Why do so many parents lack knowledge about infant development?
I think that parents get parenting information from a variety of sources, from reading magazines and books … most importantly, parents look for information from their child’s doctors. There’s a lot of information that’s out there about what to expect when people are pregnant, but I don’t know that there is quite as much information on what to expect about how your child grows and develops in the first years of life, and there’s a tremendous amount of change. This study was surprising in just how many parents don’t have knowledge of normal infant development. Do you have a sense as to whether this is a new trend? I think that a lot of emphasis in the past has been placed maybe on what we would call “high-risk” parents–those with a lower education, lower socioeconomic status. But one of the surprising things that this study showed is that it’s not only those parents we should be targeting, but it’s something we should expand to the general population of parents. Everyone could benefit
