Evidence Based Parenting
When I became a mum, I was worried about lots of things. I was worried about COVID, I was worried my relationship wouldn’t survive children, I was worried I might not enjoy parenting. What I wasn’t worried about was finding the best way of parenting. After all, I am an expert in evaluating evidence. I can critique stats, I can tear apart a methodology, I can identify a biased dataset at a thousand paces. Surely, I could identify the optimal parenting strategies and implement them? Easy.
Friends. It is not easy.
I have spent a lot of time trying to evaluate parenting evidence, reading various books and resources, listening to podcasts, and simply doomscrolling on the internet listening to parenting influencers telling me that I was parenting all wrong.
I have flirted with some kind of parenting project for a while. Walking to and from nursery while on mat leave, I would compose podcasts in my head, or think about creating a social media account about this. I find myself consistently frustrated by the state of evidence evaluation in parenting circles. All of the challenges I see in improving welfare in veterinary contexts seem to exist in the parenting field too. Evidence comes in a range of forms, and most people seem ill-equipped to have the field-specific knowledge, and the ability to understand a range of methodologies, to properly evaluate it.
In my many sleepless nights, sitting in a rocking chair with a mysteriously awake child, I have frowned my way through articles, and disliked posts. Sadly, I have come to realise: There is no one way to perfectly parent. This was a crushing blow for someone who desperately wanted to be told there was a guaranteed path to happy, successful children.
With this subsection of my blog, I want to show how I personally evaluate evidence when I’m making a parenting choice, not because I think my choices are the Optimal Parenting Strategy, or even the my personal Optimal Parenting Strategy, but because I think it can be useful to see how other people make decisions. I’ll try to be obvious about what parts are my biases, and what parts are using my understanding of evidence, and my own personal reflections.
I don’t know how interesting any of this will be, but its the kind of thing I would like to read as a parent, so here it is.