Bài giảng Human Development 2e - Chapter 2 Development in families

Chapter 2Development in familiesDefining familiesThe family is nested within a complex set of political, social, historical and cultural settings.The family is an important repository of resources for learning.Relationships within the family are multidimensional.Family relationships change over time.Families are broader than the nuclear 'ideal'.The influential ecology of the familyThe family sets in place patterns of relationship and learning that will influence how we go on, sometimes through our entire lives.Culture lives through family.Meanings are presented and developed within and through family life.Familiar ways of behaving, including emoting, relating and interacting, are usually established first in the family.Discourses of familyMany powerful beliefs exist about what is right in family life.Ideas vary from culture to culture and moment to moment in history.If people think that their ideas reflect the 'natural' order, they try very hard to maintain that order.Developmental psychologists advise on what is 'normal' in family life.Family as committed relationshipBiological relationshipYour biological parents will always be your biological relatives.Family as a place of nurtureWhat counts as nurture is a focus of study in human development.Family as an economic unitDifferent cultures have different approaches to shared livelihood.Families and loveIn some cultures (but not all) love is the foundation of the family and holds it together.Whanaungatanga: taking care of family Tūrangawaewae: ancestral connections to landWhakapapa: genealogy (iwi connections)Whānau: the unit that looks after the wellbeing of childrenManaakitia: the capacity for care and respect of every memberTohatohatia: the capacity to share, generosityWhakamana: the capacity to empowerWhakatakoto tikanga: envisioning the future (M. Durie, 1997)Levels of relationship in MāoridomIwi: a people, tribe or nation; persons with shared ancestry and historyHapū: an extended family groupingWhānau: group of people who relate closely to one anotherWhāngai: to adopt a child from within the broader whānau; a person adopted into the whānauIwi roles and responsibilitiesKaumātua: responsible elderKuia: elder womanMātua: adult, father (signal of respect)Pakeke: adult, workerRangatahi: youth, younger personTuakana: elder brother (of a male), elder sister (of female)Teina: younger brother (of a male), younger sister (of a female)Tamaiti: childTamariki: childrenTrends in the lives of the whānau Before 1960 the average number of births per Māori woman was 6.By 1990 the average fertility rate was down to 2, similar to Pākehā women.By 2010 there were 2.8 births per Māori woman, with the median age of giving birth of 26.The median age for Pākehā women was 30, with on average less than 2 births per woman in 2010.In 2011, the median age of the Māori population was 23.1 years (compared with 36.8 for the general population).Changing times for familiesFamilies are spread around the country and around the world.Lengthening life span means more generations are alive at the same time.More women are working.Child-bearing and child rearing are taking a smaller proportion of a woman's life span.Many nuclear families have two parents in the paid workforce.Single-person households and households with one parent and children are increasing.Most single-parent families are led by a woman at or approaching mid-lifeEffects of mobility and immigrationImmigration and mobility can lead to a cultural transition.Intergenerational families are more common in 'less-developed' countries.Immigration may mean some generations are left behind.Diversities in families mean that people from different cultures may understand family responsibilities differently.Development and learning in families Theorists Freud and Erikson have helped support the idea that what happens in childhood has an influence on who you will become.Most euro-western cultures accept that the quality of relationships within families is important.Erikson and Maslow proposed that children need love.Parenting styles can have an impact upon children's behaviours.Attachment theory, its advantages and its criticsAttachment forms the basis for development:to develop a sense of self (individuation)to become socially competentto be assured enough to explore their environment.Children may be categorised as:securely attached avoidant ambivalent or resistant.Attachment theory in historical context: maternal deprivationAttachment theory was a concept proposed by John Bowlby. It was based on results of studies of displaced and homeless children in two world wars.Children were often kept lying in cots.The distress of these children was ascribed to lack of mothering.Claiborne and Drewery propose that such conclusions were over-generalised.However, the theory of attachment is an example of the dominance of 'nature' as a blueprint for development.Attachment in cultural contextMany cultures expect responsibility for children's upbringing to be shared.Children may have several significant others.Quality of care is found to be more important than who is doing the caring.The changing shapes of familyAdoption challenges some of the assumptions of attachment theory.Practices of adoption have changed in the last century, e.g. adopting children from overseas countries.Open adoptions have been on the increase.There is a growing number of rainbow families (where the parents are of lesbian or gay sexual orientation).Many families choose not to have children for many reasons.FathersResearch continues to suggest that mothers spend more time than fathers caring for children.How to offer quality care is learned.Claiborne and Drewery do not espouse the idea that mothers have a genetic or ethological advantage.Fathers can be good 'mothers'!The role of the father in children's lives is related to structures of paid work in society.It is difficult to prove that the absence of the father has any effects on children.Do families 'break down'?It has been found that conflict in families is more destructive for children's wellbeing than the absence of a parent.Children can recover well from separation and divorce of their parents.Parents will always be the parents of their children.The quality of parents' cooperation (or lack of it) after separation affects the children more than the separation itself.Complex constructionist ecologyDevelopmental outcomes are the result of complex interactions within families and outside them.Complexity: the many different relationships and many influences at work within the familyThinking ecologically: The family is nested within a complex of other networks of relationships.The quality of care for children is the primary issue in developmental outcomes.Development is constructed. Mothering and fathering are products of multiple influences; quality of parenting is not inevitable or 'natural'.A final reflectionSuccess of a family comes back to the quality of commitments people make and how these are carried out.The need to care for others is important.There is no one model of care that serves every family.