Evil Plots

This article claims that the relationships that parents have with children has little effect on how the child turns out. This is so ludicrous on a common sense level as to be laughable. On a factual level, it is completely totally wrong.

Why would a newspaper print something so completely wrong and potentially harmful to children and society as a whole?

Plot by evil of course

Follow up:

Parents who heap attention on their children and spend hours teaching them the difference between right and wrong have only a small effect on their long-term development, according to a leading psychologist.

The need to survive at school and mix with friends has a more significant impact on a child's behaviour than lessons learned in the home, it is claimed.Judith Rich Harris, an American psychologist, says that a child who grows up in a disciplined household is just as likely to turn into a tearaway as those raised in chaotic homes, if they mix with unruly classmates at a young age.

The conclusions undermine the Government's £30 million drive to coach parents on how to tame out-of-control children.

Yesterday, the Department for Education and Skills unveiled plans for a national "parenting academy", which will lead research into raising children and implement Government reforms, such as classes to improve the bond between fathers and sons.

But according to Mrs Harris, outside influences such as popular culture, friends or street gangs have a much greater influence on children than family life or even genetic make-up. She said: "Though relationships with parents greatly affect the day-to-day happiness of children, just as marital relationships greatly affect the day-to-day happiness of adults, neither leaves deep marks on the personality. In the long run, it is what happens to them outside the parental home that makes children turn out the way they do."

Writing this month in Prospect magazine, she says that the type of home in which a child is raised has comparatively little impact on how they will grow up. "Whether the home is headed by one parent or two, whether the parents are happily married or constantly rowing, whether they believe in pushing their children to succeed or leaving them to find their own way in life, whether the home is filled with books or sports equipment, whether it is orderly or messy, a city flat or a farmhouse - the research shows, counter intuitively, that none of these things makes much difference," she says. "The child who grows up in the orderly, well-run home is, on average, no more conscientious as an adult than the one who grows up in the messy one."

To reinforce the point, Mrs Harris compares the behaviour of identical twins who share the same genetic make-up and family life. She highlights the case of two six-year-old boys featured in Professor Robert Winston's BBC documentary series Child of Our Times, one of whom is a "macho little creature who roughhouses with his friends, all boys", while the other is willing to play with girls, even taking turns to change the nappy on a doll.

In her new book, No Two Alike, she argues that children need to get along in the culture in which they are reared, rather than that of their parents. It explains why children pick up the accent, speech patterns and attitudes of other youngsters rather than those learnt in the home, it is suggested.

The conclusions run counter to Government reforms, which increasingly target parents to address children's anti-social behaviour.

But in a speech in Westminster on Tuesday, Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, said. "We are clear in Government that our job is to provide the right framework of policies and services to support parents in carrying out their responsibilities to their children." have your say