Mother and Child Relationship - Essay Example

Mother – Child relationship: Sense of Self and Other Researchers have long assessed the roles that parents play in children’s development. Mother and child relationship helps to develop the sense of self and other. Mother and child relationship has been considered one of the most important and significant relationships for the psychological development in children. Research shows that home characteristics of mother and child have direct and indirect effects on the quality of the mother and child interactions. Different factors that are considered risks such as lack of family resources, poverty, and single living parent, maternal depression, receiving no support from one’s partner or a child’s health issues can have a negative impact on the quality of mother and child interactions. Mothers with depression often offer negative parenting style, emotional insensitivity and are less responsive towards their child. Various researches have been carried out on this interaction and relationship from various aspects. Before analyzing the associations between mother-child interaction and children’s later self and mother’s feature knowledge, it is necessary to view this relationship from other aspects as well. In the practical manual, ‘Improving mother/child interaction to promote better psychosocial development in children’ of world health organization/international child development programmes, it is stated that the children’s psychological development can be increased with the improvement in quality of interaction between mother and the child (‘Improving mother/child interaction to promote better psychosocial development in children’, 16). The interaction between children and their caregivers need extensive improvement. Children are naturally more responsive to love and safety and this greatly contributes to their development and growth, not only in physical terms but also psychologically. Physical needs are a priority but children’s emotional and psychological needs should also be considered and fulfilled. In order to be social and well- adjusted human beings, children need love, care, guidance and attention. It is very important for the children to have a stable and lovable relationship with their caregivers which usually are their mothers. The manual has discussed the importance and the significance of mother- child interaction from different aspects; the manual says that the love which the children receive from their mother makes them rely on them and trust them. During their period of growth they learn many things by imitating her and by getting instructions and guidance from her. Studies have shown that children who are separated or abandoned by their mothers become depressed and after long periods of separation the children show symptoms of hyperactivity, restlessness and apathy; they are unable to concentrate and always crave for affection. The same manual quotes an example that was carried out on such children. McVicker Hunt (‘Improving mother/child interaction to promote better psychosocial development in children’, 5) found that the children were dull, showed no interest in toys and people. Most of the children mostly at the age of three showed no sign of expressive and receptive language. These children were retarded in all areas of language, social, emotional and intellectual development. Susan H. Landry (1) says that “the development of children’s social and cognitive skills are needed for success in school,” she suggests that this development can only be supported by a parenting style called responsive parenting (Landry, 1). Responsiveness is an act of parenting which is supportive. It is described in different theories and research frameworks. It is considered to be playing an important role in providing a foundation that is strong for the children’s development. Responsive parenting provides positive affection and support to children from multiple aspects of learning. Landry is of the opinion that “young children’s acquisition of cognitive skills is enabled by the contacts with their parents. The children and parent are considered to be the part of a wide social context.” (Landry, 2) Mother- Child relationship has been viewed positively for social, psychological and personal development. It is necessary for child’s well- being at school and studies. Various researches have provided the evidence to prove this. This relationship has been researched from different perspectives, children’s later self and mother’s feature knowledge is also a new and different aspect of the mother- Child relationship which again is evidence to the beneficial side of this relationship. Judith Harel, David Oppenheism, Emanuel Tiroshi and MottiGini conducted a study about the associations between mother-child interaction and chidren’s later self and mother’s feature knowledge. The study was conducted in different universities and institutions of Israel. The main objectives of the study were to look up for mother- child interaction at 12 months and children’s feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated. The study assessed the mother-Child interaction by the scale which was adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment and self- mother knowledge was assessed by Mother Feature knowledge scales (Harel et al, 124) Mother-child interaction and later self- and mother feature knowledge was analyzed. Maternal behavior is characterized by positive and sensitive responsiveness and child behavior is characterized by positive affect, balanced attention, responsiveness between the environment and the mother. The distinction between self and mother relationship was distinguished on representational and sensorimotor items. It was found that children on sensorimotor items knew more about self than mother and on representational items children knew more about mother than about self. They have quoted different work about the topic and their point of views. Pipp says that “self and mother knowledge develop in similar ways but at different rates. The architecture of the body has some influence on the sensorimotor infants as they acquire the knowledge of self and mother” (Pipp, 250). Therefore he was of the view that “infants have visual knowledge of their own face” (Pipp, 251) He found that the children under 1 year knew more features of mother than of self and the children from 2 to 3 year olds had no significant differences between self and mother knowledge. The present study’s purpose was to explore the associations between self and mother feature knowledge, mother- child interaction in the context of play and the development of child’s featural knowledge of mother and self. The second objective was to clarify the issue of differences between self and mother featural knowledge in their second year of life. The following hypotheses were made: 1. Variances in qualities of the mother–child contact are related to differences in self- and mother feature knowledge, with relations being related to more complicated knowledge of self and mother. 2. Self- and mother feature knowledge are associated. 3. Differences between self- and mother feature knowledge are connected to the intellectual competency upon which the knowledge is grounded: On sensorimotor tasks children know more about the mother than about the self, while on representational tasks knowledge of self is similar to knowledge of mother. In order to analyze how the distinction was made about the awareness of mother and self and how these hypotheses were tested it is necessary to analyze the research from methodological point of view. The analysis of the methodology will help to know how the data was collected and later analyzed in the form of results. Mixed gender infants were taken for the research, 52 girls and 51 boys. Their mothers also participated. The infants were 9, 12 and 20 months old. All the families were middle socioeconomic status. Only Jewish Israeli families were included due to the possibility of cultural and linguistic differences. The study was carried during various stages of development for example sleep patterns. The procedure involved various sensorimotor and representational questions. In the sensorimotor stage, questions like where is your nose?And where is your head? Are asked and the child points correctly to his nose and head. Two female examiners were hold responsible for examining and administering the scales that were used for the research. One of the females was asking the questions and the other was noting down the child’s responses. Later both the examiners scored the scales which immediately followed the presentation. During the representational stage questions like a: where is (name)? b: who is that? And the child answers respectively. After the analysis of the questions from the sensorimotor items and representational items a conclusion made. The results pointed to significant associations between the ratings of children’s and mothers behavior in child and mother interaction and later self of child. Those children who showed more positive affect and their focus of attention was more balanced between relating to their mother knew more about self and mother features on both the sensorimotor and representational items. The study helped to conclude that relational and cognitive – perceptual are related to the development of self and mother feature knowledge. The findings of this study proved to be a support to the theories that links the individual differences in the development of self and mother feature knowledge to the characteristics of early mother – child relationship. Thus, to conclude it can be said that the mother-child interaction varied on different levels. On sensorimotor level the children about 20 months know more about self and children at an earlier age knew more about mother than about self on sensorimotor tasks and regarding the representational tasks the children knew about their mother more than themselves which are contrary to Pipp’s study. Several factorsrelational and cognitive-perceptual, are related to the development of self- and mother feature knowledge. References Top of Form Bottom of Form Harel, Judith, et al. "Associations between mother–child interaction and childrens later self and mother feature knowledge." Infant mental health journal 20.2 (1999): 123-137 Improving Mother/child Interaction to Promote Better Psychosocial Development in Children. Geneva: Programme on Mental Health, World Health Organization, 1998. Print. Landry, Susan H. "The role of parents in early childhood learning."Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development (2008). Pipp, Sandra. "Sensorimotor and representational internal working models of self, other and relationship: Mechanisms of connection and separation."The self in transition (1990): 243-264.Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Read More