Education
Friday, 30 October 2009 04:10
Written by Matt Kuykendall

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Why parents don’t matter as much as we thought

Can you identify your child’s peer group? Do you know who they go out with on Friday, have sleep overs with on Saturday and stay up messaging with late at night? And I mean know them. Not just their names but their personality, their interests and how they behave socially? If not, you should make it your business because the latest research and meta-research being done by cognitive psychologists and behavioral geneticists suggests that the two greatest influences on our adult personality and behavior are genetics and peer groups.

Notice I did not say parents. In fact, in her most recent book, No Two Alike, Judith Rich Harris expands the argument she first made in 1998 in The Nurture Assumption that parents “influence their children mainly by passing on their genes. The biggest environmental influences on personality are those that occur outside the home.”

One example Harris uses is that of accents. It’s something I’ve also observed while working with expatriate children in Shanghai – given enough time students do not retain the accent of their parents, but take on the language and accent of their peer group. Harris offers this as an example that children aim to please their contemporaries, not parents, and adopt behavior that will gain them acceptance into their peer group.

A second example Harris gives is a study done by behavioral geneticist Robert McCraethat. He found there were significant personality differences between adult children of Hong Kong immigrants in Canada compared to that of their parents, showing the children adopted the personality of their environment and their peer group rather that that of their parents. In essence, they became Canadian.

Another informative study was done on the aggressiveness of African-American children raised in low income homes. Some were located in black, poverty level neighborhoods, and others were in neighborhoods that were predominantly white and middle-class. The researchers found that “the African-American boys living in poverty-level neighborhoods were highly aggressive, but that those living in middle-class neighborhoods were no more aggressive than their white, middle-class peers. In both cases, these children had adapted their behavior to the local norms.”

As a parent, I realize how scary this sounds. Do I have no control over my daughter’s personality, intelligence or preference for boys beyond the 23 chromosomes that she inherited from me? Harris gives one concession – parents have a “short term” influence on their children’s intelligence and IQ, and can place them in situations that allow them to capitalize on their genetic gifts. However, she brings us back down to earth. “By late adolescence, adopted children reared in three-syllable homes are no smarter, on average, than those reared monosyllabically.”

What does this mean for us? It means we have to think hard about the environment our children are participating in outside the home. That does not just include the peer group, but the culture at large. This is of exceptional interest to those of us that are expatriates. Do we want our children to take on the ‘personality’ of a culture other than our own?  Perhaps where we live is somewhat out of our immediate control, but the better you understand your child’s peer group, the better you’ll understand your child and their development.

Matt Kuykendall teaches Social Studies at Shanghai American School’s Puxi Campus.

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