after all.
I think gaining understanding for this subject is really important. I personally think that one should gain as much information and knowledge as possible on this topic. The more we know the better we deal in different type of situations. Here is another related page that may be of interest to some, it’s all about child behavior problems, here it is http://www.parenting-education-rights.com/Child-Behavior-Problems.php
Yes, indulgent parenting is rampant, as witness the ignorant mother who let her 4-year-old decide to get her ears pierced. That was a jewel of a parenting job, right?