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posted by martyb on Friday August 21 2015, @09:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the touching-development dept.

Social practices and cultural beliefs of modern life are preventing healthy brain and emotional development in children, according to an interdisciplinary body of research presented recently at a symposium at the University of Notre Dame.
...
"Breast-feeding infants, responsiveness to crying, almost constant touch and having multiple adult caregivers are some of the nurturing ancestral parenting practices that are shown to positively impact the developing brain, which not only shapes personality, but also helps physical health and moral development," says Narvaez.

Studies show that responding to a baby's needs (not letting a baby "cry it out") has been shown to influence the development of conscience; positive touch affects stress reactivity, impulse control and empathy; free play in nature influences social capacities and aggression; and a set of supportive caregivers (beyond the mother alone) predicts IQ and ego resilience as well as empathy.

The United States has been on a downward trajectory on all of these care characteristics, according to Narvaez. Instead of being held, infants spend much more time in carriers, car seats and strollers than they did in the past. Only about 15 percent of mothers are breast-feeding at all by 12 months, extended families are broken up and free play allowed by parents has decreased dramatically since 1970.

On the other side, there's hand-wringing about helicopter parenting.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Friday August 21 2015, @02:11PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Friday August 21 2015, @02:11PM (#225846) Homepage Journal

    The United States has been on a downward trajectory on all of these care characteristics

    You know, the United States is not a monolith. There are lots and lots of individuals living as subjects under this jurisdiction, and their opinions on this subject are extremely varied. And I see that as a good thing, because children are also not a monolith. What fits one child's particular genetic makeup, environment, and background may be radically different for what fits another child's situation. Some parents are going to fail miserably at that, but there have been some interesting studies that have shown that despite all the various parenting fads and studies that have swept through each of the last generations, most parents have essentially ignored them and used their own common sense. A variety of upbringing approaches is probably best for the future of the species, in my opinion.

    Personally, my two most important parenting tools are to work to personally eliminate angry outbursts, and then to make sure that every action I take as a parent is something the other parent of my children feels enthusiastic about. She and I are the two beings with the most common background and DNA to our children, who probably understand them the best. She shares genes with them that I do not, and vice versa, and she will have insights that I do not, and vice versa. Because we both stick with this approach, if limit ourselves to the subset of parenting actions that both of us think are a good idea, we will be much better parents than we would be if just each did whatever we wanted. If everybody did this, I think 90% of parenting problems would be resolved. I recognize that unfortunately not everybody can do this (my father was divorced).

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 21 2015, @09:57PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 21 2015, @09:57PM (#226058) Journal

    When someone says "the United States has been ...", and they're talking about individual acts, then you need to assume that they are talking about some sort of statistical abstraction, sort of like "The parents of the mean family in the United States...". This, however, doesn't mean that they actually have that kind of evidence. Usually it just means that that assertion is consistent with the various observations that they have made. In this particular case I wouldn't be surprised if they did have some loosely validated studies that at least appeared to confirm their assertion, and, truthfully, it's an assertion consistent with my observations. But I *know* that my observations have no statistical validity.

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    • (Score: 3, Touché) by jdavidb on Friday August 21 2015, @10:47PM

      by jdavidb (5690) on Friday August 21 2015, @10:47PM (#226078) Homepage Journal

      When someone says "the United States has been ...", and they're talking about individual acts, then you need to assume that they are talking about some sort of statistical abstraction

      Well, truth be told, whenever someone says that, I assume that they are talking about some criminal act!

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