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Is bad parenting responsible for kids that go bad?

By: Bill Allin, Sat Dec 10th, 2005 12:40:41 AM

As much as we may hear about a "bad seed" child or a child that was "born bad" as an explanation for why a child of good parents goes terribly wrong in preadolescent or adolescent years, children are not (cannot be) born bad. The reason, simply, is that characteristics of "badness" must be learned.

It's tragic. Most of us know at least one couple we consider to be good parents, but they have a child that goes bad. Are we mistaken? Could nice, loving people be bad parents?

The temptation compels us to consider the "bad seed" principle, suggesting that something genetic must have gone wrong in the womb before the child was born. Something we can't explain must have happened when early stem cells were specializing into brain cells so that a well-raised child turned anti-social.

What do we really know about raising children? Everyone agrees that parents exert the greatest influence on young children through their stages of major development. A 2002 study in Canada showed that teens agree (89 percent) that their parents influenced them most and they tend to listen to their parents more than others when considering options for their lives.

With all of this influence and power that parents have over their children, it would seem to follow that a child that gets into trouble with the law, with drugs, with a gang or with some other form of anti-social behavior somehow arrived on that path due to parental influence.

Yet how could good and well-meaning parents raise a bad kid? Stranger still, how could the same good parents raise one child that becomes a model citizen and another that is a social pariah?

Despite the fact that humans have been parenting since our species began, we have not pulled together enough research information to produce a book or course that tells new parents what children need, how they develop, how they react to situations as they get older and how their needs change. This information exists, in pieces, mostly in academic settings.

Children develop in four main areas: intellectually, physically, socially and psychologically/emotionally. Schools and parents have the ability to control the intellectual development of children, including their artistic skills and talents. Enough promotion exists today to help parents direct their children into activities that will develop them physically.

Social and emotional development are largely left to chance. Think of social ability as what we do that others can see and evaluate and emotional ability as how we cope with what goes on inside our heads. Comprehensive programs to guide parents in how to assist with social and emotional development of their children don't exist in a formal sense, though some help may be part of other programs.

When virtually every inmate in our prisons and jails has a problem with social ability and those with psychological problems can't cope with the realities of their lives emotionally, we look seriously at corrective measures.

We have psychologists, therapists and counselors who help broken people put their lives back together. They have both the knowledge and the skills to do this. We need to put them to work using the same skills and knowledge to help parents and teachers guide children in ways that will avoid having them "break" as they get older.

Any social or emotional problem that can be fixed after the fact can be prevented before it happens. This is the foundation that Canadian sociologist and teacher Bill Allin uses in his book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems.

Allin says "we have the knowledge, we just apply it in the wrong place." He says that we spend fortunes in tax money each year incarcerating or providing health services for broken people who could have been saved from tragedy if they had been taught coping and social skills as children.

Good parents have no more knowledge of social and emotional development of children than people we consider bad parents. They make the same mistakes, no matter if they have the best of reasons for them.

"Think of parenting the way you think of software development," says Allin. "One bad moment in writing software could destroy the results of the final program, just as one bad experience between parent and child could destroy the final product when the child is older."

"We can teach new parents how to deal with bad experiences so that they don't have a damaging result on the development of their children" he says. "We can teach them skills and knowledge about how to get along with others, rather than leaving this to chance."

Turning It Around provides material for parents and teachers as starting points for their learning about childhood development and needs.

Learn more about this unique approach to solving community problems and avoiding personal ones at the book's web site: http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Contact Bill Allin:

705 - 657 - 9468

http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

turningitaround@sympatico.ca

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround

Bill Allin

R. R. #1 Buckhorn

Ontario K0L1J0

Canada

About the author: Bill Allin taught primary, junior and intermediate classes of all socio-economic categories for nearly two decades in Canada. He gained an unusual perspective on children's needs, social skills and coping mechanisms that other professionals have overlooked. He holds a Master of Education degree from the Ontario Institute of Education, University of Toronto.

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