The Changing Face of the United States

Cultural Scripts

Cultural scripts—whether a parent is aware of them or not—guide a caretaker’s decisions about child rearing.

2 Tips

How do you adopt a culturally-sensitive practice? Tip no. 1: Learn the family’s cultural script. Tip no. 2: Learn your own—and understand how it informs your work.

Individualistic Cultures

In individualistic cultures, caretakers encourage children to be independent and assertive. Babies are taught to sleep alone, eat alone, play alone and dress themselves at an earlier age.

Interdependent Cultures

Parenting decisions in interdependent cultures reflect an emphasis on cooperation and connections. For example, these parents promote group play and are more likely to co-sleep and breastfeed longer.

Different Perspectives

Generally speaking, Americans top the charts in terms of valuing individualism. Still, most of our immigrant families carry quite the opposite, interdependent viewpoint.

Culture and Communication

Research suggests that culture can impact how families communicate. For example, it can influence the questions that mothers ask (or don’t ask!) as well as their communication styles and priorities.

Words Matter

Across all classes and ethnicities, the following relationship holds true: As a child’s exposure to words increases, so does his or her vocabulary.

Multilingual Families

Most studies support the notion that multilingual learning has no mal-effects. On the contrary, it enhances literacy and cognitive flexibility while supporting cross-cultural learning.