Having ill-behaved children is frequently a source of concern for parents. However, not all adults in every country believe it is one of the most important things. According to research published this month by King’s College London, Americans are least likely to agree that good manners in children are an extremely important characteristic – only 52% said so in 2017. As a result, the United States is the least likely of the 24 countries polled in recent years to agree that excellent manners are important for children.
According to the research, this is a considerable decrease from 1990, when 76% of U.S. people believed it was a very important characteristic for children to have. It also stands in stark contrast to Egypt, where 96% of those polled believed excellent manners should be a top parenting concern. Nigeria is ranked second with 89%, followed by Morocco with 88%. The sixth-placed United Kingdom isn’t far behind, with 85% believing excellent manners were essential.
Key findings from King’s College London study
The analysis, titled “Parenting priorities: international attitudes towards raising children,” by King’s College London, draws on data from the World Values Survey, one of the world’s largest sociological polls. The report is based on the most recent available data sets for each nation, which were obtained during the most recent World Values Survey, which ran from 2017 to 2022.
Another aspect that contributes to children being well-behaved is whether or not they listen to their parents or other adults. However, significantly fewer Americans believed that obedience was an important quality for children – in fact, it ranked far behind having good manners in all countries.
Nigeria has the highest level of obedience (58%), followed by Mexico and Egypt (57% and 56%, respectively). With 21%, the United States is in the bottom half of the rankings.
However, it is still far ahead of the country that values obedience the least: only 3% of Japanese people believe it is a highly important attribute for children. Since 1990, the value of obedience has declined in many Western countries.
“For example, in both the US and Australia, the share of the public who think this trait is especially important has roughly halved. In the former, it fell from 39% in 1990 to 21% in 2017, and in the latter, it dropped from a peak of 39% to 19% between 2005 and 2018,” the report noted.
Aside from being well-mannered
The study covers more than just the characteristics that make a youngster well-behaved. Attributes such as inventiveness, tolerance and respect for others, and hard effort were also evaluated. The King’s College London paper lists 11 characteristics.
The United States ranks in the top ten for four of them, indicating that it is one of the countries that values children’s independence and hard work the most.
One of them is hard labor, which is valued by 68% of Americans. This is the sixth-highest proportion among the 24 countries polled, and the category in which the United States ranks highest.