Serenity Parenting

Chen019

Heh:

Amid the blizzard of books telling parents how to best raise their children, a new volume has shocked many middle-class families in the US. Its advice? Relax. Do less parenting. Let them eat pizza and watch more TV.

Dr Bryan Caplan, an academic and economist from George Mason University in Virginia, believes parents are working far too hard at bringing up their children. In his book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun than You Think, he recommends mothers and fathers take more of a backseat role and, crucially, abandon the hothousing.

"What I'm trying to say is, if you are a person who likes the idea of kids, being a great parent is less work and more fun that you think. Right now, parents are 'overcharging' themselves for each kid," said Caplan, who is a father of three – eight-year-old twins and a one-year-old.
He added: "Parents can sharply improve their lives without hurting their kids. Nature, not nurture, explains most family resemblance, so parents can safely cut themselves a lot of additional slack."

Caplan's style of "serenity parenting" comes in stark contrast to other models advocated, most prominently this year by Amy Chua, a Yale professor whose bestselling book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother extolled the virtues of tough love and hard work...

Caplan points to scientific evidence to support the idea of "serenity parenting". Research on twins and on adopted children shows, he says, that parents' long-term effects range from small to zero for a wide range of outcomes such as health and success. "For life expectancy, you see no effect of parenting. You might say, 'Well, who thought parents affected life expectancy?' Parents can nag you all they want, but when you're an adult you're going to do your own thing."

Research also shows that a child's intelligence can be increased by parental interaction when they are very young, but by the time the child reaches 12 the effect has disappeared. "You need to look at adopted kids – that actually does measure how much parents matter and how much heredity matters."...

"We have this great expansion of parental time and so everything about bringing up kids is suddenly magnified, so in that respect Dr Caplan's advice to enjoy parenting more and hothouse less is a welcome one."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/may/15/parenting-less-fuss-more-fun

nesf

That would align a lot more with my own thinking on parenting I must say.

Ayla

I heard this author on Today FM earlier this week, and I actually got quite annoyed with a lot of what he had to say. Such as how (as in the quote below) the long term effects of parents encouraging educational success becomes virtually nil after the kid's 12. I think that's rubbish: you look at families were educational success is expected & encouraged and the child generally goes onto university, obtains higher degrees & eventually higher skilled careers. Of course, the kid may decide somewhere along the line that that's not what they want in life, but that then is their choice. You put the same kid in a family that doesn't care, and that attitude will spread to the kid, thus potentially robbing them of the same opportunities they would have had elsewhere.

I think - in moderation - relaxing parental roles can be beneficial to everyone, but kids rely on stability, consistency & encouragement in order to reach whatever they wish for.

I wound up turning off the radio.

nesf

Ayla wrote: »

I heard this author on Today FM earlier this week, and I actually got quite annoyed with a lot of what he had to say. Such as how (as in the quote below) the long term effects of parents encouraging educational success becomes virtually nil after the kid's 12. I think that's rubbish: you look at families were educational success is expected & encouraged and the child generally goes onto university, obtains higher degrees & eventually higher skilled careers.

You're comparing apples and oranges. What he's talking about is the specific effect of extra parenting effort being spent on educating the child. It makes little to no long term difference whether parents spend time when children are young drilling them in their times tables, spellings or whatever over and above what they get as schoolwork. He's not talking about encouraging a child to go to college which is a different thing.

Ayla

According to what he said on the radio, he did not feel the need to encourage (or parent, as some of us would call it) a child beyond their natural drive b/c after the age of 12, whatever the parents did wouldn't matter anyway...the kid's natural instinct/ambition would be the deciding factor. That's why I'm saying it's rubbish...you can take the same kid, put them in two different households w/ 2 different attitudes to learning/education, and that child will turn out differently.

littlebug

Ayla wrote: »

According to what he said on the radio, he did not feel the need to encourage (or parent, as some of us would call it) a child beyond their natural drive b/c after the age of 12, whatever the parents did wouldn't matter anyway...the kid's natural instinct/ambition would be the deciding factor. That's why I'm saying it's rubbish...you can take the same kid, put them in two different households w/ 2 different attitudes to learning/education, and that child will turn out differently.

But you can also have 2 children from the same family who go in vastly different directions.

I agree with some of his ideas e.g on not pushing a child into anything they don't want to do or aren't naturally interested in but I do believe in providing opportunities and keeping doors open.

Ayla

That is true, all of what you said.

Personally, I think it's important to encourage a child in whatever way they're naturally suited. Some are academic, some aren't, but if you at least insist that every child has a suitable educational background then you give them the opportunity to do whatever they want.

I'm thinking of my husband who was always the kid in the class to ask the questions & drive the teacher crazy with all of his curiousity. But his parents, neither of which entered secondary school, never have thought it important to encourage that learning. They didn't care what marks he got or what courses he took, and eventually he gave up on it as well. So, according to the OP's post & the radio interview I heard with the author, my husband's natural inclinations should have made him excel academically but in fact the "nature vs nurture" scenario failed him this time.

littlebug

I can think of similar examples on both sides so actually as I'm thinking about it, it's probably a case of a particular "style" of parenting working for one child and not another, even within a family. So we should work on parenting each individual child in the way that works for them as opposed to adhering to a particular style... in other words we need to nurture nature Caplan's work does almost imply a "why bother" attitude.
Now I need to think of a snappy new name for my theories and write a book.....

Ayla

littlebug wrote: »

in other words we need to nurture nature Caplan's work does almost imply a "why bother" attitude.

exactly. said well what i was trying but failing to

nesf

Ayla wrote: »

According to what he said on the radio, he did not feel the need to encourage (or parent, as some of us would call it) a child beyond their natural drive b/c after the age of 12, whatever the parents did wouldn't matter anyway...the kid's natural instinct/ambition would be the deciding factor. That's why I'm saying it's rubbish...you can take the same kid, put them in two different households w/ 2 different attitudes to learning/education, and that child will turn out differently.

