The influence of a family process is hinged on the development of both the parent and the child. This means that the relationship between two family members is gradually developed with time. Maccoby talked about this effect in child development bi-directionally when he gave the roles of certain factors like language development, education, others’ conception, physical growth and autonomy during children’s interaction with the parents.
In the development stage, children can communicate with parents and even other people around them. Additionally, these children will gradually begin to contemplate other people’s perceptions and match them with their points of view. What is more, these children sooner become even more noncompliant with their parent’s requests (Bornstein & Bradley, 2014). Increasing emotions in children conflict with their mothers as they grow. Growth enables their understanding of the family and siblings to increase, hence giving them an opportunity to synchronize activities in the family.
In the process of child development, parents are also confirmed to be changing the family. For instance, as the child grows, parents also improve their methods of ensuring discipline prevails. Parents always respond to children’s intellectual development through increased verbal instructions and explanations in physical demonstrations. They make responses that are more sophisticated in their verbal interaction with their children’s requests (Bornstein & Bradley, 2014). As children mature, they likely get in a position of being influenced by petitions made by parents in the sense of fairness. Similarly, parents, on the other end, respond to this transformation by diminishing their disciplinary actions in the form of punishments. Children develop a mutual understanding of obligations, and these make the parents change their methods of dispensing discipline to them.
The empirical study of domestic influences on the development of family gets complicated at best. Children develop in the family as they identify whoever is in the family and observe the family interactions. They identify the means used by the family to solve inconsistencies and the adaptation methods within their homes. The science of family study is all about the methods of conflict resolution in the family besides studying the techniques of different cultures in various families (Deater-Deckard & Panneton, 2017). Moreover, the changing demography in American families is comprised of increased sizes of families raised by parents coming from different ethnic communities, single-parenting families, and multiple houses. Medical clinicians find it very hard and complex to keep records of family life from the few minutes provided by hospitals as visit time. This makes them provide certain guidelines when it comes to contacting a patient, which is more so for busy nurses who do not have time to keep track of the layers in a family. This is simply because establishing a partnership with family members is one of the cornerstone requirements for faster recovery in pediatric patients.
Many controversies on family influence from the genetics of behaviour research concerning findings that the shared environmental parameters are mostly modest or sometimes zero. (Deater-Deckard, & Panneton, 2017). Differences and similarities in how children grow in the family do not depend solemnly on the environment, but other factors are also involved in shaping children’s behaviours, and that is why they can grow up together, but there are some differences in behaviour as portrayed in the above finding. It is, therefore, correct when one states that shared family environment is majorly based on the effects rather than measures. This shared environmental influence arises in places where environments have the same functionality as children in that area.
Environmental research, therefore, involves so many things in general. Many factors are considered to ensure proper and accurate analysis when dealing with psychology studies. Factors like the shared part of the environment and even the risks that children are poised to during their development matter when it comes to psychological development. The more risks, the higher the psychological level.
According to nutritionists, family influence on children is not only limited to the genetic aspects, even though professionals are aware of the influence of genetics on child obesity (Deater-Deckard & Panneton, 2017). The chances and risks of a child becoming overweight are said by nutritionists to be mostly dependent on the family, school environment and the entire social environment as a whole. A consistent amount of data is available to prove that under non-controlling circumstances, children can regulate the quantity of food consumed. Energy requirements in the body of children are solemnly dependent on the age and activities of the child and gender. Younger children are found to be able to regulate the amount of food they consume. Innate abilities give them the opportunity to reject what is more for them despite the amount they have in their reach. But as they mature, they learn to utilize everything the environment provides for them, and this makes them find themselves eating more than required, making them start developing obesity at this age if not regulated on their eating capacity by their parents. The dietary pattern of children is one of the factors that contribute to their becoming overweight. Excess caloric intake causes the energy in them to get stored as fats. In that case, it is correct concluding that taking food with a dense amount of energy is at times a risk factor for one becoming overweight since these foods lead to excess fat in the body. A preference for fruits and vegetables is considered as a protective factor.
The actual environment has been conceptualized to be obesogenic since it supports taking excess foods and, to some extent, a sedentary kind of behaviour in many people (Sampson, 2017). Children predisposed to obesity are found to be more susceptible to the effects of intake of energy as compared to children with no family history of corpulence. It is the role of parents to ensure that children eat healthy foods that may not contribute to them being overweight, which is a very serious health complication.
Family Structure and Process
Most studies hold that the influence in the determination of creativity is found to be in two categories, specifically the family structure and family process. The relevant processes include discipline from parents who are at times lax, though they still provide security for their siblings, giving them the opportunity to play, experiment and explore, all of which are major contributors to practicality and creativity in problem-solving (Sampson, 2017). Family size and the order in children are the major structural determinates of Intelligence in children. These two variables are considered major parts of play in the determination of a child’s creativity level. They are both good predictors of potential creativity. Children from large families seem to have high potential to become creative, probably because they have good playtime with their colleagues and lack parental supervision on many occasions. The size of the family determines the Intelligence quotient and even the scholastic achievements. Children from smaller families are found to excel much in academics compared to children from families, and the intelligence of children from small families is higher than that of those from small families.
