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Emily Henry

Professor Babcock

ENGL 137 Section 011

4 November 2018

A Complete History of the Understanding of Child Development

The way in which a parents decide to raise their children has significant impact on

various aspects of children’s lives, following them well into adulthood. Often, it is the

characteristics of a person’s upbringing that molds his or her personality and mental health,

which places significant interest on parenting. Since the 20th century, child development has been

on the forefront of scientific study as a way to better understand the effects of different parenting

styles. With each new discovery in child studies, the best way to parent a child changes. Taking

into additional account the atmosphere of society at any given time, parenting styles are an ever-

shifting spectrum. A gradual but clear shift in child rearing has come about since the advent of

child development studies, constantly readjusting the view on parenting according to each new

scientific breakthrough as well as the demands of society at a given time.

Prior to the 20th century, there was no significant information regarding how children

were affected by their parents. Eventually this changed when psychologists decided that children

were an unexplored topic of interest. In the early 1900s, the study of child development came

about as parents became intent in understanding the best way to raise a child (Cohen). Anxiety

was prevalent among new parents who did not want to do the wrong thing and ruin their children

forever, so they turned to the new experts who softened their fears by telling them just how to

prepare their children for the adult world (interestingly enough, this still happens in the present).

Although they were acclaimed scientists, the “experts” of this era were essentially pioneers who
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had no prior evidence to base their claims on, so the advice they brought forth was not

necessarily expertise.

The prevalence of child development studies began around the 1930s, which was often

understood as the Cold Era of child rearing, carrying on through the 1940s. During this time,

parents were urged not to coddle their babies. They were told to shake their hands and refuse to

allow children to sit on their lap (Cohen). Dr. John B. Watson, a leader in this movement,

explicitly told parents not to kiss their children (Pace). As ridiculous as this advice may sound to

someone in the modern world, it was truly the belief of the time. The underlying idea was that

the more impersonal the parents were, the better they were preparing their child for adulthood,

where the workforce was even more impersonal. It seems slightly paradoxical that the advent of

parents caring more about their children by wanting to raise them correctly was met with the

advice to essentially care less about them. This was a small and ultimately disproven step

towards understanding children, but it was nevertheless an important era in the evolution of

parenting.

In complete contrast to the strict and cold nature of parenting advice in the years before,

Dr. Benjamin Spock introduced a new theory that viewed parenting in an entirely new way and

shaped the course of parenting in the late 1940s and 1950s. In his 1946 book The Common Sense

Book of Baby and Child Care, Spock wrote to parents that they should trust their own instincts.

Most of the time, a parent’s instincts about what is best for their baby are correct, he claimed

(Pace). This was empowering to parents who felt terrible for not holding their children per the

advice of previous experts. Dr. Spock encouraged parents, and many of them followed his

guidelines fervently. Critics of this approach believed it to be too permissive, and blamed Dr.

Spock when children of his followers were not as tame as those in the decades before.
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Nevertheless, he is still seen as an important figure, opening up the field of child development

and parenting for even further study.

Another figure during this time period was Diana Baumrind, whose classification of

parenting into three distinct styles in 1966 caused parents to take a more introspective approach.

Baumrind’s first parenting style was authoritarian, the strict, harsh, and all-powerful parent.

Authoritarian parents do not allow the child to challenge their authority and value obedience and

putting the child in his or her place. The second style was permissive, the undemanding and

relatively uninvolved parent. These parents have few expectations and allow the child to

essentially act on their own impulses. The last style is the authoritative parent. Being an

authoritative parent means that there are expectations, but they are explained and enforced in a

rational manner. Reasoning is provided for the rules, and although the child is expected to follow

them, he or she is encouraged to voice opinions and concerns (Grobman). The authoritative style

of parenting was and continues to be seen as the most acceptable, as authoritarian is too harsh

and permissive is too lenient. Baumrind’s classification system was exceedingly influential to

parents of the 1960s and inspired self-evaluation by encouraging parents to understand not only

what category they identified with, but how to better themselves in order to achieve the ideal

parental disposition. This system is still an accurate representation of parenting and used to this

day, with a minor change in that permissive parenting is now split into both permissive and

neglectful. At this point in the century, mothers were almost always stay-at-home mothers, so

Diana Baumrind’s theories of parenting were primarily concerned with how the woman raised

her children. However, this was about to change, as the role of women in society was evolving at

the same time.

