(5) Family Flashcards
What are characteristics of a well-functioning family?
- Are flexible
- Have permeable boundaries
- Allow satisfying relationships insides and out of the family
- Are consistent but flexible with children
What are characteristics of a negatively functioning family?
- Are rigid or too permeable
- Members have difficulty disengaging from family
- Have few community attachments (e.g. friends)
- More likely to perceive children negatively
- Are punitive and inconsistent with children
What is Parents’ socialisation of children?
begins at birth, is conscious and systematic, reinforces positive behaviour and imposes rules
When does Socialisation become more intense?
with the child’s greater mobility, with the acquisition of formal language
How do parents promote their childs social development?
- Choose the neighbourhood and home where they live
- Decorate the home and the child’s room in certain ways (e.g. gendered)
- Expose the child to certain contents and activities (e.g. TV, games, religious ceremonies)
Parenting patterns and styles tend to reflect two primary dimensions of behaviour, which are…
emotion and control
Which two ways may a parent respond to their child?
Parents may be warm, responsive and child centred, or rejecting, unresponsive and uninvolved
What happens with child-parent interactions as children get older?
As children get older and more autonomous they will become more active in regulating interactions with parents
What are examples of Barber, 2002 types of control?
- Behavioural Control
- Setting reasonable rules
- Parental use of suggestions, reasoning and options
- Involves monitoring the child’s activities
- Moderate control leads to more cooperative children and higher internalising of parental rules
What does psychological control involve?
- Involves induction of guilt, shame and other emotion directed tactics
- Includes ignoring of discounting the child’s feelings
What can psychological control lead to?
Often leads to lower self-esteem, higher anxiety and depression in children
What is authoritive parenting?
Parenting that is warm, responsive and involved yet uninstructive and in which parents set reasonable limits and expect appropriate, mature behaviour from their children (energetic friendly child)
What is Authoritarian parenting?
Parenting that is harsh, unresponsive and rigid and in which parents tend to use power-assertive methods of control (conflicted-irritable child)
What is permissive parenting?
Parenting that is lax and in which parents exercise inconsistent discipline and encourage children to express their impulses freely (impulsive-aggressive child)
What is uninvolved parenting?
Parenting that is indifferent and neglectful and in which parents focus on their own needs, rather than on the children’s needs. Also known as neglecting-rejecting parenting (neglected child)
How is parenting styles criticised?
Unclear paths between parenting styles and children’s behaviour, it neglects the influence of child’s temperament and behaviours
What other factors can affect children’s behaviour?
- The physical and social environment can influence the child’s behaviour outcome
- e.g., an authoritative style may promote social and academic competence in children living in low-risk environments but not in other settings
What did Furstenberg et al., 1999; Parke et al., 2008 find?
Authoritarian strategies seem to produce better adjusted poor minority children who live in dangerous areas
What did Rudy & Grusec, 2006 find about authoritarian parenting?
Research has found no links between authoritarian parenting and negative feeling about the child or lack of warmth in Middle Eastern families living in Canada
What parenting styles do Chinese parents tend to show?
Chinese parents tend to score high in authoritarian parenting due to differences in concept and style of parenting (Chao, 1994, 2001)
What is chiao shun (training) and guan (to govern)?
a high degree of involvement with the child, physical closeness to child, devotion
Partners who are mutually supportive are involved with their children in what way?
Mutually supportive partners are more likely to be involved with their children in an affectionate, sensitive and effective way
Parental conflict can effect children in what way?
Conflict between partners can have a negative impact on parents and children
How can parental disagreements effect children?
Parental disagreements handled in hostile/aggressive ways leads children to act aggressively
How does fathers who deal with marital conflicts effect children?
Children whose fathers deal with marital conflicts in an angry and withdrawn way are more likely to get depressed
What gender differences occur in families?
- Boys are more affected by family disharmony than girls
- Boys also more likely to be exposed to parental arguments
How can temperamentally difficult children effect families?
- Children can also impact parental relationships is they are temperamentally difficult
- However, the birth of a temperamental child rarely destroys a good relationship
Poorer families are likely to be subject to…
- Lower quality home environment
- Parents suffering from physical and emotional problems
- Higher parent-child conflict
- Living in higher risk neighbourhoods
What are modern families like now?
- Family size is decreasing
- ‘New’ types of families, including same sex parents
- Divorce and remarriage modifies lives and the development of adults and children
- Parental roles are also changing
- Increase numbers of working mothers
Can divorce have positive impacts on children?
Divorce can be positive solution to destructive family but may cause tensions and distress
How can the first two years of a divorce effect children?
- First year worsening of parental distress and less attention given to children
- Second year sees considerable improvements
How to boys and girls respond differently to step parents?
- Boys benefit from a close relationship with a stepfather
- Girl may experience a stepfather as an intruder between them and their mothers
Can young parents effect children?
- These tend to face many challenges
- This has an impact on the child’s development
What positives are there to having older parents?
Fathers can be more flexible at work and take more responsibility for childcare
Can how a child is conceived effect them?
No differences between children conceived via traditional and other ways
How can same sex parenting effect children?
Children raised by same sex parents are resilient with regard to their social, psychological and sexual health
The quality of daily interaction and the strength of parents’ relationship more important than their gender
How are sibling relationships important?
These interactions are formative and fertile learning grounds for positive and negative behaviours
How might a parents prepare a child for a new sibling?
- Maintaining maternal responsiveness
- Child developing a relationship with the father
How can friendships be beneficial for a child expecting a new sibling?
- Children with good friendships are less upset about having a new sibling
- They are also more accepting and behave more positively towards the new sibling
What attributes do first born children show?
- Adult-oriented
- Helpful
- Self-controlled
- They also tend to excel more academically and in their jobs
- Be more conservative
- Be more fearful and anxious
- Experience more guilt
- Have more difficulty in coping alone with stressful situations
- Have less self-confidence
What types of attributes do only children show?
- personal control
- maturity
- leadership
- high achiever
