7 Things "Good Parents" Do (That Screw Kids Up for Life)

This title is taken directly from this article which discusses research implies or explicitly says a number of "good" parent tactics are actually bad for your child. The actual list of things that seem good, but aren't are

• Giving Your Kids a Creative Name
• Teaching Them To Be Themselves
• Making Them Play Sports
• Starting Them In School Early
• Warning Them About Strangers
• Heaping Praise On Them
• Showing Them Educational Videos

The fantastic part of this article is the undertone of sarcasm. Just to be clear, the article states that the above tactics are actually bad for your child according to recent published scientific research. But by saying it in a sarcastic way, the author really says the science is shoddy and these tactics are still good. From a statistics viewpoint, the research is interesting and following the links provided some of the discussion is right on. For example, following the link under "Giving Your Kids a Creative Name", the 153rd comment (which happened to be at the top of the list when I looked) hits the nail on the head. The comment points out that the authors didn't control for minority ethnic groups. So while the authors were trying to say that kids with creative names have a worse time in life, they instead just ended up showing that minority ethnic groups have a worse time.

---

---

blog comments powered by Disqus

Published

Tags

• Science 15