This book debates the high impact modern societies have on the way we raise children. Although problems such as family dysfunction, work–family imbalance, and migration due to war, violence, and poverty are not new, their consequences for children’s well-being and mental health are aggravated by the lack of effective social support networks affecting many children and families living in contemporaneous urban areas. The proverb 'It takes a village to raise a child” is as valid now as it was in the early history of less complex communities. However, extended families and the social environment of villages have been substituted by a system of welfare and childcare institutions that, in many cases, fail to provide the appropriate care, education, and support the children need. Job-demanding competitive societies, where career achievement and wealth become the definition of success, force parents to the duality of choosing between family and career and depending on others to parent their children. Likewise, social inequality compels many parents to work in never-ending shifts that add to the hours they spend commuting to their workplaces. Sometimes, parents are forced to migrate, leaving their children behind. Children learn to survive in the absence of their parents and to deal with small or inexistent parental emotional investment. The parent-child relationship and attachment necessities are impacted in ways that will affect children for the rest of their lives. Alternatively, migrant children accompanying their parents to a new host country may feel the shock of a normative society with cultural values different from the ones they left behind. Parenting behaviour and style may then be considered inappropriate, challenging parents’ ability to educate and pass their values to the offspring. This book is an academic reflection on these controversies.

Revised edition of a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students preparing for teaching, social work, other human-service professions, health professions, and mental health professions. It acquaints students with parenting in three major areas: concepts, challenges, and changes; diverse fa

Through a global, multidisciplinary perspective, this book describes how four factors influence parenting practices: a countries historical and political background, the parent’s educational history, the economy and the parent’s financial standing, and advances in technology. Case studies that illustrate the impact these four factors have on parents in various regions help us better understand parenting in today’s global, interconnected world. Descriptions of parenting practices in countries from Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean give readers a contemporary perspective. Both research and clinical implications when working with families from various cultures are integrated throughout. Part I reviews the four major factors that shape parenting practices. Part II features cases written by contributors with extensive experience in parenting practice and research that bring to life the ways in which these four factors influence parenting within their region. Each chapter in Part II follows the same format to provide consistency for comparative purposes: an introduction, historical and political, economic, educational, and societal factors and parenting practices, and a conclusion. Each case reviews: Historical and political factors such as slavery, war, and natural disasters and how these factors impact cultural beliefs, parenting behaviors, and a child’s development Economic factors which impact the capacity for consistent, involved parenting which can result in low IQ, behavioral problems, depression, and domestic conflict and the need to account for financial factors when developing intervention programs Educational levels impact on parenting practices and their children’s achievements Advances in technology and its impact on parenting practices. Intended for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in families in global context, immigrant families, family or public policy, multiculturalism or cross-cultural psychology, social or cultural development, counseling, social work, or international development taught in human development and family studies, psychology, social work, sociology, anthropology, racial studies, and international relations, this book also appeals to practitioners and researchers interested in family studies and child development and policy and program managers of governments, NGOs, and mental health agencies.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Many sociological, historical and cultural stories can be and have already been told about why it is that parents in post-industrial, western societies face an often overwhelming array of advice on how to bring up their children. At the same time, there have been several philosophical treatments of the legal, moral and political issues surrounding issues of procreation, the rights of children and the duties of parents, as well as some philosophical accounts of the shifts in our underlying conceptualization of childhood and adult-child relationships. While this book partly builds on the insights of this literature, it is significantly different in that it offers a philosophically-informed discussion of the actual practical experience of being a parent, with its deliberations, judgements and dilemmas. In probing the ethical and conceptual questions suggested by the parent-child relationship, this unique volume demonstrates the irreducible philosophical richness of this relationship and thus provides an important counter-balance to the overly empirical and largely psychological focus of a great deal of “parenting” literature. Unlike other analytic work on the parent-child relationship and the educational role of parents, this work draws on first-person accounts of the day-to-day experience of being a parent in order to explore the ethical and epistemological aspects of this experience. In so doing it exposes the limitations of some of the languages within which contemporary “parenting” is conceptualized and discussed, and opens up a space for thinking about childrearing and the parent-child relationship beyond and other than in terms of the languages which dominate the ways in which we generally think about it today.

Parenting in the modern world is an overwhelming concept. It seems to divide everyone from psychologists and politicians to scientists and salesmen, leaving the parents themselves with a terrible headache as a result. How can anyone live up to such expansive and conflicting expectations? As Zoe Williams explores, the madness begins before the baby has even arrived: hysteria is rife surrounding everything from drinking alcohol and eating cheese to using a new frying pan. And it only gets worse. The list of things you need to consider (as well as the things you never realised you needed to consider) is ever-increasing, and questions of breastfeeding, buggies, staying at home, schooling - and what your mother-in-law thinks you're doing wrong - take over completely. The task of raising a child has been turned into a circus of ludicrous proportions. Combining laugh-out-loud tales of parenthood with myth-busting facts and figures, Zoe provides the antithesis of all parenting discussions to date. After all, parents managed perfectly well for centuries before this modern madness, so why do today's mothers and fathers make such an almighty fuss about everything?

Enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, this revised edition examines family structure, reproduction, profiles of children's caretakers, their treatment at different ages, their play, work, schooling, and transition to adulthood. The result is a nuanced and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present.