Originally Posted by ultramarina
It's more about vocabulary, reading aloud, going to the museum, talking to your child in a "Why do you think so?" way rather than a "Stop! Put that down!" kind of way...These things don't really take money.

I think this is such an important point and I think that everything the article describes the rich as doing is just an extension of the rich perceiving their children to be capable of excelling academically, and that perceptions of our children's abilities probably do correlate to our own educational backgrounds. It makes people uncomfortable to suggest that the parents of the poor would benefit learn to interact differently with their children home if we want to close the gap.

I have been wondering about this a lot lately after observing how differently and probably stereotypically a close friend on welfare parents her child compared to the upper middle class parents I know. I grew up in a very poor area and noticed this parenting style a lot. I've probably already said something offensive in that sentence and I apologize. It's obvious that this other parent views her child as much less capable of learning than I view my own so she dumbs things down that I would explain in a lot of detail. I don't know how someone comes to believe her child is smart and capable of understanding the answers to her own questions versus thinking her child is not capable and should not be given the full answer, and should not be encouraged to ask questions. Is it a product of being treated like a smart student versus being treated a dumb student in your own educational experience? I think this is part of it but there must be more to it. And then once you know how state this comes about, how you change a person's perception of her child's potential, especially when no one around her is telling her child is exceptionally bright and when her child may be already struggling compared to peers? It seems like a commonly occurring cycle that just feeds on itself for generations. I think things like better preschool for all would be a good start but not enough. We need to be able to talk openly about differences between parenting styles correlated to SES and not automatically blame all differences directly on money.

Last edited by MotherofToddler; 04/30/13 09:11 AM.