PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

Parent Child Relationships

Parent Child Relationships

Introduction

Throughout the life span, parent-child interaction is an important context for development. Bronfenbrenner's ecological approach to human development describes behavior as unfolding within a nested and interactive set of systems and levels ranging from several microsystems (family, peers, neighborhood) to the macrosystem (broad societal norms and attitudes). Although development clearly occurs within all of these multiple systems and contexts, the family context is one of the most proximal and often the most influential of these systems (Bronfenbrenner, 2003).

Theoretical Overview

Current research has focused our attention on the quality of parent-child interaction as a critical component in understanding cognitive and social-emotional pathways for children and youth. Parents' unique ways of responding to a child's fundamental needs and the child's corresponding expectations are evident in infancy, resulting in interaction patterns that remain generally stable throughout a child's journey into adulthood. Parent-child interaction style is determined by many factors, including parental and child characteristics and propensities, situational factors (such as social class and support systems), and cultural and societal norms (Bronfenbrenner, 2003).

Many theorists believe that the best way to understand the influence of parent-child interaction on development is to examine the child's development in the context of the parent's behavior. Beginning during infancy and continuing through toddlerhood, children develop the capacity for self-regulation and self-control, and they internalize the standards, rules, and expectations of their family situations. During this time, a child must learn to manage frustrations and excitement, delay gratification, and accept disappointment. With increasingly sophisticated motor skills, children are able to engage with their environments on their own and to negotiate early social relations. Understanding and responding to the views of others, coping with interpersonal tensions, and having the capacity to enjoy play partners are some of the challenging developmental tasks of early childhood (Bowlby, 2004).

Diverse theoretical frameworks address how children develop the aforementioned skills as they interact with their primary caregivers. Attachment theory, as well as other psychodynamic and psychosocial views, suggests that self-regulatory processes emerge as early as infancy from the parent-child system. These theories focus on the parent's responsiveness to the child the degree to which the parent successfully interprets and responds to the child's cues. A parent who promptly picks up and soothes a crying baby or who stops a stimulating game when the child turns away would be described as responsive, synchronous, or attune to the child's cues. A parent who disrupts a child's appropriate attempts at play to assert his or her own agenda or who ignores (or misinterprets) a child in distress might be described as poorly attuned to the child's cues (Chess, 2005).

Through interactions with the parent, the child's view of self and the world is created. Consistent, responsive interactions with a primary caregiver help the child form a stable core of self-regulatory abilities. If parents provide a reassuring base from which the child can explore and engage the world, following the child's cues and remaining emotionally available yet respectful of the child's autonomy, the child will develop confidence ...