Module 4 Flashcards
Stages of Early Development
Prenatal Period Infancy - Birth to 15 months Toddler Period - 15 months to 2 ½ years Preschool Period - 2 ½ to 6 years The Middle Years - 6 to 12 years
Prenatal Period
The Germinal Period - First 2 weeks
Period of the Embryo - 3 to 7 weeks
Period of the Fetus - 8 weeks to birth
- One-celled zygote divides into
- 2 separate cells»_space; 4»_space; 8»_space; 16»_space; multicelled organism
- Most rapid growth of the entire life span
- Implantation one week after conception
The Germinal Period (First 2 weeks)
- Growth is rapid and orderly
- 2 directions of growth
1. Cephalo-caudal : from the head downward
2. Proximo-distal : from the center (spine) toward the extremities
Period of the Embryo (3 to 7 weeks)
Developmental Damage
- Damage at the fetal stage usually has a more global impact than damage after birth
- Rapidly growing organs are the most vulnerable
- Boys are more vulnerable
Behavior
- Fetal movements detected by 16 – 20 weeks
- Bright light flashed on the abdominal wall at 20 weeks causes changes in fetal heart rate and position
Behavior: Reflexes
Reflexes are present:
Grasp reflex appears at 17 weeks
Moro (startle) reflex at 25 weeks
Sucking reflex at 28 weeks
Maternal Stress
- High levels of stress hormones in the fetal bloodstream (Epinephrine, norepinephrine, and adrenocorticotropic hormone)
- Act directly on the fetal neuronal network to increase BP, HR and activity level
Mothers with high levels of __ are more likely to have babies who are hyperactive, irritable, of low birth weight and who have problems feeding and sleeping
anxiety
Maternal depression
- risk factor for the socioeconomic and cognitive development of children
- Women of childbearing age are prone to depression
- Premature birth
- Low birth weight
- Developmental problems - Less active, more agitated
INFANCY: Birth to 15 months
Developmental Landmarks
- Physical Development
- Language and Cognitive Development
- Emotional and Social Development
- Temperamental Differences
- Attachment
- Infant Care
Reflexes at Birth: 3 sets of reflexes critical for survival 1
- Helps the newborn maintain constant body temperature
* When infants are cold, they cry, shiver and tuck their legs close to their bodies
Reflexes at Birth: 3 sets of reflexes critical for survival 2
- Ensures adequate nourishment
- Sucking reflex
- Rooting reflex
- Swallowing
- Crying
Reflexes at Birth: 3 sets of reflexes critical for survival 3
- Maintains an adequate supply of oxygen
- Breathing reflex
- Hiccups, sneezes, spit-ups
Infancy: Size and Shape
- Size, shape and skills change daily
- Growth follows the same orderly sequence as prenatal growth:
- from the head downward and from the center outward
- Affected by the interaction of genes, diet, experience and the quality of care
Infancy: Vision
Near vision:
- In the first weeks of life, babies seem to focus reasonably well on objects between 7 to 10 inches away
Distance vision:
Newborn: 20/600
4 months: 20/150
Infancy: Development of Motor Abilities
- Follow the cephalo-caudal and proximo-distal sequences
- The upper part of the body is controlled before the lower part is
- The arms are controlled before the hands and fingers are
- By the end of infancy, infants have transformed reflexes into voluntary actions
Infancy: Language and Cognitive Development
- Birth – noises
- 8 weeks – babbling
- Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Sensorimotor
- Critical achievements:
Object permanence
Symbolization
Infancy: Dreams
- Reality and fantasy are not yet fully differentiated
- Dreams may be experienced as if they were, or could be, true
Infancy: Emotional and Social Development
Imitative behaviors by the age of 3 weeks
Infancy: Smiling response occurs in 2 phases
- Endogenous smiling
- Occurs spontaneously within the first 2 months
- Unrelated to external stimulation - Exogenous smiling
- Stimulated from the outside
- Occurs by the 16th week
AGE and EMOTIONAL CAPACITY AND EXPRESSION
Birth: Pleasure, surprise, disgust, distress 1 ½ - 2 mos: Joy 3 – 4 mos: Anger 8 – 9 mos: Sadness, fear 1 – 1 ½ yrs: Tender affection
Infancy: Developmental Task
Learning basic trust in himself and in his world or a basic distrust / mistrust
Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas
Temperamental Differences
- Inborn differences among infants
- 9 behavioral dimensions
9 Behavioral Dimensions (1-5)
- Activity level
- Rhythmicity
- Approach or withdrawal
- Adaptability
- Intensity of reaction
9 Behavioral Dimensions (6-9)
- Threshold of responsiveness
- Quality of mood
- Distractibility
- Attention span and persistence
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The motor component present in a given child’s functioning
- Some babies kick a lot in the uterus before they are born, they move around in their cribs, and as soon as they are old enough, they always climb or run.
- Other babies are much less active.
Activity Level
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The predictability of such functions as hunger, feeding pattern, elimination, and the sleep-wake cycle
- Some babies have regular cycles of activity. They eat, sleep and defecate on schedule almost from birth.
- Other babies are much less predictable.
Rhythmicity
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The response to a new stimulus, such as a food, toy or person
- Some babies delight in everything new; others withdraw from every new situation.
- The first bath makes some babies laugh and others cry; the first spoonful of cereal is gobbled up by one baby and spit out by the next.
Approach or Withdrawal
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The speed and ease with which a current behavior can be modified in response to altered environmental structuring
*Some babies quickly adjust to change; others are unhappy at every disruption.
Adaptability
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The amount of energy used in mood expression
- Some babies laugh when happy and howl when angry.
- Others are much calmer; they respond with a smile or a whimper
Intensity of Reaction
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The stimulation intensity required to evoke a discernable response to sensory stimuli, environmental objects and social contacts
- Some babies seem aware of every sight, sound and touch.
- Others seem unaware of bright lights, street noises or wet diapers.
Threshold of Responsiveness
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- Pleasant, joyful, friendly behavior versus unpleasant, crying, unfriendly behavior
- Some babies are happy little people; almost anything makes them smile.
- Others are unhappy; they are ready to complain at any moment.
Quality of Mood
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The effectiveness of extraneous environmental stimuli interfering with, or altering the direction of ongoing behavior
- Some babies forget that their diapers are being changed if someone hands them a rattle, or suck happily on a pacifier even though they would prefer a bottle.
- Others cannot be similarly distracted
Distractibility
(Behavioral Dimensions)
- The length of time a particular activity is pursued
- The continuation of an activity in the face of obstacles
- Some babies play happily with one toy for a long time.
- Others move quickly from one activity to the next.
