Whether or not a parent is a positive or negative role model in a child’s life, often depends on the nurturing and nurturing of the individual. In today’s society, many parents chose to be single and raise their children in a non-traditional household. The essay will explore the positive and negatives on child development in single parent families. There is so much stress associated with single parenting and sometimes less advantages compared to dual parent sharing. Single parenthood can play a major role in the child’s social and cognitive development, together with family functioning.
Mothers from ethnic minority groups are more likely to stay at home with their children. Interestingly ethnic minority groups do have better outcomes at primary school – showing that they benefit from a positive home learning environment which may alleviate the possible disadvantage of not attending a pre-school/early years setting. The advantage of early years education has been shown to be visible at age 4 – 7 (key stage 1) and pupils who receive early education have higher attainment than those with no early education. Strand’s (1999) study of inner London pupils showed that black pupils with high attainment at age 4 and white pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, all made less than expected progress during Key Stage 1. Indeed at this stage it is
They measured emotional and social competence at ages 4, 8 and 16. The study found that at the children who were restored to their real parents were less likely to have formed attachments with their original families, but adopted children were as closely attached to their adoptive parents as the control group. However both the groups of ex-institutionalised children had problems with peer relationships. These findings suggest that their early privation had a negative effect on the ability to form relationships. This supports bowlby’s theory that failure to form attachments has an irreversible effect on emotional development.
Other minority groups are similarly disadvantaged through childhood, including those with a disability. Research has shown that disabled people are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to have educational qualifications, even though they have similar aspirations than a peer with no disability. Whilst educational development has a large impact on the development of young people, impacting on their outcomes and life chances, social skills are also imperative in promoting wellbeing in a child’s life, and subsequently, adulthood. Children’s social development can be measured through various criteria, including attention, co-operation, sociability, openness, pro-social behaviour and self regulation. Positive development in these areas has been shown to promote educational attainment through to adulthood,
Cultural factors play a huge part in causing social class differences in educational achievement, these factors include things such as cultural deprivation and capital which stem from a young age and influence achievement. Cultural deprivation refers to being deprived of basic norms, values, attitudes, language and experiences needed to do well in school. Middle class are the type that typically are not culturally deprived as from a young age middle class parents would read intellectual books, buy educational toys and take their children to theatres etc. Research by sociologists has been carried out distributing 450 questionnaires to pupils over four schools to test cultural deprivation. The questionnaires asked questions about reading and TV viewing habits.
Explainining class differences in achievement Cultural deprivation theory blames the failings of the child on his/her background. This diverts the attention from the educational system which may contribute to, or account for, class differences in attainment. Cultural deprivation theorists argue that many working-class homes lack the books, educational toys and activities that would stimulate a child’s intellectual development. Bernstein and Young (1967) found that the way mothers think about and choose toys has an influence on their child’s intellectual development. Middle-class mothers are more likely to have more of an interest in their child’s intellectual development.
They believe that securely attached infants would become autonomous adults; these know the importance of their past relationships and can recall positive and negative experiences. Those that had insecure attachments would fall into the dismissing or preoccupied category. They would see their childhood experiences as either unimportant and dismiss them or as important but cannot resolve issues. Using the AAI, Hamilton (1994) studied 30 adolescents and found a strong correlation between infant attachment type and adult attachment type. Similarly Steinberg (1990) found that securely attached adolescents were more likely to maintain healthy relationships with their parents than those classified as dismissive or preoccupied.
They are able to manipulate the education system to their advantage which means their children have a better chance at doing well in school. Disconnected-local choosers and semi-skilled choosers are working-class parents who have a lack of cultural capital and therefore their child’s academic progress suffers as they are usually sent to ‘local’ schools which they aren’t necessarily best suited for. Children who have cultural capital also have an elaborated code (wider vocabulary) which gives them an advantage at school as it is the code used by teachers and in textbooks. The elaborated code is typically used by middle class and helps with their academic achievement. Children with a lack of cultural capital are more likely to use the restricted code (limited vocabulary) which disadvantages them at school as they feel excluded and are therefore less successful.
Authors believed the level of aggression is believed to be accepted depending on similarity between individuals and peer groups. For a child to have positive emotional and social development they need positive peer relations. Popular children are less likely to be withdrawn. The study took place at Wediko Children’s Services’ summer program for children. The children that were attending camp were placed in living groups.
“Despite the limitations of this study, the preliminary finding that participating in the HAP helped the children to decrease their emotional reactivity is convergent with previous qualitative research findings that found that the HAP was beneficial for children in need (Coholic, Eys, & Lougheed, 2012, p.833)”. There were indications that arts-based and mindfulness-based methods for children in need are beneficial in a variety of ways. Research showed that individuals who took part in the arts-based sessions did appear to perceive a greater sense of “mastery post-control exercise”. “While not supported statistically in the present study, future research may want to consider whether these contrasting approaches (i.e., conventional arts-based vs. mindfulness-based arts/crafts) tackle different aspects of resiliency and self-concept perceptions (Coholic, Eys, & Lougheed, 2012, p.844)”. Research showed that it is reasonable to suggest that the preliminary findings are promising enough to support continued study in this area.