What Makes a

Good Parent?
A scientific analysis ranks the 10 most effective child-rearing practices.
Surprisingly, some don’t even involve the kids
By Robert Epstein

Amazon.com lists an astounding number of dieting books— more than 16,000. But
parenting guides far exceed that number: there are some 40,000 of them, including
books such as Jane Rankin’s Parenting Experts, that do nothing but evaluate the
often conflicting advice the experts offer. People, it seems, are even more nervous
about their parenting than they are about their waistlines.
Why is there such chaos and doubt when it comes to parent- them is essential— and it also yielded some surprises, especial-
ing? Why, in fact, do most parents continue to parent pretty ly regarding the importance of a parent’s ability to manage
much the way their own parents did — or, if they disliked the stress in his or her own life.
way they were raised, the exact opposite way? Shouldn’t we all
just find out what the studies say and parent accordingly? Ten Important Competencies
A growing body of research conducted over the past 50 To figure out which parenting skills were most important,
years shows fairly clearly that some parenting practices pro- we looked at data from about 2,000 parents who recently took
duce better outcomes than others — that is, better relationships an online test of parenting skills I developed several years ago
between parent and child and happier, healthier, better func- (accessible at http://MyParentingSkills.com) and who also an-
tioning children. And just as we use medical science cautiously swered questions about their children. Parents did not know
and strategically to make everyday health decisions, we can this when they took the test, but the skills were organized into
also make wise use of research to become better parents. 10 categories, all of which derive from published studies that
A new study I conducted with Shannon L. Fox, a student at show that such skills are associated with good outcomes with
the University of California, San Diego, which we presented at the children. The 10 skill areas measured by the test were also eval-
annual meeting of the American Psychological Association this uated by 11 parenting experts unknown to Fox and me, and
past August, compared the effectiveness of 10 kinds of parenting we in turn were unknown to them (in other words, using a dou-
practices that have gotten the thumbs-up in various scientific stud- ble-blind evaluation procedure).
ies. It also showed how parenting experts rate those practices and On the test, parents indicated for 100 items how much they
looked at just how many parents actually use those practices. In agreed with statements such as “I generally encourage my child
other words, we compared three things: what experts advise, to make his or her own choices,” “I try to involve my child in
IST O C K P H O T O

what really seems to work and what parents actually do. healthful outdoor activities” and “No matter how busy I am,
Our study confirmed some widely held beliefs about par- I try to spend quality time with my child.” Test takers clicked
enting— for example, that showing your kids that you love their level of agreement on a five-point scale from “agree” to

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G ETT Y IMAG ES

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“disagree.” Because all the items were derived from published Love, Autonomy and Surprises
studies, the answers allowed us to compute an overall skill lev- Our most important finding confirmed what most parents
el for each test taker, as well as separate skill levels in each of already believe, namely, that the best thing we can do for our
the 10 competency areas. Agreement with statements that de- children is to give them lots of love and affection. Our experts
scribed sound parenting practices (again, according to those agreed, and our data showed that this skill set is an excellent
studies) yielded higher scores. predictor of good outcomes with children: of the quality of the
The 10 kinds of parenting competencies, which we call relationship we have with our children, of their happiness, and
“The Parents’ Ten”, include obvious ones such as managing even of their health. What’s more, parents are better at this
problem behavior and expressing love and affection, as well as skill than they are at any of the others. We also confirmed what

Parents’ ability to manage stress was a good predictor

of the quality of their relationship with their children.
practices that affect children indirectly, such as maintaining a many other studies have shown: that encouraging children to
good relationship with one’s co-parent and having practical life become independent and autonomous helps them to function
skills [see box on opposite page for a complete list]. at a high level.
In addition to asking test takers basic demographic ques- But our study also yielded a number of surprises. The
tions about their age, education, marital status, parenting ex- most surprising finding was that two of the best predictors of
perience, and so on, we also asked them questions about the good outcomes with children are in fact indirect: maintain-
outcomes of their parenting, such as “How happy have your ing a good relationship with the other parent and managing
children been (on average)?,” “How successful have your chil- your own stress level. In other words, your children benefit
dren been in school or work settings (on average)?” and “How not just from how you treat them but also from how you treat
good has your relationship been with your children (on aver- your partner and yourself.
age)?” For questions such as these, test takers clicked on a Getting along with the other parent is necessary because
10-point scale from low to high. children inherently want their parents to get along. Many years
With scores in hand for each parent on all “The Parents’ ago, when my first marriage was failing, my six-year-old son
Ten,” along with their general assessments regarding the out- once led me by the hand into the kitchen where his mom was
comes of their parenting, we could now use a statistical tech- standing and tried to tape our hands together. It was a desper-
nique called regression analysis to determine which competen- ate act that conveyed the message: “Please love each other.
cies best predict good parenting outcomes. For an outcome Please get along.” Children do not like conflict, especially when
such as the child’s happiness, this kind of analysis allows us to it involves the two people in the world they love most. Even in
say which parenting skills are associated with the most happi- co-parenting situations where parents live apart, it is crucial to
ness in children. adhere to practices that do not hurt children: to resolve con-
flicts out of sight of the children, to apologize to one another
and forgive each other (both can be done in front of the kids),
FAST FACTS to speak kindly about the other parent, and so on.
Essential Parenting Skills Stress management is also important for good parenting, just
as it is vital in all aspects of life. In our study, parents’ ability to