Attention Span and Persistence
- 10% of children
- React intensely to stimuli
- Sleep poorly
- Eat at unpredictable times
- Are difficult to comfort
- Harder to raise and place greater demands on the parent
Difficult Children
- 40% of all children
- Regular in eating, eliminating and sleeping
- Flexible
- Can adapt to change and new stimuli with a minimum of distress
- Easily comforted when they cry
Easy Children
ATTACHMENT VS. BONDING
Bonding – intense emotional and psychological relationship a mother develops for her baby
Attachment – relationship the baby develops with his caregivers
- Attachment of infants to mothers
- Early separation of infants from their mothers had severe negative effects on children’s emotional and intellectual development
John Bowlby
Main points of Bowlby’s Theory
- Innate born to attach to ONE main attachment figure
- Child should receive continuous care from a single attachment figure for the first two years of life
- Long term consequences of maternal deprivation might include
* Delinquency, reduced intelligence, depression, aggression affectionless psychopathy
- Expanded on Bowlby’s observations
- Sensitive responsiveness to infant signals, such as cuddling the baby when she cries, causes infants to cry less in later months
- Close bodily contact with the mother when the baby signals for her is associated with the growth of self-reliance
Mary Ainsworth
Mary Ainsworth
- Unresponsive mothers produce anxious babies
- Secured base effect
- Enables a child to move away from the attachment figure and explore the environment
- Inanimate objects, such as a teddy bear or a blanket, also serve as a secure base (Often accompanies children as they investigate the world)
Mary Ainsworth
- Maternal sensitivity and responsiveness
- Main determinants of secure attachment
- Male infants are less likely to have secure attachments and are more vulnerable to changes in maternal sensitivity
Stranger Anxiety vs Separation Anxiety
Stranger Anxiety - 8 months
Separation Anxiety - 10 to 18 months
- Social learning and the effects of social isolation in monkeys
- Placed newborn rhesus monkeys with 2 types of surrogate mothers
1. A wire-mesh surrogate with a feeding bottle
2. A wire-mesh surrogate covered with terry cloth
Harry Harlow
social isolation of rhesus monkeys
- Terry-cloth surrogate preferred
- Provide contact and comfort
- When frightened, monkeys raised with terry-cloth surrogates showed intense clinging behavior and appeared to be comforted
- Both types were subsequently unable to adjust to life in a monkey colony
- Had difficulty learning to mate
- Females failed to mother their young
How well the mother/father relates to the newborn or developing infant
Parental Fit
Harmonious interaction between a mother and a child in their motivations, capacities and styles of behavior
Goodness of fit
Likely to lead to distorted development and maladaptive functioning
Poorness of Fit
INFANTS OF DEPRESSED MOTHERS
- Insecure attachment
- Negative affect
- Dysregulated attention and arousal
Toddlers/ Pre-schoolers (of Depressed Mothers)
- Poor self control
- Difficulties in cognitive functioning
- Poor social interaction with parents and peers
School Age Children (of Depressed Mothers)
- Impaired adaptive functioning
- Conduct disorder
- Anxiety disorders
- ADHD
Quality of a caregiver that facilitates trust
- Consistency
- Continuity
What happens to a child with a sense of trust
- “social world is a safe place people are reliable and loving
- Hope
TODDLER PERIOD (15 months to 2 ½ years): AGE OF EXPLORATION
Developmental Landmarks
- Physical Development
- Language and Cognitive Development
- Emotional and Social Development
- Sexual Development
- Sphincter Control and Sleep
Toddler: Physical Development
- Marked by accelerated motor development
- Ability to walk gives control over their own actions
Toddler: Language and Cognitive Development
- Acquisition of speech profoundly extends their horizon
- Learn to say “NO” before they learn to say “YES”
- Can name a few objects and make needs known in 1 or 2 words
- Pace of language development varies considerably from child to child
- Piaget: Sensorimotor stage
Toddler: Emotional and Social Development
1 ½ yrs: Shame
2 yrs: Pride
Toddler: Emotional and Social Development 2
- Social referencing
- Child looks to parents and others for emotional cues about how to respond to novel events
- Exploratory excitement
- Pleasure in discovery and in developing new behavior
- Organized demonstration of love and protest
- Developmental Task:
Learning self-confidence versus learning self-doubt
Toddler: Sexual Development
Gender identity
- Unshakeable conviction of being male or female
- Begins to manifest at 1 ½ years
- Often fixed by 2 to 2 ½ years
Toddler: Sphincter Control
- Control of daytime urination is usually complete by the age of 2 ½
- Too lax»_space; Too compliant, procrastinate, too easy going
- Soiling, disorderliness
- Too strict»_space; Too defiant, stubborn, problem with authority figures
- May develop indecisiveness
Toddler: Sleep
- Sleep difficulties related to fear of the dark
- Take about 30 minutes to fall asleep
- Sleep about 12 hours a day, including a 2-hour nap
Toddler: Parenting
- Firmness about the boundaries of acceptable behavior and encouragement of the child’s progressive emancipation
- Children struggle for the exclusive affection and attention of their parents
- Children are beginning to be able to share, but they do so reluctantly
PRESCHOOL PERIOD (2 ½ TO 6 year): STAGE OF PRIMARY SOCIAL AND SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION
Developmental Landmarks
- Physical Development
- Language and Cognitive Development
- Emotional and Social Behavior
- Sibling Rivalry
- Play
- Imaginary Companions
- Television
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Physical Development
- Marked physical growth
- Children reach half their adult height between 2 and 3 years of age
- 20 baby teeth are in place at the beginning of this stage
- By the end of this stage, they begin to fall out
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Language and Cognitive Development
- Use sentences
- Piaget: Preoperational thought
*Thinking and reasoning are intuitive
Characteristics:
> Sense of immanent justice
> Egocentrism
> Phenomenalistic causality
> Animistic thinking
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Dreams
- At age 3, children believe dreams are shared directly by more than one person
- Most 4-year-olds understand that dreams are unique to each individual
- By age 5, they realize that dreams are not real
- Disturbing dreams peak at 3, 6 and 10 years
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Dream Content
2 years: Being bitten or chased
4 years: Animal dreams; Persons who either protect or destroy
5 or 6 years: Being killed or injured; Flying; Being in cars; Ghosts
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Emotional and Social Behavior
3 - 4 years: Guilt, envy
5 - 6 years: Insecurity, humility and confidence
- Emotions still easily influenced by somatic events, such as tiredness and hunger
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Developmental Tasks
- Mastery of locomotion
- Develops control system for impulses
- Separates self from mother
- Learns give and take of relationship with peers
- Expresses feelings
- Stabilizes gender identity as male or female
(PRESCHOOL PERIOD)
- Preoccupation with illness or injury
- Every injury must be examined and taken care of by a parent
Band-Aid Phase
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Emotional and Social Behavior 2
- Shifts from relationship centered around mother to both parents
- Sharper recognition and acceptance of reality
- Anticipates consequences of actions
- Moderate expression of feelings
- More internalized regulation of behavior
PRESCHOOL PERIOD: Emotional and Social Behavior 3
- Curiosity about his body and others – fear of injury/mutilation
- Discovers pleasurable sensations evoked by manipulation of genitals; also evokes anxiety
- Discovers difference between male and female genitalia
- Curiosity about pregnancy and birth
(PRESCHOOL PERIOD)
- Birth of a sibling is a common occurrence during this time
- Tests capacity for further cooperation and sharing
Sibling Rivalry
(PRESCHOOL PERIOD)
- Begin to distinguish reality from fantasy
- Pretend games help test real-life situations
- One-to-one play relationships advance to complicated patterns with rivalries, secrets and two-against-one intrigues
- Play behavior reflects level of social development
Play
Age and Type of Play
2 ½ to 3 years: Parallel play
3 years: Associative play
4 years: Cooperative play
Type of Play
Parallel – solitary play alongside another child with no interaction between them
Associative – playing with the same toys in pairs or in small groups with no real interaction among them
Cooperative – real interactions take place and taking turns become possible
- Most often appear during this period
- In children with above-average intelligence
