Parents Sometimes Unsure How Little Ones Develop

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No matter how adult we parents become, or how much knowledge we acquire, a new national survey indicates that we still have much to learn when it comes to parenting babies and toddlers.

What Grownups Understand About Child Development: A National Benchmark Survey is a recently released report on a survey of 3,000 adults; about one-third of them were parents of young children, ages newborn to six. The survey, taken during the summer of 2000, shows that while many parents are clear about what constitutes quality parenting, there are also some key “information gaps.”

Here are a few of the areas where many of us have misperceptions:

• Research shows that babies “take in” and “react to” their world in the first days of life, yet 62 percent of the parents thought that it didn't happen until babies were two months or older.

• While the vast majority of parents and other adults recognize the importance of play in child development, they tend to see its benefits in terms of social development. “In fact,” says the report, “child development research shows that play forms the foundation for developing not just social skills, but also for language and for mastering important intellectual concepts and thinking skills.”

• Over 25 percent of parents of young children expect a three-year-old to sit quietly for an hour; research shows children this young aren't ready.

On the plus side, we know quite a lot that helps us to raise children well. For example:

• Almost all adults recognize the relationship between “emotional closeness and a child's intellectual development.”

• Most parents and other adults understand the importance and contribution to intellectual development of reading with a child (95 percent), talking with a child (92 percent), and providing a sense of safety and security (86 percent).

It seems surprising, however, that when it comes to intellectual development about 16 percent don't recognize the contribution of a healthy diet, and only 69 percent of the adults see quality child care as critical.

The report has one particular finding sure to amuse parents of young children. It's this: Childless adults planning to have a child in the next few years tend to believe they are well prepared for parenthood. The report notes that “future parents” exhibited the most “confusion and misinformation” among the subgroups in the survey.

The survey was commissioned by three organizations: Civitas, a nonprofit communications group; Zero to Three, a nonprofit organization focusing on young children's development; and BRIO Corp., a toy company. The survey was conducted by Daniel Yankelovich's DYG, Inc.

This column by Karen Lytle Blaha is provided as a public service by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, a nonprofit institution working with schools and communities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.