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Abstract:Based on studying the social interaction development of children, and analysis on the reasons and the necessity of children’s behavior occurrence, I conclude that the importance of family influence on child development.
Key words: Reflex, attachment behaviors, Group care environments
ⅠChildren’s social interaction develop over the first year of the life.
The most important relationship a child forms during the first year of life is the special bond between the infant with the parents or the person who look after them. Through the investigation, we know that a ten-day-old infant could recognize his mother by smell alone.
Infants don’t really do much except crying, eating and sleeping. Smiling is one of the first ways through which they interact with adults. After conducting controlled experiment, we know that an infant will smile at anyone who approaches and interacts with him from two to seven months old. In the second part of the infant’s life, the infant don’t often smile at a stranger. That is because they have developed a specific attachment with their parents or the ones who look after them.
ⅡDefinition of a reflex.
Reflex has a number of meanings in psychology, ranging from the technical (an innate behavior that occurs without conscious thought or planning and does not vary from situation to situation) to the non-specific (an act which is performed “on impulse”). In classical conditioning, the reflex is unlearned association between certain stimuli and their appropriate responses. ” (Mike Cardwell)
In a short sentence, a reflex is an involuntary and automatic react to certain stimulus.
Physiological reflex, for example, when we put food in the mouth, we will produce saliva to help the food get soft and smooth when it goes down the throat.
Primitive reflex, for example, if you touch the corner of an infant’s mouth and then pull your finger slowly towards his cheek, the infant will reach out his tongue, mouth or even his head towards your finger and tries to suck your finger. This is called the rooting reflex.
Ⅲ The necessity for attachment behaviors to occur.
“Attachment behaviors” refers to the specific inborn behaviors a child displays to maintain their proximity to a particular person, including following, crying, smiling, clinging and sucking.
ⅰFactors for the attachment behavior to occur:
Object conservation or object permanence: a term used by Piaget to refer to the child’s realization that an object continues to exist even though it is hidden from view. When a child understands object permanence, he tends to start separation protest.
The caregiver’s sensitivity: the extent to which the mother/caregiver could detect the infant’s signals, interpret them correctly and respond promptly and appropriately. The degree of sensitivity of the caregiver will decide if the infant is securely attached or insecurely attached.
ⅱTwo factors influencing the intensity of attachments according to Schaffer and Emerson (1964):
1) The degree to which the mother was ready to attend to her infant’s crying by picking him up and attending to him immediately.
2) The amount of time and attention the mother gave her infant, beside the routine caretaking activities.
Attachment behavior exists across many different cultures; Bartholomew (1993) has shown not only children display attachment behavior, adults also desires for closeness with an attachment figure.
Ⅳ The evidence of children’s developing normally despite maternal separation.
Maternal deprivation means that an infant is deprived of his relationship with his mother.
In 1974, Tizard and Rees found no evidence of retardation in a group of 4 year old children who were institutionalized since early infancy. And a good staff-child ratio, together with a generous provision of toys, books and outings, will promote an average level of development at 4 years, in the absence of any close or continuous relationship with a mother substitute. They suggest that children who are not often talked to or read to and are not given a variety of stimulation tend to be retarded whatever the social setting.
Downdey, Quinton and Rutter (1985) followed up a group of women who had spent their childhood in care from an early age. Whether the women had current personality problems and parenting difficulties, was not related to their early lack of attachment with their mothers but related to the following two factors:
1. Whether or not their experiences at school had been positive.
2. Whether or not they had supportive relationship with their husbands.
When children suffer maternal deprivation, they are rarely deprived only of their relationship with their mother. There are always many different factors involved. It is this mixture of different factors and different circumstances which leads to varying results. That is why now a lot of emphasis is placed on providing high-quality, substitute maternal care involving stability, affection and active involvement when children are unavoidably separated from their mothers. So, a child can develop normally given the proper care, love and stimulation in a safe, calm and familiar environment despite maternal separation.
ⅤThe importance of family relationships to developing children and family care to groups care environments.
ⅰThe importance of family relationship to developing children:
The family relationship is very important in developing children. The family has a wide range of effects on a child. The more people there are in the family, the greater the number of relationships possible between family members. Each relationship plays an important role in a child’s life as follows:
1. Father’s role: the intensity of the father’s attachment to his child is determined by three factors:
①The father’s sensitivity to the baby’s signals
②His playfulness with the baby.
