Sources

Every source, in one place

Every position on this site is read from a published source, and every point where the evidence is unsettled cites what was measured. This is the whole list, by topic, with what each one backs. If something is wrong, tell us.

52 sources across 3 topics

Two kinds of source

A primary text is where an approach states its own position, and it settles what that approach asks for. An evidence source says what has been measured, and it settles nothing about any approach: it only backs the note that says where the evidence is unsettled. The two are never mixed, so the site cannot imply the research endorses a camp.

Any stage

Parenting philosophy

Which approach are you already taking?

  1. Current Patterns of Parental Authority

    Diana Baumrind, Developmental Psychology Monographs 4(1), 1971. The original demandingness × responsiveness typology that the authoritative, authoritarian and permissive rows are read off.

    Positions for Authoritative, Traditional authority, Low-demand, high-warmth

  2. Socialization in the Context of the Family

    Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin, in Handbook of Child Psychology vol. 4, 1983. Completes Baumrind's scheme into the four quadrants by splitting permissive into indulgent and neglecting.

    Positions for Traditional authority, Low-demand, high-warmth

  3. Associations of Parenting Dimensions and Styles with Externalizing Problems

    Martin Pinquart, Developmental Psychology 53(5), 2017. Meta-analysis across 1,435 studies. Cited for what the evidence supports, never for what an approach asks.

    Positions for Authoritative, Behavioural / structured, Low-demand, high-warmth

    Evidence note on response to distress

  4. The Attachment Parenting Book

    William and Martha Sears, Little Brown, 2001. The "seven Bs" are the primary statement of the attachment-parenting row.

    Positions for Attachment parenting

  5. Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect

    Magda Gerber, Resources for Infant Educarers, 2nd ed. 2002. Primary text for the RIE row, including the positions on uninterrupted play, observation before intervention, and describing rather than praising.

    Positions for RIE / respectful parenting

  6. The Gentle Parenting Book

    Sarah Ockwell-Smith, Piatkus, 2016. Used for the gentle-parenting row, which has no single canonical text — hence the wide dispersion on structure in that row.

    Positions for Gentle parenting

  7. Positive Discipline

    Jane Nelsen, Ballantine, revised 2006. Primary text for the positive-discipline row, including family meetings, encouragement rather than praise, and logical consequences.

    Positions for Positive discipline

  8. Children: The Challenge

    Rudolf Dreikurs with Vicki Soltz, Hawthorn, 1964. The Adlerian source positive discipline is built on; cited where the two differ.

    Positions for Positive discipline

  9. The Absorbent Mind

    Maria Montessori, 1949. Primary text for the prepared environment, the adult as observer, and "never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed".

    Positions for Montessori at home

  10. Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius

    Angeline Lillard, Oxford University Press, 3rd ed. 2016. Used for what the Montessori method asks of an adult at home, as distinct from what a classroom does.

    Positions for Montessori at home

  11. Free-Range Kids

    Lenore Skenazy, Jossey-Bass, 2009. Primary statement of the free-range row on independence, risk and supervision.

    Positions for Free-range

  12. Unconditional Parenting

    Alfie Kohn, Atria, 2005. Primary text for the unconditional-parenting row: no imposed consequences, no praise, "working with" rather than "doing to".

    Positions for Unconditional parenting

  13. Punished by Rewards

    Alfie Kohn, Houghton Mifflin, 1993. The argument against praise and reward systems that the D4 low pole is read from.

    Positions for RIE / respectful parenting, Positive discipline, Unconditional parenting

  14. 1-2-3 Magic

    Thomas Phelan, Sourcebooks, 6th ed. 2016. Primary text for the behavioural row: counting, a fixed consequence, and no explanation in the moment.

    Positions for Behavioural / structured

  15. Simplicity Parenting

    Kim John Payne with Lisa Ross, Ballantine, 2009. Primary text for rhythm, fewer toys, and a deliberately emptier week.

    Positions for Simplicity parenting

  16. The Conscious Parent

    Shefali Tsabary, Namaste, 2010. Primary text for the conscious-parenting row, where the work is on the parent's own reactions rather than on the child's behaviour.

    Positions for Conscious parenting

  17. The Explosive Child

    Ross Greene, Harper, 5th ed. 2014. Primary text for Collaborative & Proactive Solutions: unsolved problems are solved with the child, in advance, not in the moment.