1>> Decades of research reveal 10 essential par-

enting skill sets. A new study of 2,000 parents
determined which skills are most important to bring-
manage stress was a good predictor of the quality of their rela-
tionship with their kids and also of how happy their children
were. Perhaps more telling, people who rated themselves as great
ing up healthy, happy and successful kids. parents scored more highly on stress management than on any
of the other nine parenting competencies. There is, possibly, a

2>> Giving love and affection tops the list. Then

comes a surprise: managing stress and hav-
ing a good relationship with the other parent are
simple lesson here: parents who lose their temper around their
kids know that that is bad parenting. Keeping calm is probably
step one in good parenting. Fortunately, stress management
more helpful than some child-focused behaviors. practices such as meditation, imagery techniques and breathing
exercises can be learned, no matter what one’s natural tenden-

3>> All types of people are equally competent at

child-rearing— and anyone can learn how to
be a better parent with a little effort.
cies. People can also learn better organizational skills and even
ways of managing stressful thinking.
Keeping children safe — a matter of almost obsessive con-
cern among American parents these days — seems to have both

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 The Parents’ Ten

H
ere are 10 competencies that predict good parenting outcomes,
listed roughly in order from most to least important. The skills­— all
derived from published studies—were ranked based on how well
they predict a strong parent-child bond and children’s happiness, health
and success.

>> 1. Love and affection. You support and accept the child, are physi-
cally affectionate, and spend quality one-on-one time together.
>> 2. Stress management. You take steps to reduce stress for yourself
and your child, practice relaxation techniques and promote posi-
tive interpretations of events.
>> 3. Relationship skills. You maintain a healthy relationship with your
spouse, significant other or co-parent and model effective relation-
ship skills with other people.
>> 4. Autonomy and independence. You treat your child with respect and
encourage him or her to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.
>> 5. Education and learning. You promote and model learning and
provide educational opportunities for your child.
>> 6. Life skills. You provide for your child, have a steady income and
plan for the future.
>> 7. B ehavior management. You make extensive use of positive rein-
forcement and punish only when other methods of managing be-
havior have failed.
>> 8. Health. You model a healthy lifestyle and good habits, such as regular exercise and proper nutrition, for your child.
>> 9. Religion. You support spiritual or religious development and participate in spiritual or religious activities.
>>   10. Safety. You take precautions to protect your child and maintain awareness of the child’s activities and friends. —R.E.

positive and negative outcomes. On the bright side, in our new In general, we found that parents are far better at educat-
study safety skills did contribute to good health outcomes. But ing their children and keeping them safe than they are at man-
being overly concerned with safety appears to produce poorer aging stress or maintaining a good relationship with the other
relationships with children and also appears to make children parent, even though the latter practices appear to have more
less happy. A recent study by Barbara Morrongiello and her influence on children. Getting along with one’s co-parent is the
colleagues at the University of Guelph in Ontario shows how third most important practice, but it ranked eighth on the par-
complex the safety issue can be. In their study, young people ents’ list of actual abilities. Even more discouraging, stress
between the ages of seven and 12 said that even though they management (number two in importance) ranked 10th.
were generally conforming to the safety rules of their parents,
they planned to behave like their parents when they grew up, Who Make Good Parents?
even where their parents were, by their own standards, behav- Setting aside “The Parents’ Ten” for the moment, our
ing unsafely. Had they detected their parents’ hypocrisy? study also shed some interesting light on what characteristics
Another surprise involves the use of behavior management a good parent has.
techniques. Although my own training in psychology (under
the pioneering behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner) suggests
(The Author)
that sound behavior management— providing lots of reinforce-
ment for good behavior, for example — is essential for good par- ROBERT EPSTEIN, a longtime researcher and professor of
enting, our new study casts doubt on this idea. Behavior man- psychology, is a contributing editor for Scientific American
agement ranked low across the board: it was a poor predictor Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today. His lat-
G ETT Y IMAG ES

of good outcomes with children; parents scored relatively poor- est book is Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families from
ly in this skill area; and our experts ranked it ninth in our list the Torment of Adolescence (Linden Publishing).
of 10 competencies.

w w w. S c i e nti f i c A m e r i c an .c o m/M in d scientific american mind 49

 Ewww ... gross!
Maintaining a healthy
relationship with your
co-parent (spouse or
otherwise) is one of
the most important
child-rearing practic-
es. It’s good for kids to
see respect, forgive-
ness and, yes, even
love and affection.

