Does Schooling Parent Have An Impact On Their Children?

Abstract

The most challenging aspect of any person is parenting. Some parents may think that they are doing enough for their kids, but in the real sense, they are doing nothing to aid in the development of their kids, both psychologically and physically. This may be because of the circumstances that the family is exposed to or because a parent is advancing his education. For instance, if a parent is taking a course in nursing and is a parent to young children, this means that he or she must have a balance between the school assignments and the kids. There are a number of impacts that a child suffers if a parent does not give him or her enough time. For instance, the emotional identification of a child will be retarded, and this will not be a good thing for any child. Secondly, a child’s personality and self-esteem depend entirely on the time spent with the parent. Most importantly, a parent is the first teacher to all of us. Therefore, parents should spend as much time as possible with their children so as to build a strong base for them in basically all aspects of life, from language to academics to socialization.

Introduction

The 21^st century started with everyone wanting to advance his or her education. The thirst for education grew to a great extent, and even parents started enrolling in colleges to advance their education. This is witnessed all over the different sectors of the economy. Institutions could not accept students with young children enrolled in their schools, but the 21^st century has seen that belief being buried as more and more parents are being enrolled on colleges and universities. The nursing industry is no different as more and more people are thirsty to advance their careers while taking care of their families, specifically their children. But this does not mean that the process is so easy that everyone wants to go into it. Nursing students who are parents undergo a lot of pressure trying to balance between the tight school schedule and their children. College assignments take a lot of their time, but they still have to create time for their children as parents have a critical role in the development of a child. This paper aims to analyze the impacts of schooling on parents on the development of their children.

Being a student parent is the most challenging experience anybody can have. This is because parents have to make sure that other than concentrating on their challenging studies, they have to concentrate on their kids as they are responsible for many aspects of a child’s development. For instance, a nursing student has to keep up with college assignments that are obviously challenging and time-consuming (Brodzinsky & Pinderhughes, 2013). In addition to that, most nursing students spend most of their time in libraries and private study sessions so as to keep up with the continuously changing nursing environment. On top of that, nursing is one of the most challenging courses and thus requires that one has 100% concentration to pass. However, in a case where the student is also a parent, it is a combination of the two most challenging experiences in the world. On the one hand, he or she needs to create time to play, teach, and be a role model for his or her kids. On the other hand, the same person is required to study and pass his nursing exams. Keep in mind that there are a lot of assignments that need to be done and submitted on time. Therefore, it is evident that the parenting role must be affected in one way or the other.

Literature Review

Parents can affect the behaviour of their children in at least three ways. However, the most common involves direct interactions between the child and the parent, and it is the easiest of the three. For instance, when a mother praises a toddler for eating properly, the father threatens loss of privilege when a child refuses to go to bed, and many more day-to-day interactions help in the transference of knowledge from the parent to the child. Disciplining the child in case of actions that are undesired and helping him or her name an animal picture will help the child develop his or her vocabulary and behaviour (Wu & Zhang, 2017). These interactions can have a primary effect on the child, but secondary effects may still appear later in life. For instance, a seven-year-old has a more extensive vocabulary than his or her friends because the parents of the latter spent a lot of time with him or her and encouraged language development earlier. When it comes to class work, the child will perceive him or herself to be more competent than the other kids. This will help boost the child’s self-esteem, embolden her to resist any domination by others, and even motivate her to advance in doing more challenging tasks. However, in cases where parents are busy doing other things, such as studying, the child will not have mastered the language and, therefore, will not be able to perform in elementary education. This will make him or her feel inferior to his or her peers, which is a factor that will inhibit the self-esteem of the child for life. In addition to that, the child will be aggressive to his or her peers, thus leading to rejection as no one wants to associate with him or her because of the bad behaviour.

Another study by Brodzinsky & Pinderhughes (2013) aimed to study the emotional identification of children. Children tend to believe that some of their attributes were inherited from their parents, even if this is not true. For example, a girl whose mother fears big animals may tend to believe that she fears big animals because her mother also fears big animals. On the other hand, a girl with a mother who does not fear big animals will find it easier not to fear. In addition to that, children tend to share the experiences that happen to their parents with who they can identify themselves. A child whose parents are popular among friends and family members will conclude that he or she has the same qualities that make him or her acceptable among his friends.

The more distinct these features are, the more a child’s identification grows. Children can also identify themselves with the ethnicity, religion or class of their parents. However, if this identification is not built and leads to a generation of anxiety, children may tend to attempt to minimize bases for their perceived similarity. That is the reason why Jews change their last name or African Americans straighten their hair. However, if parents spend more time with their kids and help them develop their identities, children don’t feel any need to try to change their similarities. Identification is important for the development of a child’s personality.

This is in conformity with the parent’s personality, talents and character as perceived by the child. However, if the parents spend most of their time in college taking their assignments, the child will not have enough time to study and understand the parents’ personality, character or talent. Therefore, the child may feel that the trait is undesirable and end up trying to suppress it with undesirable measures. The child’s personality will also be affected. A child who is praised by his or her parents and displays curiosity about the world because of his or her intellectual competence is more likely to pursue intellectual excellence than a child whose parents praise academic excellence but do not display any intellectual competency in their lives. This is because children tend to honour what parents do more than what they say. For student parents, therefore, it will be difficult for children to find time to actually copy their parent’s behaviour since they spend most of their time in school.