    Positions for Collaborative problem solving

  18. The Child, the Family and the Outside World

    D. W. Winnicott, Penguin, 1964. Source of "the good-enough mother", and of the claim that reliable imperfection is what the child actually needs.

    Positions for Good enough

  19. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

    Amy Chua, Penguin, 2011. Used as the primary statement of the high-expectation row. Read as a memoir of a position, which is how it is written.

    Positions for High expectation

  20. Unequal Childhoods

    Annette Lareau, University of California Press, 2nd ed. 2011. "Concerted cultivation" versus "the accomplishment of natural growth" — the ethnography the A4 axis is drawn from, and the reminder that how full a week is tracks class as much as philosophy.

    Positions for Simplicity parenting, High expectation

  21. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

    John Gottman, Simon & Schuster, 1997. Emotion coaching, cited for the R2 high pole and for what the emotion-coaching evidence does and does not show.

    Positions for Collaborative problem solving

    Evidence note on behaviour or feeling

  22. The Effects of Praise on Children's Intrinsic Motivation

    Jennifer Henderlong and Mark Lepper, Psychological Bulletin 128(5), 2002. The review that separates praise which undermines motivation from praise which does not — and the reason the D4 contested note exists.

    Evidence note on praise and rewards

  23. What is the Relationship between Risky Outdoor Play and Health in Children?

    Mariana Brussoni et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12(6), 2015. Systematic review behind the A2 contested note.

    Positions for Free-range

    Evidence note on risk

  24. Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children

    American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement, Pediatrics 142(6), 2018. Cited for the consistency finding on D3, and for the one position in this instrument that is not a preference: physical punishment is advised against, by every body that has looked.

    Positions for Authoritative, Behavioural / structured, Traditional authority

    Evidence note on consequences

  25. Safer Sleep Advice

    The Lullaby Trust. Referenced wherever R3 is discussed, because where a baby sleeps is a preference and how they are put down is not.

    Positions for Attachment parenting

    Evidence note on physical closeness

Further reading

What each approach suggests reading next. Not sources: nothing on the site is read off these.

1–8 years

Screens and tech

How do you handle screens, and where do the two of you disagree?

  1. Media and Young Minds / Media Use in School-Aged Children and Adolescents

    American Academy of Pediatrics policy statements, Pediatrics 138(5), 2016. The source of the age-based limits the guideline-led row follows — and, since the 2016 revision, notably less numeric than the version most parents remember.

    Positions for Guideline-led, Time budget

  2. Family Media Plan

    American Academy of Pediatrics. The negotiated-household-contract row is read off this directly, including its insistence that adults are in the plan.

    Positions for Context rules, Family media plan

  3. Guidelines on Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep for Children Under 5

    World Health Organization, 2019. Cited for the under-fives positions. Note that the guideline development group rated the certainty of the screen-time evidence as very low.

    Positions for Screen-free, Guideline-led

  4. The Health Impacts of Screen Time: A Guide for Clinicians and Parents

    Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 2019. Reviewed the same literature as the AAP and declined to set a threshold, on the grounds that the evidence does not support one. The clearest institutional statement that this is contested.

    Positions for Guideline-led

  5. The Association Between Adolescent Well-Being and Digital Technology Use

    Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski, Nature Human Behaviour 3, 2019. The specification-curve analysis that found the association is real, negative, and about the same size as the association with wearing glasses.

    Positions for Context rules, Self-regulation

    Evidence note on how much

  6. Annual Research Review: Adolescent Mental Health in the Digital Age

    Candice Odgers and Michaeline Jensen, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 61(3), 2020. Reviews why the strong claims in both directions outrun the data.

    Evidence note on tied to behaviour

  7. The Anxious Generation

    Jonathan Haidt, Penguin, 2024. The strongest popular statement of the restrictive case, and genuinely contested by researchers in the field. Cited as a position, never as a finding.

    Positions for Delayed device

  8. Parenting for a Digital Future

    Sonia Livingstone and Alicia Blum-Ross, Oxford University Press, 2020. The ethnography behind the "what screens are for" axis: families sort into embracing, balancing and resisting, largely by what they hope the future looks like.

    Positions for Time budget, Content-curated, Self-regulation, Digital literacy first

  9. The Big Disconnect

    Catherine Steiner-Adair, Harper, 2013. Primary text for the co-viewing and adults-included positions, and an early statement of the technoference argument.

    Positions for Co-viewing, Context rules, Family media plan

    Evidence note on whether it applies to the adults

  10. Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood

    Alliance for Childhood, 2000, with the Waldorf position it draws on. Primary source for the screen-free row, including the case for delaying to around seven.

