Individual and Family Interventions Strategies - Essay Example

Topic: Individual and Family Interventions strategies Individual and Family Interventions strategies There has always been an interest in understanding why children from the same family may have different behaviors despite being raised in similar settings and share the same genetic pools from both their parents (Barber, 2000). Siblings also have different personalities, level of intelligence and familial sentiments among other characteristics. In typical circumstances, parents have an excitement and anticipation of their first child and thus have a tendency to be excessively protective while paying attention and investing in them since they have high expectations of this child. With the birth of subsequent siblings, the firstborn experiences dethronement and this also applies for other children who are born in order. The children in the family face various levels of parental resources as well as investment as a consequence of their order of birth and this shapes their course of development. The theory of dethronement was developed to explain the impact of order of birth on the progress of personalities. An additional theory, which describes the impact of birth order on the development of personalities, is the family-niches model. According to this theory, children get motivation to get an investment from parents when they consider acknowledge differential parental investments in the family setting. From the research conducted on birth order, academic performance, and personality demonstrated that people of different birth orders do not differ considerably in regard to their personalities. The study further concluded that the personalities of different people is not founded on their experiences of dethronement or any niches that they might have developed in the family. This goes against the theories that had been identified prior to the research being carried out as the methodological difference may have affected the outcome of the study. Further, the research identified that birth order does not have any effects on the students who were targeted by the study with a number of possible justifications being suggested as justification for the absence of birth order impact on the participants (Tassoni, 2007). The first reason could be the fact that the participants included college students who had to fulfill specific particular entrance scores in order for them to be enrolled into the college. The study also found that there is a considerable link between personality and academic performances. The attributes linked with a number of birth order position including the beliefs that firstborns are bossy and aggressive among others create descriptions of the manner in which people conduct themselves in their families. These behaviors cannot be considered as enduring characteristics of their personalities but are responses to social settings in which they find themselves where in other settings, their behavior is different (Case-Smith & OBrien, 2010). Bossy or aggressive first-borns behave in a different way when they are with their peers and they are also considered as high achievers in the family but as far as school is concerned, their performance is not different from that of other children. In the home setting, children are supposed to deal with the siblings who are different from them in terms of age but outside the home setting, children who are part of developed societies spend most of their day with their age-mates. In the home setting, there is only one first-born, but outside there are numerous first-borns and the fact that a certain child is older than his or her brothers and sisters does not matter when the child is outside their home environment. What matters is the manner in which the person compares in size, intelligence and knowledge to other people of his or her age. According to the study, even if the sibling goes into the world with the assumption that it will be a bigger version of the family environment, the person will realize that his or perception Is wrong as the conduct that works in the home setting will not be the same in the broader world. There are numerous personality traits that are attributed to firstborns and to those who are born afterwards but a theme that crops up is the description of firstborns as being more mature than the rest of the siblings. Children who are born first in the family are considered as more responsible and adult like in the manner in which they behave because they are older. Even though the age differences between siblings becomes less significant when they become older, the common ideologies concerning the order of birth is based predominantly on comparisons between the siblings who still live in their homes and this means that older children are compared to the ones who are young (Rockwell, Andre & Hawley, 2010). The common ideologies concerning the order of birth are also affected by the thinking and feelings of people concerning their own siblings that date back to the time when they lived in the same house and encountered each other every day. During this time when they were under the same roof, a difference of two or three years in age was considered significant. Numerous people believe in the order of birth while also believing that there is adequate research that underscores their belief in this order. Numerous studies have also demonstrated that considerable dissimilarity in personality between firstborns and the siblings who are born after them. Conversely, numerous studies, particularly those that are conducted vigorously and in large scale, have not been able to identify dissimilarities in the orders of birth. These discrepancies may arise by chance as most of the studies concerned with the order of birth are conducted with only a few of them being able to pay off. However, the discrepancies come from the research methods as particular research methods may produce misrepresentative results. Since the impact of the order of birth does not exist within families, the simplest way that they can be demonstrated is putting individuals back in a psychological manner to the contexts they were in before. Researchers have an ability to achieve this through asking their subjects to create a comparison between themselves and their siblings or an assessment of their personalities through asking their parents to create their description. Numerous studies that report considerable impacts of order of birth gave employed this kind of technique. The outcomes of these studies cannot be considered inaccurate, as the dissimilarities they report are factual. However, they are misleading since the researcher want to create the belief that the results demonstrate attributes of how subjects behave in settings that are outside their families, but they do not. Clinical researchers employ several approaches to decrease the chances of the bias of the researcher affecting the results of their studies. For instance, while testing new drugs, the condition of the patient after the patient after the trial has been concluded must be evaluated by a physician who is not aware of the drugs that the patients received. If this were not done, it would be easy for the evaluating physician to make errors associated with their initial bias. In current studies, researchers employ double blinding, as physicians may not have an ability to be objective in their evaluations. Bias associated with the researcher is a psychological phenomenon and when it has an impact on the outcome of the study; it can take place without the researcher being consciously aware. Approaches such as double-blinding are never employed in psychology since the psychologists trust each other in terms of being objective. A number of the approaches that are utilized in the study of birth order are disposed to the impact of researcher bias. For instance, there is the issues of if biological or functional order of birth has an effect personality as a person who was a biological second born can be a functional firstborn if the first-born in the family dies during infancy making him or her grow up as the oldest sibling in the family. In such a case, it makes sense that the functional order of birth is what really matters, but the issues is that researchers could be more motivated in asking questions concerning the functional order of birth of a person if their biological order of birth cannot support the perceptions. The issue develops more complexity if the person in question has been dead for a long time and it takes a lot of effort to find out the kind of information that is required in the assessment of functional order of birth in terms of a historical figure. The children who do not have siblings grow up being surrounded by adults, this makes them become verbal, and more mature compared to other children who are of the same age (Pillemer & McCartney, 2013). This form of family set up creates a circumstance that is characterized by gains in intelligence that surpasses other differences in the order of birth. Children who find themselves spending too much time alone become more resourceful, innovative and develop a higher level of confidence in their independence. A child who has no siblings as a result of being born alone in a family has a lot of common characteristics with the children who are first-borns and those who are the youngest in the family. References Barber, N. (2000). Why parents matter. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=PgWVdizyDK0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Why+ parents+matter&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wHq6VLz4L8ivUZ6DgcgM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage &q=Why%20parents%20matter&f=false Case-Smith, J., & OBrien, J. (2010). Occupational therapy for children. Maryland Heights, Mo.: Mosby/Elsevier. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=0- DsBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Occupational+therapy+for+children&hl=en& sa=X&ei=- Hq6VKfDG8r1Utr6g7AP&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Occupational%20ther apy%20for%20children&f=false Pillemer, K., & McCartney, K. (2013). Parent-child Relations Throughout Life. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=QdhMZRmnK0YC&pg=PR14&dq=Parent-child+Relations+Throughout+Life&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Lnu6VNyAHMj6UrKPgJgK&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Parent-child%20Relations%20Throughout%20Life&f=false Rockwell, R., Andre, L., & Hawley, M. (2010). Families and educators as partners. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=1bJmSefbS0QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Families+and+educators+as+partners&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aXu6VMqBB8fkUv3Lg_AH&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Families%20and%20educators%20as%20partners&f=false Tassoni, P. (2007). Child care and education. Oxford: Heinemann. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=- cTWcDCpiAIC&pg=PT324&dq=Child+care+and+education&hl=en&sa=X&ei=knu6VP azD8TpUvCjg9gF&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Child%20care%20and%20ed ucation&f=false Read More