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Filed under: Opinions
Another day, another article on how we parents can screw up our kids with our very best intentions.
I'm getting sick of these things.
Right now, a bunch of people are sending me this piece from the New Scientist because they think I'll love its message -- and headline: "Mom and dad, stop stifling me - it's damaging my brain."
Since I am on record as being anti-helicopter parenting, you'd think I'd be delighted to hear that a team of scientists in Japan scanned the brains of 50 people in their 20s, looking to see whether overbearing parents had literally stunted their kids' development.
After first asking the participants about their relationship with their parents growing up, the scientists found that the ones who said their folks "tried to control" them and/or made them "feel dependent" ended up with literally less grey matter in their prefrontal cortex than those who'd had "healthy relationships" with mom and dad. Then again, those who had been neglected by their dads -- but not their moms -- also had less prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain sometimes linked, when it's defective, to mental illness. All of which leads me to conclude...
NO MORE STUDIES!
First of all, what is the point of a study like this -- with just 50 subjects? What a tiny sample! And by the way: what college kid doesn't think their parents tried to control 'em?
More significantly: If kids who are neglected and kids who are smothered both end up at risk for mental illness, where does that leave us parents? Once again walking the tightrope of perfection: Pay attention to your kids, yes, but not too much attention, at least of the wrong kind. (And moms can neglect away?)
This is the kind of advice that can drive any parent crazy. Not only does it provide zero guidance, what it does provide is yet another way for us to beat ourselves up. Got a kid who's mopey or dopey or chews his shoes? That's because you ruined him. Maybe it was that day you told him to clean up his room.
Or the day you didn't.
The problem with these tiny, silly, never-ending studies is that they always set out to find some correlation between this and that, and somehow -- dear grant provider: your money was not wasted! -- they always do. It can be a tenuous connection that doesn't make much sense , but who cares? It's published and parents will read it and feel a little worse.
And that, it seems, makes it all worthwhile.
Related: Hot Diggity Death!
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 2)
3-22-2010 @ 12:32PM
pentamom said...There is one reason and one reason only that studies like this get done.
People have to publish to obtain degrees, receive tenure, or maintain tenure. And you can only publish original work that covers new ground.
Which means as time goes on, the premises of studies will get stupider and stupider, as our grasp of the valid stuff grows. Oh, of course there will be occasional valuable new discoveries, but if every grad student in the social sciences and every tenured or pre-tenured professor has to come up with a new study every few years, how meaningful can the majority of them be?
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3-30-2010 @ 11:26PM
massageamom said...of course parents get blamed for everything...who the hell else do we have to blame, it's all my mothers fault i never became the prima ballerina i know i was suppose to be...ok that said here's what i've come to believe and have experienced as a parent - outside of don't put your hands in the fire and look both ways before crossing the street your children are not listening to one word you have to say, nothing, you might as well be telling it to the dog who's looking at you lovingly because no one else is listening to you...but what your children are listening to is you when and more importantly how you are speaking to your partner to your friends to strangers on the street to everyone in general.. how you talk and treat the world is how your children will grow to talk and treat the world - so we don't so much need better parenting skills, what we need are skills on how to treat ourselves and the people in our lives with more love and understanding...if your kids are crazy and out of control you migh want to look at yourself not so much your parenting skills
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