The world’s most educated expert on child psychology, family and parenting issues - who has read thousands of books, has multiple degrees (including a doctorate) on the subject, and done more research, surveys and studies on the issue than anyone else in the world - but has never had any children of his or her own (born or adopted);
or
An experienced father or mother who has raised several children for 20 years, but has no formal education whatsoever, and especially no formal education in the issue of children/family/psych etc.
(I’ve noticed that there tends to be more “You can’t know what it’s like until you’ve experienced it” bias in parenting than in nearly any other field/situation, but polling out of curiosity.)
Experienced parent. They have worked in the field longer than any academic has studied. They have worked with real kids. I still respect the experts however.
I find people who haven’t raised children tend to have very concrete and decisive opinions on how kids should be treated, disciplined or even talked to. If you have never tried to convince a 2 year old to eat their dinner or explained why you have to pay the electric bill, not buy a toy to a 5 year old. Or better yet, grounded a teenager ( and then had to be the same house all weekend with them) you cannot understand what parenting is. You just can’t.
I’ll say more though. As far as the expert, there is going to be a big difference between somebody who does research in the field, and somebody who is a clinician. For example, I’ve done some work on adolescent drug use. I can tell you what my research findings were, and how that compares to other results in the field. I cannot tell you what to do about your kid that skips school to smoke pot. I’d never call myself an expert in adolescent drug use, but I work with some people who are.
I am an expert in my kid. I can tell you exactly what interventions have not worked to change her behavior.
What is your goal? If you have a troubled child, speak to a clinician specializing in the appropriate area. Are you trying to decide between two nannies: one young and childless but with an MS in early childhood education, and the other with 30 years of successful experience working with children, but no formal education?
Or, are you trying to settle an argument between what an expert is telling you to do with your child, and what your mother-in-law is telling you to do? Or are you the in-law?
I do think there are some aspects of raising a child that you can’t know until you experience them, such as the unending relentlessness of it. A childless expert might not have a visceral understanding of that, but still be able to give good advice on research backed methods of sleep training.
My answer also. If the kids are high school dropouts with long rap sheets, I might not want to listen to the parents.
The expert has certainly worked with kids. They’ve probably studied under people with kids. Getting up in the middle of the night with a baby, while rewarding, does not give you special knowledge.
Plus different kids need different parenting. That I was successful raising my smart and talented kids in no way qualifies me to give advice for kids who might have special needs. And a parent who has been successful in keeping his kid from flunking out might not have good advice for a kid at the top of her class.
Depends on the issue. If the expert says that abuse is not effective discipline and the experienced parent says “Well my grandma used to have us go pick switches off the tree and grandpa beat my dad with a wide leather belt until his legs bled. My dad’s the greatest guy in the world and mom whupped us with an extension cord and we all turned out great. So I’m sure gonna whup my kids with a switch, belt, wooden spoon, or slap upside the head, and I hope they paddle them in school. If kids got a good solid beating every once in awhile we wouldn’t have all these drugs and violence and teen pregnancies and cancer,” guess which one I pick? Experience isn’t always good and many people have extensive experience at being horrible human beings.
This. I worked with an expert in a children’s home. She definitely had a lot more experience with tantrums and grounding teenagers than most parents get. The average parent learns how to deal with 1.6 kids’ tantrums, home work issues and groundings. That is absolutely nothing compared to the experts I know. The book learning and statistics is an added bonus to what is likely already more diverse experience, probably with children with much more complex problems. How do you think they got started? Where did they get that research? Not in a lab.
Also reminds me of my mum, when she was asked to join a parenting group by a friend-mum. She said no thanks, her kids were nearly grown and doing all right. Turns out they wanted her to be their guru! She told them she lucked out with good kids and knew no more about anything than any of them did. If any parent says anything else, I’d run a mile. Sharing experiences is great, but the average parent’s experience is limited to 1.6 children and should be regarded as just that.
One problem with experts is that while there is that while there are some areas which have been extensively studied and which the experts who made those studies have arrived at a consensus, that’s not nearly all areas. But I don’t think experts are very clear on that distinction when speaking to lay people (or otherwise, for the most part). So when you listen to an expert you may not know whether you’re getting the accepted results of many studies or if you’re the results of the particular studies that align with this particular expert’s position or if you’re getting a pie-in-the-sky answer based on theory.
One problem with parents is that many of them are not any smarter or more competent about being parents than they are about anything else. Also, even leaving that aside ISTM there are serious issues of confirmation bias when it comes to parents’ experiences, and much of what you think is the voice of experience is really a lot less than that. (One example that springs to mind - I’m very skeptical of the claims of many parents that giving their kids sugar produces a vast difference in hyperactivity, and that’s based on observations of those same kids.)
I want to go neither so I’m skipping voting. There are lots of experts who failed miserably as parents (we had a whole day of that back in my intro ed psych class) and experienced parents who turned out rotten kids. In general terms I’ll look at what each has to say/thinks and then go with what feels right to me.