The position of a child in the family has also proved to be an extremely predicate determinant in knowing the creativity level of a child. Sulloway obtained widespread support, implying that middle children are more likely to develop a rebellious personality as compared to first and lastborns. This kind of character gives middle-born children the ability to behave in a creative and unconventional way (Sampson, 2017). The firstborns often develop the need to achieve in conventional fields. The secondborn avoids competition in most cases with the firstborn; hence, they do find another niche within the family environment, but since the conventional niche is already taken up by the firstborn, the simplest way for the secondborn to avoid this competition is to take up the unconventional niche. It is this conventional nich that comes with the child being rebellious and creative.
Intelligence quotient, general intelligence, and creativity are very distinct, considering the test scores of these three aspects of life. Creativity and general intelligence are distinct in that one is likely to be seen in small families and the other in large families. In the scholastic aptitude scores, children from large families present higher scores than those from small families. The reason behind this is that children from large families are usually less stimulated towards intellectual climate as compared to children from small families (Ginsburg, 2017). This challenge comes from the fact that in small families, parents are proportional to the number of children and providing for them is not an issue. In big families, the number of children is much more than the number of parents; hence, lack of proportionality makes provision for the family challenge.
Evidence put forward for creativity is suggestive but, in the real sense, less conclusive. Despite the fact that the indications propose middle children are more creative, eldest children are reported to have many advantages regarding creativity rig, as they do in their academic accomplishments. Even though much of the research shows that older children are less creative because of their dependence and creativity, this is because children in larger families tend to spend most of their time without their parent’s supervision; hence, they always employ the use of their imaginative skills to entertain themselves (Ginsburg, 2017). On the other hand, children from small families get all this from their parents, who are readily available for their small number.
Families as Educational Settings
Early researchers on the environmental influence on children’s educational progress take two perspectives on the whole idea. Marital status, order of birth, and social and economic status in a family determine a lot about the success of a child in academics. The factors also affect the cognitive development of a child, either positively or negatively. In particular, positive education results are found to exist in families where the marriage remained intact. It also revealed that well-educated parents having good sources of income possess a high chance of their children being good at academic work. Contrary to this, children raised by single parents were, on many occasions, found to be average or even low in academic performance. They seemed more or less demoralized and lack of concentration in their schoolwork.
It is of great importance that one acknowledges the importance of the knowledge that no defined parenting pattern is concomitant with parents coming from dysfunctional families. Dysfunctionality plays a very critical part in a family. Different effects are experienced in such families, contrary to the normal family set-up (Sampson, 2017). A clear instance of continuation may appear in a pattern considered almost similar to the dysfunctional family where either of the parents was raised. An example of this is in a scenario where one of the parents grew up in a family where they used to be abused; there is a high probability that the affected parent will be applying the same to his or her children in a family.
Marital Interaction: Effects on Child Development
Marital interaction affects the family and child development process. Socialization traditionally focuses on parent-child interactions, hence neglecting family influences such as marital relations. Recently, there has been a widely reported relationship between child adjustment or development and marital conflicts (Sampson, 2017). Discussions prove that marital and family conflicts are vital in the development of a family, and at any cost, a family should avoid such conflicts since they negatively impact the family’s development. Children are usually affected by such kinds of politics owing to their earlier exposure to such kinds of things, more so if it involves intense violence and fighting. These conflicts are found to make children adjust negatively, and at times, they become insecure about family functioning, leading to mental trauma and torture in the long run.
The Role of the Family in Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Changes have surrounded the attitudes concerning the work of family psychiatric rehabilitation. Formerly, mental illness was believed to be attributed to family influences, while in our world today, it is believed that family partnership is very important in the rehabilitation process of a patient. Family intervention in the recovery of a mentally ill patient has proven to be very effective in the coping process of such a patient,t as indicated by evidence-based practice. In this case, family visits in mental hospitals have been made more regular so that these patients can cope much earlier as possible and go and reunite with their families (Bornstein & Bradley, 2014). Besides that, their time with the patient is also increased to give them quality time together because this helps the patient heal much faster as he craves to go back to being together with everyone at home.
In conclusion, family development and parenting are diverse activities in our society today, and they must be taken into careful consideration. It solemnly depends on the parents, their ability to raise a good family and the natural environmental factors they create for their children. Parental beliefs, their instructions to the siblings, the general structure of the home environment and family life, and lastly, the behaviour of parents both outside and inside the compound are the key components determining the type of family. It is important as parents to consider the kind of family you plan to have as a couple. Despite some factors being contingent, you can always find a way of coming up with the best family ever. The size of the family is either positive or negative and, therefore, should not be a limiting factor in the development of a well-furnished family. Family development is very fundamental, and it is a pleasure to create a perfect environment for the best child development.
References
Bornstein, M. H., & Bradley, R. H. (Eds.). (2014). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development. Routledge.
Deater-Deckard, K., & Panneton, R. (2017). Unearthing the Developmental and Intergenerational Dynamics of Stress in Parent and Child Functioning. In Parental Stress and Early Child Development (pp. 1-11). Springer, Cham.
Sampson, R. J. (2017). Family management and child development: Insights from social disorganization theory. In Facts, frameworks, and Forecasts (pp. 63-94). Routledge.
Ginsburg, K. (2017). The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. American Academy of Pediatrics. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
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