Bringingupchildrenishardwork,andyouareoftentoblameforan...

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Bringing up children is hard work, and you are often to blame for any bad behavior of your children. If so, Judith Rich Harris has good news for you. Parents, she argues, have no important long-term effects on the development of the characteristics of their children. Far more important are their playground friends and neighborhood . Ms Harris takes to bits the assumption which has dominated developmental psychology for almost half a century.

Ms Harris’ s attack looks likely to strengthen doubts that the field was already having. If parents matter, why is it that a pair of twins, reared in the same home, are no more similar in personality than two adopted children reared in separate homes?

Difficult as it is to track the precise effects of parental upbringing, it may be harder to measure the exact influence of the peer group in childhood and youth. Ms Harris points to how children from immigrant homes soon learn not to speak at school in the way their parents speak. But acquiring a language is surely a skill, rather than a characteristic of the sort developmental psychologists hunt for. Certainly it is different from growing up tensely or relaxed, or from learning to be honest or hard-working . Easy though it may be to prove that parents have little impact on those qualities, it will be hard to prove that peers have vastly more.

Moreover, mum and dad surely cannot be ditched completely. Young adults may, as Ms Harris argues, beeager to appear like their peers. But even in those early years, parents have the power to open doors: they may firstly choose the peers with whom their young mix. Moreover, most people suppose that they come to be similar to their parents more in middle age. So the balance of influences is probably complicated, as most parents already doubted without being able to prove it scientifically. Even if it turns out that the genes they pass on and the friends their children play with matter as much as love and good example, parents are not completely off the hook.

5. According to Ms．Harris, _________________.

A. parents are to blame for any bad behavior of their children

B. children’s personality is shaped by their friends and neighbors

C. nature has a significant effect on children’s personality development

D. parents will greatly affect the children’s life in the long run

6. The underlined word “ditched” in Paragraph 4 could best be replaced by________________.

A. proved B. emphasized C. compared D. ignored

7. Which statement will developmental psychologists agree with?

A. Twins raised in two separate families are different in personality

B. Twins raised in the same home are different in personality

C. Upbringing has a less significant effect on children’s personality

D. Children from immigrant homes are more influenced by their peers