Early Childhood Parenting and Education

Early Childhood Parenting and Education

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Early Childhood Parenting and Education

Early childhood development is said to be the all-round development in infants or toddlers achieved by helping them further develop into childhood and adulthood. This development equips the child with knowledge and experience to face further challenges in the future as they undergo the continuous rapid growth and development in the process. Caregivers and education have a strong impact on the development of children in the early childhood stages. There different ways in which this early childhood development is given to the toddler, infant, and even children during parenting process.

Types of parenting and their effects on childhood development

Permissive parenting

In this type of parenting, we find that parents or care givers tend to be soft and allow their children make their decision regardless of the consequences (Based, 2017). They tend to be very nurturing and loving and play a role of a friend rather than the parent. Normally children raised by a permissive parent will tend to lack self-discipline, have impulsive and risky behaviors such as alcohol abuse, disruptive behavior by male children and risky sexual behavior, especially among females. There is a likelihood that in this type of parenting, the child is bound to have a better social skill, higher self-esteem and also report lower levels of depression.

Authoritative parenting

In this method of parenting, parents put a high value on obedience and conformism. They exhibit a large amount of control over their child’s behavior and decisions through setting up rigid rules with firm consequences. Children brought up in this type of set up seem to be anxious and suffer from self-esteem problems.In cases of gender socialization; male children may experience anger problems while females become dependent upon others for approval (Hunt, 2016).

Neglectful parenting

This is a type o parenting where you find that parents do not respond to the needs of their child and make relatively few demands which could be brought by effects of extreme work focus, substance use, and severe depression. Children in this set up may tend to perform poorly in school, anxious, fearful and emotionally withdrawn. In most cases the child I likely to develop an urge in substance use as a result.

Authoritative parenting

This method is regarded as a most successful approach when it comes to parenting due to its high involvement level and balanced level of control (Based, 2017). This method is set to realistic expectation and consistent in children providing them with fair or natural consequences. This is the most recommended in the modern American society since the children raised with this method tend to have high self-esteem and social skills to work well with others. Although effective styles vary in one way or the other, it is best that parents should engage the child in the daily activities to enable them to distinguish what is it that expected of him or her and what is not expected of him or her. It is also important to note that many parents raise their kids in accordance to how the culture expects them to rather than general parenting aspect.

Different Types of Caregivers

There comes a time when a person’s child has to expand his or her learning to make sure the development growth pattern is on track. One of the most important parts of that is the caregiver of the child. There are different types of caregivers including stay-at-home parent, daycare, grandparent, or Nannies. All caregivers interact with the young child differently. This can have a positive or negative impact on the development during infancy and the early childhood. In the next section will compare and contrast the difference of two caregivers the grandparents and daycare.

Therefore, daycare and having infants stay at home with grandparents can make in total opposite impact on an infant’s development. If a child goes to daycare, they will be around other children and have a teacher with guidelines on what they should be learning at what time. Compared to a child who stays at home with a grandparent where they are most likely alone and do not have any structured plan for a course of learning. When the child stays at their grandparents, they are more focused on their mechanics. For example, when will they begin to walk what time are they going to take a nap, what TV show they will watch or what park they will play at. Where is in daycare they have lesson plans they are to strictly follow depending on their age (mainly months) regarding learning alphabet comma numbers colors, how to get along well with others, how to draw, toilet training, and much more.

Furthermore, there are many parts of an element which can include cognitive, emotional, psychosocial, biosocial, brain, language, and play. One of the important parts is the synchrony which initially begins with the child’s parent because if the infant does not respond well, it will have a hard time interacting with others. When it comes to a grandparent, they are most likely to use a proximal parenting style. This happens when they physically cause, and a child that goes to daycare gets the distal parenting which the teacher is distant and not always because they want to but because they have several kids to attend to at one time. Proximal parenting can have a negative impact because the child will always want attention and when it was time for school or to go somewhere else they will have an attachment. The distal parenting can be more positive because it will help the emotional regulation. On the child is mirroring neurons, they will have more of an exposure at a daycare because Place time and interacting with other kids will help them learn more and more of what they should be displaying. Whereas if it is within the grandparent, they will most likely repeat their daily routine.

Early Childhoods Evolvement over Time

Over the years child education has evolved from the old fashioned simple lectures and drill styled lessons of the past. Instead of the one-dimensional process of teaching, it has evolved into not only learning by repetition but what motivates a child by using different means and media to teach. By including all the kids and making it engaging and fun for them the kids are not only able to learn the material but to take the next step by using what they had learned.

Theorist Piaget’s stated that children learned through a process called concrete operational thought. In short this is the ability of a child to process experiences in a logical manner by the age of 8. The other big part of his theory revolved around perception. A child around nine years old can distinguish between different types of bugs compared to a four-year-old. For example, the nine-year-old can tell the difference between a worm and a caterpillar where as a child that is four years old may only see all bugs as being the same. In that younger child’s mind, that separation hasn’t been made yet. Through all of Piaget’s experiments, they showed that around the age of eight is when this ability is found in children. Piaget’s thought was that the main way of learning for kids was more through a process of discovery (Berger, 2009).

Now on the other side of the spectrum was a theorist named Vygotsky. His thought process was one that children learned through cultural interactions, lesson instructions, and their peers. He believed that the lessons passed down through the generations were as important as the instructions being taught during class Vygotsky also emphasized the importance of surrounding children with what is being taught. Reading a big focus among all ages and the importance for this to be learned is one huge example of his thought. For example, if a child is surrounded by family who encourages reading at home the child will be more proficient in following in step at school as well.

In today’s schools, the two theories are very much blended. Not only is the old fashioned style of repetitious lectures still practiced and encouraged, but kids interactions with one another in a fun and positive environment led by a teacher is just as if not more important. Teachers are also encouraged to look at the possible cultural differences among the students within the classroom and take each culture into account to develop lesson plans that the whole class can understand and relate to.

Conclusion

There are many different types of parenting styles, and each one has a significant influence on the child during infancy and early childhood. Other factors that impact children during these stages are the types of caregivers that the child has, and each of them have a specific impact on the child. Additionally, early childhood education plays a significant role in the social learning early children get from their peers. These types of learning styles have an effect on the cognitive development of children.

References

Based, H. (2017).Early childhood development. Parental obesity and early childhood development

Berger, K. S. (2009). Invitation to the life span (1st ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

HUNT, J. M. (2016). Early childhood development. A good start: advances in early childhood development