Looking at the total child
In the October issue, Rebecca Ryan's "Conversation" emphasizing what parents can do to prepare their children for school and life is admitting that schools alone cannot educate children. Parents also have a role in preparing children for life. However, her implication was that if low-income parents did more, their children would not be falling further behind the children of wealthier families. As a society, are we going to start blaming parents for their children's inadequacies as we have the schools?
If we really want children of low-income families to flourish as do those children from wealthy families, then as psychologists we need to return to Urie Bronfenbrenner's "The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design" and consider at least all the major components of the environment that impact the development of children.
Until we address the adequacy of the total environment, children from low-income families will continue to fall behind regardless of what their parents or their schools can provide.
Harriet Heath, PhD
DePaul University
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Correction
The November article "How Does Culture Sway Teens' Well-Being" should have said that Adriana Galvan, PhD, not Matthew Lieberman, PhD, is part of the team investigating adolescent prosocial behavior and its connection to the developing brain.
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