Parenting the First Twelve Years: What the Evidence Tells Us

Pelican Books #22

by Victoria Cooper, Heather Montgomery, Kieron Sheehy

Concrete, research-driven advice on humanity's oldest, hardest jobWhy is parenting so fraught and so difficult in today's society? There has never been a time when advice was so readily available, and yet there is also a prevailing sense that parents are getting it wrong. This book examines the arguments and counter-arguments supported by research on how best to parent children, from birth to twelve years. By taking an impartial approach to the evidence and, by discussing case studies from across the world and from a number of academic disciplines, this book is designed to show how good parenting comes in many shapes and forms.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Childrens, Anthropology, Science, Sociology

352 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2018

Reviews

[Tammam Aloudat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have resisted, since we had our twin boys ten months ago, to read parenting books. We read a lot of advice online from sources like the NHS and the Swiss health authorities and it was good but that was on purely medical issues. I resisted reading the “expert” parenting gurus because I do not believe any of them knows entirely what they are talking about and because the self/help language just gets on my nerves.

This book is different. To start with, it is not prescriptive and does’t tell parents what to do in any given situation. It lists a topic or several topics per chapter and then discusses what evidence exists from a sociological point of view on that topic. The second thing, it is not dogmatic. There are no absolute solutions and the authors are sensitive to the fact that parents are different, children are different, and circumstances are different. They are conscious of the fact that poverty affects child rearing and that cultures are different. This has helped me come to terms with some of the issues I thought I had a clear view of like what sort of entertainment children should be allowed to do or how to balance protection of children with their freedom. I don’t have an answer yet but I feel I have more space of maneuvering thinking about those topics and won’t “mess things up for good” if they are not exactly right. This is comforting.

The book is readable, easy to follow, and relevant to what life looks like today for both parents and children.

[Wing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweeping dogmas that lump all parents together into one single category are almost always fallacious. Ignoring individual circumstances and social contexts will lead to baseless if not harmful recommendations. The same happens when ideologies disregard the nuance of scientific findings and egregiously apply selection biases to draw erroneous conclusions. Correlations mistaken as causality will lead to gratuitous stigmatisation signifying nothing constructive but parental angst and guilt. The personality of the child, which is influenced by society, has an impact on the characteristic of parenting itself. These multidirectional interactions are both complex and foundational. The authors highlight the salience of qualitative studies. These cannot be supplanted by quantitative ones. This means close examination of the anthropological, political, and cultural aspects of parenting. All in all, one finds nothing new: children need love and security to flourish socially. Parenting is a balancing act in so far as it entails making choices within this framework. Childhood is diverse, fluid, plastic, and above all agential. The book is an easy read with a sometimes not so subtle social constructivist undertone. Four stars.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers looking for quick fixes to parenting challenges will be disappointed, but for a critical reader, this is a great reminder that there are almost always two sides to every parenting issue. The media often presents research reports as the final say on things, while actually there are usually massive debates behind every empirical study. This book lays out some of them, thematically. I especially liked the sociological/anthropological focus, which puts psychological and educational research into broader perspective. Parenting, if anything, is massively political and this book gives the reader good tools to cope with that fact.

[Kian.ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is very informative about parenting cultures in different countries, education systems in different countries, it’s good to have that view to see the bigger picture again it also talks about play based learning and allowing the child to do exploratory learning as opposed to instruction based learning. It also talks about resilience which is my take home point about the dandelion kids and the orchid child, I will need to do more reading on the orchid child. Overall this is really a good read for all parents to get a general overview about the arguments and approaches to different cultures and styles of parenting.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't a fan of this book. Far to academic for my liking, reminded me of the essay structures we got taught at university.

[mon · Rating 5 out of 5]

yes

[Lama Hussein · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 good stars, I would recommend it.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's better to read a book like this than one of the parenting books that follow a certain 'style' based on opinions. I found it very useful.

[Elisabeth Chen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was disappointed by the book. The book attempts to look at the research into parenting across the first 12 years of a child's life. Given the topic, and the tagline of "What the Evidence Tells Us", I had expected a dissection of the scientific literature out there, particularly of controlled trials, or at least quantifiable observational studies.

However, instead of really digging into evidence from research studies, it felt like the authors overrelied on quotes from parents, children and academics to make a point. The problem with that, is that you can find quotes and perspectives from any imaginable angle (yes, even from published academics), making many their points rather anecdotal (and not even told in an entertaining way).

When the authors do cite experimental research, they keep it very surface-level (one sentence max), with no mention of effect sizes, sample sizes, statistical significance and methodological caveats, etc. - which distinguish high quality and robust research that really inform behaviours worth adapting.

On social science, for example some of their "research" literally amounts to something along the lines of "children were asked what they wanted an ideal school looks like, and they wanted it to be fun, like themed around beaches or candy", with a bunch of quotes from kids. I could have asked my neighbour's kids and probably gotten similar responses. What this tells me about how to think about choosing a future school - I have literally no idea.

Where anthropological case studies are discussed, I felt like there was little mention of the context they sit in, and what they mean for parents in other contexts.

Overall, for the reasons above, unfortunately the book fell flat for me, and ultimately decided to put it aside about 2/3rds the qay through.