Do Parents Matter?

I've recently come to the same conclusion, at least with my daughter. My wife and I seem to be able to exercise greater influence over my sons, but it's become clear that my daughter's peers exert vastly more influence over her than we can -- and she has unfortunately chosen a set of friends who have a very negative influence. By "negative" I don't mean "funny hairstyles", I mean hanging around with them, or even just talking to them over the phone or via computer, has pushed her into depression, self-injury, complete disregard for school, etc. Ultimately it lead to a suicide attempt, at which point we shifted from trying to be influential, supporting parents to unabashedly controlling her life. She's 13.<p>We're attempting to intervene with medication and professional counseling to help with the depression and injury. We're also attempting to remove the negative peers from her life by removing her from school (homeschooling) and controlling who she's allowed to spend time with.<p>It's helping, but modern technology has created some challenges. Like most geek homes, mine is filled with technology, and my kids are adept in its use. I've had to block Facebook and all of the free e-mail services on the kids' computers, but short of intensively supervising her computer usage there's effectively no way to cut off that avenue of communication with her negative friends.<p>I finally resorted to writing a script that notifies me whenever she logs in, and then hacking the GNOME remote desktop tool so that it doesn't display a notification when I remotely connect to her desktop. Oh, we've used the low-tech solution of putting the computer in a public area of the house and paying attention, but that just means she has to pick the right moment. Knowing that I may be virtually looking over her shoulder at any moment, and there's no way she can know when that's happening, seems to have closed off that avenue. Finally. When she's at home.<p>However, phones have proven much more difficult. We've taken her cellphone away, and the home phone has no long distance service (her problem friends happen to be outside the local calling area; she had to cast a wide net to find a group this bad), but my home office line does, and there are three other cellphones around the house, not to mention that all of her local friends and cousins have cellphones.<p>Short of keeping all of our phones locked up and not allowing her out of the house, there's effectively no way we can keep her from getting in touch with her friends. And these friends are so important to <i>her</i> that there seems to be no punishment, no bribe, no consequence that will keep her from contacting them.<p>Without modern communications technology, it's unlikely that she ever would have found this group of negative peers, and it's certain that we as her parents would be able isolate her from them. As it is, as long as she's willing to sneak behind our backs, it is effectively impossible for us to control her access to them. We can limit it significantly, of course, but unless we could watch her every minute of every day, as soon as our backs are turned she'll find a way to contact them.<p>So far, reducing her communication with them seems to be limiting their effect on her. The anti-depressants are having an effect as well, and the therapy seems also to be helping her to understand herself and her value a little better. However, as you can imagine, the constant close supervision and tight control is also basically destroying our relationship with her, and reducing our ability to directly influence her thinking to zero. She sees us as the enemy.<p>That saddens us greatly, but we don't see any other option. She was in a downward spiral last year and we intervened aggressively and she pulled out of it. Then she convinced us that she could handle herself if we relaxed the grip. We did, and within three months she attempted suicide (which her peers think is cool).<p>So, this has been long and rambling, but the point is that my anecdotal experience with my daughter supports this researcher's claims. Our influence over our daughter's behavior and thinking is minimal at best, and I'm questioning whether it was ever as great as we thought it was. Our influence over her environment is substantial and we're working that influence for all it's worth. I guess we'll know in a few years if that approach worked. Well, sort of. We'll only know the results of what we do. There's no way to know what might have happened if we'd acted differently.<p>That, of course, is the hard part of being a parent. You can only do what you think is best, and there's really no way to know if you're doing the right things, or how much what you're doing even matters. Still, you have to do the best you can.

Probably more than anything else in the world. I wouldn't be close to where I am, or who I am, without mine, and that's an observation that I can extend to pretty much everyone I know well.

Whether a child attends school, or is allowed to spend time with peers, is up to his parents. Therefore parents matter.

I had to do some research for a paper a few years ago that reminds me of this - I learned that juvenile delinquency statistics could not be correlated across income level, race, or geography. However, once family situation was taken into account (stable two parent households vs. other situations), a correlation was found.<p>I definitely believe parents matter.<p>And, as an aside, some parents have no choice but to raise children single, and they do a great job. It just isn't the ideal situation, according to research.

Our parents form the basis for all other attachments we are able to form with people. Our parents form the basis of how humans are able to interact with others.<p>I certainly disagree with "So if you want to improve the way children behave in school—for instance, by making them more diligent and less disruptive in the classroom", I think most people can see a correlation between poor quality parenting and badly behaved children. Inside or outside the home. This certainly proves it's point when the average family of University (or College) child age is shown demographically. (Assuming that you exclude financial issues).<p>Parents have far too great an influence over their children to not matter. This research certainly hinges on undermining the whole of attachment theory, and Freud's work on personality types. If parents did not support certain behaviours then they wouldn't develop. I think that this research on it's own represents a narrow minded view of later development, not something which explains how parents shape their children.<p>Parents do matter because they create who we are today.<p>Read more: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_Theory" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_Theory</a>

For another great article on Judith Harris, see Malcolm Gladwell's 1998 piece in the New Yorker:<p><a href="http://gladwell.com/1998/1998_08_17_a_harris.htm" rel="nofollow">http://gladwell.com/1998/1998_08_17_a_harris.htm</a>

If we take evolution as our the model for our species then parents and parenthood are vitally important to the survival of the species.<p>At certain times peers might play a bigger role in forming who we are but to say that consistently peers are more important than parents, I think, is incorrect.

Yea, right. Every time I was influenced by my peers to do something stupid, I used the acid test, "Will my father kill me?" He's gone now, but I still use that test. That's influence.

Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence. I'm not seeing any.<p>Here's a quick counterpoint that speaks to the "norm": Almost to a man, every sports icon I can think of cites the influence of parents in their lives. (I'm talking real icons here, not T.O. types that happen to be gifted.)<p>I'm not ready to accept this theory without significant evidence.

The point of the article is kind of subtle. The research is pointing out that <i>excluding genetic factors</i>, parents don't really matter. So parents do matter in the sense that they are the gene providers but not in the sense that they are the jean providers.