Tuesday, November 25, 2014
What is Good Parenting?
A recent study questions the significance of parenting on an offspring’s intelligence. Whether it’s reading them a bedtime story or having family meals each evening, many parents believe that interaction with their children will have some influence on their intelligence later in life. A research team led by Kevin Beaver, a criminology professor at Florida State University, poses a statement that says that later-life intelligence may be more dependent on genetics. Some studies claim that parenting can influence how intelligent their child will become in adulthood, but Beaver and other researchers suggest that this association may be incorrect because such studies have not accounted for genetic transmission.
The study used a nationally representative sample of youths to study the link between parental behavior and later-life intelligence. They used adopted youths in the same age-range that were part of the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and found that the adoptees were able to “more fully control for genetic confounding.” The behaviors of participants' parents were assessed, and participants completed an IQ test called the Picture Vocabulary Test that measured verbal intelligence, while at middle and high school. They completed the IQ test again when they were between the ages of 18 and 26.
The results revealed that among both the youth participants and adoptees, the influence of parenting on the children’s intelligence as they grew up were both marginal and inconsistent. A study on only monozygotic twins also revealed no consistent associations between parenting or family measures on verbal intelligence. This study challenges previous research indicating that parental actions influence a child's intelligence. He states that parents who are more intelligent try to influence their children but just end up masking the genetic transformation of intelligence in their children. This doesn’t mean that parents shouldn’t interact with their children, it just means that parenting will not have a detectable effect on their IQ, as long as parenting is within common boundaries.
In all honestly this article really shocked me. I had always believed that parenting plays a great effect on a person’s intelligence. In a way it makes sense because a person’s ability to learn can’t really be influence by environmental factors since it is something one is born with. I can argue that parenting does effect a person’s desire to learn, to work hard, and to put in their best effort. So sure, parenting may not effect a person’s IQ, but I feel like it plays a much more significant role in a child’s life. A person can be born with an amazing IQ but if they were raised in a home where their intelligence was not cultivated or appreciated, it’s like the intelligence doesn’t develop properly. So, yes, genetics may prove that parenting doesn’t have a direct effect on a child’s intelligence but in my opinion it is still a crucial element to a child’s development.
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This is very interesting research. I always figured that intelligence was genetically linked, but not to this extent. I do agree with your point about the parents still having a huge impact on the child's life regardless of how that impact affects their IQ.
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