Effective Parenting - Stage Theories of Erikson and Piaget - Essay Example

This is important so that children can develop the four basic ways of organizing their intellectual internalization of the world around them.  In the first year of life, the infant is resolving trust (McLeod). Good parenting requires being consistently responsive to the child’s needs so that the child learns the world is a place where needs can be satisfactorily met. If parents are unresponsive, harsh, or inconsistent (ignoring or shouting in a hostile manner, for example), the child learns that the world is an unsafe place and that no one cares about his/her needs (McLeod). The child learns to distinguish trustable parents from not-as-trustable strangers. Supporting this means the parent will maintain eye and tactile contact, giving clues. The infant is engaged in the exploration of the environment and organizing it in a sensorimotor way (touching, tasting, smelling, banging things, becoming mobile) (Driskell). Good parenting includes providing a safe environment in which the infant can explore and gain experience with sensations and movement.

Parenting a toddler involves supporting emerging independence and letting go, balanced with secure attachment, being there for the child but encouraging exploration (McLeod). In the pre-school and kindergarten years, the child should be supported in making decisions, forming a healthy conscience, and gaining answers to questions the child feels are important (McLeod), Good parenting involves supporting pre-operational development, by providing resources to encourage imaginative play. Encouraging the imagination, and understanding the difference between lying and imagination is important to good parenting (Driskell).

The elementary school-age child needs to develop a sense of mastery or expertise, as well as permission to not be an expert in everything (McLeod). Encouraging the child in hobbies, sports, chores, cooking, or playing a musical instrument are ways to support the development of confidence incompetence. Peer interactive experience is vital to learn give-and-take among a variety of expert representation and to broaden experience (McLeod). The child is reorganizing their cognitive system to handle concrete logic (Driskell). Supporting the child in homework, involving them in conversations, games, and story-telling, and exposing them to math and science (jigsaw puzzles, games of strategy, chemistry sets, microscopes, telescopes) are important for good parenting.

The adolescent is experimenting with identity and identity flexibility (McLeod). Parents need to support the adolescent in figuring out who they are, relative to others and deep inside themselves. Respecting the privacy of journals and personal space, the importance of friends and feelings, interests and issues are ways that parents can help. This stage also involves developing a comfortable understanding of one’s sexuality and occupation goals (McLeod), something parents should be available to discuss and accept about outcomes. Adolescents are reorganizing their intellect to handle abstract thinking (Driskell). Parents should explain their own logic so that teens can appreciate parental thinking, rather than give blind obedience.

Young adults are resolving intimacy vs isolation (McLeod). Some run into trouble in this area and parents need to be pro-active and supportive listeners and observers, offering guidance. Parents should be alert to imbalances, such as young adults who have no friends, are in abusive relationships, or cannot be alone. Parents should make themselves available and accessible, accepting and respectful toward their children, from infancy through young adulthood, in order to maximize children’s successful cognitive and psychosocial development.

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