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Bedtime reading could disadvantage other children, academic says
Could snuggling up in bed and reading a bedtime story to your children ever be a bad thing?
An ABC Radio National program about whether “Having a loving family is an unfair advantage” has questioned whether bedtime reading is causing an uneven playing field for more unfortunate children.
British academic Adam Swift told ABC presenter Joe Gelonesi the benefits of the time-honoured custom were greater than a private school education.
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“Evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t — the difference in their life chances — is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t,” Mr Swift said.
According to Mr Swift, the “devilish twist” was whether bedtime stories should be restricted.
Ultimately the net good of bedtime reading in promoting strong family bonds outweighed any other downsides, Mr Swift said.
“You have to allow parents to engage in bedtime stories activities, in fact we encourage them because those are the kinds of interactions between parents and children that do indeed foster and produce these (desired) familial relationship goods.”
But parents should be mindful of the advantage provided by bedtime reading, he said.
“I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally,” he said.
Mr Swift told the Daily Telegraph the idea of evening the playing field by encouraging all parents to read to their kids was not discussed.
The bedtime stories idea had been suggested by the ABC “as a way of getting attention”, he said.
Professor Frank Oberklaid, from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, told the newspaper he was “bewildered” by the idea of bedtime reading disadvantaging others.
“It’s one of the more bizarre things I’ve heard,” he said. “We should be bringing all kids up to the next level.”
Sources:
Radio National,
Daily Telegraph
© ninemsn 2015
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(edited)7 minutes ago
Joe Shepard
Am I supposed to apologize for having good parents? GIVE. ME. A. BREAK.
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(edited)10 hours ago
Jeannie Hurley
What is this nonsense about? Punish good parents by forcing them to deny their children the benefits of literacy? So rather than recommending that *all* parental units (guardians/foster-parents) read to children to raise children up, they want to bring children down? Make everyone equal in ignorance & misery? Any educator will tell you that the first teacher is the parent. Why not equip parents with the skills to raise productive & literate children? The world has gone wrong-side up.
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(edited)14 hours ago
Karna O'Dea
Who cares what the ABC thinks. If parents read ot their kids well and good because who else is going to impart literacy, the ABC fairies at the bottom of the garden. If we are funding them for this sort of rubbish
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(edited)14 hours ago
Thomas Benfatti
We are becoming a nation of fruitcakes.
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(edited)14 hours ago
Maria Ofar
How about enforcing parents to read to their children, rather than guilting those who have made the effort. This has to be some kind of joke
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(edited)15 hours ago
Jeanie Simpson
Surely this is a joke. It's sad that we are not all equal, but why should we dumb down everyone so everyone will be equally dumb. WHO is going to tell me I can't read to my kids because there are kids whose parents do not read to them? Why not force the parents who do not read, to read?
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(edited)15 hours ago
Rocky the Rat
I'd hazard a guess and risk further analysis that Tony Abbott's favourite bedtime story was Pinocchio.
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(edited)16 hours ago
Kerry DuPree
"We have to allow parents to read to their kids..." Who has to allow it? I don't ask permission to read to my kids. And no one regulates such things. What in the world. Mind your business!!
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(edited)17 hours ago
Walter Smith
Mr Swift himself seems like a "devilish twist."
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(edited)17 hours ago
Jennifer Katona
Ah, the insanity of the so-called progressives.
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