I think it's a matter of keeping options open for your kids and letting them decide to work towards what they want. It is well established in the literature that it is peers not parents that start to be the dominant shaping force in a child's life once they hit the pre-teen years. Encouraging a child to go to college just won't work if the child isn't naturally inclined in that direction to begin with.

Sleepy

But the inclination to go to college in the first place will have been influenced by whether or not the parents are college educated; their choice of school for their child (e.g. good academic reputation / low class sizes / socio-economic background of most other pupils etc.) and the general attitude towards education displayed by the parents.

I wouldn't be in favour of "pushing" kids to achieve, I would however be in favour of praising success / effort in school work, would actively bring the kids to book shops, answer their questions about the world / educate them about things as we come across them etc.

I think it's no coincidence that so many of the most successful people in the world come from well-educated parents who encouraged them to learn both inside and outside the classroom. For example, whilst Richard Branson did poorly in school due to undiagnosed dyslexia, his parents continuously educated him about the world around him and encouraged him to complete challenges they set him outside of school etc.

nesf

Sleepy wrote: »

But the inclination to go to college in the first place will have been influenced by whether or not the parents are college educated; their choice of school for their child (e.g. good academic reputation / low class sizes / socio-economic background of most other pupils etc.) and the general attitude towards education displayed by the parents.

I wouldn't be in favour of "pushing" kids to achieve, I would however be in favour of praising success / effort in school work, would actively bring the kids to book shops, answer their questions about the world / educate them about things as we come across them etc.

I think it's no coincidence that so many of the most successful people in the world come from well-educated parents who encouraged them to learn both inside and outside the classroom. For example, whilst Richard Branson did poorly in school due to undiagnosed dyslexia, his parents continuously educated him about the world around him and encouraged him to complete challenges they set him outside of school etc.

Is that not just genetics though? Academic ability is inherited to a large extent after all. Like what mattered wasn't whether my mother went to college or not (she didn't get past Primary school due to lack of money in the family) but that she was well capable of going to college and doing a degree she just didn't have the option.

Ayla

Perhaps we're getting a bit hung up on the "going to college" issue - I said that initially b/c it was *part* of my argument. The author of this study was making the assertion that the lifelong (ie: long term) effects of parental influence was practically nil...he was fond of saying that a parents' influence matters a lot less than we'd assume.

I used the going to college/getting a higher skilled career analogy b/c generally (although not always) people tend to define success/happiness in professional or monetary terms.

You take a parent who encourages extra learning throughout their child's youth, that child will be more inclined to continue that habit throughout their life (ie: in the long term). Whether they do that on an academic, social or extra-cirricular basis is irrelevant, it's the fact that they do, in fact, continue learning.

nesf

Ayla wrote: »

You take a parent who encourages extra learning throughout their child's youth, that child will be more inclined to continue that habit throughout their life (ie: in the long term).

But the evidence doesn't show this, it shows the effect of early intervention like that disappearing by the age of 12. That's his point, while we intuitively think and would like to think that our efforts early in life result in long term effects, science has shown that this isn't the case for reasons we don't fully comprehend.

Ayla

That's true, that's what the author was saying in the interview I heard. Personally I don't buy it. He was quoting the studies that were done using twins & adopted children (in an attempt to isolate nature vs nurture), but I think it's too varied and subjective an area to do "scientific" studies on.

How do you know the exact same child would turn out the exact same if they were raised by a family with different values? How do you know they'd be different? Well, that's the point, we will never know b/c it's too hypothetical. You can take the child of brilliant parents and the kid winds up hating anything academic...so is that a genetic malfunction, or is it b/c the kid was in an evironment where educational sucess was so over-stressed that s/he wound up resenting it the rest of their life? Maybe the kid would have excelled in a mellower "just watch tv & eat pizza" environment, or maybe they would have wound up the same.

Point is, we can never really know. There are too many variables and too much reliance on a hypothetical situation. I just know that as a parent I'm going to direct & encourage my kids to excel in whatever they're interested in, and whether they succeed b/c of their natural instincts or my parenting...well, who cares?

nesf

Ayla wrote: »

That's true, that's what the author was saying in the interview I heard. Personally I don't buy it. He was quoting the studies that were done using twins & adopted children (in an attempt to isolate nature vs nurture), but I think it's too varied and subjective an area to do "scientific" studies on.

How do you know the exact same child would turn out the exact same if they were raised by a family with different values? How do you know they'd be different? Well, that's the point, we will never know b/c it's too hypothetical. You can take the child of brilliant parents and the kid winds up hating anything academic...so is that a genetic malfunction, or is it b/c the kid was in an evironment where educational sucess was so over-stressed that s/he wound up resenting it the rest of their life? Maybe the kid would have excelled in a mellower "just watch tv & eat pizza" environment, or maybe they would have wound up the same.

Point is, we can never really know. There are too many variables and too much reliance on a hypothetical situation. I just know that as a parent I'm going to direct & encourage my kids to excel in whatever they're interested in, and whether they succeed b/c of their natural instincts or my parenting...well, who cares?

Take two identical twins, raise them in different families and compare them at age 12 and you'll get a good idea of what's nature and what's nurture since the kids share exactly the same genes. In such cases it's found that intelligence is extremely similar between the two kids regardless of the parenting styles involved. That's what these studies look at, i.e. cases as close as possible to taking the same kid and putting them through two different upbringings. It's very simple, if parenting style effected intelligence in a meaningful way we would expect identical twins (and other siblings) adopted by different families to not have very similar levels of intelligence and academic achievement but this isn't the case.