A general parenting ability appears to exist — actually outscored straights by about 1 percentage
something like the “g” factor that exists for intelli- point in our test, but the difference was not statisti-
gence. The g factor for parenting emerged very cally significant.
strongly in our study using a statistical technique One characteristic that does seem to make a dif-
called factor analysis, which organizes large amounts ference is education: generally speaking, the more
of test data by clustering test items into a small num- the education, the better the parenting. This might
ber of highly predictive variables. Some people just be because better educated people also work harder
seem to have a knack for parenting, which cannot be to improve their parenting skills through parent ed-
easily described in terms of specific skills. ucation programs (confirmed by our data). It is also
We also found that a number of characteristics possible that good parents — those with a high par-
that people often associate with good parenting are enting g— are also generally competent people who
probably not very significant. For example, women are better educated. In other words, the g for par-
appear to be only a hair better than men at parenting enting might be the same as the g for intelligence, a
these days — a huge change in our culture. Women matter to be explored in future research.
scored 79.7 percent on our test, compared with 78.5 The bottom line on such findings is that if you
percent for men—a difference that was only margin- really want to know about an individual’s compe-
ally significant. Parents who were older or who had tence as a parent, you should measure that compe-
more children also did not produce significantly bet- tence directly rather than default to commonly held
ter parenting outcomes in our study. Parents seem to stereotypes. In the U.S., after all, women did not get
perform just as well whether or not they have ever the vote until 1920 because of faulty assumptions
been married, and divorced parents appear to be ev- about female limitations. I believe this is one of the
ery bit as competent as those who are still married, main lessons of our study: there is simply no substi-
although their children are somewhat less happy than tute for the direct measure of competence.
the children of parents who were never divorced. Perhaps the best news is that parents are train-
G ETT Y IMAG ES

Neither race nor ethnicity seems to contribute able. Our data confirm that parents who have taken
much to parenting competence, and gays and straights parenting classes produce better outcomes with
are just about equal in parenting ability. In fact, gays their children than parents who lack such training

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 People who have taken parenting classes produce
happier, healthier and more successful children.
and that more training leads to or eliminate conflict with one’s
b­etter outcomes. Training pro- children, for one thing, and that
grams, such as the evidence- in turn can improve a marriage
based Parenting Wisely pro- or co-parenting relationship. It
gram developed by Donald A. can also help produce happier,
Gordon of Ohio University, can more capable children.
indeed improve parenting prac- I have seen how this works in
tices. Pro­grams are available in my own parenting. I am a much
major cities around the country, better parent with my younger
sometimes sponsored by local children (who range in age from
therapists or state or county four to 12) than I was with my
agencies. The National Effective older two (now 29 and 31). The
Parenting Initiative, which I more I have learned about par-
have been associated with since enting over the years, the more
its inception in 2007, is working loving and skillful I have be-
to make quality parent training come, with obvious benefits.
more widely available (see http:// These days I really do hug my
EffectiveParent­ingUSA.org for children and tell them I love
additional information). them several times a day, every
day, without exception. When
Where Experts Fail love is never in question, chil-
Although parenting experts dren are much more understand-
do indeed offer conflicting ad- ing and tolerant when a parent
vice at times (perhaps because Parents who focus too much on keeping their children safe needs to set limits, which I do
they don’t keep up with the stud- may see their efforts backfire, winding up with unhappy regularly. I have also learned to
ies!), our experts generally did a kids or a poor parent-child relationship. Kids fare better stay calm— to improve the way I
when parents encourage autonomy.
good job of identifying compe- react to things. When I am calm,
tencies that predict positive out- my children are, too, and we
comes with children. There were two notable exceptions: avoid that deadly cycle of emotional escalation that can ruin
First, they ranked stress management eighth in our list of 10 relationships.
competencies, even though it appears to be one of the most Most important, I am much more a facilitator now than a
important competencies. Second, our experts seemed to be bi- controller. While building my own competence as a parent, I
ased against the religion and spirituality competency. They have also put more effort into recognizing and strengthening
ranked it rock bottom in the list of 10, and several even vol- the competence of my children, helping them to become strong
unteered negative comments about this competency area, even and independent in many ways. My 12-year-old son is now a
though studies suggest that religious or spiritual training is calm, helpful role model to his three younger siblings, and be-
good for children. fore I get out of bed these days, my 10-year-old daughter has
Historically, clinicians and behavioral scientists have shied sometimes already made scrambled eggs for all of them — and
away from religious issues, at least in their professional lives; cleaned up, too. M
that could explain the discomfort our experts expressed about
religious or spiritual training for children. Why they were so far (Further Reading)
off on stress management is truly a mystery, however, given psy-
◆ ◆ The Encyclopedia of Parenting Theory and Research.
chology’s long interest in both the study and treatment of stress.
Edited by Charles A. Smith. Greenwood Press, 1999.
I can only speculate that stress management is not widely taught ◆ ◆ The Positive Parent: Raising Healthy, Happy, and
in graduate programs in psychology-related fields as an essen- Successful Children, Birth-Adolescence. Kerby T. Alvy.
tial component of good parenting. It should be. Teachers College Press, 2008.
◆ ◆ The Process of Parenting. Eighth edition. Jane B. Brooks.
G ETT Y IMAG ES

McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Bringing It Home ◆ ◆ To take the author’s parenting test, visit
Tempering one’s parenting with relevant scientific knowl- http://MyParentingSkills.com
edge can truly have great benefits for one’s family. It can reduce

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