Wednesday, January 6, 2010

More parental involvement can equal kids with a higher IQ

The University of Newcastle recently polled 11,000 families and came to some interesting conclusions. I will say that I think the conclusions are very suspect, but let's assume that they are in the realm of reality. I say suspect since the researchers questioned the mothers only to draw their conclusions and why they wouldn't ask the entire family is beyond me. I would think the same survey would yield a somewhat different perspective if you asked fathers and children independently and then you can draw a conclusion. Don't get me wrong and the surveyed results are not yet another media hit piece that all fathers are useless and evil.

One of the researchers findings were that children who spent more time with their fathers had a higher IQ and were more socially mobile than children who didn't. I would like to give all fathers credit for this apparent boost in IQ, but did they really have to research this? I would contend that fathers who are involved in their children's lives have a higher IQ than fathers who do not. Genetics playing a factor and then you have the reason these children have a higher IQ, but I concede that parental involvement is surely helping to boost children's IQ.

The question of do children need both parents seems to be a waste of research money and why this seems to still be a discussion is beyond me. This rather is more of a common sense issue and of course children need both parents. I've blogged before that the worst parent in the world will be loved and missed by a child somewhere. Yes their are some truly evil parents that deserve to driven over by a road paving machine, much less be allowed to be around kids. However, when are we as a society going to start arguing about how do we get more and both parents engaged in their children's lives? Instead, we have parents fighting over time with their children and who is the better parent. Being a great parent has nothing to do with gender, but more to do with parenting skills. Our children deserve better and we as parents need to get on topics that actually benefit our children.
Referenced article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3110360/Children-who-spend-time-with-their-fathers-have-a-higher-IQ.html


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