- In the form of persons
- Friendly, relieve loneliness and reduce anxiety
- Disappear by age 12
Imaginary Companions
- Correlation between watching a lot of violence and exhibiting more aggressiveness
- Heavy TV watching appears to interfere with learning to read
Television
MIDDLE YEARS: 6 to 12 years (Latency Period)
Developmental Landmarks
- Physical Development
- Language and Cognitive Development
- Emotional and Social Development
MIDDLE YEARS: Developmental Tasks
- Socialization
- Intellectual development
- Character formation
- Conscience / superego development
- Formal demands for academic learning and accomplishment become major determinants of further personality development
Middle Years
MIDDLE YEARS: Physical Development
- Improved gross motor coordination and muscle strength enable children to write fluently and draw artistically
- Capable of complex motor tasks and activities
- Tennis, gymnastics, golf, baseball, skateboarding
MIDDLE YEARS: Language and Cognitive Development
- Language expresses complex ideas
- Logical exploration tends to dominate fantasy
- Increased interest in rules and orderliness
- Piaget: Stage of concrete operations
Critical achievements:
Conservation
Reversibility - By age 7, they know that they create their dreams themselves
MIDDLE YEARS: Emotional and Social Development
- Make new identifications with other adults, such as teachers
- Peer interaction assumes major importance
- Special relationship exists with the same-sex parent, with whom children identify, and who is now an ideal and a role model
MIDDLE YEARS: Conscience development
- At earlier age, obedient only when parents were around
- Age 6-7, more internal control of urges
- Shame, embarrassment and guilt over wrongdoings are positive signs of conscience development
MIDDLE YEARS: Emotional and Social Development 2
- Empathy and concern for others emerge
- By age 9 or 10, have well-developed capacities for love, compassion and sharing
- Capacity for long-term, stable relationships with family, peers and friends, including best friends
- Prefer to interact with children of the same sex
- Chum period
- Harry Stack Sullivan
- Close same-sex relationship with a chum or buddy
- Necessary for further healthy psychological growth
Chum period
- Satisfied with themselves
- Have the ability to cope even w/ serious difficulties in life
- Possess inner lives that are rich & rewarding
- Will grow up capable of forming lasting, satisfying, meaningful , intimate relations
MENTALLY HEALTHY CHILDREN
Adolescence: work in progress
BIOLOGICAL CHANGES - Hormonal surge
PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGES
- autonomy in decision making
- exploration
- search for own identity
COGNITIVE CHANGES
- deepened intellectual pursuits
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES
- deepened peer relationships
Characterized by profound biological, psychological and social development changes
Adolescence
Adolescence
Biological
- Rapid acceleration of skeletal growth
- Physical sexual development
Psychological
- Acceleration of cognitive development
- Consolidation of personality formation
Social
- Intensified preparation for the coming role of young adulthood
Adolescence: Divided into 3 periods
- Early 11-14
- Middle 14- 17
- Late 17-20
Adolescence among Filipinos
- Circumcision of the boy
- First menstruation of the girl
- Debut may mark the 18th birthday of a girl
- Age 18
- Right to vote
- Right to get married
Gender Differences
- Boys are supposed to be strong and aggressive
- Girls are expected to be modest and gentle
- Boys are given more freedom to go out with other boys and come home late
- Girls are more restricted and protected
- “Supang” – Western Visayas
Tagalog
- “pagbibinata o binatilyo”
- “pagdadalaga o dalagita”
Ilokano
- “Binarito”
- “Balasitang”
PUBERTY
Adolescence: Hormones
Testosterone – hormone responsible for masculinization of boys
Estradiol – hormone responsible for feminization of girls
Hormonal activity produces the manifestations of
puberty
- Primary sex characteristics
- Directly involved in coitus and reproduction
- Reproductive organs and external genitalia - Secondary sex characteristics
- Enlarged breasts and hips in girls
- Facial hair and lowered voices in boys
Sexual Maturity Ratings for Female Adolescents
Stage 1 - Preadolescent, papilla elevated; No pubic hair
Stage 2- Breast bud, small mound; areola diameter increased; Sparse long pubic hair, mainly among labia
Stage 3 - Breast and areola larger; no separation of contours; Pubic hair darker and coarser, spread over pubic area
Stage 4 - Breast size increased; areola and papilla raised;
Pubic hair coarse and thickened; covers less area than in adults, does not extent to thighs
Stage 5 - Breast resemble adult female breast; areola has recessed to breast contour; Pubic hair increased in density, area extends to thighs
Sexual Maturity Ratings for Male Adolescents
Stage 1 - Penis, testes, scrotum preadolescent; No pubic hair
Stage 2 - Penis size same, testes and scrotum enlarged with scrotal skin reddened; Sparse long pubic hair mainly at the base of penis
Stage 3 - Penis elongated with increased size of testes and scrotum; Pubic hair darker and coarser, spread over pubic area
Stage 4 - Penis increased in length and width; Testes and scrotum larger; Pubic hair coarse and thickened; covers less area than in adults, does not extend to thighs
Stage 5 - Penis, testes, scrotum appear mature; Pubic hair increased in density, area extends to thighs
Manifestations of Puberty
- Height and weight increase earlier in girls
- Deviations from expected patterns of maturation
- Precocious growth
- Delayed growth
- Obesity
- Enlarged mammary glands in boys
- Small or overabundant breasts in girls
Manifestations of Puberty 2
- Any deviation, real or imagined, can lead to feelings of inferiority, low esteem and loss of confidence
- Adolescents are sensitive to the opinions of their peers and constantly compare themselves with others
- Girls are more sensitive to early physical manifestations of puberty
- Both boys and girls tend to be preoccupied with their appearance
ONSET OF PUBERTY
- Varies
- Girls enter puberty 12 to 18 months earlier than boys
- 11 years for girls (range 8 to 13)
- 13 years for boys (range: 10 to 14)
- Age of onset has been steadily declining over the past 100 years
- Onset of the menstrual function
- Trend is toward an earlier __
- Determined by a complex interaction of biological and psychosocial factors
- Good nutrition, fewer serious illnesses and overall good physical health promote earlier menarche
- Mother’s age of menarche correlates loosely with her daughter’s
- Psychological or social distress has not been found to either delay or advance menarche
MENARCHE
Neurological Changes
- Childhood – tremendous proliferation of dendritic connections
- Adolescence - brain acquires the number of dendritic connections that will persist into adulthood
- Fewer than in childhood
- Connections that are reinforced by environmental stimuli are retained
- Those that are not reinforced are pruned back
Neurological Changes 2
- Pruning or massive elimination of cortical synapses
- 30,000 synapses lost per second
- Decline in brain glucose, oxygen utilization, and blood flow
- More complex and focal pattern brain activation
- Prominent in prefrontal cortex (changes in dopaminergic input, and GABAergic synpases)
- Improvement and fine tuning of inhibitory control
- Onset of schizophrenia
- Reflects adolescents developing intellectual abilities, shift in motivational, attentional and emotional realms
Adolescent: Cognitive and Personality Development
JEAN PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• Sensorimotor Stage (Birth – 2 yrs)
• Preoperational Thought Stage ( 2 –7 yrs old)
• Concrete Operations (7 – 11 years old)
• FORMAL OPERATIONS (11 to end of adolescence)
Adolescent: Cognitive and Personality Development
- Thinking becomes abstract and future-oriented
- Show remarkable creativity (Writing, music, art, poetry)
- Interest in the world of ideas
- Humanitarian issues, morals, ethics and religion
- Keep a personal diary
- Major task: Achieve a secure sense of self
- Identity crisis partly resolved by the move from dependency to independence
Adolescent: Religion
- 8 out of 10 are Catholic
- Actually one of the more important issues that adolescents are interested in and deal with today
- Attend church or religious activities far less than young people of previous generations
- Girls, in particular, are more likely to abstain from sex because of their religious beliefs
- “Don’t tell me how long my hair can be.”
- “Don’t tell me how short my skirt can be.”
- Renewed attempt to tell parents and the world that they have minds of their own
- Becomes an active, verbal way of expressing anger
- Adolescents seize almost any issue to express their independence
Negativism
- Preoccupation with physical attributes and appearance
- Questions asked:
Is there something wrong with me?
Am I fat, thin, short, tall?
Do I look alright?