③The amount of time he spends in face-to-face interaction with the baby
It is very similar to the mother-child relationship, however, fathers interact more with boys than with girls and they stimulate them more. The most critical roles which the father plays are in the development of gender roles.
2. Siblings (Brothers and sisters): Siblings play a more complex and important role to a developing child. Siblings play a vital role in modeling behavior. 12 month old children spent as much time with their older siblings as they did with their mothers and more than with their fathers. Siblings also play an important role in influencing the intellectual development of a child. When children played with their siblings, their play was more advanced compared to when they played with their peers and their parents. Advanced imaginative play is between 2 years and their siblings.
3. Peer relationship is important to the children as the infants at 6 months old display the interactions between them. The frequency and complexity of infant-infant interactions increases as they grow.
ⅱComparison of Family care and Group care environments.
Most countries have a norm for a child to be raised in a single small family unit, while some other countries and societies have a long history of communal child-rearing, such as our country, Russia and Reseal. In these countries, mothers are encouraged to work while their children are cared for in state-run institutions. There are a lot of researches done about Maternal Employment. In summary, women who were not working but preferred to work were the least adequate in their maternal behavior. They had most difficulty with control, had least confidence in themselves and gained less emotional satisfaction in their relationship with their children; in the United States a little difference between children placed in day-care centers and those raised at home in the amount of protect, seek closeness to the mother when upset. There are no negative effects when a child is cared for in a day-care center provided it is run by trained personnel with a high staff-child ratio.
The importance of the family is to develop child. In no other relationship do human beings place themselves is so unreservedly and continuously at the disposal of others. The quality and amount of maternal care provided in the average institution is much worse than the average family. The greatest caution should be taken in placing a child in long term institutional care but a bad home should not be automatically preferred to a good institution. The need is to examine the quality of parental care and its stability before putting the children in care: foster care, adoption and residential nurseries.
Reference
Mike Cardwell (2003) Complete A-Z Psychology Handbook, (3rd edition) Hodder & Stoughton, London
Key words: Reflex, attachment behaviors, Group care environments
ⅠChildren’s social interaction develop over the first year of the life.
The most important relationship a child forms during the first year of life is the special bond between the infant with the parents or the person who look after them. Through the investigation, we know that a ten-day-old infant could recognize his mother by smell alone.
Infants don’t really do much except crying, eating and sleeping. Smiling is one of the first ways through which they interact with adults. After conducting controlled experiment, we know that an infant will smile at anyone who approaches and interacts with him from two to seven months old. In the second part of the infant’s life, the infant don’t often smile at a stranger. That is because they have developed a specific attachment with their parents or the ones who look after them.
ⅡDefinition of a reflex.
Reflex has a number of meanings in psychology, ranging from the technical (an innate behavior that occurs without conscious thought or planning and does not vary from situation to situation) to the non-specific (an act which is performed “on impulse”). In classical conditioning, the reflex is unlearned association between certain stimuli and their appropriate responses. ” (Mike Cardwell)
In a short sentence, a reflex is an involuntary and automatic react to certain stimulus.
Physiological reflex, for example, when we put food in the mouth, we will produce saliva to help the food get soft and smooth when it goes down the throat.
Primitive reflex, for example, if you touch the corner of an infant’s mouth and then pull your finger slowly towards his cheek, the infant will reach out his tongue, mouth or even his head towards your finger and tries to suck your finger. This is called the rooting reflex.
Ⅲ The necessity for attachment behaviors to occur.
“Attachment behaviors” refers to the specific inborn behaviors a child displays to maintain their proximity to a particular person, including following, crying, smiling, clinging and sucking.
ⅰFactors for the attachment behavior to occur:
Object conservation or object permanence: a term used by Piaget to refer to the child’s realization that an object continues to exist even though it is hidden from view. When a child understands object permanence, he tends to start separation protest.
The caregiver’s sensitivity: the extent to which the mother/caregiver could detect the infant’s signals, interpret them correctly and respond promptly and appropriately. The degree of sensitivity of the caregiver will decide if the infant is securely attached or insecurely attached.
