so most of you reading this are probably expectant parents. In this blog I will be talking about the pros and cons of some parenting styles, different development theories and some things you should expect throughout your infant's infancy and childhood.
Your child's infancy and childhood is one of the most important phases he or she will go through. Its through this period that your child will go through his critical period, where certain skills and abilities are most easily attained. This time period is also very important to form a bond between you and your child as they will be going through attachment and will start to care about others and develop emotionally. At about 6 months old, infants will start forming an attachment to their mothers that will be very strong. If they suddenly stop seeing their mother and that bond is broken, infants may suffer some psychological disorders later on in life. This is the best time to create longer lasting bonds with your child, which some researchers believe have impacts on your child's future functioning and development. Theories such as Freud's Psychosexual Development believe that infants attach to an object or person that provides oral satisfaction. For example, moms feeding the baby create a bigger bond than moms who get babysitter or other people to feed the baby for them.
Freud's Theory of Psycosexual Development also said that all children are born with powerful sexual urges and aggressive urges. These fixations that one has through childhood will impact how one acts in his/her future life. As seen below on the chart, there are 5 different stages. The way one deals with these stages through their time period impacts them in their future life. Having too much or too little fixation on one stage will make one come back to that fixation and have different impacts on one's grown up life. i.e. being fixated in the oral stage as a child and becoming a chain smoker as an adult.
Throughout infancy and childhood an infant will develop in many different areas. He will grow physically, emotionally, socially and cognitively. The infant will grow from being able to smile when she is 4 months, crawling when she is 8 to 10 months, and walk when 12 to 14 months, this is physical development. Though this timeline is more or less correct, it is different for most kids so do not be alarmed if your baby is a little bit delayed or early getting into this kind of stuff. Also there are some extreme cases where kids have delayed locomotion till the age of 12 as in the case of Genie. Genie was deprived from walking by her parents as she was strapped to a chair since she tried to start walking till she was found 11 years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEnkY2iaKis
Another area of development infants go through during their infancy is social development. Through socialization and human interaction they will learn how to better communicate, they will learn what is wrong and what is right and what is socially acceptable and expected from them. Though they are still infants they will be able to understand this. This area of development can be even more developed when the infant uses identification to adopt the same set of values as their same sex parent. (This is where parenting styles come into play but we will talk about it later) Though this area of development is constantly changing because it is dependent on culture, it can still be strongly influenced if the infant socializes often and it can also help him better pick up body language signs from other people. This area of development is very important as it helps infants understand the world around them.
Erik Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development states that sexual and aggressive urges are important, but social acceptance is just as important.In this theory there are 8 different stages.
As you can see again, any bad or good experience that happens to anyone during their early ages will impact them in their future. This is known as a schema and it is the conceptual framework one uses to understand the world. So if during their first year of life, when infants go through the stage of trust or mistrust and where they are making huge motor and physical changes such as walking and talking. A parent that gives his infant responsive and sensitive parenting with physical comfort and minimal fear, will lead to a sense of trust from the infant towards the parent and the child will develop a sense of autonomy and independence. If the parent never responds to these changes the baby has made, and does not fully support him or award for what he has done, the baby will feel ashamed for trying to be better and will connect his independence with being a bad thing. This stage is very important because without trust one will not be able to establish relationships and will not be able to "adjust his/her understanding of the world to allow new events and objects to fit in" in the process known as accommodation.
A very large and complex area of development infants go through is the cognitive development. From the moment they are born till they are 24 months old, babies will go from thinking that their actions create the world around them, to a stage where the world and objects are independent of their actions. For example, if you take a teething toy away and hide it from an infant in its early months, it will act as though the object does not exist anymore and try to replace it for one that provides the same oral satisfaction instead of trying to look for it . But if you do that same thing to a 24 month child, it will follow to where you hide the toy and look for it there. This a huge step on the child's cognitive development and this concept is known as object permanence and it was developed by Jean Piaget. He described it as "things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen or touched". The chart below shows the 4 different stages of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development. It shows how one goes from having an egocentric point of view on the world to a more complex and wide view of the world, known as representational thought which is what happens when a child can picture things in his mind. From birth to approximately 2 years infants go through object permanence as explained above. From 2 to 7 years old, still show egocentric points of view, and up till the age of 5, the concept of conservation is still not clear in the mind of children. From 5 and up they are able to almost fully understand it but will have some difficulty with it. By age 7, they will be fully understanding of the concept. From ages 7 to 11 the child will be able to understand more complex ideas and from 11 years and up they will have the ability of logical and deductive reasoning.
Parenting Styles and What to Expect from Which you Choose
Authoritarian Parenting
Authoritarian parents are very demanding, expect their orders to always be followed without any explanation. Obedience is the commanding rule in the household of this parents.
What will be the impact on the kids?
-boys will be hostile when under pressure and girls will tend to give up when on the same situation
-anxious, withdrawn and unhappy disposition
-will do better than average in school
-and very unlikely to engage in socially unacceptable activities
Authoritative Parenting
Authoritative parents are assertive but non restricting. They are able to negotiate with their kids. Disciplinary methods used by them are supportive and not punitive.
What will be the impact on the kids?
-lively and happy disposition
-self confident in ability to master tasks
-developed social skills
-well developed emotional regulation
Permissive Parenting
Permissive parents or indulgent parents let their kids make their own decisions, do not require mature behaviour and avoid confrontation.
What will be the impact on the kids?
-when pressured, kids will have poor emotional control
-they will be rebellious and defiant when faced with authority
-will give up easily
So now that you know the different parenting styles, what to expect from your kids, and have a better understanding of your kids infancy and childhood, you now can make the correct decisions into growing a happy and healthy child! Hope this helped you out with some questions or dilemmas you might have had before.