Early Adolescence
- Dating is formalized
- Intense group behavior
- Peers hold valuable position
Middle Adolescence
- Importance of vocational choice
- Establishment of sense of identity
- Quest for independence
- Control of aggressive and sexual drives
Late Adolescence
Adolescence
- Parents and adolescents may argue about the adolescents’ choice of friends, peer groups, school plans and courses, points of philosophy and etiquette
- Slowly blend values from many sources into their own belief systems
»Beliefs must have the flexibility to change and grow to accommodate new life situations - Adolescents begin to feel independent and families
support and encourage their emerging maturity - Questions “Who am I?” and “Where am I going?” begin to be answered
Time of Turmoil
- Changeability and contradiction
- rejects parental control
- extremely rebellious
- conforms to peer standards
- self-centered and materialistic
- idealistic ( social cause or political ideal)
- moods change within minutes
- Thought to be widespread
- Thought to be desirable as a necessary part of the process of separating from parents
- Now recognized as neither common nor normal
- Most can negotiate the demands of school and family life with little disruption
Adolescent Turmoil
Adolescence among Filipinos
- Generally not a turbulent period
- Problems and difficulties largely confined to the urban areas
- Very sensitive and have a tendency to rebel
- Treated with more tact
Adolescents in the rural areas
- More manageable
- Under closer watch by the family and the community
- Parents frequently warn against getting into a fight or joining a gang
- Barrio gang is composed of close friends and relatives who are easily monitored in school and in the neighborhood
- Usually most intense during adolescence
- Personality clashes occur
- Parental comparison is greatest because this is the period when talents and interests arise and develop
- Siblings born next to each other quarrel more
- Share common experiences
- More matters to argue about
Sibling Rivalry
Most common reasons for rivalry and quarreling
- Conflicting ideas, beliefs, attitudes and opinions
- Invasion of privacy
- Issue of ownership of material things
- Competition for parental love and attention
- Parental favoritism
- The most important relationships, aside from the family
- Persons of similar ages and interests
- Often view themselves through the eyes of their peers
- Any deviation in appearance, dress code or behavior can result in diminished self-esteem
- Sudden, frequent changes in friendships, personal appearance and interests
Peer Group
Filipino Adolescents
- Have an average of 5 close friends with whom they do their fun activities, confide in and hang around
- Boys keep a slightly wider circle of friends than girls
- Parents report few major altercations and get along with
their children - Adolescents are receptive to parental approval and disapproval
- Most can bridge the generation gap successfully
Parenting
- Generation gap represents the differences in experiences and perceptions of life events
- Parents
Have to deal with adolescents
Must also make adjustments to work, marriage and to their own parents
May be unable to let go and may want to maintain control of their children
- Set of values and beliefs about codes of behavior that conform to those shared by others in society.
- An outgrowth from cognitive development
- Morality: conformity to shared standards, rights and duties
- Major accomplishment of late adolescence and adulthood: Developing a well-defined sense of
morality
Development of Morals
Development of Morals: Jean Piaget
- Morality develops gradually, in conjunction with the stages of cognitive development
- Preschool children simply follow rules set forth by parents
- School-age children accept rules but show an inability to allow for exceptions
- Adolescents recognize rules in terms of what is good for the society at large
Lawrence Kohlberg: 3 Major Levels of Morality
- Preconventional morality (9 and below)
- MORALITY OF CONVENTIONAL ROLECONFORMITY
(9 TO ADOLESCENCE) - Morality of self-accepted moral principles
(Adulthood)
Kohlberg: Moral development
- Conventional Level of Moral development
»Good boy- Good girl orientation
*Expands to include orientation to interpersonal relationships
*win approval by pleasing others, being a good son/daughter, remaining loyal to family/ peer group, conform to social norms
> > Law and order orientation
*Maintaining social order
CAROL GILLIGAN (Moral Development)
- Social context of moral development
- Women – compassion, ethics of caring are dominant features of moral decision making
- Men – perception of justice, rationality and sense of fairness
- “Where am I going?”
- Beleaguered by peers, parents, teachers, and counselors, as well as by unconscious forces
- Whether there are opportunities for further schooling plays a role
- Acquisition of competence during adolescence sense of individual worth as an adult
Choice of Occupation
- Experimentation begins with fantasy and masturbation in
early adolescence - Noncoital genital touching
Adolescent Sexual Behavior
Factors that influence adolescent Sexual Behavior
- Personality traits
- Gender
- Cultural and religious background
- Racial factors
- Family attitudes
- Sexual education and prevention programs
Risk-Taking Behavior
- Alcohol, tobacco and other substance use
- Promiscuous sexual activity
- Accident-prone behavior: fast driving, sky-diving and hang gliding
- Accidents are the leading cause of death for teenagers
- 40% of all teenage deaths are from vehicular accidents
- Information alone does not decrease risk
- As adolescence proceeds, risk-taking behavior abates
- Responsible decision-making activity occurs
Risk-Taking Behavior: Reasons
- Fear of inadequacy
- Peer pressure
- Omnipotent fantasies: view themselves as invulnerable to
harm and injury - Genetic predisposition
Smoking Among the Filipino Youth
- 47% have tried smoking
- Males more prone to cigarette smoking than females
- Doubling in the proportion of females who tried smoking
17% in 1994»_space; 30% in 2002 - Half of those who ever tried smoking retained the habit
*8 out of 10 young females aged 25 – 27 stopped from smoking
*Only 4 out of 10 males stopped
Alcohol Use Among the Filipino Youth
- 70% have tried drinking alcohol
- 93% of male adolescents
- Increasing trend among females
54% in 1994»_space; 70% in 2002 - 2 out of 5 females who have tried drinking alcoholic beverages are current drinkers
- 4 out of 5 males are current drinkers
Drug Use Among the Filipino Youth
- Half or 1.8M out of 3.4M Filipinos are on illegal drugs
- Rise in the proportion of young people exposed
to drugs
*6% in 1994»_space;11% in 2002 - More male users
*11% in 1994»_space; 20% in 2002
*Females: 1% in 1994»_space; 3% in 2002
- “Hamtung” – Western Visayas
- “Binata” o “Dalaga” – Tagalog
- “Baro” o “Balasang” – Ilokano
- “ulitawo” o “daraga” - Waray
FILIPINO ADOLESCENT
FILIPINO ADOLESCENT
- 15.1M youth out of 76.5M Filipinos
- 20% of the population
- 15 to 24 years old
- More males than females
- 102 males : 100 females
- Our youth today are in different life situations:
- 3 out of 10 are poor
- Only 2 out of 5 are in school
- Only 3 out of 10 are gainfully employed
FILIPINO ADOLESCENT 2
- Structuring of definitive sex roles
- Male dominance is emphasized
- Virginity is emphasized
- Chaperone for girls
- Sexual experimentation remains part of adolescent orientation
ADOLESCENCE AT PRESENT
- Virginity no longer given high premium in choice of spouse
- Chaperoning is losing popularity
- Young girls openly discuss opposite sex only when there are no males
- A young boy enjoys more privileges than the young girl
ADOLESCENCE AT PRESENT: Education
- Female youth have relatively higher educational attainment than our male youth
- Young females are more likely to have a college education than males
- 65.2% males
- 71.7% females
- 2% had not completed any grade
- 20% completed elementary
- 20% had a high school diploma
- 3% completed tertiary education
ADOLESCENCE (MEDIA)
- Increasingly getting more space in the lives of our
youth - Give more time to the less wholesome content of TV
shows, films, magazines, tabloids, etc - Has become the source of authority regarding what is
right, what is wrong and what is important - The new surrogate parent
- TV watching: 8 – 14 hrs/week
- Internet – used by 6% with no difference between
males and females
ADOLESCENCE: Aspiration
- Finish their education
- Males want to get married and have a family
- Females are more concerned about self-fulfillment and contributing to society
- Girl is required to stand on 3rd step of stairs and jump to the ground
- Not allowed to engage in strenuous physical activity
- Taking a bath on first day is a no-no
- Sexual intercourse should be avoided
- Use of “drops” on face to prevent pimples
- “pasador”
MENARCHE
- “Tuli” usually on Black Saturday
- For medical and social reasons
- To be a good “barkada” one has to learn to do what the others do
CIRCUMCISION
- Occurs when persons begin to assume the actual tasks of young adulthood
- Choosing an occupation
- Developing a sense of intimacy that leads, in most cases, to marriage and parenthood
End of Adolescence
- A task concerned with the raising of children
- Children need an environment that provides them with sufficient material and emotional care to further their physical, cognitive and social development.
