Child Rearing Practices in the United States

Every generation of parents faces different challenges when rearing their children. Today's family unit changes as parents divorce and remarry. Parents must manage media and devices that didn't exist when they were kids. Parents in the United States engage in child rearing practices that try to strike a balance between protection and independence.

  1. Early Years

    • One in every four parents stays home to care for pre-kindergarten children, but most parents work outside the home and place their children in daycare centers when they are 3 to 5 years old. According to the U.S. Department of Education statistics published for 2005, more than 50 percent of children whose parents work outside the home attend daycare centers. Relatives or unrelated baby sitters care for the rest of the children while their parents work.

    Education

    • Most parents in the United States send their children to public schools. More than 49 million children were enrolled in public schools in 2010, compared to 5.8 million kids who attended private schools and 1.5 million who were home-schooled during 2007. Parents who home-school their children do so because they want to provide their children with religious or moral instruction that public schools cannot provide or because they are concerned about the school environment and curriculum.

    Blended Families

    • Because of the divorce rate in the United States, at least one-third of U.S. children are raised in stepfamilies. After their parents divorce, children spend time with both parents by moving between their parents' homes. When a parent remarries, children must adjust to the presence of a new parental figure in the home. If their stepparent has children, they must adjust to stepbrothers and sisters. Children under 10 usually adjust easily to new family members, but adolescents and teenagers need more time to accept a new authority figure in the family.

    Television

    • While parents reportedly worry about the effect of television in their children's lives, they do not withhold it. In fact, 51 percent of parents let their child have a television set in his bedroom. Fewer than 22 percent of parents have seriously considered removing all the TV sets from the household.

    Concerns

    • According to a report from Public Agenda, parents feel that they must constantly protect children from the world outside the family unit. Some parents won't leave their children with baby sitters or let them leave the house unsupervised for fear someone will physically harm or kidnap them. Parents of children as young as 5 years old worry as much about protecting their children from drug and alcohol abuse as parents of teenagers.

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