14 DAY TRIAL // In an interesting turn of events, what was considered to be good parenting skills in the early half of the 20th century is now considered to be among the worst ways to raise your children. Whereas in the past parents would let their children run like crazy in the streets, but insisted that they restrained themselves at home – and beat them so that the demand stuck – a new study now finds that parents prefer having their children on a tighter leash in public, while cutting them some slack back at home. The end-result, researchers quoted by LiveScience say, would be “wild” children at home, who barely restrain themselves in public.
“Today's parents face demands that require near-constant surveillance of their children. Allowing children more autonomy to express themselves and their disagreements at home may well be a response to the loss of more substantial forms of children's autonomy to move through and participate in their communities on their own,” Wellesley College expert Markella Rutherford explains the results of the new investigation. She is also the author of a new study accompanying the find, which appears online in the latest issue of the journal Qualitative Sociology.
The qualitative research was conducted on more than 300 advice columns, which the scientists collected from the Parents magazine between 1929 and 2006. She shows that the child-rearing norms that were almost law two generations ago are now barely there, as most families do not consider them.
Rutherford has also determined that, between the 1960s and 1980s, the concept of household chores for the child all but disappeared from educational practices. Instead, more emphasis was placed on attending school and obtaining high grades. “If I told my daughter to go outside and shovel the driveway before school, she'd laugh in disbelief,” a mother reportedly wrote in a 1996 issue of the magazine. “Don't push too hard; don't rush the child into accepting something new before he himself shows readiness. This principle should be followed as soon as the baby is born,” a 1940 article reads.
In recent years, the magazine started providing more advice for parents with more defiant children, who always refused to do what they were told. “Provide choices. First, let your child know you understand why she’s angry (...) then, give her some control by letting her make a decision,” a 2006 article advises.
What's clear is that, nowadays, less accent is placed on authority and child obedience. For example, the researcher says, an article written in 1929 states that, “By discipline we mean the reasonable regulation and supervision of the fundamental habits of a child throughout all stages of his development and a consistent plan for having him obey simple rules such as regular meal-times, regular bed-times, training in elimination, eating what is placed before him, wearing the clothes that are provided, observing certain proprieties of conduct.”