Child and Family Development - Research Paper Example

Family Development I. Family Communication Communication is the foundation of the edifice of our social life and relationships; it refers to impart or pass along pieces of knowledge (Thames & Thomason, 1998). As a matter of fact, it is not just giving of receiving information, but communication further entails a myriad of factors such as body language, facial expression, the overall tone of the speaker and most importantly, one’s posture. Therefore effective communications is based on a combination of verbal and non-verbal language, and it is not only the words that the individuals must be concerned with. Since verbal and non-verbal interactions form an everyday aspect of life, it is not surprising that communication skills are also a pre-requisite for familial accord. Communication may sound simple, but it is a complex process; particularly on a domestic front, because the communication is directed towards people from all age groups. From toddlers, to fully grown adults, one must exercise caution because every individual needs to regulate their behavior in order to cater to the demands of each member of the family. One of the most important aspects of getting your point through to another member is to first give them the latitude to air their views as well. Active listening is essential to make an individual more receptive to other people’s views. It is important in a family setting to make sure that all family members are heard and this aspect entails a number of factors. It is important to first encourage family members to speak, they need to feel and it is the duty of the speaker to draw the person. After the individual has opened up, clarity is fundamental for the communication to continue. The speaker should phrase their questions properly that are easy to understand and confirms what the person has said. The relevant points must be repeated to make sure that they ingrained into one’s mind and is emboldened for further discussion. After listening and carefully deliberating over what the party has said, the individual must proceed and discuss their take on the matter. For adult members of the family, it is important that they elucidate further on what the children are feeling and help them cope with their problems. After the discussion, a summary would always help both the speaker and the listener to sort out the things that they have discussed and would pave way for memorization. Finally, the listener should make the other person feel validated by the listener and should be appreciated. Especially for young members, the appreciation serves as a positive reinforcer that it increases the likelihood that they will come to their elders again to discuss their problems, which will consolidate the individual relationships turning them into a stronger family unit. Good communication will effective enhance the sense of security of the child and as a result enhance their self-esteem as well. Not only for a parent and child, but communication can help avoid conflicts and confrontation between couples as well. Through communication, they can voice their opinion and even talk to each other about the thing that they are disconcerted about. Communication can help enhance one’s compatibility and make a couple more sensitive to each other’s needs and significantly reduce the number of confrontations. Lack of confrontation is also healthy for the upbringing of the child, who will see less confrontation and thereby feel more secure, when he or she is raised in a loving environment. It is particularly good for teenagers, who are coping with their transition into adulthood and their body is also going through rapid change, which mentally quite stressful. They are at a crossroad of their life, so the adult members have the additional responsibility of being a constant source of guidance for them. (Family Times, 2004) When talking with the young ones, it is important that adults come off as self-assured. Albert Bandura’s (1977) Social Learning theory further underlines the aforementioned aspects of the subject. The social learning theory was established after he carried out an experiment to study how children develop aggressive behavior. According to this theory, young children learn behaviors from their environment through the process of careful observation. It is a simple chain that the children follow; they observe, model their behavior and then imitate it. Therefore, parents must act accordingly for their behavior is projected on to their children and then become a part of their personality. The use of I-based sentences will make a bigger impact on the other person, amplifiying the impact of what is being said. The use of ‘I’ gives an individual the exclusive ownership of their thoughts and actions. After stating one’s opinion, the individual must switch to You-based sentences, when giving advice to the other person. This leads to a personal involvement for both the speaker and the listener, which paves way for resolution of problems and helps people come up with viable solutions for problems. Since, parents are the first role models in their child’s life, they need to understand that their child unconsciously copy their behavior and model their actions on adults. Therefore, an adults’ communication strategies will also picked up by the younger members, which will also help them become excellent communicators. II. Importance of Family Communication As discussed earlier, communication enables people to strengthen their bonds and consolidating the individuals as a family unit. It provides a healthy environment amongst young children, who need the sense of security that would spur healthy mental and physical growth. It is a known fact that talking is indeed therapeutic, therefore when an individual is accustomed to talk about their problems and not keep it bottled up, they are less likely to develop mental disorders like depression. They are more articulate and are likely to succeed in practical life, for they possess the tact and ability to talk out their issues and find good solutions to problems. Moreover, in the long-run they are also capable of maintaining healthy bonds and relationships with others. They also possess good interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. It gives rise to stability and greater rapport shared by all members of the family. Good communication will enhance an individual’s performance in the professional sphere as well and children from