PARENTING
PARENTING STYLES
Each is a combination of love and limits, and depending on the mix, will yield very different results • Authoritarian • Indifferent • Permissive • Authoritative
- Parents value obedience and respect.
- Parents set firm limits.
- More on punishment (external force) as opposed to discipline (both external force and development of internal sense of right and wrong)
- Child is seen as needing non-negotiable rules and limits.
- Pushing vs. resistance
AUTHORITARIAN
AUTHORITARIAN: Characteristics
- Constant direction and supervision
- Endless instructions and constant reminders
- Demanding
- Controlling
- Threatening
- Punishing
- Severe restrictions in expression of overall needs
AUTHORITARIAN: Discipline
- Strict
- Does not balance punishment with praise for positive behaviors
- Much physical punishment and/or verbal anger
AUTHORITARIAN: Child’s Response
• Submission
– Submits to direction
– Results in obedience
• Active rebellion
– Overt defiance
– Results in verbal refusal
• Passive resistance
– Forgetting
– Results in covert, devious rebellion
AUTHORITARIAN: Clinical Correlation in Children
• Moodiness, unhappiness • Irritability • Aggressiveness • Risk for development of disruptive behavior disorders • Low self-esteem • Academic difficulties
AUTHORITARIAN: Adult child’s attitude toward life, others, work and marriage
- May become bossy or may become a follower
- May become compulsive or refuse to comply
- May procrastinate, be resistant to schedules and expectations, or may push self and others unmercifully
- Sex and marriage may be seen as duties and be carried out resentfully without satisfaction
Characteristics
• Sets few limits
• Decreased monitoring of behavior
• Detachment
INDIFFERENT
INDIFFERENT: Clinical Correlation in Children
- Demanding
- Less compliant
- Poor peer relationships
• Child at receiving end
– Goods and services endlessly pouring out
• Child is passive, bored and discontented in the midst of this indulgence.
PERMISSIVE
PERMISSIVE: Characteristics
- Showers the child with presents, privileges and services, with little regard for the child’s actual needs
- Submits to child’s whims, demands, temper and impulsiveness
- Makes child the boss and becomes a slave or servant
- Cannot say “no”
- Loving
- Emotionally available
- Sets few limits
- Accepting
- Encouraging
PERMISSIVE: Discipline
- Low level of control
* Too few rules
PERMISSIVE: Child’s Response
- Child is bored and indifferent
- Loses initiative and spontaneity
- Sees adults as provider of pleasure and comfort
- Insists on having his demands fulfilled
- Has tantrums, ignores the rights of others, lacks any sense of limits
PERMISSIVE: Clinical Correlation in Children
- Impulsivity
* Behavioral problems
PERMISSIVE: Adult child’s attitude toward life, others, work and marriage
• Passive expectation of getting from others. Expects them to anticipate his wishes
• Hates to work. Can’t find a job. No career decisions, no
preparation or persistence
• Attaches to partner who indulges him. May use attractiveness or pretend weakness
• Used to getting own way, thoughtless of other’s rights,
impulsive, distractible, impatient, tyrannical
• Expects admiration for modest effort. Wants to be waited
on
- Combines parental warmth and acceptance or involvement with parental control or strictness
- Gives children a feeling that their parents take them seriously and will help them if they need assistance, but that parents also have clear expectations of acceptable behaviors, which will be enforced
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC
- Child is seen as equal, integrated part of family cooperative and doing his share
- Child is loved and accepted
- Child is offered reasonable progressive challenges and permitted to develop at his own pace
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC: Characteristics
- Accepts child’s uniqueness
- Provides love and respect
- Encourages child to correct mistakes and develop capacities
- Guides child to find significance in contribution
- Caring
- Emotionally available
- Appropriate limit setting
- Maintains structure
- Reasonable expectations
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC: Discipline
- Consistency
- Firmness
- Warmth
- Reinforcement of appropriate responses
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC: Child’s Response
- Feels security, love and acceptance
- Experiences own strength by conquering
- Not afraid to try and fail
- Sees world as safe and friendly
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC: Clinical Correlation in Children
- Independent
- Stronger social skills
- Confident
AUTHORITATIVE / DEMOCRATIC: Adult child’s attitude toward life, others, work and marriage
- Feels connected, part of life
- Positive attitude
- Willing to improve life
- Willing to help, share with, contribute to and cooperate with others
- Does his best to offer value
- Can lead or cooperate on a team
- Feels equal to partner
THE MOST EFFECTIVE PARENTING
• Involves: - Consistency - Reward for good behavior - Punishment for undesirable behavior • Occurs within the context of a warm, loving environment
PARENTHOOD AMONG FILIPINOS
• Natural outcome of marriage
• Strong cultural pressures and expectations for every married couple to have children
• Childlessness is an unfortunate and pitiful state
• A family is not complete without a child
– “Mag-asawa” (couple)
– “Mag-anak” (family)
PARENTHOOD AMONG FILIPINOS 2
- Parenthood today is not the same as what it was a generation ago.
- Gone are the days when parents were strict disciplinarians, following the principle that “children are to be seen not heard.”
- Parents still wield authority and demand respect.
- Parents more liberal with their children, permitting them to think and act independently
THE VALUE OF CHILDREN
- Filipino family is child-centered.
- Parents make sacrifices for their children.
- Plunge into debt for their children’s education
- Save money and buy land to bequeath to their children to ensure a better future for them
THE VALUE OF CHILDREN 2
• Provide help
– Financial, especially sons
– Support in old age
– Assistance in housework and child care, especially daughters
– As early as the age of 5 years, especially in the rural areas
– In urban areas, street children work as scavengers, beggars and watch-your-car boys
THE VALUE OF CHILDREN 3
• Investment for social mobility
– Good education» good jobs» raise the socioeconomic
standing of the family
• Socio-emotional benefits
– Companionship, love, happiness, play and fun, distraction from worries
– A big family is a happy one
– A house is considered lonely and empty without children
THE VALUE OF CHILDREN 4
• Psychological value
– Furnishing incentives for success
– Satisfying the drive for achievement or power
– Providing a sense of fulfillment or meaning in life
– Inspiration to lead a good moral life to be able to bequeath an honorable and untarnished name
• Strengthen the marital bond
– “The only way to hold a man is to have many children.”
– Try hard to keep the marriage intact “for the sake of the
children”
THE VALUE OF CHILDREN 5
• Bring good luck
– The more children, the more blessed is the union because a child is a gift from God
• Masculinity or manliness is measured by the number of children produced; to bear a child is the fulfillment of womanhood
• Perpetuate the family name
– Some preference on the part of the father, for the firstborn to be a boy
– The ideal is to have a more or less equal number of
sons and daughters
COST OF HAVING CHILDREN
• Financial • Problems in child rearing – Child discipline – Problems when children get sick • Strains on the marriage • Societal strains – Overpopulation • Restrictions on the work and time of parents • Despite complaints of difficulties, hardship and sacrifices, children are always welcome and fertility rates remain relatively high.