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The late 1960s marked the end of the general mindset that a woman’s position in the

world was to raise children and nothing more. As the feminist movement gained momentum, the

stay-at-home mother became less and less popular in society. Women began going to work rather

than staying at home with the children all day, which initially caused experts to chastise those

who chose to do so. Until the 1970s, women who did not stay at home with their children were

warned of the detrimental effects that they were inflicting on their kids (Cohen). However, with

the new decade came new beliefs, and women were more likely than ever to have a job outside

of the house. With the feminist movement supporting equal pay and fighting sexism, women

were empowered to choose their own career path. While this was a huge step for womankind, it

shifted the focus off of child rearing and introduced a new era of parenting.

Children who grew up during the 1970s and 80s are often given the term “latchkey”

children as a result of the feminist movement sending mothers back to work. Latchkey defines

“children who are regularly left unattended or who are only attended by another underage child

most days, when ill, during school holidays, snow days, teacher workshop days, and vacation

periods, or whenever these children’s schedules do not jibe with the usual schedules of their

primary adult caregivers” (Long 2). Essentially, these children were left to take care of

themselves since their parents were both working and did not have the capabilities to watch over

them most of the time. Concerns for the latchkey children were raised, as critics believed being

left alone all the time caused children to grow up too fast, resulting in early cases of anxiety

(Long 7). Regardless of whether this was the best idea, it was quite common and very different

from any child rearing techniques before.

Along with this shift in the role of the mother came a shift also in the role of the father.

While the fathers were typically not seen as participating heavily in the child raising process
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prior, as the mother became less involved there was more opportunity for the father to become

involved as well. The man of the family usually filled the position of the enforcer that the mother

had previously held, demanding respect from the children and ultimately being the one to

discipline them when they did not adhere to the rules. This was the first step on the road to

understanding that the father’s role in development can be just as important as a mother’s. As

both parents gained the opportunity to contribute to their children’s lives, the overall

involvement of parents began to shift upward.

Since the 1990s, the media has been an ever-present force, making known all of the good

and (predominantly) bad in the world. Many parents who value the safety and well-being of their

children are constantly horrified hearing about the cases of kidnapping, sexual abuse, school

shootings, and freak accidents, imagining the utter terror of their child experiencing any one of

those things. Because the media fails to project to the public all of the instances in which nothing

goes wrong and events play out as per usual (which is the overwhelming majority), parents have

this idea that they have to protect their children from all the awful parts of the world, more than

ever before. In the past two decades, parents have done a complete turnaround from the decades

before by becoming increasingly involved in the lives of their children. This can first be seen in

the 1990s, with the introduction of the playdate. A playdate is categorized as “an arranged

meeting, organized and supervised by parents or caregivers, between two or more children in

order to play together at a specific time and place, for the most part at an indoor location”

(Safron). Parents of young children tend to organize all of their children’s activities, including

who they are permitted to see and where they are permitted to see them, and then supervise these

meetings to ensure that they know exactly what their child is doing. Most modern day parents

refuse to give their young children the freedom that they had growing up. This is in part due to
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the media that surrounds them, evoking a fear of what could happen that their parents never had

to face.

Often, parents in today’s society do not cease to be involved even after playdates become

too old for their child. As children age and become teenagers and young adults, many of their

parents treat them less like adults and continue to involve themselves. This has brought about the

term “helicopter parenting,” used to describe a parenting style in which the parents are over-

involved and over-controlling, hovering in a manner that is compared to a helicopter. Helicopter

parenting, or overprotective parenting, fails to appreciate the independence of children as they

age and “discounts children’s ability to care for themselves, exercise judgment, or bear

responsibility” (Pimentel 952). There are different levels of this style of parenting, but it seems

that the more years that pass, the more intensely these parents hover.

