Family and social development in childhood

Content

• Sociocultural influences in the family structure
• Family and socialization
  • The role of the family
• Psychosocial development
  • Social cognition
  • The development of roles
  • Influences on gender roles
• Moral development

Sociocultural influences in the family structure

Children do not develop in a vacuum, but in the context of their family, their neighborhood, community, country and the world. Children receive the influence of their parents, brothers and other relatives; of friends and colleagues; of other adults with those who come into contact, and the school, the church, and the groups of which they are part. They are influenced by the media; by community and national leaders, for the culture in which they are growing and even for the things that are happening in the world. Children are partly a product of social influences.

Family and socialization

The role of the family

We can describe the family as “any group of people united by the ties of marriage, blood, adoption or any expressive sexual relationship, in which (1) people share a commitment in an intimate and interpersonal relationship, (2) members consider its identity as an important attached to the group, and (3) the group has its own identity.

Paternal competition and family atmosphere

Not all parents have a positive influence on their children, nor are they able to create a positive and healthy family environment in which their children can grow. The psychological adjustment of the parents, the style of paternity and the quality of their marriage are factors that affect emotional maturity, social competence and cognitive development of children.

 Psychological adjustment of parents

When parents expose children to high levels of anger, the result is a high emotionality and behavioral reactivity by children.

Psychologically healthy parents are more likely to have a positive effect on the development of their children.

Marital quality

The quality of the marriage relationship also contributes to the adjustment and development of children and influences the behavioral problems they present in a wide age interval.

Paternity models:

• Authoritarian
• Permissive
• Balanced

Families with one father

Children who grow up in families with a single father, especially those whose mothers have never married, have a significantly greater probability of living below the poverty line. They also have more probability, compared to children living with both biological parents, having poor school performance, repeating some school degree or being expelled. In addition, its probability of showing emotional or behavioral problems is also greater. The most common health problems are accidents, injuries and poisoning.

Psychosocial development

The development of friendship with peers is one of the most important aspects of children's social development. In the psychosocial development process, all normal children go through four stages:

• Autoiality: The infant and prenatal stage of development in which the interests, pleasures and satisfactions of children are themselves. At this stage they can wish the company of others, but they play alone next to them and not with them.
• Infant heterosociality: Between the age of 2 and 7, children are looking for the company of others, regardless of sex.
• Homosociality: Between the age of 8 and 12, while they are in primary school, they prefer to play with other same -sex children, but not for sexual purposes, but for friendship and company.
• Adolescent and adult heterosociality: From 13 years and older, or in the adolescent and adult stages of psychosocial development, when the pleasures, friendships and company of the individual are found in people of both sexes. The teenage boys and girls begin to form couples, most start courtships.

Social cognition

Social cognition is the ability to understand social relationships. In children is the ability to understand others, their thoughts, their emotions, their social behavior and in general, their point of view.

It is necessary to know what other people think and feel to understand and congen them with them.

Below are the Five stages of Spelman development:

Stage 0

Undifferentiated egocentric stage (from 0 to 6 years old). Until around 6 years, children cannot make a clear distinction between their own interpretation of a social situation and the point of view of others; Nor can they understand that their perception can be incorrect.

Stage 1

Acquisition stage of a differentiated or subjective perspective (from 6 to 8 years). Children become aware that others can have a different social perspective, but it is difficult for them to understand the reasons for their point of view.

Stage 2

Self -reflexive or acquisition thinking stage of a reciprocal perspective (from 8 to 10 years). The child develops a reciprocal consciousness, realizes that others have a different point of view from their own and that they also realize that he has his own point of view.

Stage 3

Acquisition stage of a mutual perspective or a third person (from 10 to 12 years old). Children can see their own perspective, the perspective of their partner and also assume the perspective of a third neutral person.

Stage 4

Stage of acquisition of an in -depth and social perspective (from adolescence to adult life). Young people recognize that there is a group's perspective, a point of view that is reflected in a social system.

The development of roles

Gender roles are external expressions of masculinity or femininity in social scenarios; The way we act and think how men and women are our sexual roles.

Sexual roles are molded by three important, biological, cognitive and environmental influences.

Influences on gender roles

• Biological. If an ovule is fertilized by a sperm that wears an X chromosome, a woman will be conceived, but it is fertilized by a sperm that carries a chromosome and, a man will be conceived. The chromosomal combination is the initial factor that controls the development of gender. The development of the genre also receives the influence of sex hormones. Testosterone is the male hormone secreted by the testicles, while estrogen is the female hormone secreted by the ovaries.
• The cognitive theory It suggests that identity with the sexual role originates in the genre cognitively assigned to the child from birth and subsequently accepted by him or her as he grows. At the time of birth gender assignment is mainly done on the basis of the genital examination. This gender assignment influences everything that happens later.
• The environmentalists reason differently. In his opinion, a child learns sexually typified behavior in the same way that he learns any other type of behavior: for a combination of rewards and punishments, indoctrination and observation and imitation of others. Giving children specific toys of the genre has a considerable influence on vocational elections. Those toys incline boys to be scientists, astronauts or soccer players, and girls to be nurses, teachers or aeromozas.

Moral development

Moral judgment

The most important initial research in this regard was carried out by Piaget, who highlighted the development of moral judgment as a gradual cognitive process, stimulated by the growing social relations of children as they grow.

Piaget's work develops in four sections. The first section analyzes children's attitudes towards the rules of the game when they play marbles. The second and third report the results of telling children stories that require them to make moral judgments on the basis of the information provided. The last section reviews its findings in relation to social psychology.

Moral behavior

Moral judgment is the knowledge of the good and the bad.

Moral motivation is the strength of the desire to do the right thing, the intensity of feelings in relation to doing the right. Another facet, moral inhibition, is the force of desire or feeling of not doing what is incorrect. Moral behavior depends on both the positive moral motivation and on the force of inhibitions against the wrong.

It is necessary that parents and other people in charge of their care encourage children to accept their responsibilities for the faults and at the same time to be proud of their honesty. Moreover, adults can promote the development of self -evaluative feelings that through reasoning integrate children's thinking and action. Punishment can teach the fear of doing something wrong, but reasoning can help children want to do the right thing because they feel good about themselves.

Ariel Delgado