13 - What Have We Learned: Proof That Families Matter, Policies for Families and Children, Prospects for Future Research

Summary

The chapters in this volume address a common question: How do families matter in young people's development? During recent years there have been strong claims suggesting that how parents rear their children is of little consequence, on the grounds that most of the supposed environmental effects are actually genetically mediated, or that the important environmental effects derive from the peer group rather than the family. In addition, there have been claims that many of the associations between parents' behavior and children's development represent children's effects on their parents rather than the effects of socialization experiences. The purpose of this volume was to consider how far this rejection of environmentally mediated family influences is warranted and what can be concluded about such influences in relation to different aspects of children's psychosocial development.

The book brings together the latest research findings on key aspects of families' influence on their children, specifically, the ways in which families function as sources of risk and adversity or as sources of strength and protection; the ways in which parents act as brokers of resources or mediators of risks; the links between families and peers in causing problems or promoting positive outcomes; the connections between parents' work lives and children's family lives; the continuing influence of parents even when contact is limited by the children's attendance in child care; the impacts of divorce and parental separation on children's immediate and long-term adjustment; the significance of grandparents for children's emotional well-being; and the consequences of new family forms such as lesbian- and surrogate-mother families.