Veda Bleau

[vedamariebleau]

I think that I would like to focus on the Millennials and how they are beginning to parent their children.

Perhaps I could even compare how the Millennials were raised versus how they are raising their children. Many people have talked about how the Millennials are raising an even "worse" generation.

It would be a good topic because the oldest of the Millennials are around 30 and there are definitely a lot of new parenting books out that show modern techniques.

[Paige Dolinski]

Veda, good choice with this. I bet there's a LOT of research out there backing this up, and it also is really psychologically related...maybe you could do a background on parenting style themselves (i.e, authoritative, authoritarian and permissive) for the intro, and introduce the Millennials and the Gen X'ers, and how the parenting styles varied. The only obstacle I see with is that all these parenting styles can be seen in the Gen X'ers, so I'd be worried about generalizations. Another idea it is closely related to is culture and environment. It might (I stress might because I'm not sure..) be good to narrow your topic even further to a control (like in a science experiment) to a specific environment (maybe a state?) and then use different examples of families (caucausion, hispanic, african american, etc) as variables to explore the differentiations between the Gen Xers and Millennials parenting. Just an idea.. I'm not sure how to go about researching this, but maybe we all could discuss it in class?

[Kevin Sylvester]

I was going to do mine on a similar topic but found the research very broad and impossible to organize. If you're going to stay with raising a child, narrow it down to a specific age at least. That was one of the first ways I was able to start trimming it down to a more specific topic.

[Fred Cooksey]

Veda, see my response to Kellie's topic. You two should talk and perhaps share some research (that's collaboration, not cheating!).

More in a minute....

[Fred Cooksey]

One way to narrow this, per your suggestion (Veda) about new books on parenting, is to do an analysis of primary sources related to parenting, perhaps focusing on online resources. If it's true as a generalization that Millennials rely more on the Internet than on books or other print sources , then what materials are "filling the void"? Blogs? Independent sites devoted to particular subjects? A lot of commentators have talked about the "democratizing" of information (remember the discussion of gatekeepers with Emily's topic) and surely this extends to parenting as well. No longer do new parents look to the "one true authority" like Dr. Spock. They're looking to other cultures as well as plenty of "non-experts." This makes me think about non-Western influences on child-rearing, esp. on topics like bed-sharing.

There are a lot of options here -- I suggest that you start to investigate the possibilities, then tell us more about what you're thinking. I/we will continue to make suggestions.

[Briell Stone]

I like this topic. I personally hear about how my grandfather disaplined my my dad in a completely different way then how parents do today. I feel like this topic is broad though. I feel like once you do some research, you'll be able to narrow it.

[Sponsored content]