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Yuko Munakata: The science behind how parents affect child development | TED — Transcript

by TED · 2,340 words · 308 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Transcriber:
0:13A few years ago,
0:14a student came up to me after the second day of my class
0:17on parenting and child development.
0:20She hesitated for a second and then she confessed,
0:24"I'm really interested in this material,
0:26but I was hoping your class would help me to become a better parent
0:30if I have kids someday."
0:32She was disappointed.
0:34We were going to talk about how parents do not have control
0:38in shaping who their children become.
0:41She jumped to the conclusion that my class wouldn't help her.
0:46I was caught off guard.
0:48Would confronting the science of parenting and child development,
0:52not be relevant to being a good parent?
0:55I hope that my class changed her mind.
0:59Parents want what's best for their children,
1:01young and old parents,
1:03rich and poor,
1:05married and divorced.
1:07And parenting books promise to show how to achieve the best outcomes,
1:12to address the difficult decisions that parents face every day
1:17and in the process, to reveal why each of us turned out the way we did.
1:23The problem is that parenting books send conflicting messages.
1:28Tiger parenting or free-range parenting?
1:31Parent like the Dutch to raise the happiest kids in the world
1:36or like the Germans, to raise self-reliant children?
1:40The one consistent message is that if your child isn't succeeding,
1:45you're doing something wrong.
1:47There's good news, though.
1:48The science supports a totally different message
1:52that is ultimately empowering.
1:56Trying to predict how a child will turn out
1:59based on choices made by the parents
2:02is like trying to predict a hurricane
2:05from the flap of a butterfly's wings.
2:09Do you know the butterfly,
2:11the proverbial one, that flaps its wings in China,
2:14perturbing the atmosphere just enough to shift wind currents
2:19that make their way to the skies over tropical white beaches
2:23intensifying the water evaporating from the ocean in a spiral of wind
2:28and fueling a hurricane in the Caribbean
2:31six weeks after that flutter of wings.
2:34If you are a parent,
2:36you are the butterfly flapping your wings.
2:40Your child is the hurricane, a breathtaking force of nature.
2:45You will shape the person your child becomes
2:47like the butterfly shapes the hurricane
2:50in complex, seemingly unpredictable but powerful ways.
2:56The hurricane wouldn't exist without the butterfly.
2:59"Wait," you might ask,
3:01what about all the successful parents with successful children
3:04or the struggling parents with struggling children?"
3:07They might seem to show the simple power of parenting.
3:11But children can be shaped by many forces that are often intertwined,
3:16like successful parents, successful genes,
3:19successful peers
3:20and a culture of success that they grow up in.
3:23This can make it hard to know which forces influence who children become.
3:27"OK," you might think,
3:29"yes, it's hard to pull apart all these possible forces,
3:32but we can make pretty good guesses about the importance of parents."
3:36Perhaps.
3:38Well, how many of you know how a bicycle works?
3:43Right, you've seen people riding bikes,
3:45maybe you've ridden one yourself
3:47or even tried to teach someone else how to do it.
3:50Just like parenting --
3:52you've seen people doing it,
3:53maybe you've done it yourself
3:55or even tried to teach someone else how to do it.
3:58We can feel confident about what we know.
4:02When we say we know how a bicycle works,
4:04we think we have something in our heads like this.
4:08Something that relates the pedals to the chain and to the wheels.
4:13But when you ask people to explain how a bicycle works,
4:17they produce drawings like this.
4:22And like this.
4:23(Laughter)
4:25People have no idea how bicycles work.
4:29Or zippers or rainbows,
4:32or even topics they argue passionately about.
4:36When you push people to explain how these things work,
4:39they usually can't.
4:41Just caring about something, like parenting,
4:45or feeling confident about it,
4:47doesn't guarantee that we understand it.
4:49And everyone can't possibly be right about how parenting works,
4:53given how wildly beliefs have varied.
4:57Mothers in a hunter-gatherer society
4:59regretted when their children cut themselves themselves
5:02while playing with knives,
5:04but they thought the cuts were worth the freedom to explore.
5:08Even within one society like ours,
5:11parenting wasn't a common term until the 1970s.
5:15Before then, parents weren't viewed as active shapers of children's futures.
5:21Years from now,
5:22people may look back on today's views
5:25and feel just as amazed as we feel
5:27when hearing about other times and places.
