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Helicopter or hands-off parenting? The choice won't impact a kid as much as you think

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Cuts Both Ways.

Kids are their own people. And the data suggests parents' decisions don't have as much sway as we think. Psychologist Yuko Munakata says it's a good thing that there's no right way to parent.

About Yuko Munakata

Yuko Munakata is a faculty member in the UC Davis Department of Psychology and the Center for Mind and Brain. She is also the director of the Cognition in Context Lab. Her research uses behavioral, electrophysiological, computational, and cross-cultural approaches to study the mechanisms supporting executive functions and variations in thinking observed across development. She is an elected fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association. Her work on child development has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and has been published in top scientific journals and featured in The Atlantic and Parents Magazine. She has co-edited and co-authored two editions of a textbook on computational cognitive neuroscience.

This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Rachel Faulkner White and Fiona Geiran and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at TEDRadioHour@npr.org.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Manoush Zomorodi
Manoush Zomorodi is the host of TED Radio Hour. She is a journalist, podcaster and media entrepreneur, and her work reflects her passion for investigating how technology and business are transforming humanity.
Laine Kaplan-Levenson
Laine Kaplan-Levenson is a producer and reporter for NPR's Throughline podcast. Before joining the Throughline team, they were the host and producer of WWNO's award-winning history podcast TriPod: New Orleans at 300, as well as WWNO/WRKF's award-winning political podcast Sticky Wicket. Before podcasting, they were a founding reporter for WWNO's Coastal Desk, and covered land loss, fisheries, water management, and all things Louisiana coast. Kaplan-Levenson has contributed to NPR, This American Life, Marketplace, Latino USA, Oxford American (print), Here and Now, The World, 70 Million, and Nancy, among other national outlets. They served as a host and producer of Last Call, a multiracial collective of queer artists and archivists, and freelanced as a storytelling and podcast consultant, workshop instructor, and facilitator of student-produced audio projects. Kaplan-Levenson is also the founder and host of the live storytelling series, Bring Your Own. They like to play music and occasionally DJ under the moniker DJ Swimteam.
Rachel Faulkner White
Rachel Faulkner is a producer and editor for TED Radio Hour.
Fiona Geiran
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Sanaz Meshkinpour
[Copyright 2024 NPR]