Dynamic Child Development

940 Words2 Pages

Family plays an essential role in child development. It may determine who we are going to be by affecting so many areas of development since the moment we are born, such as moral awareness, cognition, and gender identity. Furthermore, the family is important to the socialization process, " by which children acquire the social knowledge, skills, and attitudes valued by the larger society". In order to better understand the influence of the family, we need to look at its structure and dynamics within. Lately, social scientists hypothesized that inner dynamic of family interactions are more important than its structure in terms of child's development. This argument could arise from the fact that the family structure has very much …show more content…

Thus, Diana Baumrind during her studies observed how parents interacted with their children in different environments and interviewed them on their parenting styles. At the end of the research, Diana Baumrind distinguished four parenting patterns: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and uninvolved. Authoritarian parents were identified as controlling and relying on coercive techniques. Another pattern was described as permissive parents when parents made very few limits for the child. Uninvolved parents were characterized as uninterested in child's life and seemed emotionally detached from their child. And the fourth type, authoritative parents, showed support, control, and nurture. They set demands, but also provided reasoning and explanations. The research showed that the authoritative parenting pattern has the most positive effect on child's development. So, the results of the research evidenced that the right parenting style when the parent respond to child's needs, support, and make reasonable limits would have a flourishing outcome for the child's well-being. Adherence to this parenting model may protect and help a child when the family is experiencing some difficulties and changes. For example, families with employed mother are not unusual today. One might assume that such factor can negatively effect on the child development. But …show more content…

As there is a widespread opinion that it has a negative effect on children, social science researchers try to discover how it impacts children. The major reason is that not always parents can manage the situation correctly. E. Mavis Hetherington made a study on how children cope with separation of parents and the change in the interactions after the divorce. The research included a group of 48 children whose parents were divorced and another group whose parents were not. The result showed that the first year after the divorce was the worst. Children showed aggression, academic difficulties, emotional instability, low self-esteem. Also, the researchers noted the change in some mothers' parenting style, from authoritative to authoritarian ( since the children stayed with mothers in this study). Unfortunately, not every child may recover from such influence and the additional study discovered that some adults whose parents had divorced may experience problems in their own marriages or conflicts with other family members. However, there were more positive observations and results as well. So, some children could eventually adjust to the new situation in the family, had good academic performance and positive social interactions. Mothers of those children demonstrated a different change in parenting pattern, on the contrary, they adopted the authoritative parenting style.

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