Of course, twin and adoption studies only measure the effects of broadly mainstream parenting behaviors—should you read to your kids or not, for example. They tell us little about the effect of unusual parenting methods, or on the effect of parenting methods on unusual kids (like the ones on LW.)
I do think they say something about unusual parenting, but I agree that it’s not directly applicable. These studies make it clear that most parenting differences don’t have long term effects even though it’s intuitive to us that they should. Thus you should require good additional evidence to make you think that a given unusual parenting style will have long term effects.
Of course, twin and adoption studies only measure the effects of broadly mainstream parenting behaviors—should you read to your kids or not, for example. They tell us little about the effect of unusual parenting methods, or on the effect of parenting methods on unusual kids (like the ones on LW.)
Caution: this is a fully general argument.
Yup, see my comment about adoption studies.
I do think they say something about unusual parenting, but I agree that it’s not directly applicable. These studies make it clear that most parenting differences don’t have long term effects even though it’s intuitive to us that they should. Thus you should require good additional evidence to make you think that a given unusual parenting style will have long term effects.