such stable domestic structures are likely to succeed in academics as well. It is hypothesized that when the young ones share a healthy bond with their parents, they are less likely to fall for peer pressure and as a result make questionable choices. It also decreases the probability of the child to fall prey to substance abuse and as a result they are more physically fit and robust in health. Stability in homes gives the children an opportunity to explore a wide range of interests and excel in them. It also gives their self confidence a boost and they also have enhanced self-efficacy. The latter refers to one’s belief or conviction that they are able to attain the goals they set for them self. With enhanced self efficacy an individual is likely to have the ability to become more and broad minded and open to new experiences. They are less prejudiced and have the ability to process things accurately and do not arbitrarily infer in a social situation, which avoids misunderstandings. A strong sense of self efficacy also leads to an enhanced ability of the individual to take on challenging tasks and master them. They have enhanced focus and are able to persevere to master various tasks and are more committed in not just their personal relations, but all sorts of dealings in their life. They are more resilient in nature and are able to overcome grief and setbacks well. Communication also helps an individual to master languages as well. Particularly in toddlers, effective communication on part of the adults helps them increase the repertoire of their vocabulary. They understand facial expression and other bodily cues to determine the mood of the person they are in the company of. Effective family communication makes the child more self-aware and helps them develop a theory of mind; which is a key social skill that enables an individual to guess what is going on in the mind of the person that they are addressing. Theory of mind enables the individual to become sensitive to the needs of others, when they are communicating with other people, they are able to guess, whether their speech invokes boredom or interest in the listener, which will help them stop or continue with what they are discussing. It is a valuable trait, which ensures that the individual is successful is successful in getting his or her point across successful. Good communication enables the individual to learn other valuable skills like effective problem-solving, which will become an asset on a number of social fronts; be it professional or casual. Lack of communication will give rise to pent-up rage and will make the child more susceptible to mental illnesses as well. Moreover, when communicating with children, it is important that one does not wrongfully displace their anger on less threatening targets like children or other members of the family. Unconsciously children also learn this behavior and if it gets embedded in their personality, they are likely to imitate this behavior which will turn into a vicious cycle as they pass these traits on. Therefore, it is important to remain objective and manage their emotions well, which can only be attained through good communication skills. Good communication is the foundation of every relationship, but in a family setting its importance is further amplified because a family also involves the rearing of young children, who need a good role model as well. So it’s the duty of every parent to encourage their children to come and voice their opinions, so that they can help them resolve their issues and confusions about various aspects o life. III. Literature Review Researchers have been immensely fascinated by the concept of family communication, or it sounds like a simple phenomenon but studies have shown that it is indeed a multifaceted concept that is of great significance almost on every front for the individual. Effective communication is a skill that is modeled on to an individual through imitation and observation of the behavior of their primary caregiver. The social learning theory was based on his experiment that came to be known as the ‘Bobo Doll experiment’. (Bandura, 1977) The psychological experiment was based on the hypothesis that children model their behavior on the adults and this trend was observed in the light of aggression. The children were divided into 3 groups that included the children being given a number of toys along with a male and female model. Each group was either given an aggressive model or a non-aggressive one, the former would engage in aggressive play that included hitting a Bobo doll, whereas the latter would focus on getting the child to draw or peacefully play with the dol. There was also a control group that did not interact with the child at all and the results that were achieved clearly demonstrated that the children who were exposed to the aggressive model were likely to imitate his behavior, while other children showed little or no sign of aggression. Moreover, the experimenter also found a trend amongst the children that they were likely to model their behavior after a same gender model. This is why adults need to understand the dynamics of this theory; as young girls model after their mothers, whereas sons see their fathers as their role models. This is why communication is necessary, to make the child understand certain aspects of adult behavior and as to children cannot do certain things that adults can. As a matter of fact that merits of effective family communication was associated with the child getting good grades. A study carried out by Columbia University (2005) stated that those children, who ate dinner with their families at least five times a week, they were likely to perform well on tests; they possessed excellent memory that further helped them understand convoluted theories and study materials. The survey further demonstrated that students, who did not have dinners with their families, were likely to fall prey to substance abuse and were more susceptible to suffering from alcoholism. Through these surveys the experimenters postulated that they had poor relationships with their mothers and often sought acceptance from their peers. Erica Austin (1993) also observes that perspective is of great essence in family communication because a parent and a child have a huge gap in their perspective and perception of problems. These perceptions are subjected to changes as the child matures. Moreover, even the medical field has emphasized on the importance of developing