ROLE OF PARENTS IN SOCIALIZATION
• Socialization
– Process whereby the individual acquires and internalizes the norms, attitudes and values of his society
– Through this process, the individual’s personality is formed
• Agents of socialization: family, school, church and all other groups to which the individual is exposed
• The family is the first, the closest and the most influential social group in the child’s life
ROLE OF PARENTS IN SOCIALIZATION 2
- Parents are morally and legally bound to take care of children and to impart to them the ethical values, norms and standards of conduct of the society
- Parents are dedicated to child rearing not only because of genuine love and concern for the child’s welfare but also because of community expectations and legal prescription
ROLE OF PARENTS IN SOCIALIZATION 3
• Family’s reputation is at stake
– When the child goes wayward, the parents “did not teach him well”
– When the child does well, the family’s honor is enhanced
- Assumes the bulk of child care responsibility
- Spends more time at home and has a more intimate relationship with the child
- No longer confined to the home and children
- Has other equally demanding roles as wife, companion and partner to her husband
- Very much involved in economic activities as breadwinner
THE FILIPINO MOTHER
THE FILIPINO FATHER: Four types of fatherhood based on activity dimension (degree of involvement with children) and an affective dimension (emotional tone of their involvement with children):
- Procreator father
- Dilettante father
- Determinative father
- Generative father
• One who equates fatherhood primarily with raising children
Procreator father
• One who is often away from home but maintains a warm
relationship with the children
Dilettante father
• One who sees fatherhood as a task and obligation, and is
obsessed with directing his children’s lives
Determinative father
• One who spends much time with children and enjoys
being with them such that fatherhood becomes an
opportunity for his own growth and fulfillment
Generative father
THE FILIPINO FATHER
• The Filipino father tends to fall into the procreator
and dilettante types
• Fathers are getting more and more involved in the
routine task of child care
– younger fathers consider nurturance to be their primary
responsibility
– older fathers consider the “provider” role their primary
duty
– assume more responsibility in socialization as the child
grows older, especially with respect to the son
• Father’s role: authority figure and disciplinarian
MATERNAL AND CHILD CARE
Pregnant woman
– Needs and cravings should be met in order to avoid
miscarriage
– Maintain a good disposition
– Avoid anything that is believed to badly affect the features of the unborn child
MATERNAL AND CHILD CARE: Infant
• Infant
– Receives the most attention and affection in the
household
– Never left alone
– Breastfeeding is preferred
– Too much crying may give the baby gas or colic
– Fed every time he cries
– Weaning when the baby is about a year or two
MATERNAL AND CHILD CARE: Child
• Child
– Taught to be obedient and respectful
“mano”, “po”, “kayo”
– Participate in chores as early as the age of 4
– Son is told not to play with dolls; daughter not to play
rough games
– Gender differentiation in behavior and activities
becomes more marked by puberty
CHILD REARING PATTERNS
• Techniques are not static
– Change as society changes
• Nurturant, affectionate, indulgent and supportive
– Tendency to be overprotective
– Loving yet controlling, responsive yet restrictive
VALUES AND TRAITS
- Dependent on parents
- Strongly identify with the family
- Respectful and obedient to authority
- Humble and submissive
- Shy not aggressive
- Maintain excellent interpersonal relations with neighbors and kinsmen
- Self-reliant
- Industrious
VALUES AND TRAITS 2
- Strive to achieve and improve their economic condition
- Help in all family activities
- Major role: be a diligent student
- Honesty
- Trust in God
DISCIPLINING FILIPINO CHILDREN: Positive Techniques
- Encourage good behavior
* Praising, granting privileges, rewarding with food or money
DISCIPLINING FILIPINO CHILDREN: Negative Techniques
• Inhibit bad behavior
• Scolding, spanking
– Corporal punishment is traditionally the most common
and considered to be the most effective method
• Depriving the child of what he wants
• Isolation
DISCIPLINING FILIPINO CHILDREN
• Instilling fear
– Warning about supernatural beings: “multo”, “dwende”, “aswang”, “kapre”
– Referring to God
– Warning about harmful animals
– Threatening to send the child away
– Leaving the child
– Warning that he may be caught by the policeman, or by the “bumbay”
FACTORS AFFECTING CHILD REARING BEHAVIOR
- Site
- Birth order
- Gender
- Age
- Subculture
– Parents have become more liberal by the time the
youngest is born
– “Bunso” is the one with the least work and the most
privileges
– Eldest bears the greatest demand and expectations from everyone
– Eldest receives special attention and privileges because as parental surrogate, he has authority over
the younger ones
Birth order
– Strict if the place is hazardous to the child’s health and
safety
– Permissive if the child is within sight
Site
– Boys are allowed to stay out late
– Girls’ behavior with respect to the opposite sex more
restricted
Gender
– Adolescents less subjected to corporal punishment
Age
– Urban poor: rigid child rearing practices diminished attention to moral guidance
Subculture
CHANGING PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS
• Parents seem to have lost some degree of authority over their children
– Children are no longer as submissive and obedient as
they used to be
– Children are extra-sensitive to the slightest scolding and may answer back with disrespect
• Children complain that parents are very unreasonable, strict and not adaptive to change
CHANGING PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS 2
• Although the Filipino youth have many traits associated with modern society, they still retain the traditional qualities and consider the family important
• Parents have become more permissive and liberal
– Allow children to reason out and express themselves, to
raise questions, think for themselves and plan their own
future
CHANGING PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS 3
• Parents are shifting their child-rearing orientation
– from dependency to independence, from restrictiveness
to permissiveness, from extreme control to autonomy,
from authoritarianism to liberalism
CHANGING PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS 4
• Children, especially the older ones, participate in the decision-making at home
– Making suggestions as to choices or alternatives
– Making decisions with parents from time to time
– Influencing final decisions
– Making decisions by themselves in matters concerning
them
• Parents are permissive regarding migration to study or work
THE RIGHT OF EVERY FILIPINO CHILD (1-5)
It is my right:
- To be born. To have a name and nationality
- To be free. To have a family who will take care of me
- To have a good education
- To develop my potentials
- To have enough food, shelter, a healthy and active body
THE RIGHT OF EVERY FILIPINO CHILD (6-10)
- To be given the opportunity to play
- To be given protection against abuse, danger and violence brought by war and conflict
- To live in a peaceful community
- To be defended and assisted by the government
- To be able to express my own views
There are emerging variations in family composition and structure.
