Ohana Matters: Concerted Cultivation of your children

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - As all of us parents try to figure out the best way to parent our children, we should ask ourselves: How much should we get involved and how much should we just let them figure it out? There’s a new study out that proves that most of us, at least in America, are trying to cultivate our children. But what is concerted cultivation?

Concerted cultivation basically means extreme hands-on parenting. Supervised playtime, frequent and consistent conversing and interaction, and lots and lots of extracurriculars. That’s vs. what researchers call “accomplishment of natural growth” which is known now as “free range parenting”--less supervision, more independence, and fewer structured activities. What’s really interesting is that the research doesn’t show that “concerted cultivation” is better for kids--it just seems that everyone thinks it’s better because parents who are better-off financially are doing it.

So, what are we supposed to do? Is there one way of parenting that actually works?

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