Child Development Theories Application

Child Development Theories Application
Abstract
This study seeks to explore and reflect the relationship between the childhood and adolescence starting with confluence, resources dilution and attachment theories and how they affect the development process of the children. Throughout the study, it will attempt to review various elements that affect intellectual development of a child. The results were measured by comparing the academic performance of different groups. From the data collected via a questionnaire, it confirmed theoretic framework of intellectual development. It was noted that the firstborns and the singletons are in a better place to perform better as opposed to those who come from large families. Also, the study indicated that the African American children had relatively larger families as compared to the non-Hispanic whites, which were used as references for these studies. This could explain the reason the African Americans are often associated with anger issues and violence, including drug abuse. As such, it is important to note that the American society has undergone tremendous changes over the last decade, including the African American society.

Child Development Theories Application
Parenting exercise is known to differ depending on the culture and education background. It may also differ depending on the nature of the relationship between the care giver and the child. Parents or caretakers largely contribute to infancy and rule the surroundings that direct their development.

Biological parents contribute the genetic make of the children while as both the social and the biological parents play a crucial role in the development of infancy experiences. Various scholars agree that the role of the mother is often unique and universal and the motherhood influences how a child grows.
Every community which is made up of human beings seeks to ensure its continuity though raising the children. The humans, who are also the parents of the children often seek to create an environment in which they can teach their children on how to ensure the continuity of the community at large. This creates a term which is commonly referred to as cultural learning environment. This term accounts for daily activities that a child interacts with in all its developmental stages. Children have two primary educators in their childhood -the parent and the teacher. The two play a critical role in guiding the child while developing critical social interaction characters. In this review, the age limit allows the studies to concentrate on the efforts placed by the parent. This is because the age bracket when a child is entrusted in the hands of the teacher comes later in the childhood. Therefore, this document will concentrate on the parental involvement in support of an individual child at home (Baumwell et al., 2001).
Outstandingly, the responsibilities of parenting are often distributed differently in various cultures. Many of the communities allow the children to spend much time with the caregivers, non-parental relatives, while some parents believe that exposing their children to strange and unfamiliar adults will make the children more experienced and mature. Some of the roles distributed in these groups include nurturing, social interactions and moralization. Parenting beliefs, on the other hand, hold numerous functions. They hold a considerable part in the study of children mental health and parenting in general. They also breed and figure motherhood behavior, the efficiency of parenting and also assist in the organization of parenting in general. In most cases, experiences are linked with the interactions that the children deal with as they grow up. In other words, children experiences are directly influenced by the culture and parenting beliefs in which they are born with (Dunn, 2007).
The human does not grow in isolation but rather in numerous backgrounds. One of the backgrounds, in this case, is culture. However, culture has continuously proved to be a difficult term to define. This is because of a wide range of variables, including the ideas, values, interactions, characters, norms and figurative representation of life. It involves a group of people with similar ideologies and practices. In these groups, children from their respective culture tend to change their traits depending on their daily interactions. Most people tend to relate to their childhood experiences and their current behaviors (Rodgers, 2008). The thinking patterns obtained from these diversities in culture tend to affect reasoning, negotiations, persuasions and preferred options. This means that even after a child has become an adult, the experiences from the childhood will still continue to guide or define who or what he becomes.
Cultural beliefs adopted in early childhood on early care and development is very crucial in the mental health of the child. There are some of the notable differences that tend to vary from one culture to the other. These differences include cognitive competence, socio-emotional intelligence, and different kinds of competence and different rates of emotional arousal. In this instance, technology and the ways in which learning is delivered has a significant influence on the growth of the child. The way a child is stimulated has an impact on the way the child grows. Such studies are vital since they allow child specialists to understand childhood developmental stages which could be harnessed to ensure that children from various cultural backgrounds achieve credible academic merits (Harkness et al. 2009).
Social smiling, on the other hand, explains the main reason as to why people adopt different psychological paths independently. A child uses a social smile to express its emotions, satisfaction, frustration, anger, joy and surprise, among other innermost feelings, to the outside world. This smile is dependent on the dynamic relation that is developed between the child and the care giver (Kärtner, 2012). Cultural differences in parental beliefs and child-rearing practice affect the way a child grows. This might be one of the reasons as to why each tends to have an independent personality unique from the other people. Each culture and family may have similar activities and child-rearing practices but because of how the child is brought up, ends nurturing independent behaviors among its offspring. The study of culture differences in parental beliefs and child-rearing practices is fundamental as it allows a better understanding of children mental health. Therefore, the caregivers and the parents should continuously invest on how they prepare the child physically, educationally, emotionally and psychologically to ensure sufficient measures have been observed to guarantee proper child rearing practices. Different cultures promote different ideologies in these practices. However, continuous investment in these studies ensures that a breed that will be left to oversee the continuity of the culture is in a better position to uphold cultural values and parenting beliefs.
Notably, it is hard to establish the well being of the singletons when comparing them with the non-singletons. As such, there are some factors that influence these variations in the studies. Some of these factors include the differences in sample sizes, measurements and the sources of the data used in various studies. Most importantly, these studies have in most cases been data obtained from the children instead of being driven by theories. Using methods to understand these occurrences can help in the reduction of these discrepancies (Mancillas, 2011). Having conclusive results can play a critical role in enhancing and increasing the efficiency of family planning decisions. Using guiding theoretical frameworks can also be used to guide future studies, increasing the chances of obtaining conclusive findings (Mancillas, 2006).