- Step-family or blended family
- Family composed of siblings without parents
- Family composed of a childless couple
- Family formed by homosexuals
- Solo-parent family
*Composed of only one parent and his or her child/
children
*Majority of solo parents are female
TYPES OF SOLO-PARENT FAMILIES
- Widow or widower and his/her child/children
- Single man or woman and his/her adopted child/children
- Separated parent and his/her child/children
- Unwed woman and her child/children
- Mistress and her child/children by a married man
- Caused by the death of one spouse
- The surviving spouse does not remarry
- > 2 million widowed Filipinos
- More often it is the wife who survives
- Because of longer life expectancy of the female
- More often the widow decides not to remarry
Widow or widower and his/her child/children
- Value of children is recognized and accepted in Philippine society
- Adoption is not uncommon even among single or unmarried individuals
- Homosexuals who have achieved high socio-economic status
- Adopt a child to give greater meaning to their success
Single man or woman and his/her adopted child/children
- In spite of shame and scandal, the woman usually goes through pregnancy and delivery of the illegitimate child
Unwed woman and her child/children
- Second family of a married man
- A married man develops extra-marital attachments with another woman and maintains the family thus formed
Mistress and his/her child/children by a married man
- Comprehensive package of benefits
- Tax breaks, housing benefits, health and education insurance
- Covers those who lost their spouses to death, those who are legally separated, parents who choose to raise or adopt children on their own, victims of rape or prostitution, temporary single parents whose spouses are abroad, in
prison or in exile
Solo Parents Welfare Act
- The only breadwinner in the family
- Preoccupied with worrying about supporting their children and having to cope with the difficulties of reduced income, prohibitive cost of health care, hospitalization and education of their children
- Role may become overwhelming, making it difficult for him/her to discipline the children
Single Parents
- Comprise the largest group of single parents
- Big advantage: favorable attitude of her family, friends and community towards her
- Emotional support is a source of security
- Emotional upset due to the loss of a spouse is difficult to overcome
Widows
Survey of 60 widowed mothers in Bataan (Atentar, 1995)
- Bothered by economic concerns
- Most find a job to support the needs of the family
- Have concerns involving the health and welfare of their children
- Feel responsible in providing their children discipline, limits and guidelines
- Physical and mental health are affected by the strain of being alone while doing the dual responsibilities of provider and parent
- Most do not plan to remarry
- Feel they are too old
- Cannot imagine living with someone other than their late husband
- Less favored than widows
- Left alone in the task of bringing up their children without adequate financial or emotional support from their children’s father or from the community
- Families subjected to gossips, suspicions and humiliation
Divorced or separated mothers
Survey of 62 separated mothers in Metro Manila
Cinco, 1995
- Important problems
- Sadness with the thought that the family is no longer complete
- Tardiness or inability to go to the office when an urgent problem comes up in the house
- No time to rest
- Inability to attend to the needs of the children
- Neglect of home due to work requirements
- Utmost support provided by parents, siblings, relatives and friends
- Parents and siblings help look after the children, do some of their household chores, provide financial assistance including support of the children’s education, lend emotional support through their advice and encouragement
- Most do not have plans to remarry
- Others hope to remarry because their children need a father, provided that the man will love and accept their children
- Filipino marriages are highly stable
- 9 out of 10 marriages are intact
- No reliable data on the actual number of couples living separately
- Only a small proportion of couples resort to legal separation or annulment
- Due to the difficulties, scandal, time and expense involved
MARITAL SEPARATION
MARITAL SEPARATION (Medina, 1990)
- 1096 students in 4 Metro Manila universities
- 15% of parents separated
- 47%: temporary separation
- 44%: permanent separation
- % cohabiting with another person (among those permanently separated)
- 60% of husbands
- 20% of wives
MARITAL SEPARATION (Medina, 1990) 2
- There are indications of a marked increase in the number of couples in a state of marital discord
- Applications for separation and annulment in domestic courts and church matrimonial tribunals
- Observations of marriage counselors, family therapists and psychiatrists
- Results from:
- infidelity or irresponsibility, usually of the husband
- incompatibility
- in-law problems
- Philippines is one of the world’s major exporters of manpower
- The urge to leave home is strong because of high economic returns
- Migrant workers
- Loneliness
- Worry about the family
- Jealousy caused by rumors and gossip about the infidelity of the spouse left behind
- Worker’s wife, mother and relatives fight over the salary
- Only 8-10 out of 100 wives were confirmed to be unfaithful
- International contract labor has not adversely affected the institutions of marriage and family
TEMPORARY SEPARATION DUE TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT
- Increased responsibility has fostered the wife’s personal growth and development
- Overseas employment has economically benefited families by improving their standards of living
- Home ownership
- Increased amenities
- Better education for the children
TEMPORARY SEPARATION DUE TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT
- No increase in psychopathology in children of overseas foreign workers
- Important factor in outcome: life of the children after separation
- No significant differences between children in urban and rural communities
- Children in the latency period when the separation occurred tended to be more affected
TEMPORARY SEPARATION DUE TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT - Banaag, 1997
- Temporary solo parent: Difficulty of being alone in guiding their growing children, in disciplining them, and in caring for them during time of illness
- Loss of closeness between the absent parent and the children
- Loss of respect by children for their parents
- Children becoming spoiled
TEMPORARY SEPARATION DUE TO OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT - Asis, 1995
- Permits spouses to live separately but the marital bonds are not severed, so neither spouses may remarry
LEGAL SEPARATION
- More popular nowadays than legal separation
- Voids the marriage and considers it not to have taken place at all
- Parties are free to marry new partners
ANNULMENT OF MARRIAGE
- There was a valid marriage which ends upon the grant of the petition for divorce
- Resorted to by some upper class individuals who would like to formalize an existing extramarital relationship
- Both divorce and subsequent marriage are not recognized in the Philippines
- If one of the parties to a valid marriage is a foreigner who later validly obtained a divorce abroad, enabling him or her to remarry, the Filipino spouse may likewise remarry under Philippine Law
DIVORCE ABROAD
- Resorted to by the bulk of troubled couples in the Philippines, especially among the poor
- “Hiwalay sa asawa”
- The separated persons, usually the men, actually establish and maintain new common-law relationships with other persons
- Children who have been abandoned may reject everything about the absent parent
- When a child expresses the desire to be the exact opposite of the absent parent
SEPARATION BY INFORMAL ARRANGEMENT ABANDONMENT/DESERTION
- May idealize the absent parent
- Develop a set of fantasies about him or her
- May provide temporary comfort
- Not based on reality
- May develop poor self-esteem
- Sense of shame surrounding the parent’s absence
- Question whether they could have contributed to the absence, whether they somehow “deserved” to be abandoned, or whether the absent parent believes he or she is better off without the “burden” of a child
- May have difficulty expressing their emotions
- Lack the trust necessary to share their trueselves with others
SEPARATION BY INFORMAL ARRANGEMENT ABANDONMENT/DESERTION
SEPARATION AS A PROCESS
- First, Acute Phase
- Transitional Phase
- Third Phase
- Dramatic and highly emotional responses
- One or both parents
- Depression with suicidal behavior
- Considerable regression in behavior
- Rage which can reach paranoid dimensions
- Temporary weakening of ego control over aggressive and sexual impulses, accompanied by lapses in judgment
- May be brief or may extend over several years
First, Acute Phase
- Parents begin to disengage from each other’s lives, move into new relationships, work and home settings
- Physical, social and emotional environments of the family may be in continual flux
- May be brief or may last for several years
Transitional Phase
- Establishment of a relatively stable single- or remarried – parent household, each of which has its own associated strains and gratifications
Third Phase
EFFECTS ON CHILDREN OF MARITAL SEPARATION - Study of middle-class children aged 6 – 16 years whose parents separated in the last 5years (Phil. Daily Inquirer, March 7,1999)
- Feel embarrassed and ashamed even to discuss the separation with other kinsmen
- Feel unloved by and alienated from the noncustodial
parent - Feel uncertain about their future, their education, and their safety
- Fear abandonment if their custodial parent falls in love and remarries
- Feel being caught in a loyalty bind because favoring one parent might suggest being against the other
- Worry about the custodial parent’s health and safety
- Pray for reconciliation of their parents
- Wary of entering a relationship lest separation will also happen to them
Effects On Children (Marital Separation)
- Initial Reactions
- Developmental Factors
- Gender Differences
- Long – Term Outcomes
- Factors in Outcome
- Immensely stressful
- Acute sense of shock, intense anxiety and profound sorrow
- Some did not know that their parents’ marriage was troubled
- Many are poorly prepared by their parents, some not at all
- No clear understanding of the issues leading to the separation
INITIAL REACTIONS
- Only a few experience relief: Older; Have witnessed open conflict
- Collapse of the structure responsible for providing basic nurturance and protection (even when the family was
performing poorly in this role) - Pervasive sense of vulnerability
- Grief over the loss of the intact family, hopes, dreams, absent parent, friendships, neighborhood, school
INITIAL REACTIONS
- Worry over distressed parents
- Who will take care of the parent who has left?
- Will the custodial parent be able to manage alone?
