From educating mothers to neuroparenting: Ideas and controversies in parenting issues

Résumé En

Since the early 1990s, a specific sector of public action called "parenting support" emerged in many developed countries. This policy should not distract from the fact that the primary socialization carried out by parents, in particular mothers, has been an explicit focus of policy for over a century. In this chapter, Claude Martin proposes to understand the developments and turns involved in this globalized issue of parenting. The first section looks back at the development of these debates since the end of the 19 th century, initially marked by public health issues and the fight against infant mortality, then by the postwar development of a market in counselling for mothers, inspired by different theoretical traditions in psychology, and culminating in the 1990s in a specific parenting public policy. The second looks at the parallel development of neuroscience since the 1990s and its impact on this sector through the politicization of a certain number of ideas by decision makers and professionals in the field. This lay use of neuroscience has generated two avenues of development, one concerning children's cognitive development, the other on their emotional development. The third section proposes to grasp the meaning and depth of these changes to determine whether we are facing a simple revival of old methods or a paradigm shift.