ⅱTwo factors influencing the intensity of attachments according to Schaffer and Emerson (1964):
1) The degree to which the mother was ready to attend to her infant’s crying by picking him up and attending to him immediately.
2) The amount of time and attention the mother gave her infant, beside the routine caretaking activities.
Attachment behavior exists across many different cultures; Bartholomew (1993) has shown not only children display attachment behavior, adults also desires for closeness with an attachment figure.
Ⅳ The evidence of children’s developing normally despite maternal separation.
Maternal deprivation means that an infant is deprived of his relationship with his mother.
In 1974, Tizard and Rees found no evidence of retardation in a group of 4 year old children who were institutionalized since early infancy. And a good staff-child ratio, together with a generous provision of toys, books and outings, will promote an average level of development at 4 years, in the absence of any close or continuous relationship with a mother substitute. They suggest that children who are not often talked to or read to and are not given a variety of stimulation tend to be retarded whatever the social setting.
Downdey, Quinton and Rutter (1985) followed up a group of women who had spent their childhood in care from an early age. Whether the women had current personality problems and parenting difficulties, was not related to their early lack of attachment with their mothers but related to the following two factors:
1. Whether or not their experiences at school had been positive.
2. Whether or not they had supportive relationship with their husbands.
When children suffer maternal deprivation, they are rarely deprived only of their relationship with their mother. There are always many different factors involved. It is this mixture of different factors and different circumstances which leads to varying results. That is why now a lot of emphasis is placed on providing high-quality, substitute maternal care involving stability, affection and active involvement when children are unavoidably separated from their mothers. So, a child can develop normally given the proper care, love and stimulation in a safe, calm and familiar environment despite maternal separation.
ⅤThe importance of family relationships to developing children and family care to groups care environments.
ⅰThe importance of family relationship to developing children:
The family relationship is very important in developing children. The family has a wide range of effects on a child. The more people there are in the family, the greater the number of relationships possible between family members. Each relationship plays an important role in a child’s life as follows:
1. Father’s role: the intensity of the father’s attachment to his child is determined by three factors:
①The father’s sensitivity to the baby’s signals
②His playfulness with the baby.
③The amount of time he spends in face-to-face interaction with the baby
It is very similar to the mother-child relationship, however, fathers interact more with boys than with girls and they stimulate them more. The most critical roles which the father plays are in the development of gender roles.
2. Siblings (Brothers and sisters): Siblings play a more complex and important role to a developing child. Siblings play a vital role in modeling behavior. 12 month old children spent as much time with their older siblings as they did with their mothers and more than with their fathers. Siblings also play an important role in influencing the intellectual development of a child. When children played with their siblings, their play was more advanced compared to when they played with their peers and their parents. Advanced imaginative play is between 2 years and their siblings.
3. Peer relationship is important to the children as the infants at 6 months old display the interactions between them. The frequency and complexity of infant-infant interactions increases as they grow.
ⅱComparison of Family care and Group care environments.
Most countries have a norm for a child to be raised in a single small family unit, while some other countries and societies have a long history of communal child-rearing, such as our country, Russia and Reseal. In these countries, mothers are encouraged to work while their children are cared for in state-run institutions. There are a lot of researches done about Maternal Employment. In summary, women who were not working but preferred to work were the least adequate in their maternal behavior. They had most difficulty with control, had least confidence in themselves and gained less emotional satisfaction in their relationship with their children; in the United States a little difference between children placed in day-care centers and those raised at home in the amount of protect, seek closeness to the mother when upset. There are no negative effects when a child is cared for in a day-care center provided it is run by trained personnel with a high staff-child ratio.
The importance of the family is to develop child. In no other relationship do human beings place themselves is so unreservedly and continuously at the disposal of others. The quality and amount of maternal care provided in the average institution is much worse than the average family. The greatest caution should be taken in placing a child in long term institutional care but a bad home should not be automatically preferred to a good institution. The need is to examine the quality of parental care and its stability before putting the children in care: foster care, adoption and residential nurseries.
Reference
Mike Cardwell (2003) Complete A-Z Psychology Handbook, (3rd edition) Hodder & Stoughton, London