Talking about the science of parenting
Title: Talking about the Science of Parenting
Author: The FrameWorks Institute, in partnership with the Parenting Research Centre
Published: August 2018
This report is designed to help change the conversation about parenting. If we want to give children the best chance of healthy development we need to better support the parents who care for them. We can do this by using and sharing what we know from research.
But we know that people are resistant to research-based messages about parenting because they see parenting as an individual rather than a societal issue. And we have found that current ways of communicating this evidence are counter-productive because people don’t see parenting as a skill that can be learned or associate it with science. This makes it hard for people to accept that there are things we can do to improve parenting in Australia.
This research project involving 7600 Australians has found a way to better communicate the evidence around parenting. It proposes a new ‘master narrative’, backed by evidence, that shifts away from ‘effective parenting’ and towards the idea that children’s development and parenting are interconnected.
Useful tools
A series of tools and resources have been developed to help organisations change the way they communicate about parenting.
- Visit our Reframing Parenting page to download and use the resources in your work
- Read the research