a functional family to enhance the child sense of self-efficacy that would speed up the process of recovery. The study conducted by Warden Et.al (1998) was based on a group of children, who suffered from cancer. The study emphasized upon the importance of stable family structure that not only made the child more understanding of his or her medical condition but also paved the path for a healthy patient-practitioner relationship. They were likely to adhere to the commands of the doctor and as a result their therapies were more successful. A healthy rapport with a parent can help an individual to grow and have healthy relationships with other. It is indeed a pre-requisite that shapes one’s future interactions. IV. Conclusion In conclusion, it is ostensible that family communication is vital to strengthen not only familial but all other relationships that one may develop over time with others. Positive family relationships ensure mental and physical stability. Family communication may be intrinsically complicated, but developing effective family communication is generally easy. To have good family communication, it is important that the head of the family; the parents, eat with the family often; they should try to have at least one meal with the family every day. Special occasion should be celebrated with together and one should try to make them entertaining so that the young members of the family look forward to it. Doing activities with family enables the child to become more active and is able to learn various things from the adults. Furthermore, when it comes to discussing problems, it is important that adults regulate their tone and try to embrace all perspective before arriving on a conclusion. If there is something that bothers one member then he or she should be encouraged to voice it and avoid letting negative feelings towards one another from piling up. Honesty is an important trait that parents needs to teach their children and they easily instill by being more upfront with them. Each member should be more candid and also regulate their tone, so that they do not come off as they are accusing, but discuss the point in a calm manner. Debating is always better than arguing; the only way to get one’s point across is to pay due regard to other member’s perspective. It is important for an individual to empathize with the concerns of their children, for everyone at one point has gone through the same stage of life. So try to understand the conflicts and confusions that come with that age and then talk to the young ones. Being judgmental would definitely deter them from discussing their problems with their parents, so it is important that one patiently listens to their problem and then work out a solution that is acceptable to all. By bearing all these factors in mind they can definitely provide a favorable family environment that spurs growth and maturity in all members of the family. References Austin, E.W. 1993. The Importance of Perspective in parent-child interpretations of family communication patterns. SAGE Journals. Bandura, A. 1977. Social Learning Theory. Psychological Review. Family Times. 2004. Communication is the key to healthy family relationships. New Mexico State University Supplement. Thames, B.J & Thomason, D.J. 1998. Family Relationships: Building Family Strengths: Communication. The Clemson University Journal. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. 2005. Importance of Family Dinners. Columbia University. Retrieved from: Warden, M.J. 1998. The Importance of Family Functioning to Caregiver Adaptation in Mothers of Child Cancer Patients: Testing a Social Ecological Model. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing. Annotated Bibliography Austin, E.W. 1993. The Importance of Perspective in parent-child interpretations of family communication patterns. SAGE Journals. After conducting an in-depth study on the subject, Austin lays great emphasis on the age gap that exists between parents and child. It provides the child’s perspective that needs to be considered as well during communication because of their young age they may not be able to understand adult thought processes. Bandura, A. 1977. Social Learning theory. Psychological Review.  Bandura’s record-breaking experiment on aggression paved way not only to understand the development of this trait in children, but also provides a plausible explanation regarding the modeling of other behavior and how parents are responsible for it. The experiment was laboratory controlled and was observed by a panel of experimenters along with Bandura. Family Times. 2004. Communication is the key to healthy family relationships. New Mexico State University Supplement. Family times provide an in-depth insight into how effective family communication lead to a healthy environment for raising young children. It discusses the importance of family communication and how it can help teens make the right decisions and voice their opinions effectively. Thames, B.J & Thomason, D.J. 1998. Family Relationships: Building Family Strengths: Communication. The Clemson University Journal. The journal article discusses the methods through which effective communication can be established. It discusses the needs of toddlers, pre-teens and teens, carefully outlining all the ways through which parents can get their point through to them. It also outlines the benefits of effective communication as well. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. 2005. Importance of Family Dinners. Columbia University. Retrieved from: < http://www.casacolumbia.org/templates/publications_reports.aspx> This website contains complete data regarding the survey carried out by Columbia University that sheds light on the importance of family dinners, deeming it as one of the most effective ways in preventing a child from falling prey to substance abuse and getting better grades. Warden, M.J. 1998. The Importance of Family Functioning to Caregiver Adaptation in Mothers of Child Cancer Patients: Testing a Social Ecological Model. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing. This journal article sheds light on how effective family communication is when it comes to dealing with children suffering from cancer. A stable family structure makes them more able to fight their condition and make a speedy recovery. It also increases the likelihood of the child to follow the doctor’s order and adhere to the treatment regimen as he has an excellent social support system. Read More