Under the theoretic framework of attachment, the principles applied are similar to the parent-infant relationship, with the primary goal of obtaining the necessary care when needed without delay. This theory focuses on the development of the singleton. The availability of the caretaker or the mother and the responsiveness regarding the bond created by the parent and the infant increases the levels of trust, a sense of security and the feeling of sound environment and loving. This attachment is valuable to the mother and the baby as it initiates a strong bond, which allows the child to communicate and observe its mother or caregiver. With such a strong bond resulting from the attachment, the child develops an internal working model regarding attachment, which is integrated into the personality (Falbo, 2012). This forms a prototype to guide future relationships of the child, developing personal traits and social skills. These resulting elements are essential in defining the child’s personality, behaviors and other relevant aspects of an adult. This attachment continues up to adolescent, which impacts significantly to the psychological well-being of the teenager. More often than not, the mental development of a child defines some of the most basic skills in life.
This model presents the explanation between the size of the family and the children outcomes. Just as the name of the model suggests, the resources are diluted depending on the size of the family. In other words, the available resources are divided according to the number of children depending on similar parents. It implies that for every child that joins a certain family, the resources available are diluted. Typically, there are three major types of finite family resources. They include settings, opportunities, and treatments. Setting finite family resources can be defined as the types of homes, fundamental elements in life and cultural items such as books, music and pictures, among others (Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein & Baumwell, 2001). Opportunities include certain chances to interact with the outside world. Lastly, treatments are personal teachings, interventions and attention are given to someone, in this case, the child, and the giver is the parents. The resource dilution model alleges that the finite family resources are divided among the family members, depending on their needs. For instance, the needs of a child in the lower grade cannot be compared to those of a child in a higher learning institution. In a worst case scenario is when the family has limited resources. It means that the parents have to struggle to meet the needs of individual needs of each child.
Moreover, the resource dilution model tends to divide the term resources into various classes. There are economic and interpersonal resources. The economic resources are based on materialistic matters while the interpersonal resources are classified in terms of the attention paid by the parents. Therefore, when a new member or a child joins the family, the initial economic resources and interpersonal resources will be divided among the family members. As such, the resources of the family with many siblings will be stretched as opposed to the singletons who will receive all the attention and economic materials (Rodgers, 2008). Having seen how one child families differ with the medium to large families, it is vital to explore the roles of socio cultural factors in these family disparities, with particular reference to the African American community in the US. Besides, substantial variability in the family and cultural settings in which the children grow highlights the need to represent their respective disparities content in efforts to understand the variations and the relationship of intelligence level among children and the number of siblings. Ideally, the rapid growth African American communities in the United States underscore the importance of concentrating on sibling dynamics within the community. A literature review offers a robust foundation for comprehending siblings’ logistics in these groups.
Ever since the inception of the slave trade, the African American communities have struggled for generations with poverty and access to quality medical care being some of the greatest challenges. These conditions further escalated with the vast use of hard drugs such as cocaine. Historical injustices coupled with political factors have worked in this community, which among the largest minority groups in the United States. As a result of these challenges, children from this particular group have faced numerous challenges in their quest to find education (Fong, 2004). However, this is long changing with the increased awareness and integration within the American communities. Intermarriages and new legislations have played a critical role in reducing challenges. Even though there are high numbers of divorce cases among the white community, the African American community tends to have larger families. For instance, there are high chances of a girl child having a baby before the age of 20 years old. This means that the rate of fertility is high, and she is exposed to having more children before reaching the menopause stage. On the contrary, since there has been an increment of the number of employed white women, their fertility rate tends to be low. This is mainly because most of their productive lives are spent in school and organizing financial structures. When such a woman settles down, there are high chances that he prefers a single child (Gauthier, Campbell & Kleparchuk, 2008).
With these disparities, it is clear that on average, the African Americans tend to have larger families, as opposed to their counterparts. The trend can be associated with the common challenges that faced these families in the past. Another factor that can be involved in these trends is health care disparities. Due to the insufficient accessibility of family planning methods, African Americans are exposed to unplanned pregnancies, increasing the number of their family sizes. The indulgence into hard drugs, among the community had been alarming until recently. The consequences of such behaviors led to the negligence of family responsibilities by the relevant breadwinners. This further exposed children to distress, forcing them to stay away from school (Gauthier, Campbell & Kleparchuk, 2008).
From the confluence, attachment and resources dilution theories, it is clear that an African American child is likely to have a lower intelligence level as opposed to other children from majority communities. When the family size is large, the available resources are shared among the siblings. This denies them a chance of accessing full benefits that come in handy with obtaining all the available resources without sharing. As a result, their intelligence level is negatively affected, affecting their academic performance. The same case applies to the child’s morality and social skills (Roberts & Blanton, 2001). Since the intellectual resources of the family were shared among the children, the parents take little or no time to guide their children on how to conduct themselves. Therefore, the child is likely to engage in undesirable characters. With the advancement of technology, better health care, access to basic education and other areas have significantly changed. Even though it is still a menace in the United States, the levels of racial prejudice, discrimination and isolation against the minority groups have significantly reduced. Intermarriages and cultural competence in numerous organizations have improved integration of these groups.

References
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