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 really sense they are doing nothing to aid in the development of their kids both psychologically and physically. This may be because of the circumstance that the family is exposed to or incase a parent is advancing his education. For instance if a parent is taking a course in nursing and he or she is a parent to young children. This means that he or she must have to balance between the school assignments and the kids. There are a number of impacts that a child suffers incase 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 depends entirely on the time spent with the parent. But 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 21st century started with everyone wanting to advance his or her education. The thirst for education grew to a great extent up to a point where 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 to be enrolled in their school but the 21st century has seen that believe being buried as more and more parents are being enrolled into colleges and universities. The nursing industry is no different as more and more people are thirsty of advancing their career at the same time take care of their families specifically their children. But this does not mean that the process is that 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. The college assignments take a lot of their time but still they have to create time for their children as parents have a critical role in the development of a child. This paper aims at analyzing the impacts of schooling of parents has to 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 the 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 course and thus requires that one has a 100% concentration so as to pass. But in a case where the student is also a parent, then it is a combination of two most challenging experiences in the world. In one hand, he or she needs to create time to play, teach and be a role model to his or her kids. On the other hand the same person is required to study and pass his nursing exams. Keeping in mind that there is a lot of assignments that needs to be done and be 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 behavior of their children in at least three ways. Bu the most common involves the direct interactions between the child and the parent and it is the easiest among the three. For instance, when a mother praises a toddler for eating properly, when the father threatens for loss of privilege when a child refuses to go to bed and many more day to day interactions helps in 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 behavior (Wu, & Zhang, 2017). This interactions can create a primary effect on the child but still secondary effects may appear later in life. For instance a seven year with a more extensive vocabulary than his or her friends because the parents of the later spent a lot of time with him or her and encouraged language development earlier. When it comes class work, the child will perceive him or herself to be competent that the other kids. This will help boost the self-esteem of the child and also embolden her to resist any domination by others and even motivate her to advance in doing more challenging tasks. But in cases where parents were busy doing other things in our case studying, the child will not have mastered language and therefore will not be able to perform in the elementary education. This will make him or her feel inferior to his or her peers 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 behavior.
Another study by Brodzinsky & Pinderhughes (2013) aimed at studying the emotional identification of children. Children tend to believe that the 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 belief that she fears big animals because her mother also fears big animals. On the other hand a girl with a mother who do not fear big animal 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 with. A child who 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 this features are the more a child’s identification grows. Children can also identify themselves with ethnic, religion or class of their parents. But if this identification is not built and leads to 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 American straighten their hair. But if the parents spend more time with their kids and help them develop their identity, children don’t feel any need to try and change the similarity. The importance of identification is the development of a child’s personality.
This is in conformity with the parent’s personality, talents and character as perceived by the child. But if the parents spends most of his or her time in the college taking his or her assignment, the child will not have enough time to study and understand the parent’s 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, who display curiosity about the world, because of his or her intellectual competence is more likely to pursue intellectual Excellency than a child whose parents praise academic Excellency but do not display any intellectual competency in their lives. This is because children tend to honor 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 behavior since they spend most of their time in school.
In another case, other scholars argue that the stories that parents tell to their kids help in 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 will make a 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 made the person succeed. Among the live example of people who were motivated by stories about their ancestors is Charles Darwin who believed that because his farther was intelligent then he also was intelligent. He later in life advanced his study on the inheritance of Psychological characteristics through his knowledge in animal breeding that further made him realize his cognitive talents that were in his family. Therefore for 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 children will not therefore have any knowledge about their successful ancestors 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. But as the kids were later adopted, they appeared to develop bonding 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, 13000 families living in different cities were studied so as 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 day care and some in orphanages (Ryan, Abigael, & Courtney, 2013). The form of care that were outside home had little effect on the self-control, compliance and the behavior 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 belief that they can take their children to daycare and family day care centers, 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 behavior of parents influence a child’s talents motivation, behavior and even academic performance (Ceka, & Murati, 2016). But the influence of a parent represents much in a child than that. This include the inherited temperaments, ordinal position, class in the society, the kind of friends they will have and the 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 off from stimuli they do not recognize. This is witnessed in later years when the child starts going to school. Such kinds of kids show constant shyness and fear. But for kids who spent most of their time with their parents seem 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 thought our first language by our parents. The way we talk and the way we use vocabularies 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 to have eaten properly. The same child is punished if he or she acts in a way that is undesirable. Form this case it is evident therefore that a parent has a big role to 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 you kids, spending as much time with the kids is the first priority. This is because the 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 kid and the base that a child is provided with determines his whole life. A child’s behavior and character is molded during the young ages and therefore should be given the most quality time by parents (Barbara, Pol, & Hans, 2016). Trying to favor your career means you are giving your child’s life for your career. May be 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 will experience rejection in school a factor that may lead to poor performance and lose of self-motivation
In addition to direct contact with a child, parents are required to help the child develop his identification. This include the emotional identification and the 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. This therefore requires that parents spend as much time as possible with their kids as this will help the child in identification. The child will tend to copy the good traits and therefore be accepted in the society or be able to fit in the society (Barbara, 2016). But 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 the society. This gives the child the imperative to honor the identification and respect it. On top of that, the parent’s personality, talents and character are directly transferred to the child and thus making the child grow stronger in the 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 makes the child understand the history of his family but also gives him or her the opportunity to know the kind of people he is related to. For instance a child will be motivated to be an intellectual if he knows that a person or persons on his or her family was an intellectual. The child will want to be like his or her ancestors (Argyroula & Birtchnell, 2014). But in cases where parents spend most of their time in books and assignments, the child will not find such an opportunity and may not be motivated to be like anybody else. Therefore regardless of the fact that parents who are still in school find it difficult to balance between the children and studies, it is important that the kids are given the 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 a 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. But the first priority should be given to the young kids as they need the parent for their general development. It is evident from the paper that children who grow 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 a proper development of a child both physically and psychologically.
References
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