In another case, other scholars argue that the stories that parents tell their kids help in the development of a child’s accomplishment domain. In cases where a child is told stories of how his relatives succeeded or did something that made them succeed, it will make the child feel proud (Sax & Dayna, 2014). This is because of the mere fact that he or she has a biological relationship with the person in the story, and he or she must possess some admirable characteristics that make the person succeed. Among the live examples of people who were motivated by stories about their ancestors is Charles Darwin, who believed that because his father was intelligent, then he also was intelligent. Later in life, he advanced his study of the inheritance of Psychological characteristics through his knowledge of animal breeding, which further made him realize the cognitive talents that were in his family. Therefore, student nurses who spend most of their time in college trying to build their grades will not have enough time to tell stories to their children. This child will not, therefore, have any knowledge about their successful ancestors and, thus, no motivation in life (Sax & Dayna, 2014).

In another study, the kids who were orphaned by the World War 1 and the Korean conflict suffered serious privation. However, as the kids were later adopted, they appeared to develop bonds with their adoptive families in their early years (Claus, 2016). The more recent study was on children who had spent a good time in Romanian orphanages. After adoption by foster parents, the children portrayed psychological problems and were not at the same level as their peers who had spent their lives with their parents. But after some years after adoption, a majority of the kids had the same intellectual capacity as their peers.

In another study, 13,000 families living in different cities were studied to determine the importance of parents to the development of children. The children observed were infants who were living in different environments. At three years of age, the children had experienced different forms of care. Some were living with their parents, some in daycare and some in orphanages (Ryan, Abigael, & Courtney, 2013). The form of care that was outside the home had little effect on the self-control, compliance and behaviour of the child. The variation among the different environments was critical in a child’s development. Therefore, in cases where parents in the nursing college believe that they can take their children to daycare and family daycare centres, it is evident that a child’s psychological traits are inhibited. In addition to that, there are other impacts that a child suffers when parents are nursing students.

Empirical studies affirm that the behaviour of parents influences a child’s talent, motivation, behaviour and even academic performance (Ceka & Murati, 2016). However, the influence of a parent is much more significant in a child than that. This includes the inherited temperaments, ordinal position, class in the society, the kind of friends they will have and how the child will spend his or her adolescent life. Temperament is seen in a study of healthy children who showed vigorous levels of irritability to unfamiliar stimuli. Other children shy away from stimuli they do not recognize. This is witnessed in later years when the child starts going to school. Such kids show constant shyness and fear. But for kids who spend most of their time with their parents, it seems bolder.

Discussion

From the reviews above, it is evident, therefore, that parents have a critical role in a child’s development. Parents are the very first teachers of a child. For instance, we all were taught our first language by our parents. The way we talk and the way we use vocabulary is entirely dependent on our first language. A child learns from the everyday interaction with his or her parent. For instance, in one study above, a child is commended by his mother for eating properly. The same child is punished if he or she acts in a way that is undesirable. From this case, it is evident, therefore, that a parent has a big role in educating and transferring knowledge to a child. In addition to that, a child who spends a lot of time with parents masters the language and, therefore, tends to perform better in school than his or her peers who never had parental support.

Therefore, for nursing students who have kids, spending as much time with the kids is the first priority. This is because young age is the key to the development of a child, both physically and mentally. Additionally, they must keep in mind that parents are the first teachers of any kind, and the base that a child is provided with determines his whole life. A child’s behaviour and character are moulded at a young age and, therefore, should be given the most quality time by parents (Barbara, Pol, & Hans, 2016). Trying to favour your career means you are giving your child’s life for your career. Maybe he or she will not even have a career to pursue as his or her self-esteem will be long gone. His character will also be the worst and, therefore, he will experience rejection in school, a factor that may lead to poor performance and loss of self-motivation

In addition to direct contact with a child, parents are required to help the child develop his identification. This includes emotional identification and physical identification. Student nurses should, therefore, take into consideration that a child copies most of a parent’s traits and characteristics to help him develop his own identification. Therefore, parents need to spend as much time as possible with their kids as this will help the child identify the problem. The child will tend to copy the good traits and, therefore, be accepted in society or be able to fit in society (Barbara, 2016). However, kids who lack identification in one way or the other end up being aggressive to their peers and also lack enough personality to advance on something challenging. Children also can use the parent’s presence to identify him or herself with a certain class, therefore making him or her develop the traits of people living in that class of society. This gives the child the imperative to honour the identification and respect it. On top of that, the parents’ personality, talents, and character are directly transferred to the child, thus making the child grow stronger in society (Rispoli et al., 2013). Spending time in school will not make the child know the value of education, but spending time with him to let him know it by himself will make him want to be like the parent.

Student nurses are mostly at school or struggling with assignments that are always challenging. This makes most of them lack time to spend with their children, at least to tell them stories about the family and even the extended family. Family stories not only make the child understand the history of his or her family but also give him or her the opportunity to know the kind of people he or she is related to. For instance, a child will be motivated to be an intellectual if he knows that a person or persons in his or her family is an intellectual. The child will want to be like his or her ancestors (Argyroula & Birtchnell, 2014). However, in cases where parents spend most of their time on books and assignments, the child will not find such an opportunity and may not be motivated to be like anybody else. Therefore, even though parents who are still in school find it difficult to balance their children and their studies, it is important that the kids are given first priority and enough time to know about their extended family and ancestors. This will give them the motivation and personality to develop to being strong individuals.

In conclusion, we can see that a parent’s presence in a child’s life is crucial to a child’s development. It is the key to a child’s Psychological profile. A child’s attachment to a parent does not guarantee a benevolent outcome, but it does guarantee the development of an adult who has a strong personality and a person who is able to survive in any condition. Therefore, nurses should struggle to balance their time between studies and their kids. However, the first priority should be given to young kids as they need their parents for their general development. It is evident from the paper that children who grow up without their parents end up losing in life since they lack most attributes that make successful people. Parents are key to the personality, identification and even socialization of their children. Spending more time with your child, therefore, is the key to the proper development of a child both physically and psychologically.

References

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