A fascinating look into an ancient community
They recorded every birth in Britain that occurred on a particular week and surveyed the mothers.
This doesn't sound very encouraging. We can't choose our parents or what kind of financial standing we're born into.
The study began in 1946, shortly after World War II. Scientists wanted to study what it was like for women to have a baby at that time.
The survey was so successful that they repeated it again in 1958, in 1970, in the 1990s, and at the turn of the millennium.
The collective research showed that engaged parenting, reading, and regular bedtimes reduced the education gap between children in poverty and wealthy children by 50%.
Children who had engaged, interested, and ambitious parents were more likely to overcome difficult circumstances like growing up in poverty.
For the past 70 years, British scientists have been following the lives of thousands of children in the longest running human study in history.
One specific study based on the group of children born in the 1970s showed that children whose parents read to them daily at the age of five, and showed an interest in their education at the age of 10, were far less likely to be in poverty at the age of 30.
Another study based on 10,000 children born in the year 2000 showed that bedtime routines are extremely important.
This study showed the same results for children of all economic backgrounds and circumstances. A regular bedtime routine is important for all kids.
As a parent, you can follow the scientific evidence to give your child a great start in life, and we can all contribute to solving child poverty through activism and choosing our government representatives carefully!
However, the children who succeeded despite their disadvantaged circumstances gave the most significant and optimistic findings. Researchers identified several common factors in their childhoods.
A study on children who read for pleasure showed that they gained a multitude of benefits.
Children who changed from an erratic schedule to a fixed bedtime saw improvements in their behavior.
Children who went to bed at a different time every night were more likely to have behavioral problems than those who had a set bedtime.
Children who enjoyed reading between the ages of five and ten performed better on tests in school and later in life. They excelled at reading, spelling, and math.
Combating child poverty is the greatest thing any country can do to ensure success for the next generations.
The study followed the children into adulthood while collecting all sorts of information about them.
Overall, 70,000 children across five generations were involved in the study.
The researchers have been able to analyze which children grew up to be happy, healthy, and successful, and subsequently tried to determine why.
However, they don't completely negate child poverty. The research also proved that child poverty still puts children at a disadvantage in terms of health, education, and career prospects.
Across every generation, there was strong evidence that children who grow up in poorer or disadvantaged families were more likely to struggle in many aspects of life.
No other study like this has ever been carried out. It has led to the publication of 6,000 academic papers and books.
Even in a highly developed and wealthy country like the UK, 34% of children were living in poverty as of 2018.
The developmental disadvantages of these children could be seen in their reading level at the age of three, and would go on to affect them until the end of their lives.
Parenting lessons from the longest ever study on human development
Tips based on decades of scientific research!
LIFESTYLE Child development
There are so many different parenting styles, strategies, and schools of thought to dig through these days, and most of them give conflicting advice. But fear not: an enormous study has been conducted over nearly a century to most accurately determine what children need in order to grow up happy, healthy, and successful—whatever that means to them. Click through the gallery to see what findings researchers came up with!