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 the 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 others people’s perception and match them with their points of view. What is more, these children sooner become even more noncompliance with parent’s requests (Bornstein, & Bradley, 2014). Increasing emotions in children conflict against their mothers increase as they grow. Growth enables their understanding of the family and siblings 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 they observe the family interactions. They identify the means used by the family in solving 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 the 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 in keeping 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 more so for the busy nurses who do not have time to keep track of the layers in a family. This is simply because partnership establishment with family members is one of the cornerstone requirement for faster recovery in pediatric patients.
Many controversies on family influence from the genetics of behavior research concerning findings that the shared environmental parameters are mostly modest or sometimes zero. (Deater-Deckard, & Panneton, 2017). Difference and similarities on how children grow in the family do not depend solemnly on the environment but other factors are also involved in shaping children’s behaviors, and that is why they can grow up together, but there is some difference in behavior 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 same functionality to children in that area.
Environmental research, therefore, involves so many things in general. Many factors are considered to ensure proper and accurate analysis are arrived at when dealing with psychology study. Factors like the shared part of the environment and even the risks that children are poised to during their development matters when it comes to psychology development. The more the risks the higher the psychology level.
According to nutritionists, family influence on the 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 is said by the 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 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 the parents. The dietary pattern for children is one of the central for them developing to become overweight. Excess of caloric intake makes 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 of fruits and vegetables is considered as a protective factor.
The actual environment has been conceptualized to be obesogenic since it supports taking of excess foods and to some extent sedentary kind of behavior 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 that 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 still provide security for their siblings giving the opportunity to play, experiment and explore all of which are major contributors to practical 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 the play in the determination of the creativity level in a child. They are both good predictors of potential creativity. Children from large families seem to have high potentiality in becoming creative, probably because they have good playtime with their colleagues and lack of 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 as compared to children from the big families and the regarding intelligence, children from small families’ rates higher than 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 claiming that middle children are prone to developing a rebellious personality as compared to first and last-born. This kind of character gives the 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 second born 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 second born to avoid this competition is to take up the unconventional niche. It is this conventional niche, which comes with the child being rebellious and creative.
Intelligence quotient and 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. 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). What this challenge comes in 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 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 proposing middle children are more creative, eldest children are reported to have many advantages regarding creativity right as they do in their academic accomplishments. Even though much of the research shows that elder, children’s are less creative because of their dependence and creativity. This is because children in larger families tend to spend most of their time without parents 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 the children educational progress takes two perspectives of the whole idea. Marital status, Order of birth and social, economic status in a family determines a lot in the success of a child in academics in a family. The factors also affect the cognitive development of a child either positively or negatively. Particularly, 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 are possess the high chance of their children being good in academic work. Contrary to this, children raised from 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 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 from 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 focused on the parent-child interactions hence neglecting the family influence like marital relations. Recently there has been a widely reported relation between child adjustment or development and marital conflicts (Sampson, 2017). Discussions prove that marital and family conflicts are very vital in the development of a family and at any cost, a family should avoid such since they impact negatively on the family 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 fight. These conflicts are found to make children adjust negatively, and at times, they become insecure about the 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 contributed by family influences while in our world of 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 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 up much earlier as possible and go, reunite with the family (Bornstein, & Bradley, 2014). Besides that, their time with the patient is also increased to make them have quality time together because this helps the patient in healing up much faster as he craves to go back be together with everyone at home.
In conclusion, family development and parenting is such a diverse activity in our society today, which must be taken in with a 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 behavior 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. Size of the family is either positive or negative towards and therefore should not be a limiting factor in the development of a well-furnished family. Family development is very fundamental, and it is pleasure creating a perfect environment for 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.
