Do Parents Matter?

Do Parents Matter?: Scientific American:Interview with Judith Rich Harris:
"It’s no longer enough to show, for example, that parents who are conscientious about child rearing tend to have children who are conscientious about their schoolwork. Is this correlation the result of what the children learned from their parents or of the genes they inherited from them? Studies using the proper controls consistently favor the second explanation. In fact, personality resemblances between biological relatives are attributable almost entirely to heredity, rather than environment. Adopted children don’t resemble their adoptive parents in personality. I’m not particularly interested in genetic effects, but the point is that they have to be taken into account. Unless we know what the child brings to the environment, we can’t figure out what effect the environment has on the child."

"That’s the puzzle I tackled in No Two Alike. The expanded version of the theory is based on the idea that the human mind is modular and that it consists of a number of components, each designed by evolution to perform a specific job, and that three different mental modules are involved in social development. The first deals with relationships, including parent-child relationships. The second handles socialization. The third enables children to work out a successful strategy for competing with their peers, by figuring out what they are good at."

I find this fascinating in that Harris is most interested in the school environment and how it affects children. She seems to be saying that as parents our choice of schools, and the peer group that the child is a part of in the school is critical. The good news is that kids with good learning genes and good parenting will probably join the "value learning group" if one is available, the bad news is that if there is also a "goof off group" or if the goof off group is dominant in the school parents had better be aware of which group the kids are in and be prepared to take appropriate action to encourage proper group selection.

If I were more actively involved with small children both of these books would probably be on my hot shelf. She seems to be a bit of a contrarian which of course appeals to me. And the fact that social scientists jumped on the heretic bandwagon with respect to her books early and often is a great recommendation. I may have to put the books on the read someday list just for that reason, even though I am well beyond the need for guidance in the small child rearing area. By the time the GGs come around I will be irrelevant.