5:31The science could help parents,
5:33and potential parents like my student,
5:36to understand how they actually shape who their children become.
5:40Millions of children have been studied to disentangle all those shaping forces
5:45that are usually intertwined.
5:47These studies follow identical twins and fraternal twins
5:51and plain old siblings
5:53growing up together or adopted and raised apart.
5:57And it turns out that growing up in the same home
6:02does not make children noticeably more alike in how successful they are,
6:07or how happy or self-reliant and so on.
6:11Imagine if you had been taken from birth
6:13and raised next door by the family to the left
6:17and your brother or sister had been raised next door
6:19by the family to the right,
6:22by and large, that would have made you no more similar or different
6:26than growing up together under the same roof.
6:31On the one hand, these findings seem unbelievable.
6:34Think about all the ways that parents differ from home to home
6:37and how often they argue and whether they helicopter
6:41and how much they shower their children with love.
6:44You would think that would matter enough
6:46to make children growing up in the same home more alike
6:49than if they had been raised apart.
6:52But it doesn't.
6:54In 2015, a meta analysis,
6:56a study of studies,
6:58found this pattern across thousands of studies
7:01following over 14 million twin pairs across 39 countries.
7:07They measured over 17,000 outcomes.
7:10And the researchers concluded
7:12that every single one of those outcomes is heritable.
7:16So genes influence who children become.
7:19But genes didn't explain everything.
7:21The environment mattered too,
7:23just something in the environment
7:25that didn't shape children growing up in the same home to be more alike.
7:30Some people have looked at these findings
7:33and concluded that parenting doesn't matter.
7:36That you would have become the same person you are today,
7:39regardless of who raised you.
7:41On the other hand,
7:43and really, I should say on the other hands,
7:45because there are many caveats to that story,
7:48but I'll focus on one.
7:50On the other hand,
7:52these findings are not all that shocking.
7:54If you think about how the same parent
7:57could shape different children in different ways.
8:01One child might find it helpful when her mother provides structure.
8:05Her sister might find it's stifling.
8:08One child might think his parents are caring
8:10when they ask questions about his friends.
8:12His brother might think they're being nosy.
8:14One child might view a divorce as a tragedy,
8:17while his sister sees it as a relief.
8:21Same event, different experience.
8:25My husband and I experienced this concept 20 years ago
8:29when we were 30,000 feet over the Atlantic,
8:32flying from Chicago to Stockholm to work on a research project.
8:36The flight attendants were clearing the dinner trays,
8:39people were getting ready to sleep.
8:42We hit a patch of bumpy air
8:44and a bunch of teenagers whooped in excitement.
8:47Then all of a sudden, the plane was plummeting,
8:50children and food carts hit the ceiling.
8:53The plane seemed to stabilize,
8:55but then plummeted again.
8:57The ceiling panels flew up into their compartments from the force,
9:01revealing wiring inside.
9:03Debris came crumbling down on us.
9:06People were screaming and sobbing.
9:08The plane plummeted again.
9:12After an eternity, the pilot came on and announced,
9:15"We don't know what that was.
9:17We don't know what's coming. Stay in your seats."
9:20My husband came away from that experience feeling like planes are incredibly safe.
9:27(Laughter)
9:30The airline sent a letter informing us that we hadn't simply been falling
9:35across those thousands of feet of clear air turbulence.
9:38The plane had been subjected to forces greater than 2G.
9:42We learned that planes can withstand forces many times larger.
9:47So my husband feels safe flying.
9:49He seems genuinely baffled by how anyone could feel otherwise.
9:54I get that concept, but only in the abstract.
9:58I've never been able to fly the same way since.
10:01Same event, different experience.
10:05Just because an event doesn't shape people in the same way,
10:09that doesn't mean it had no effect.
10:11Your parenting could be shaping your children,
10:14just not in ways that lead them to become more alike.
10:18Your parenting could be leading your first child to become more serious,
10:22your second child to become more relaxed.
10:25Your first child to want to be like you,
10:27your second child to want to be nothing like you.
10:30You are flapping your butterfly wings to your hurricane children.
10:36This isn't how we typically think about parenting.
10:38It doesn't make for simple advice.
10:41How could parenting books tell people how to raise successful, happy,
10:46self-reliant children,
10:47if the same parenting can lead to different outcomes
10:50for children in the same home?
