SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD?

(I am sure many people reading this will think that I should be talking about the Paris situation at the moment rather than hardy perennial questions such as the one above but everybody else seems to be talking about Paris so maybe some readers need a break from that at the moment. If you want a really down-to-earth discussion of the present French situation, try Fred Reed. I have also just put up a predictably outspoken comment from Chris Brand about the French situation. And the role of France's rigid socialistic economic system in creating their present problems is touched on here. I wonder if the French realize how much they are being laughed at by the "cowboys" from the other side of the Atlantic at the moment?)

I did myself have a very permissive upbringing and, as a libertarian, I always supported my son in whatever he wanted to do. Though I would not of course have supported him if he had wished to do anything destructive. But Christians are often taught that a more directive style of parenting is appropriate. Barring children from watching TV or certain parts of TV is, for instance, common. My son was and is a "Simpsons" devotee so I was delighted for him to watch as much of all that political incorrectness as he wished.

Now I am not going to pontificate on exactly what is the right child-rearing style. The genetics research tells us that what we do makes very little difference anyway. What I DO want to do is to make it known to parents who favour a stricter approach that attacks on such approaches are very poorly founded. Leftists are of course great advocates of "there is no such thing as right and wrong" and Leftist psychologists have been claiming for decades that a permissive approach founded on such thinking is far and away better for your child's psychological health. Such claims are rubbish and I want to examine just one example of the "research" supporting such claims in order to show what a crock the whole research tradition concerned is. Below is the centrepiece of one such set of findings, from "Self-Reported Narcissism and Perceived Parental Permissiveness and Authoritarianism" by Ramsey, Watson, Biderman and Reeves and reported in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, Volume: 157. Issue: 2 of 1996. Page Numbers: 227ff.

"A negative relationship appeared between the OMNI and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ( r = -.18, p <.001), and the OMNI correlated directly with the PAQ maternal measure of permissiveness ( r = .18, p < .001), with the PAQ paternal measure of permissiveness ( r = .11, p < .05), but not with the combined ( r = .04, p < .15) measure of permissiveness. All three authoritarianism scales were associated with greater tendencies toward narcissism: PAQ maternal authoritarianism ( r = .11, p < .05), PAQ paternal authoritarianism ( r = .14, p < .01), and the combined index ( r = .16, p < .01). No significant linkages appeared between the OMNI and any measure of authoritativeness ( r s = -.07 to .05, p s < .15). When the data for men and women were examined separately, no significant gender differences appeared in the OMNI correlations with self-esteem or with any parenting style. The coefficient alpha for the OMNI was .66"

So the study purports to show that "authoritarian" parents produce Narcissistic children -- which would indeed be a matter of concern if it were true. But the study is hilariously flawed. The data for it were obtained by handing out a bunch of questionnaires to 370 Introductory Psychology students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga! Their report of how their parents treated them is accepted unquestioningly and data derived from a non-sample of Chattanooga students is assumed to tell us something about humanity in general!

The great advantage of such "research" from the point of view of the psychologist is that students are pretty alert to what the psychologist expects and tend to give him the answers he hopes for. But on this occasion even that did not work out. Look at the correlations reported. They average around .15, which is effectively zero. The correlations are "significant" in a statistical sense but that is simply a reflection of the large sample size. Even if we take the correlations seriously, they are telling us that there is only around a 2% overlap between the upbringing and the personality variables -- which means that knowing about the upbringing of the child gives you virtually no power to predict how the child will turn out. What a lot of nonsense it all is! I will back Solomon (Proverbs 13:24; 29:15) as a better guide to child-rearing than that any day.

As a Parthian shot, it might also be noted the the measure of Narcissism (OMNI) used by the researchers showed very poor internal consistency (alpha of .66) and also showed virtually no correlation with another measure of what should have been largely the same concept -- the widely-used Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale. So whether their measure of Narcissism did in fact measure Narcissism seems dubious. Try not to laugh!

Update

A reader has emailed me to make the interesting point that narcissism is intrinsically anti-authoritarian -- so anti-authority attitudes of themselves could taken as an indicator of narcissism. The email: "A narcissist will ALWAYS consider any 'authority' figure to be an 'authoritarian'. Part of the definition of narcissism is responding to anyone expressing any 'outside' [of their views] opinions with rage (they see any other opinion as repressive). It makes them 'feel' to not be in control / important.... ie, the fact that they have this response defines them as narcissists..."

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ELSEWHERE

A nice bit of sarcasm: "If France has these kinds of systemic problems with its Muslim population, then it is time to partition France. It's time for an independent Muslim state to be created. After all, isn't that what France and other European nations have determined is the proper solution for Israel? These are not just riots. This is an intifada - just like the one begun in 2000 within and around Israel. France and other countries, including the United States, have demanded that Israel meet those attacks with land concessions to the rioters and suicide bombers. That is the only viable, long-term solution, they say. They claim this violence will never cease until those oppressed by Israel are granted an independent, autonomous state of their own. Why should the solution be any different in France? The global jihad has come home to Paris. Let's see if French officials impose upon their own population the same solution they demand upon the population of the Jewish state. After all, isn't the key to addressing the concerns of the jihadists to appease them?"

For once Wonkette says something that really is amusing: "It's day 12 of the French riots but I still haven't heard anyone say how it's Bush's fault yet. Is the Left so apathetic about France they cannot cite a simple connection to the White House? .."

The evidence keeps piling up: "Nature beats nurture in determining how successful a child will be at school and university. Inherited intelligence accounts for 75 per cent of educational attainment while home environment is responsible for the rest, according to a new study. The research, published in the Royal Economic Society's Economic Journal, contradicts claims that upper or middle-class parents "buy" their children's success. The study looked at more than 15,000 children, almost 600 of whom had been adopted." [See also here for a more extensive summary and here for the full original paper ]

Just note this typically Leftist but still astounding bit of arrogance from a man who very nearly became President of the United States: "Kerry concluded by giving the students a little lesson in politics. "All politics is a reaction to felt needs. You need to get people to feel the need. Our job is to make sure the right felt need is taken into consideration."" [So Leftists adjudicate on which are the "right" needs! Stalin lives!]

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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