There has been an increasingly large amount of controversy surrounding the idea of

helicopter parenting as children age, specifically when they go to college. When it is not

developmentally appropriate, overparenting correlates to higher levels of anxiety and depression

in the child. Studies of college students have shown that those who report having very involved

parents are more likely to have lower grades and report a lower satisfaction with their family life.

These students also reported that they felt their parents did not support and respect their

autonomy enough as they aged, which is a crucial part of adjusting to life in college. However,

there are many perceived benefits of this shift towards increased parental involvement, especially

that of the father, since children in the United States have a history of growing up without the

prevalence of a male figure. Overparenting has some upsides, such as social development as well

as engagement in and satisfaction with college (Schiffrin 549). On a larger scale, child abuse and
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nearly every other threat to the health and safety of children has decreased; in fact, children

under fifteen now are almost four times safer than children in the 1950s (Pimentel 949).

There is still not enough evidence to determine where to draw the line of parental

involvement in a child’s development, but the increase in overprotective parenting has recently

brought out the opposing side, a reaction to helicopter parenting known as free range parenting.

As the polar opposite to helicopter parents, free range parents seek to give their children

autonomy at a very young age. Many are utterly against this concept, considering it a form of

child neglect, but the free range movement is still gaining momentum. Prior to a few months ago,

each state had laws governing child neglect, with circumstances under which the police could be

called, such as seeing a young child walking home from school alone. Earlier this year the state

of Utah passed a law saying that this was no longer acceptable as it is not considered a crime

anymore to allow children to play unsupervised or walk home alone (De La Cruz). Free range

parents believe in keeping the government out of their home life and doing what they feel suits

their family best. It does seem as though the teachings of Dr. Benjamin Spock are coming back

around to the present.

Since parenting became a topic of interest for the public, the view of what exactly

constitutes the right way to parent is constantly changing. Experts in child development have

shifted their focus from treating babies like adults to treating young adults like babies, and from

seeing the mother as the primary caretaker to understanding the importance of both parents in the

developmental process. With each new development comes a new technique, and with the end of

each technique comes one that defies it in one way or another. It is important to understand that

events outside of the family setting, such as feminism and the rise of the media, coincide with

these shifts in order to fully understand them. Presently, society faces two differing styles of
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parenting, essentially overparenting and under-parenting. As science and society continue to

evolve, will parenting continue to push toward the extremes, will some kind of middle ground be

reached, or will an entirely new ideology come about? In an ever-changing nation of strong and

conflicting beliefs, it is difficult to predict what the field of child development will find next, but

it is almost certain that the role of the parent will continue to be modified hand-in-hand with

whatever societal changes come about.

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Works Cited

Cohen, Patricia. “Visions and Revisions of Child-Raising Experts.” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 5 Apr. 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/books/visions-and-

revisions-of-child-raising-experts.html.

De La Cruz, Donna. “Utah Passes 'Free-Range' Parenting Law.” The New York Times, The New

York Times, 29 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-free-

range-parenting-law.html.

Grobman, K. H. “Diana Baumrind's (1966) Prototypical Descriptions of 3 Parenting

Styles.” Diana Baumrind & Parenting Styles, Devpsy.org, 2003,

www.devpsy.org/teaching/parent/baumrind_styles.html.

Long, Thomas J, and Lynette Long. “Latchkey Children.” ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary

and Early Childhood Education, 1983, pp. 1-7.

Pace, Eric. “Benjamin Spock, World's Pediatrician, Dies at 94.” The New York Times, The New

York Times, 17 Mar. 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/03/17/us/benjamin-spock-world-s-

pediatrician-dies-at-94.html.

Pimentel, David. “Criminal Child Neglect and the ‘Free Range Kid’: Is Overprotective Parenting

the New Standard of Care?” Utah Law Review, 2012, pp. 947–952.

Safron, Deborah J. “The Playdate: Parents, Children, and the New Expectations of Play.” SAGE

Journals, vol. 46, no. 1, 2017.

Schiffrin, Holly H, et al. “Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting on College

Students' Well Being.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, Apr. 2014,

pp. 548–557.