- Intense anger toward one or both parents
- Feel a painfully divided loyalty
- Imagined guilt over having caused the separation
- Heroic fantasies of mending the broken marriage
- Sense of loneliness and social isolation
INITIAL REACTIONS
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS (Separation)
- Age and developmental stage at the time of the parental separation
- Groups which share significant perceptions, responses, underlying fantasies, behaviors:
1. Preschool (Ages 3 – 5)
2. Early Latency (Ages 5 – 8)
3. Later Latency (Ages 8 ½ - 12)
4. Adolescent (Ages 12 – 18) - Studies on infants and toddlers still in progress
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS (Separation): Preschool Children (Ages 3 – 5)
- Likely to regress following one parent’s departure from the home
- Regression usually in the most recent developmental achievement
- Intensified fears frequent
- Evoked by routine separations from the custodial parent during the day and at bedtime
- Sleep disturbances common
- Preoccupying fantasy: abandonment by both parents
- Intense yearning for the departed parent
- Likely to become irritable and demanding
- Likely to behave aggressively with parents, younger siblings and peers
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS (Separation): Early Latency Children (Ages 5 – 8)
- Grieve openly for the departed parent
- Terrifying fantasy of replacement
“Will Daddy get a new dog, a new mommy, a new little boy?” - Girls fantasize that the departed father will someday return to them, that he loves them the most
- Cannot believe that the separation is permanent
- Decline in schoolwork: Preoccupation with fantasies
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS (Separation): Later Latency Children (Ages 8 ½ – 12)
- Central response: fierce anger at one or both parents
- Grieve over the loss of their intact world
- Suffer anxiety, loneliness and a humiliating sense of their own powerlessness
- See one parent as “good” and the other as “bad”
- Especially vulnerable to the blandishments of a parent to participate in the marital battles
- High potential for assuming an empathic and engrossing role in the care of a needy parent
- School performance and peer relationships suffer
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS (Separation): Adolescents (Ages 12 – 18)
- Acute depression, accompanied by suicidal preoccupation
- Intense anger
- Direct violent attacks on custodial parents by adolescents who had not previously shown such behaviors
- Judge parents’ conduct around the separation
- Identify with one parent and do battle against the other
- Anxious about own future entry into adulthood
- Fearful that they may experience marital failure like their parents
- Impressive capacity to grow in maturity and independence
- Capable of considerable compassion for their parents’ weaknesses and struggles
- In general, marital turmoil has a greater impact on boys than on girls
- In divorced families
- In intact, discordant families
- It may be that boys have a more difficult time immediately following the separation, whereas girls find adolescence and entry into young adulthood particularly hazardous
GENDER DIFFERENCES
(LONG-TERM OUTCOMES)
- Reflect the quality of life and the parentchild
relationships within the postseparation or remarried family
Ongoing effects
(LONG-TERM OUTCOMES)
- Reflect concerns associated with the possibility of repeating the failure of relationship between a man and a
woman
Delayed effects
- Where the postseparation relationship that the parents develop with each other is more satisfactory, and where the parent individually is able to successfully reconstruct his/her life
- The child’s memories of the first poor parental relationship are less likely to be a disturbing influence
LONG-TERM OUTCOMES
- Face many tasks in addition to the usual ones of growing up
- Developmental tasks of establishing intimacy and trust in their own relationship with the opposite sex are burdened
- Fears of disappointment, betrayal and abandonment
- Sense of unreliability of relationships
LONG-TERM OUTCOMES
- At adolescence, the need for the father increases in both girls and boys
- Feeling rejected by the father at this time may pose special hazards
- For the young adult, relationships with both parents appear burdened
- Normal events of separation from home and family are emotionally complicated if the custodial parent will be left alone
LONG-TERM OUTCOMES
FACTORS IN OUTCOME
- Resiliency and vulnerability of the child and parent
- Nature of the relationship between the child and each parent
- Extent to which the postseparation coparenting relationship is free from continued conflict that involves the child
- Encouragement and support available to the child from other sources within or outside the family
FACTORS IN OUTCOME 2
- Many children who looked good at 10 years postseparation were well parented or had had considerable help along the way from a parent or grandparent
- Whether or not the child felt rejected by the father was a critical factor
- When separation had occurred early in the child’s life, parental remarriage seemed to offer some benefit
TASKS OF CHILDREN OF MARITAL SEPARATION (1-2)
Psychological tasks that need to be addressed represent a major addition to the expectable tasks of childhood and
adolescence
Task 1
• Acknowledging the reality of the marital rupture
Task 2
• Disengaging from parental conflict and distress and resuming customary pursuits
- Tasks 1 and 2 need to be addressed immediately at the time of the separation
- Optimally resolved within the first year
TASKS OF CHILDREN OF MARITAL SEPARATION (3-5)
Task 3
• Resolution of losses
Task 4
• Resolving anger and self-blame
Task 5
• Accepting the permanence of the separation
*Tasks 3, 4 and 5 will be worked and reworked by the child over many years
TASKS OF CHILDREN OF MARITAL SEPARATION (6)
Task 6
• Achieving realistic hope regarding relationships
*Tasks 3, 4, 5 and 6 will become salient at adolescence and entry into adulthood
EFFECTS ON CHILDREN OF SINGLE PARENTING
- Presence of both parents is a requisite to effective socialization of children for normal growth and development
- Consequences of father absence (Ventura, 1994)
- Problems related to gender identity
- Problems related to discipline
- Problems related to academic performance in school
- Health risk behavior (e.g. smoking,drinking alcohol) to compensate for lack of self-esteem
Life Without Father by David Popenoe
- Growing up without a father may be a root cause of many social ills
- The decline of fatherhood is a major force behind many of the most disturbing problems that plague American society…
- Crime
- Premature sexuality and out-of-wedlock births to teenagers
- Deteriorating educational achievement
- Depression
- Substance abuse and alienation among adolescents
- Growing number of women and children in poverty
Research shows that
- 60% of America’s rapists came from fatherless homes
- 72% of adolescent murderers grew up without a father
- 70% of long-term prison inmates are fatherless
Bostic and King 2007
- Even when parents part amicably, children may have difficulty with change from what has been familiar.
- Even when parents and children experience reduced conflict after the separation, children sometimes exhibit
symptoms which coincide with marital changes. - Overwhelming stress or fear
- Efforts to reunite family members
- Months or years after, may exhibit symptoms as difficulty adjusting to new roles or environments occurs or as they enter a new developmental phase.
Henry Ricciuti 2004
- Follow-up of children who were assessed when they were 6 and 7 years old
- The first study, published in 1999, found that single parenthood did not affect young children’s school readiness or social or behavioral problems.
- A new multiethnic study at Cornell University has found that being a single parent does not appear to have a __ effect on the behavior or educational performance of a mother’s 12- and 13-year-old children.
- 1,500 12 and 13-year-old children from white, black and Hispanic families
negative
__ of systematic negative effects of single parenthood onchildren, regardless of how long they
have lived with a single parent during the previous six years
Little or no evidence
In the presence of favorable maternal characteristics, such as education and positive child expectations, along with
social resources supportive of parenting, __ need not be a risk factor for a child’s performance in mathematics, reading or vocabulary or for behavior problems
single parenthood
Positive Effects of Single Parenting
- Developing Strong Bonds
- Spending quality one-on-one time with the children allows the development of a unique bond that may actually be stronger than it would have been if the parent were not a single parent
2, Experiencing Community
- In many cases, members of the extended family will step up and play a significant role in the children’s lives
- Community groups which champion the entire family
- Single parent support groups
- Churches
Positive Effects of Single Parenting (3-4)
- Shared Responsibilities
- The children’s contribution to the entire family system is necessary
- The authentic need for their assistance helps the children recognize the value of their contribution and develop pride in their own work - Handling Conflict and Disappointment
- Children get to see their parents working hard, despite their differences, to collaborate and work together effectively
- Forced to deal with their own disappointments early in life
Positive Effects of Single Parenting (5)
- Seeing Real-Life, Balanced Priorities
- Children know that they are the main priority in their parents’ lives, yet they are not treated as though they are the center of everyone’s universe
(Candy Manaloto-Manila Bulletin Online)
- is neither positive or negative. It only becomes negative once the parent abandons his/her
responsibility and accountability to the children.
Single parenting
- __ in single-parent families have
additional stresses, but they find ways to adapt and thrive - Rearing families as single parents is tough work. However, with special effort, and the support of individuals, communities and institutions around them (friends, schools,
extracurricular organizations, religious institutions), single-parent families can be supportive, healthy families in which young people will thrive.
Children living
Ortigas, 1989
- It is the quality of parenting, not the presence or absence of father or mother which determines wholesome and satisfying growth for parents and children.
