The Family
Parents play 3 roles:
1. Direct instructors
2. Indirect socializers (models)
3. Provider and controllers of
opportunities
Parenting Style and Practices
• “Parenting styles” refers to parenting behaviors
and attitudes that set the emotional climate of
parent–child interactions.
• Four main parenting styles (Baumrind,1973):
–
–
–
–
Authoritative
Authoritarian
Permissive
Rejecting–neglecting
Authoritative Parents
The Parents
• demanding, but warm and responsive.
• Set clear standards.
• Allow children to develop autonomy.
• attentive to children’s concerns and needs.
• consistent in discipline.
The Children
• tend to be competent, self-assured, popular
with peers, and low in antisocial behavior and
drug use as teens.
Authoritarian Parents
The Parents
• cold and unresponsive to children’s needs.
• controlling and demanding.
• Expect children to comply with their demands
without question or explanation.
The children
• tend to be low in social and academic
competence, unhappy, unfriendly, and low in
self-confidence.
Permissive Parents
The Parents
• responsive to their children’s needs
• lenient with their children.
• Do not require their children to regulate
themselves or behave appropriately.
The children
• tend to be impulsive, lacking in self-control, and
low in school achievement.
• As adolescents, they engage more in misconduct
and drug use.
Rejecting–Neglecting Parents
The parents
• disengaged, undemanding, unsupportive, and low in
responsiveness
• Don’t set limits/rules or monitor children’s behavior.
The children
• tend to have disturbed attachment as infants and
toddlers and, later, problems with peer relationships.
• As teens, they exhibit antisocial behavior, depression
and social withdrawal, drug use, risky sexual
behavior, and low academic and social competence.
Family Dynamics
More to “family” than parenting
# of sibs, sibs’personality, birth order
All members influence each other
All are effected by social support
Developmental changes in the child changes family
dynamics
Changes in the family structure (divorce, new siblings)
Wrap Up: Course Objectives
• To introduce basic questions, theories and methods of
developmental approaches to psychology.
• To show how developmental approaches to psychology
can begin to answer these questions
• To help you to ask the right questions and distinguish a
good design and founded conclusions from unfounded
ones.
• To be interesting!
Why Study Child Development?
• In order to be better parents.
• In order to help choose and shape social
policies.
• In order to understand human nature.
Applying What We’ve Learned
• Pick a good partner!
“The practical lessons of child-development research for
parents begin even before they become parents. Given
the importance of genetics, pick a partner whose
physical, intellectual, and emotional characteristics
suggest that he or she will provide your child with good
genes. Given the importance of the environment, pick a
partner who will be a good mother or father. In terms of
long-term impact on your child, this choice almost
certainly will be the most important decision you ever
make.” (Siegler, et. al., 2003)
Applying What We’ve Learned
• Ensure a healthy pregnancy
• Form a secure attachment (display positive emotion, be
consistent, be responsive)
• Be an authoritative, not an authoritarian or laissez-faire
parent! (Provide support, “guided participation”, involve
your child in decision making)
• Expose children to a second language: the earlier the better
• Provide a stimulating environment
– Books: First you learn to read, then you read to learn…
– Discussions of emotions, narratives…long-term
impacts on language proficiency, theory of mind, social
intelligence etc. etc.
• And much more…
General Conclusions
• Multifaceted and complex interactions
between Nature and Nurture
• Multiple sources of sociocultural effects