"the peer group is far more important than parents in the child's development."
That's during the school years. I'm only talking about kids younger than four. Also, I'm talking about the cognitive development of structures which become relatively fixed after age five. (Like extraversion and executive function.) The peer group is more important than parenting, but only for predicting the trajectory of further academic achievement, which is completely different from the ways in which parenting styles affect cognitive, emotional, and physiological development.
EDIT: Also, speaking of peer groups, one of the reasons good parenting is critical is because schools sort children into different tracks as early as age six. In principle, track placement is temporary. In practice, it is quite permanent. To quote one researcher, “We found that first-grade ability-group placement can have
persistent effects on children’s achievement in school over a period of several years and may shape the expectations of children’s performance held by significant others, such as parents and teachers. Whether these effects are instructional, social, or institutional, they are real, and they have implications for children’s future schooling trajectories. […] Instructional grouping may have the
unintended effect of increasing inequalities in educational outcomes, largely by creating inequalities in educational resources and rewards.”
(This comes from Equality and Achievement, and also from Pallas et al. “Ability Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?” Sociology of Education 67 (1994).)
A few semi-questions. Structures that become relatively fixed after five? This seems suspect. There are two major prunings of overgrowth of neurons: once soon after birth (where your case stands), once in puberty (where your case falls). I'm not the best at sources but without evidence in my face my guess would put post-puberty for the "relatively fixed" threshold, and common sense confirms this: "identity formation" = puberty. And identity formation basically means habits, which are also manifested in parenthood. As for executive functions, we're probably talking about white matter growth, which is mostly genetic. There could be swing cases, but if your white matter puts you firmly above or below your peers, there's no way in hell you will not perceive it and act on this knowledge -- unless there is some crazy conscious brainwashing going on, which doesn't apply in this case.
Amount of father time vs mother time, and type of father time vs mother time is unaddressed in your post but potentially a critical difference. Role models are important in gender role formation (and, no, we aren't all equal): a negligent father would imply less play-ball, a negligent mother would imply no breastfeeding... for whereever those lead. (I recall breadfed children grow to be less anxious)
Finally, I see a chicken and egg here -- what is your opinion about that? Suppose a borderline autist has a child. They turn out to be an aloof parent. Their child ends up being aloof as well, etc. Okay, that was a convenient example -- but really, how convenient? The kid with a submissive employee for a parent imbibes submissiveness through how they are reared; is this a learned and transferred behavior, or a preexisting tendency, a phenotype observed externally and possibly mistakenly over-credited to the environment?
/i make no reservations in stating my affinity to nature > nurture and determinism > free will
But, I totally agree that good parenting is important, overlooked, and underestimated.
That's during the school years. I'm only talking about kids younger than four. Also, I'm talking about the cognitive development of structures which become relatively fixed after age five. (Like extraversion and executive function.) The peer group is more important than parenting, but only for predicting the trajectory of further academic achievement, which is completely different from the ways in which parenting styles affect cognitive, emotional, and physiological development.
EDIT: Also, speaking of peer groups, one of the reasons good parenting is critical is because schools sort children into different tracks as early as age six. In principle, track placement is temporary. In practice, it is quite permanent. To quote one researcher, “We found that first-grade ability-group placement can have persistent effects on children’s achievement in school over a period of several years and may shape the expectations of children’s performance held by significant others, such as parents and teachers. Whether these effects are instructional, social, or institutional, they are real, and they have implications for children’s future schooling trajectories. […] Instructional grouping may have the unintended effect of increasing inequalities in educational outcomes, largely by creating inequalities in educational resources and rewards.”
(This comes from Equality and Achievement, and also from Pallas et al. “Ability Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?” Sociology of Education 67 (1994).)