Introduction to child rearing

practices
Prof.Dr Ziasma Haneef Khan
 What is child rearing practices
• Child-rearing involves the methods and
strategies parents use to nurture and guide a
child from infancy to adulthood, with the aim
of raising well-adapted children within a
cultural context. It is a complex process,
particularly for medical trainees.
• Remember that child-rearing practices can
vary widely depending on cultural and
individual circumstances
 child rearing practices
• the primary source of learning—about the world, how to think
and feel, and how to behave—is???????????????
Remember
• The role that parents play in child development is commonly
referred to as socialization. The meaning of the word has evolved
over the past 100 years and is now defined as “how new members
of a group are assisted by more experienced group members to
internalize, and thereby act in accord with, the values, attitudes,
beliefs, and actions of that group” (Grusec & O’Neill, 2018, p.
2103).
• parents socialize their children in multiple domains, including
gender development, emotion regulation, school success, and
perhaps racial relations and religious beliefs.
 Timeline of Philosophers and Physicians and Their Key Contribution Regarding Children

460–370 BCE Hippocrates Specific prescriptions

Greek physician
for child treatment

384–322 BCE Aristotle Greek He emphasized the importance of the environment in Children are blank
shaping children. recognized the unique role that fathers tablets
philosopher
play in their sons’ development , espoused a patriarchal
society, where a women’s primary role was to produce male
heirs and supervise households.

40 BCE Virgil Child is father to the

man

1632–1704 John LockeEnglish Importance of

physician and philosopher
need for early stimulation, and promoted
environmental
parental encouragement of mature behavior. influences

children are rational beings meant that

parents should reason with children rather
than punish or reward them
1717–1778
Jean-Jacques “All things are good as they come out of the Children are
Rousseau hands of the creator, but everything arational not
degenerates in the hands of man.” Before the until age 12
Swiss-born
age of reason we do good or ill without
Frenchman
knowing it, and there is no morality in our
actions” (p. 34).

The parental role,, is not to discipline,

educate, or train but rather to facilitate
“natural development” or biologically
determined maturation. children have positive
inclinations and needed little help from their
parents to develop.
1855–1924 Luther first published The Care and Feeding of Children in 1894. It, along with its 15 Care and
Emmett Holt revisions, became the leading book on child care in the United States for Feeding of
almost 50 years (and was translated into Spanish, Russian, and Chinese). The Children
American
book contains information about daily care of infants, milestones of child (1894)
physicians
development, feeding recommendations, and remedies for common ailments
stand out as
or behaviors (e.g., dealing with “the bad habits of [thumb-]sucking, nail-biting,
particularly
dirt-eating, bed-wetting, and masturbation” Holt, 1929, p. 230). Many of Holt’s
influential on
recommendations sound reasonable by today’s standards. For example in the
child-rearing
14th edition (1929) of his book, he advocated breastfeeding with the rationale
practices
that there was “no perfect substitute” and justified it as resulting in lower
rates of infant mortality, an observation repeatedly confirmed by scientific
studies (Kozuki et al., 2013).
1903–1998 Benjamin Spock Baby and Child Care (1946)
a pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock recognized the need for a new
and radically different guide to child care. In 1945, he wrote The
Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. The book rapidly
became a best seller, along with the shorter The Pocket Book of
Baby and Child Care (1946).
His message to mothers was that “you know more than you think
you do” (1946, p. 3). Dr. Spock advocated less emphasis upon
strict regularity of feeding and sleeping schedules for infants and
toddlers, encouraging parents to treat their children as
individuals. Some of his advice changed over time. For example,
he initially recommended
 A Timeline of Psychologists and Their Key
Contribution Regarding Children
1844–1924 G. Stanley Hall American First working research lab

1856–1937 Sigmund Freud Austrian Psychosexual development

1870–1937 Alfred Adler German Individual psychology

1878–1958 John B. Watson American Behaviorism

1896–1980 Jean Piaget Swiss Cognitive stage theory

1902–1994 Erik Erikson German Psychosocial stage theory

 imp

• important roles in developing research in the area of parenting were G.

