The authors of the book Freakonomics analyzed statistical datasets to determine how various parenting methods and other factors are correlated with a child's academic success. They feel most parenting advice is based more on opinion than data. The Freakonomics authors looked at statistical correlation, which, as they note, is not the same as causality. Ketchup is correlated with hamburgers, but ketchup doesn't cause hamburgers.
Factors correlated with academic success:
- Highly educated parents
- High socioeconomic status of parents
- Mother was age 30 or older when first child born
- Child did not have low birth weight
- Parents speak English at home
- Child was not adopted
- Parents involved in PTA
- Many books at home (But it doesn't matter if the books are ever read.)
Factors uncorrelated with academic success:
- Family is intact
- Parents recently moved to a better neighborhood
- Non-working mother
- Attended Head Start
- Parents take child to museums
- Spanking
- Child watches TV a lot
- Parents read to child regularly
The authors note as an overgeneralization that it's more what parents ARE, not what they DO, that is correlated with better academic performance. Smart parents with good jobs who speak English and value education are more likely to raise well-educated children regardless of marital status, neighborhood, whether mom works, how much TV the kids watch, or how much the parents read to kids or take them to museums.
The Freakonomics authors also looked at the effect of charter schools. They determined that children who apply to a charter school perform better academically, whether they get accepted to the school or not, than children who don't apply to a charter school. It's apparently a reflection of the parents' educational values, rather than the specific school, that matters most.