10:52At this point, you might be thinking,
10:54like students in my class sometimes say,
10:56"OK, we get it.
10:58development is complicated.
11:00And maybe it's not worth studying because it's too complicated."
11:04But meaning can be made from chaos.
11:08Scientists now understand how babies go from these apparent lumps
11:13to become walking, talking, thinking, social independent beings.
11:20They understand this process well enough to intervene,
11:23to test newborns, for example,
11:25and treat them for a genetic condition that used to lead to mental retardation.
11:31Scientists are developing ever more sophisticated understanding
11:34of how parents could shape their children's futures.
11:39Science can tell us a lot.
11:41But it will never tell us everything.
11:44So what can we do with this?
11:46First, know that parents matter.
11:50That might seem obvious,
11:51but smart people are arguing otherwise,
11:54and what seems obvious is not always true, as we've seen.
11:57Second, know that how parents matter is complex and difficult to predict.
12:03For anyone who has ever been a parent, stop blaming yourself,
12:08as if you are in control of your child's path.
12:12You have influence,
12:13but you don't have control.
12:15For anyone who has ever been a child,
12:18stop blaming your parents.
12:20(Laughter)
12:22At least for the idea that you are defined by them.
12:26Stop blaming other parents.
12:28A recent survey of thousands of parents revealed that 90 percent of mothers
12:33and 85 percent of fathers feel judged.
12:36Close to half feel judged all the time or nearly all the time
12:40by people they know and by complete strangers.
12:45These judgments probably don't reflect what's best for the kids.
12:48How could they, given how profoundly parenting has varied around the world
12:52and across time?
12:54And given how the same parents can shape children
12:57under the same roof in such different ways.
13:00Even when parents try their best, they can't satisfy everybody.
13:04There's only so much time.
13:08This is especially true for dragon parents.
13:14The author, Emily Rapp, came up with this term
13:17after her baby was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease.
13:22She knew then that Ronan would never walk or talk.
13:27He would likely die before turning four.
13:33I did not know
13:36that this could also be the fate of my firstborn son.
13:42He was born with a condition
13:44that prevents the intestine from absorbing nutrients
13:47or water for the body.
13:50It affects one in five million babies.
13:54One in five million.
13:57It is so rare
13:59that one doctor felt confident telling us that we would be screwed
14:02if that's what our baby had.
14:05He was the one who had to break the news to us later.
14:10Dragon parents have a lot to say about parenting,
14:13even though they know their children will die young,
14:16or in my case,
14:17even if we have no idea whether our babies will live.
14:21Emily Rapp wrote,
14:24"We will not launch our children into a bright and promising future,
14:29but see them into early graves."
14:33This requires a new ferocity,
14:36a new way of thinking, a new animal.
14:40We are dragon parents,
14:42fierce and loyal and loving as hell.
14:47Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now,
14:52for the sake of parenting,
14:54for the humanity implicit in the act itself.
14:58Parenting, I've come to understand, is about loving my child today,
15:04now.
15:06In fact, for any parent anywhere, that's all there is.
15:13I had thought that my expertise in child development
15:15would help prepare me for becoming a parent.
15:19Instead, becoming a parent helped me to see the science in a whole new light.
15:24So third, appreciate how powerful the moments can be
15:30because of what they mean for you and your child right now,
15:34not because of what they mean for your child long term,
15:37which you do not know.
15:40The activist Andrew Solomon noted,
15:43"Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents,
15:47we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us."
15:52Maybe we could be less sad if we were more realistic,
15:56if we let go of the notion
15:58that our children's futures are in our control.
16:01If we can embrace the complexity of our children's development
16:05that can transform how we approach those parenting decisions we face each day
16:10and empower us to realize how much more there is to having a child
16:14than trying to shape a specific outcome.
16:17So much more,
16:19which I appreciate every day in moments with my firstborn son,
16:25who is thriving
16:26and with his younger brother
16:28and the unique paths they are taking.
16:31We are not screwed.
16:34(Laughter)
16:36The science of parents and children,
16:38butterflies and their hurricanes,
16:41can free people to focus on what is most important
16:45and meaningful in our lives.
16:47This can make the experience of being a parent
16:51and the experience of having been a child
16:54more realistic and satisfying for everyone involved.
16:59And that, I think, is very relevant to being a good parent.

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