Evolution of Parenting: A Historical Perspective

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Social Historical Context in which the Individual lived in Before the 1950’s many scientists and parents believed that attachment to children would cause them to become dependent and spoiled (Pitman, 2010). Parents did not want to coddle their children in the fear of spoiling them. However, later research which took place in the 1950’s began to change the outlook on how infants and children should be cared for in order to have a healthy development. Researchers such as John Bowlby, Rene Ritz, and William Goldfarb had fascinating findings that influenced the way that parents created attachments with their children (History Module: The Devastating Effects of Isolation on Social Behaviour (n.d.). Thus, parenting changed from giving little attention …show more content…

Infants depend on their caregivers to provide them with their basic needs which leads the infants to want to seek comfort in these people. The infant is able to display many behaviours that indicate their attachment to a caregiver such as reaching, smiling, clinging or sucking (Attachment Between Infant and Caregiver, 2016). A few of these actions were commonly displayed in Harlow’s research with the infant monkeys. The infant monkeys tended to cling to the surrogate mother that they felt close and secure to just like in John Bowlby’s theory, the human infants would cling and reach for their caregivers for comfort (Attachment Between Infant and Caregiver, 2016). Bowlby, just like Harlow, argued that when infants reach out and seek attention from their caregivers, it is not for food, but for comfort, security and the responsiveness of the caregiver (Attachment between infant and caregiver, …show more content…

Bowlby argued that if the attachment between the infant and the mother is disturbed in anyway during first two years of the child’s life, then there will be lasting consequences for that individual (McLeod, 2007). This relates to Harlow’s findings because Harlow found that after six months, the infant monkeys with the cloth mothers had a hard time forgetting that attachment with their caregiver (Harlow, 1959). Therefore, it is clear that in the 1950’s and during the time that Harlow wrote his article, thoughts about the importance of attachment changed to focus on how infants and parents should form a close bond with one

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