Do Young Children Need Intellectual Stimulation? Experts' Advice to Parents, 1900-1985

Abstract

The field of family history has been in creative ferment in recent years as historians have debated whether or not the early modern era brought a fundamental change in family life. While historians such as Philippe Aries, Lawrence Stone, and Edward Shorter have claimed that families became closer and more child-centered, others deny major changes in the emotional lives of families have occurred. The skeptics suggest the impossibility of deriving any conclusions about the level of attachment family members felt for each other. They also point out that those emphasizing increased intimacy and attachment cite different time periods when this change is supposed to have occurred: estimates range from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, with most historians settling on the eighteenth century.