Trends in popular parenting books and the need for parental critical thinking.

Parents continually struggle to find better ways to make decisions regarding their children, and many use popular parenting books. The purpose of this article is to discuss the critical thinking skills needed by parents and practitioners who work with parents to make informed parenting decisions influenced by popular media. It also addresses strategies on sleeping, cosleeping, feeding and toilet training in popular parenting books, and the corresponding empirical evidence found in the scientific literature. Parenting tends to be romanticized in television and books, with sweet, perfect little angels depicted with happy and stress-free parents. The reality of parenting actually is quite different. Parents often are wrought with anxieties over their children's feeding and sleeping schedules, discipline, and childcare. They worry about doing the right thing with their children and are bombarded with books, magazines, the Internet, and friends dispersing conflicting advice. Parents continually struggle to find better ways to make decisions about their children, and many use popular parenting books, the Internet and more recently, television shows such as Supernanny and Nanny 911 to find alternatives. Parenting in many of these forums is simplified and rigid, emphasizing control rather than the provision of guidance (Kohn, 2005). Complex problems are reduced to singular unrealistic interventions without acknowledging the demands and sacrifice inherent in parenting. Practitioners working with parents need to explore and understand the ideas parents who read popular parenting books may have. Practitioners are in a unique position to influence parental thinking about difficult parenting decisions. Practitioners also need to develop critical thinking skills to analyze the adequacy, developmental appropriateness, and applicability of parenting strategies presented in popular media. Critical thinking is a challenging process, even for well-resourced parents and practitioners. With the abundance of parenting information available, the ability to think critically about the content of such information and make decisions based on it is imperative. Parenting is important throughout a child's life, but the beginning years are one of the most critical psychological periods (Armstrong, 1997). Because parenting practices for infants and toddlers occupy a period of coexisting vulnerability and tremendous developmental gain, this article will focus on major issues for parenting that age group. The purpose of this article is two-fold. First, it discusses critical thinking skills needed by parents and practitioners who work with parents to make informed decisions influenced by popular media. Second, the author reviews strategies on sleeping, cosleeping, feeding, and toilet training outlined in popular parenting books and the corresponding empirical evidence found in the scientific literature. In each section, specific critical thinking questions are included as a tool to guide practitioners and parents in evaluating parenting strategies. Critical Thinking Skills and Parenting Parenting practitioners, social workers, and other supportive professionals can help parents develop the skills they need to critically analyze parenting information. Equipping parents who consult popular books for parenting advice with critical thinking skills will enable them to identify problems if they exist, recognize the possible contradictions in solutions, clarify issues, identify their values, and use sound criteria for evaluating the information presented (Gambrill, 2006). This strategy is essential to making wise decisions because parenting philosophies and recommendations are ever evolving. Critical thinking is the practice of thinking about knowledge. It emphasizes well-reasoned decisionmaking and values "truth over prejudice and ignorance" (Gambrill, 2006, p. 72). Applying critical thinking skills, therefore, requires a person to compare advice against a standard, which may be research-based information from a reliable authority or that person's own beliefs and values. …