"Don't worry": Figurations of the child in a Swedish parenting advice column.

Abstract

Materials such as popular books, magazines, and newspapers have historically been important for the circulation of psychologists' and psychiatrists' expertise in the public sphere. In this article, I analyze an advice column published in the Swedish parenting magazine Vi Föräldrar [Us Parents], featuring the child psychologist Malin Alfvén. Drawing on the concept of figurations (Castañeda, 2002), denoting the process of outlining and defining an entity, I show how the expert framed the child-related problems brought up in the submitted letters as transient and a normal part of children's development. In fact, most problems were considered beneficial for both parents and the child. Instead of interpreting children's behavior through a medical framework, Alfvén's explanations drew on 3 naturalizing figurations of the child: as being one of several kinds of children; as going through phases and ages; and as being a unique individual. For instance, a child could be rowdy and temperamental because he was a willful kind of child, not because, as suggested by some parents, he suffered from a neuropsychiatric disorder. I conclude by contrasting these findings to the claims made by some scholars that "psy" experts have contributed to an increasing medicalization of childhood as well as to a framing of children's development as overwhelmingly determined by parents' care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).