preview

Do Parents Matter Summary

Decent Essays
Open Document

The book Do Parents Matter? written by Judith Rich Harris discuss the topic of nature versus nurture when raising a child. Her books discuss how parents do not influence the child’s personality and how there are many different ways a child personality is created.

The book puts in question what are the important factors to a child’s development all the way until there teenage years. When growing up there are two main group of people that make us who we are; our parents and the outside world. When we are little, before we start school we do not know anything other than our family, this is called the first stage of development. By only knowing your family members this causes you to only act the way you see. However, a few years later, when …show more content…

There was a study done but the University of Colorado by Robert Plomin called the “Colorado Adoption Project” between 1975 to 1982 where he took two groups of 240 pregnant mothers. In one group the children all got adopted and in the other the biological parents raised the children (Harris). This study helps support Judith Harris’s opinion on how parents hold very little influence on their children growing up.

Judith does a very good job at showing the reader different influences to a child’s development one of which is outside of the home. It is proven that if you live in a good home but a bad environment it is proven that it is more harmful than the other way around (Harris). This is because peers have a much larger impact then parent’s. This also goes for moving a lot, it is shown that by changing neighborhoods or schools more often, the child tends to have more problems in school or with their behavior (Harris).
In a social context, it can be observed that children will follow the direction of other children (Harris) and will learn how to act in a society (Harris). They also tend to stay within the same peer group and that is why moving a lot can cause problems in different aspects (Harris). Theses example help Judith prove her point that peers have a much larger influence on a child’s development then

Get Access