V. Verma
2013
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0
Influential Citations
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Journal
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science
Abstract
The environment plays an important role in the development of children. The paper specifically focuses on the influence parents have on the development of their children whether they are biological, adoptive, or guardian parents. In terms of the parental role in development, the paper examines how parents influence the emotional, moral, and social development of their children. As children grow up, there are many aspects of their lives which influence and affect their development and behaviors. One of the most important facets during this time period of development is the parental figures in their life. They play a large role in the social and emotional behaviors a child will possess during childhood and later in life as well. The way a parent socializes may have a slight amount to do with their genetic makeup, but due to the child's interactions with and observations of, the parents contribute more to the social and empathy related development than heredity does .When children observe their parents emotions, they feel that that is how they should be reacting as well. Parents need to take their child into consideration before themselves at times, and often they don't do that. When the parent has a problem in their life, if it doesn't directly involve the child, they should not pull them into it. Research was done and it was found that children take their parents problems into themselves and worry about it just as much as the parent, even if it doesn't involve them .This is a common problem families face during a divorce; children believe it is because of them and therefore it is their problem to deal with, even though in most cases it has nothing to do with them. That's a heavy burden for children to carry with them and brings a lot of emotional baggage that they wouldn't have to deal with if they weren't influenced by their parents’ emotions. The emotions children encompass influence how they deal with social interactions as well. I. Parental Influence and the child Development Experts estimate that there are 60,000 to 100,000 genes (made up of DNA) in a human being's 46 chromosomes. A baby gets 23 chromosomes from his mother and 23 from his father. With all the possible gene combinations, one pair of parents has the potential to produce 64 trillion different children. This probably gives you an idea of how impossible it is to predict just what your baby will look like. The science of genetics is complicated, but with a short course you can get some information to guide your imagination. Remember learning about genes and fruit flies in high school biology? Back then, you were told that the dominant gene always beats out the recessive one. Well, scientists have always known humans are more complicated than fruit flies. But in recent years, they've learned just how much more complicated. As it turns out, most human traits are polygenic -the result of many genes acting together. To complicate things even further, for some traits -such as height, weight, and especially personality -environment also has a significant influence on which genes are expressed and which remain muted. Characteristics will arise based on its inherited genes. Therefore, it is evident that parents directly influence the development of their child in the genetic sense. Once the child is born, however, the child enters into a new environment in which the parents are the sole means of survival and interaction with the world. As a result, a key question arises; to what extent do parents influence the development of their child beyond genetics? How do the environmental interactions with parents influence the development of a child? Studies show that parents greatly influence the development of their child in all areas. However, parental influence on development is most notable in the areas of psychosocial development. Furthermore, parents play a vital role in the emotional, moral, and social development of their child or children. II. Emotional Influence Emotional development includes all aspects of personality and identity development. Throughout life, one’s personality and identity are greatly influenced by genes as well as environmental influences such as parents. For example, at birth, one has a particular temperament or characteristic disposition and method of approaching and reacting to situations. A child’s temperament is essentially the emotional self-regulation of a child when he or she responds to situations, how sociable the child is, and its activity level. According to research, temperament is a fairly stable characteristic of an individual based mainly on heredity .However, one’s temperament can be influenced and altered to a certain degree based on the interactions of the child with a Parental Influence on the emotional, moral, and social Development of Children and findings of www.iosrjournals.org 101 | Page parent. If a child with a difficult temperament has a parent with a difficult temperament, the parent theoretically will be able to address the child’s temperament and make adapting to new situations and various changes easier; this is referred to as the goodness of fit between parent and child. For example, Park, Belsky, Putnam, and Cynic found that fearful and shy male toddlers who were encouraged by their parents to explore new situations became less inhibited over time. However, toddlers who were not encouraged to explore maintained their shy and fearful nature. Despite the relative stability of temperament, parental involvement does influence the development of a child. In addition to temperament adaptations, parents influence the personality development of their child. According to Erik Erikson and his psychosocial developmental theory, individuals encounter a specific crisis at various stages of development. For example, at the first stage of development, toddlers encounter the trust versus mistrust crisis. At this stage, a child must experience enough trust in situations and relationships to establish the virtue of hope. A child at this age largely only interacts with his or her parents; therefore, they are the main source of trust and mistrust in the child’s life. If parents have a trusting and supportive relationship with their child, then the child overcomes the crisis and establishes the virtue of hope. In a later stage, Erikson identifies the crisis of identity versus identity diffusion in which one must fully explore relationships and occupations and then commit in order to reach identity achievement. Erikson states that parents must allow a child to fully explore his or her options and commit on his or her own in order to obtain identity achievement. Erikson states that if parents force a child into a career or relationship, then the child will not reach identity achievement. In this sense, parental influence is pivotal to a child reaching identity achievement; if a child is not allowed a specific amount of autonomy, the child will not overcome this crisis. Parental influence on the personality development of a child also includes the development of emotional and behavioral self-regulation. Emotional regulation, or the ability to control emotions and emotional responses, stems from the level of response and involvement of parents in a child’s life. For example, parents act as a resource for their child in social referencing. When a child is placed in a fear-inducing situation, if a parent is present, the child will look toward the parent and examine facial expressions. If the parent does not show emotional distress, then the child will display less distress and more engagement in the situation. As a result of the emotional regulation and social referencing, a child also experiences a level of emotional stability. Like emotional regulation, behavioral regulation comes about as a result of parental involvement and response to various aspects of a child’s life. For example, parents who are accepting of their children, grant them more autonomy, and implement higher levels of behavioral control in terms of rules and guidelines have children who display higher levels of behavioral self-regulation, maturity, identity, and work orientation. Therefore, parents play a vital role in the development of emotional and behavioral self-regulation in their child. It is clear that parents not only influence the development of emotional and behavioral self-regulation in their child, but they also influence the development of maturity and drive. The development of maturity and drive in children is most prevalent in academic achievement. Aunola, Nurmi, Lerkkanen, and Raku-Puttonen (2003) found in a recent study that a parent’s belief in his or her child’s academic success influenced the child’s success and drive to excel. Therefore, if the parent believed the child was going to be successful academically, he or she often became more focused on success and, as a result, achieved higher success. In addition, the study found that, in the mathematical area, if children were task-focused and had a drive to succeed then their mathematical scores would increase. Parents who played an active part in their child’s life and advocated certain success in academics positively influenced the development of drive and success in their children. Overall, parents who actively participate in their child’s development in a responsive manner will positively influence the emotional development of their child. III. Moral Influence Moral development, like emotional development, results from the positive influence of parents on a child. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, parental participation in moral development is not necessary for one to reach a high level of moral reasoning because schools and other settings can provide similar moral environments. However, Hoffman (1983, as cited in Bornstein, 2002) states that disciplinary encounters with parents are crucial for the internalization of moral standards. When a parent intervenes in a child’s negative beh