Question

How culture and environment can impact child development.

How culture and environment can impact child development.

Homework Answers

Answer #1
  • Child development is a dynamic, interactive process. Every child is unique in interacting with the world around them, and what they invoke and receive from others and the environment also shapes how they think and behave.
  • Children growing up in different cultures receive specific inputs from their environment. For that reason, there’s a vast array of cultural differences in children’s beliefs and behaviour.
  • Language is one of the many ways through which culture affects development. As early as infancy, mothers from different cultures talk to their babies differently. German mothers tend to focus on their infants’ needs, wishes or them as a person.
  • Mothers of the African tribal group Nso, on the other hand, focus more on social context. This can include the child’s interactions with other people and the rules surrounding it.
  • This early exposure affects the way children attend to themselves or to their relationship with others – forming their self image and identity.
  • For example, in Western European and North American countries, children tend to describe themselves around their unique characteristics – such as “I am smart” or “I am good at drawing”.
  • In Asian, African, Southern European and South American countries, however, children describe themselves more often around their relationship with others and social roles. Examples of this include “I am my parents’ child” or “I am a good student”.
  • Because children in different cultures differ in how they think about themselves and relate to others, they also memorise events differently.
  • For example, when preschoolers were asked to describe a recent special personal experience, European-American children provided more detailed descriptions, recalled more specific events and stressed their preferences, feelings and opinions about it more than Chinese and Korean children.
  • The Asian children instead focused more on the people they had met and how they related to themselves.
  • Cultural differences in interactions between adults and children also influence how a child behaves socially.
  • For instance, in Chinese culture, where parents assume much responsibility and authority over children, parents interact with children in a more authoritative manner and demand obedience from their children.
  • Children growing up in such environments are more likely to comply with their parents’ requests, even when they are reluctant to do so.
  • A child’s early home environment has a profound effect on his well-being. Beginning in infancy, a problematic home environment can disrupt the brain’s stress response system, reduce the quality of caregiving a child receives, and interfere with healthy development.
  • Research has linked negative home environments during children’s first three years with a host of developmental problems, including;
  • poorer language development by age three.
  • later behavior problems.
  • deficits in school readiness.
  • aggression, anxiety and depression.
  • impaired cognitive development at age three.
  • Brain imaging research suggests that growing up in a disadvantaged environment causes the brain to develop differently.For example, living in an environment affected by chaos and poverty can lead to changes in the brain’s stress system that increase a child’s vulnerability to chronic diseases later in life
  • Family income and economic circumstances have a powerful effect on children’s development. Like other risk factors, low family income affects children mainly by affecting their home environments and the parenting they receive in ways that hinder optimal development.
  • Income-related differences in parenting appear early. For instance, lower-income mothers are, on average, less affectionate, less responsive to their infants’ distress signals, and more likely to have harsh parenting styles.
  • In poor and low-income families, the home environment is more likely to be chaotic, and parents are more likely to be stressed and unresponsive. They show less sensitivity and provide less cognitive stimulation.
  • Poor children have fewer stimulating experiences and learning materials than higher-income children.The effects are apparent in the first years and often last into adulthood. Low-income children, even in the first three years of life, are more likely to have lower cognitive scores and increased behavioral problems.
  • If left untreated, maternal depression in a child’s first years can have negative effects on cognitive development, behavior, and school readiness.There appear to be biological effects as well: recent research has discovered distinct patterns of brain activity and stress hormone levels in children of depressed mothers.
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