Parents, children and neighbourhoods

Information from the Families and Neighbourhoods Study (FANS) which I've referred to once or twice, is beginning to emerge. The research looked at the relevance of neighbourhood characteristics and residents' perceptions of their neighbourhoods for parenting and child behaviour, using four contrasting locations. Among the findings:

• Individuals who were more extrovert, those with more social support at home, and parents with older rather than younger children were more likely to become involved in their neighbourhoods.
• Simply being a parent seems to be a barrier to being involved in the neighbourhood.
• Deprivation itself is not particularly key in predicting different parenting approaches.
• Parents who were more attached to their neighbourhood described more agreement locally about parenting, and more informal social control of local children. In contrast if the neighbourhood was seen to have higher levels of disorder and crime, respondents described less agreement about child rearing.
• The parenting expected of neighbours was related to neighbourhood disorganisation and disorder such as the level of crime or disorder but particularly to the fear of retaliation by parents or children themselves if they engaged in informal social control.
• If even a minority of local parents (and their children) are expected to react to intervention in a hostile manner then most parents will refrain from intervening in situations where children are either at risk or acting in an antisocial manner, even though they have strong personal beliefs that they should intervene.

A summary is available from the research team via the link above.