    Positions for Screen-free

  11. Wait Until 8th

    The pledge campaign that the delayed-device row is named for: household screens are a separate question from a child's own phone, and the second can be delayed long after the first is settled.

    Positions for Delayed device

  12. Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes

    Ofcom, annual. Used only for how common each practice actually is — which feeds the question-selection prior and nothing a parent sees.

    Positions for Time budget, Earned access, Delayed device

  13. Digital Media and Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

    Jenny Radesky, JAMA 320(3), 2018, on the study it accompanies. Used for the finding that what is on the screen and who is beside it predict more than how many minutes it ran, which is the evidence behind the content-curated and co-viewing approaches.

    Positions for Co-viewing, Content-curated, Earned access

    Evidence note on alone or together

Further reading

What each approach suggests reading next. Not sources: nothing on the site is read off these.

3–6 years

School choice

Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio, IB, classical, democratic, mainstream. Which fits your family?

  1. The Absorbent Mind

    Maria Montessori, 1949. Primary text for the prepared environment, mixed-age groups, the three-hour work cycle and the adult as observer.

    Positions for Montessori

  2. Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius

    Angeline Lillard, Oxford University Press, 3rd ed. 2016. What the outcome evidence supports, by a sympathetic researcher who is careful about the difference between the method and schools using the name — which is unprotected.

    Positions for Montessori

  3. The Education of the Child

    Rudolf Steiner, 1907, collected 1996. Primary source for the Waldorf positions: the seven-year stages, formal reading at around seven, and the deliberate exclusion of screens.

    Positions for Waldorf / Steiner

  4. The Hundred Languages of Children

    Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini and George Forman, Ablex, 2nd ed. 1998. The standard account of the Reggio Emilia approach, including emergent curriculum and documentation.

    Positions for Reggio Emilia

  5. Primary Years Programme: From Principles into Practice

    International Baccalaureate Organization. Primary source for the IB row — inquiry within a set framework, transdisciplinary themes, and an explicit international outlook.

    Positions for IB Primary Years, Bilingual / international

  6. The Well-Trained Mind

    Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, Norton, 4th ed. 2016. The standard modern statement of classical education: the trivium, a fixed sequence, and memorisation before analysis.

    Positions for Classical, Academically selective, Faith-based, Home education

  7. Cultural Literacy

    E. D. Hirsch, Houghton Mifflin, 1987. The argument for a shared body of knowledge that the classical and knowledge-rich rows sit on, and the origin of Core Knowledge.

    Positions for Classical, Faith-based

  8. Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School

    Daniel Greenberg, Sudbury Valley School Press, 1987. Primary text for the democratic row: no curriculum, no classes unless requested, and a school meeting where children and staff vote equally.

    Positions for Democratic / Sudbury

  9. Teach Your Own

    John Holt, Delacorte, 1981. The founding text of unschooling, and the clearest statement of the distinction between home education and school-at-home.

    Positions for Unschooling

  10. Forest School and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years

    Sara Knight, SAGE, 2nd ed. 2013. Primary source for the forest-school row, including what the model actually requires — which is considerably more than going outside.

    Positions for Forest school

  11. A Systematic Review of the Empirical Research on Selected Aspects of Homeschooling

    Brian Ray, Journal of School Choice 11(4), 2017. The main body of homeschooling outcome research. Cited with the caveat that almost all of it is on self-selected samples and the author is an advocate — which is the honest state of this literature.

    Positions for Home education

  12. Teaching and Learning Toolkit

    Education Endowment Foundation. The best available summary of what actually moves attainment. Cited for the uncomfortable finding that most of it is about teaching quality and almost none of it is about the philosophy a school signs up to.

    Positions for Mainstream state, Academically selective

    Evidence note on what a teacher is

  13. The Public School Advantage

    Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, University of Chicago Press, 2013. Finds that the measured advantage of private and selective schools largely disappears once intake is controlled for. The single most useful source in this instrument and the least quoted.

    Positions for Mainstream state, Academically selective, Faith-based, Bilingual / international

    Evidence note on who else is there

  14. Starting Strong

    OECD early-childhood education and care reviews. Used for the school-starting-age positions and for how little the international comparisons actually settle.

    Positions for Waldorf / Steiner, Bilingual / international

    Evidence note on when formal academics start

Further reading

What each approach suggests reading next. Not sources: nothing on the site is read off these.