Ecology of Parenting

About Parenting

  • parenting - the implementation of a series of decisions about the socialization of children

Political Ideology

  • political ideology - theories pertaining to government
  • autocracy - a society in which one person has unlimited power over others
  • democracy - a society in which those ruled have equal power with those who rule

Socioeconomic Status

This can effect multiple aspects of a child's life. Dependent upon the economic status of the family will influence a parents ability to be their and to parent effectively.

Culture, Ethnicity, and Religion

Similarities

  • Ensure physical health, economic self-reliance, and instill appropriate behaviors.

Differences

Cooperative/Interdependent Orientation

  • Authority Role: based on hierarchy, patriarchal, rank and status are important
  • Relationships: harmony is valued, family needs>individual needs, children are obedient
  • Communication: more indirect, nonverbal > verbal,
  • Emotion: both inward and outward, inward not shown publicly
  • Discipline: age=knowledge, children obey and imitate, obligation to parents
  • skill emphasis: get along with a group, modesty and moderation, children are expected to be developmentally appropriate.

Competitive/Independent

  • Authority Role: achieved authority is valued, rules are same for everyone
  • Relationships: compartmentalized, behavior governed by self, decisions are democratic
  • Communication: direct and independent of context
  • Emotion: openly express feelings, adaptive strategy of display
  • Discipline: rational order and action, problem solving, aims to be preventative
  • skills: decision making, individual achievement, personal responsibility

Chronosystems

-18th Century: humanism - a system of beliefs concerned with the interests and ideals of humans rather than of the natural or spiritual world
tabula rasa - the mind is a blank slate before impressions are recorded on it by experience

  • 19th Century: children are innately good, expect obedience and ignore disobedience
  • 20th Century (early): behaviorism - the theory that observed behavior, rather than what exists in the mind, provides the only valid data for psychology
    fixation - a Freudian term referring to arrested development
  • 20th Century (middle): period of stages of development
  • 20th century (late): child centered parenting, respect child's agency

Family Dynamic Changes Overtime

Children's Characteristics

  • Age and Cognitive Development
    -Temperament
  • Gender
  • Presence of Disability

Family Characteristics

  • Size
  • Configuration
  • Parent's Life Stage
  • Marital Quality
  • Parental Ability to Cope with Stress

Parenting styles

  • Authoritarian
  • Authoritative
  • Permissive
  • Uninvolved

Parent and Child Relationship

  • prosocial behavior - behavior that benefits other people, such as altruism, sharing, and cooperation
  • competence - refers to a pattern of effective adaptation to one's environment; it involves behavior that is socially responsible, independent, friendly, cooperative, dominant, and achievement oriented
  • uninvolved - a style of insensitive, indifferent parenting with few demands or rules

Parents interactions with others

Social support, informal networks, formal networks such as a job all effect the way a child is raised.

Appropriate Parenting Practices

  1. Consider child's age
  2. Maintain expectations
  3. Work with the child's strengths
  4. Use more than one discipline
  5. Give basic care
  6. Model and be an example

Inappropriate Practices

  • maltreatment - intentional harm to or endangerment of a child
  • abuse - maltreatment that includes physical abuse, sexual abuse, and psychological or emotional abuse
  • neglect - maltreatment involving abandonment, lack of supervision, improper feeding, lack of adequate medical or dental care, inappropriate dress, uncleanliness, and lack safety
  • physical abuse - maltreatment involving deliberate harm to the child's body
  • sexual abuse - maltreatment in which a person forces, tricks, or threatens a child in order to have sexual contact with him or her
  • incest - sexual relations between persons closely related
  • psychological or emotional abuse - maltreatment involving a destructive pattern of continual attack by an adult on a child's development of self and social competence, including rejecting, isolating, terrorizing, ignoring, and corrupting

Help for Children

  • guidance - involves direction, demonstration, supervision, and influence
  • discipline - involves punishment, correction, and training to develop self-control