SUMMARY
Families vary, from never-divorced two-parent couples to blended families, from gay-parent families to unmarried couples or grandparents raising a child. The main distinction is that mother-headed families are far more likely to live in poverty than their two-parent counterparts. Today, in the West, families vary dramatically by ethnicity and immigrant status. Children, however, can thrive in any kind of family, depending on the care parents provide.
According to Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles approach, based on providing rules and nurturing, parents are classified as authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and rejecting-neglecting. Although, generally speaking, parents who provide clear rules and are highly child-centered tend to raise the most well-adjusted children, above all, parents should provide consistent discipline. Child-rearing approaches actually vary from child to child, with at-risk children evoking poorer parenting. Even though Asian-heritage families have been portrayed as authoritarian, they, too, adopt a child-centered authoritative style. Having rigid rules, while appropriate in the past, are symptoms of contemporary parenting distress.
Resilient children, boys and girls who do well in the face of traumatic experiences, tend to have good executive functions; other talents; one close, secure attachment and not be faced with an overload of life blows. A specific genetic profile may offer some children biological resilience in the face of stress.
Behavioral-genetic researchers argue that children grow up to fulfill their genetic destiny, and adequate parenting is all that is necessary. Judith Harris believes that peer groups (and the wider society)—not parents—are the main socializers in children’s lives. While the findings relating to acculturation (immigrant children taking on the norms of the new society) support Harris’s theory, high-quality parenting matters greatly when children are biologically and socially “at risk.” Parents need to be flexible, tailoring their child-rearing to their environment and to their children’s needs. They should also relax and enjoy these fleeting years.
Attitudes about corporal punishment have changed dramatically, with many developed nations now outlawing spanking. Passing similar bans however is unlikely in the United States. Although physical punishment is not the preferred discipline, it is still used by many U.S. parents and strongly endorsed by certain groups. Experts disagree as to whether corporal punishment can ever be used, but we do know that spanking is particularly detrimental with “at-risk” children, people should never hit a baby, and positive reinforcement is far preferable to any punishment.
Child maltreatment—physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse—can sometimes be hard to classify. The prevalence of this parenting disaster varies from nation to nation, and maltreatment statistics differ, depending on whether we ask adults to reflect on their childhoods or consider observers’ reports. However, in general, parents’ personality problems, environmental stress, plus low social support and having an at-risk child are the main factors that can provoke abuse. Abused children often have problems that can persist into adult life, in part because this trauma can produce epigenetic changes in our DNA. Although teachers and health-care professionals are required to report suspected abuse, it is difficult to speak up, and authorities often do not follow through on reports. So, unfortunately, child-abuse statistics underestimate the magnitude of this problem today.
Children of divorce are at risk for negative life outcomes, but most boys and girls adapt well to this common childhood event. Parents find it difficult to tell their children they are divorcing, and struggle not to badmouth an ex-spouse. The key to making divorce less traumatic lies in minimizing parental alienation, giving children some say in custody arrangements, and promoting high-quality custodial parenting. Joint custody is a common arrangement today, but it only works if the dad is a reasonably good parent.
School
Many children from low-income families enter kindergarten well behind their affluent counterparts in basic academic skills. These inequalities at the starting gate are magnified by the fact that poor children are likely to attend the poorest-quality kindergartens.
Achievement tests measure a child’s body of knowledge. IQ tests measure a child’s basic potential for classroom work. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), is the main childhood IQ test. This time-intensive test, involving a variety of subtests, is given individually to a child. If the child’s IQ score is below 70—and if other indicators warrant this designation—that boy or girl may be labeled intellectually disabled. If the child’s score is much higher than his performance on achievement tests, he is classified as having a specific learning disorder such as dyslexia. If a child’s IQ score is at or above 130, she is considered gifted and is eligible to be placed in an accelerated class.
IQ scores satisfy the measurement criterion called reliability, meaning that people tend to get roughly the same score if the test is taken more than once. However, stressful life experiences can artificially lower a child’s score. The test is also valid, meaning that it predicts performance in school. Some psychologists claim that the test score reflects a single quality called “g” that relates to cognitive performance in every area of life; others feel that intelligence involves multiple abilities and argue that it is inappropriate to rank people as intelligent or not based on a single IQ score. The remarkable Flynn effect (century-long test performance increase due to improved environments), suggests that, for disadvantaged children, the IQ score cannot be viewed as an index of genetic gifts.
Robert Sternberg and Howard Gardner argue that we need to expand our measures of intelligence beyond traditional tests. Sternberg believes that there are three types of intelligence: analytic intelligence (academic abilities), creative intelligence, and practical intelligence (real-world abilities, or “street smarts”). Successful intelligence requires having a balance among these three skills. Gardner, in his multiple intelligences theory, describes eight (or possibly nine) types of intelligences. Although neither of these psychologists has developed alternatives to conventional IQ tests, their ideas have been used to rethink the way we teach.
Schools serving disadvantaged students who flower academically share a mission to have every child succeed. They provide a challenging academic environment and assume that each student can do well at high-level work. Teachers support and mentor one another at these authoritative schools.
Why do many children dislike school? The reason is that classroom learning is based on extrinsic motivation (external reinforcers such as grades), which impairs intrinsic motivation (the desire to learn for the sake of learning). School learning is inherently less interesting because it often involves rote memorization. Being evaluated in comparison to the class also erodes a child’s interest in learning for its own sake. Studies show a disturbing decline in intrinsic motivation as children progress through elementary school.
Teachers (and parents) can make extrinsic learning tasks more intrinsic by offering material relevant to children’s interests, fostering relatedness (or a close attachment), and giving students choices about how to do their work. Stimulating intrinsic motivation by offering more autonomy (providing choices) helps motivate teachers to adopt new effective teaching strategies. The Common Core State Standards, by providing universal learning benchmarks and teaching with an emphasis on scaffolding, creativity, and problem solving, provide a potential sea change in U.S. education. Schools need to provide a better planned, more interesting, consistent learning experience for every child.