[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think we could have an interesting debate about whether parents or peers are more influential on a child's life. I'm unconvinced that peers are more important.

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw an interesting study on this a few weeks/months ago. It's a tough thing to measure, so they used adopted kids where they could also interview the birth parents. They then compared the adopted kids to kids living with their natural parents and looked for influences on the kids. Surprisingly, the study showed that both groups of kids were equalling influenced by their birth parents and their peer group, even though the adopted kids had no contact with their birth parents. The adoptive parents had very little influence on their adopted kids lives, except for picking their peer group.

Now, I don't know the validity of the study, but it seems to follow other studies that show peer group is equally important to parents, only this seems to reveal that most of the parent effect is due to genetics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if this study was done on adopted kids adopted near birth? I think foundation-wise, the parents have great influence over the kids first (about)8 years of their life. I think that has alot more lasting effects than the peers may influence(if adopted that early). I think alot of the peer stuff also comes from some of the relationship with their parents through those early years. Bringing in the rebellion factor. Kids don't tend to rebel against their peers.

b