Discrimination - Research Paper Example

DISCRIMINATION AND PREJUDICE. How discrimination and prejudice affects families Prejudice involves irrational and inflexible opinions and attitudes held by given family members about another, while discrimination refers to behaviors directed against another family. Being prejudiced usually means having preconceived beliefs about a certain family or its cultural practices. The positive and negative forms of prejudice are difficult to distinguish, where a negative form of prejudice can lead to discrimination.

Persons can practice discrimination so as to protect themselves by denying others whom they believe they do not deserve the same right or privilege. Discriminative parents can affect their children physically and emotionally, and may cause depression to those discriminate resulting from anger and loss of self esteem and being isolated by their families and since they are unable to cope with the discriminatory environment.Another effect of discrimination and prejudice is long term effects such as loss of motivation from family members; reduced individual rights through violation of rights, including the right to a conducive environment.

The influence of prejudice and discrimination on parenting and child rearing Prejudice and discrimination has direct and/or indirect impact on the rights of children. The fact that children are entirely dependant on parents makes such children subject to discrimination, where at the family level this is referred to as favoritism. Favoritism syndrome affects the parents’ freedom of decision making, as he/she is influenced by other factors, which are internally or externally sourced. Other sources of discrimination amongst children emerge from gender preferences, disability (physical or mental), sexual orientation, or sometimes as a result of the combination of many or some of the mentioned reasons.

Some cultures and beliefs discriminate a given gender over the other, while deciding who should pursue education and who should not. Such cultures also define how far, for example, a male child should pursue academics and not the female child (Thompson, 1993). The child that suffered discrimination at the childhood stage finds it hard at times to make up a good family in future, fearing that his/her children might suffer the same fate. This is attributed from the past psychological effect, as well as poor perception regarding parenting.

Most discrimination emerges from the parent’s inability of optimally socializing with their children, since they perceive them minors, in addition to their experience, regarding discrimination (Hampson et al., 1990). Opinion and how this could be addressed to an individual, family, and/or community level.   Individuals make up a family, and families make up a society. Families can only benefit from family education programs which help in creating awareness regarding discrimination and prejudice.

Such programmes provide family members with helpful information on psychiatric disabilities and their role in helping their loved ones. This, further, assists the mentally challenged persons on the necessary mental and social care and attention. Parents should be taught to give room for children to make mistakes and have them corrected, like everyone else. Unbeneficial family beliefs and cultures, which contribute to, discrimination and prejudice should decisively abandon. A family free from discrimination of every sort makes up a society free from prejudice and discrimination as well.

Whether the child was born in or out of wedlock deserves maximum attention of the parent at all cost.References:Aulette, J. (2002). Changing American families. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.C., Gutmann, Mathew. (1996). The Meaning of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City.Goodwin, P. Y. (2003). African American and European women’s marital well being.Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 550–560. Hare, Jan, & Gray, Lizbeth. (1992). Nontraditional Families.Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital qualityand stability: A review of theory, method and research.

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