I. Introduction
It is the National Championship Football game, and a beautiful female sideline reporter is interviewing the Georgia coach five minutes before the game starts on National TV. The coach, who relies upon hours/days of film and data analysis, says, “We must do these seven things to win the game.” Add a little luck, assume the coach is correct about his predictions, and, sure enough, Georgia wins the game. What if parents could triumphantly raise successful children in the same manner? What if parents could list seven actions they must do to succeed as parents? This article focuses on parenting strategies, backed by research, designed to help parents raise successful children.
Anyone who has parented a child knows that parenting is not simple and sometimes overwhelming. It is not a football game, and the stakes for children are supreme. Nevertheless, it would be great if parents could have a pre-game foundation blueprint for parenting based upon years of research that could guide them. This article discusses seven parental behaviors that researchers in Great Britain have identified to have very positive outcomes for children regardless of their family’s economic standing. So, buckle up, let’s learn about this study and the parental behaviors identified.
II. The Life Project
On Oct. 23, 2017, Helen Pearson, a British researcher and mother of two children, gave a TED talk (See Attached Link) that summarized the results of several British cohort studies that have tracked generations of babies from birth to death. In her review, Ms. Pearson mentioned that these studies began in 1946 when a research team interviewed the parents of 14,000 babies who were born in the same week. Similar studies involving approximately 70,000 children were completed in 1958, 1970, 1991, and 1999. The beauty of these longitudinal studies was that researchers implemented follow-up interviews with these children as they matured into adulthood and mid-life. The data from these studies has been voluminous, and it has led to six thousand published papers and forty academic books, including Helen Pearson’s book, The Life Project ( 2016, Soft Skill Press).
What did this massive data collection tell researchers and policy-makers in Britain? First, it was apparent in all studies that children living in poverty had more health problems and less school success compared to their affluent counterparts. The results of these cohort studies eventually led to socialized medicine and significant reforms in British education. More relevant to this paper, these studies suggested some findings that intuitively make sense and the data supported:
· Parenting Really Matters (especially in the first four years)
· Poverty is a BIG factor, but it can be overcome
What did some parents from lower economic homes do to overcome the poverty barrier? In her study Helen Pearson identified seven parental behaviors that are associated with improved outcomes for ALL children, including at-risk, low-income children:
Parental Behaviors
1. Talking to and listening to your kids
2. Making it clear you have ambitions for their future
3. Being emotionally warm
4. Teaching them letters and numbers
5. Taking them on excursions
6. Reading to them daily (and encouraging them to read for pleasure)
7. Maintaining a regular bedtime
There is no question that the metadata analysis of 70,000 children that Ms. Pearson prepared is subject to questioning and debate. Extrapolating and summarizing data from different longitudinal surveys and interviews done at various times in Britain can be quite tricky. Others may argue that Britain and the USA are quite different countries, and this data is meaningless in our country. Nevertheless, most readers would agree that these studies are important and relevant today in the United States and the rest of the world. Helen Pearson said it best in her talk when she remarked,
“Parents are at their best when they listen to their children and listen to the science.”
III. After-Thoughts and Take-Aways
Indeed, it must be said that parents who follow the simple guidance Helen Pearson has provided will not automatically have successful children. Her research-based guidance is foundational, not operational. Ms. Pearson has provided a parenting focus but not a parenting playbook. For example, strategies for discipline, boundaries, technology limits, and dating are not offered; however, parents should develop all of these strategies under the umbrella of parental talking/listening and emotional warmth.
How difficult is it to read to your young children regularly, add consistency to their lives (e.g., bedtime), and surround them with emotional warmth? Does it involve too much effort to periodically take your kids to the park to observe the joy of their play and discoveries? For some parents, the answer to these questions may be, “Yes, it is difficult to do,” but, for most parents, these strategies are easy to do and enjoyable. The challenge is to take stock of your parental behavior given these guidelines and see if you can improve in some areas. The author and his wife were strong in most areas, but the author could have done better with listening. Too bad this article was not written forty years ago when his children were young. Alas, we can all improve our parenting or help others improve their parenting with some help from science.
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