[myshpa]

I've read somewhere that just buying a parenting book, even without reading it, can make some people better parents or have a positive influence. Simply thinking about how to be a better parent and showing an interest in improving can lead to self-reflection and conscious consideration of parenting approaches.

While reading the book (attending the course) would likely provide more benefits, just the intention to be a better parent and the willingness to reflect on one's parenting practices may still be valuable step leading to an improvement in parenting abilities.

[phil21]

I've been around the block a decent number of times, having had a kid way too early at the age of 19. Now I'm 42 and watching friends raise kids, along with many others throughout the years - my kid is 22 now.

The sole thing that is universal is simply giving a shit and putting effort in. If you legitimately care about your kids and live a life to ensure they get the best reasonable outcome you can achieve for them, things are likely to turn out fine.

This goes across countries, continents, cultures, socioeconomics, you name it.

Anything else after that is basically focusing on micros vs. macros. It's amazing how rare this train in parenting actually is.

After that it's largely on society in most places. The suburbanized atomic family expected to handle everything on their own are extreme headwinds for the average parents to push against for example. Only once you get beyond this would I feel "parenting education" would be worthwhile of any serious society effort.

[sunderw]

That's interesting.

A little nitpick : you seem to imply that buying a book is having an influence on parenting skills. I'd argue that's its correlated but does not have a direct influence.

As you said, if you're buying a book it means you're ready for self-reflection, which is what has an impact on parenting.

[mlrtime]

I'm fairly sure they are referring to a Freakonomics episode (or book). The researchers found "successful" parents, then found various statistics around them.

One of the conclusions was that they "type" of people that would go out of their way to buy a parenting book were already the type of people to do the "right thing" when parenting and the book itself offered no additional support.