Stanley Hall and John B. Watson. Hall (1844–1924) was a pioneer in
American psychology and is considered one of its fathers.
• Hall established a program of research on children, parents, and
adolescents and pioneered the use of questionnaires in research.
Although he is not remembered for his intellectual contributions, he was
an influential figure in initiating research into children’s development.
With regard to child rearing, Hall favored physical punishment: “We
need less sentimentality and more spanking” (Cable, 1972, p. 172).
• Watson did not endorse the use of punishments at all. He wrote:
“Punishment is a word which ought never to have crept into our
language” (p. 111). He thought spanking was misguided for three
reasons: It occurred well after the misbehavior, so it was not contingent;
it served as an outlet for parental aggression; and it was unlikely to be
used “scientifically” and thus appropriately.
 John B. Watson
• Another early American psychologist who played a more
influential role than Hall on how we think about
parenting was John B. Watson (1878–1958). Watson,
known as the “father of behaviorism” for advocating the
study of behavior, espoused an extreme
environmentalist perspective in his writings about
parents. According to Watson, nurture (i.e., the
environment) far outweighed the role of nature (i.e., a
child’s genotype) in determining how a child turned out.
He gained fame by his learning studies of “Little Albert,”
a nine-month-old infant (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
 Albert(experiment )
• By scaring Albert with the sound of a gong when a white rat
was brought into view, Watson taught Albert to be afraid of
the sight of a white rat. This was the first study to use classical
conditioning on an infant. This form of learning was made
famous by Soviet psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Little
Albert was exposed to a white rat (originally a neutral
stimulus). But by pairing the sighting of the rat with an
unconditioned stimulus (the distress caused by the loud sound
of a gong), the rat become a conditioned stimulus and elicited
a strong negative emotional response whenever it appeared.
• Note:evidence now indicates that Albert had some
neurological impairments
 Watson
• Watson developed a theory of child rearing.
His book, Psychological Care of Infant and
Child (1928), provided a psychological
companion to Holt’s manual. Watson believed
that classical conditioning (operant
conditioning had not yet been developed)
could account for how children learned, and
he ignored the role of genetic inheritance.
 MORE AND MORE
• European-born psychiatrists and psychologists
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Alfred Adler (1870–
1937), Jean Piaget (1896–1980), and Erik Erikson
(1902–1994) each theorized about children’s
development and, to varying degrees, the vital
role played by parents. Both Freud and Adler
were trained as physicians (Freud in psychiatry,
Adler in ophthalmology) but both were seminal
thinkers in the just-emerging field of psychology.
 Did YOU KNOW
• John Locke Many pages of his manual are devoted to the
virtues of “hardening” infants as a way of trying to
defend against infant mortality. His suggestions included
immersing infants in cold baths, building endurance and
toughness by dressing them in light clothing and thin
shoes in cold weather, administering low levels of pain as
a way of firming up their minds, and avoiding certain
fruits (peaches, melons, grapes) because of their
“unwholesome” juices.
• Locke recommended a vegetarian diet for young children
—at least, during the first three years of life.
 Did YOU KNOW
• Ancient Greeks attended to their children and
comforted them when they were frightened.
Children were viewed as innocent, loving, happy,
and playful. Aristotle (as had Plato before him)
developed a stage theory about children and their
proper care. He also recognized the individuality of
each child and advised parents to tailor their child
rearing to each particular child. In general, Greek
child rearing had a nurturing orientation rather
than a disciplinary one (French, 2002).
 Rate of child mortality
• , written records indicate that during the 16th century, the
rate of child mortality (defined as child death prior to age
five) ranged from 20% to 42.6%. Of those children who died
in childhood, about one-third died during childbirth and
another 50% to 60% died during the first month of life
(Shahar, 1990). From 1580 to 1720, about one-third of
children in England died by the age of 15 years (Newton,
2015). Today, the highest infant mortality rate in the world is
in Afghanistan, with an estimated rate for 2017 of 110.6 for
every 1,000 births. In contrast, the United States had a much
lower rate of 5.8 per 1,000 and ranked 170th out of 225
nations (Central Intelligence Agency, 2018).
 Values and Beliefs

VALUES AND BELIEFS Western Parenting style Asian

Asian societies cultures Western cultures,
authoritative while some
often emphasize may parenting, cultures might
community and family encourage characterized by favor
harmony, influencing independence warmth and structure, authoritarian
parents to foster and self- is encouraged in many styles that
cooperation and expression. Western cultures, emphasize
interdependence in obedience and
their children. respect for
authority.

attitudes toward might promote

extended family plays a ????? education, which experiential
crucial role in child- impacts how parents learning and
rearing. often support learning. Some practical skills.
participate in childcare, may emphasize
providing support, academic achievement
guidance, and and structured
sometimes authority in education,
raising the child.
 Factors
• Gender roles • Cultural ceremonies and
boys and girls may be rites of passage, such as
raised with distinct naming ceremonies,
expectations regarding religious rituals, or
behavior, responsibilities, coming-of-age
and future roles, which celebrations, shape the
can affect their child's identity and
development and self- socialization process,
embedding important
perception.
cultural values and
beliefs.
 Cultural norms influence how parents
communicate
• Cultural norms influence how parents
communicate with their children. Some
cultures might encourage open dialogue and
expression, while others may prioritize respect
and indirect communication, affecting how
children learn to express themselves and
understand social cues.
 Research
• The first parenting study involved a questionnaire about
parents’ views of how to discipline children (Sears, 1899),
conducted under the direction of G. Stanley Hall.
• The first child study center, established in Iowa in 1917,
required many years of effort by an activist named Cora Bussey
Hillis before it was funded. The first child study center,
established in Iowa in 1917, required many years of effort by an
activist named Cora Bussey Hillis before it was funded.
• Child study centers were subsequently founded at Yale, Cornell,
and the University of Minnesota.
• In 1930, Child Development, the leading journal in the field of
developmental psychology, began publication.
 Early Landmark Studies into Parenting

Sample Size Methods Key Finding

Baldwin, 150 children Interview Parents who were democratic in

Kalhorn, & and their child-rearing styles had the
Breese, 1945 families most competent children.

Sears, Maccoby, 306 mothers Interview Maternal practices varied

& Levin, 1957 widely.

Baumrind, 1971 109 families Interview, The typology of authoritative,

questionnaire, and authoritarian, and permissive
observation parenting was established.
 Did you know
• These lay theories (informal and unscientific
theories reflecting conventional wisdom),
sometimes called ethnotheories, include
beliefs about what children are like, when
they attain particular skills, how children
change, and the ways in which parents
influence development.
 Some thing to add
• Aristotle had two children. Dr. Holt had five. Some of the early child-
rearing “experts,” however, appear to have lacked extensive experience
with children and therefore based their views on casual rather than
systematic observations. Rousseau fathered five children, but he did not
raise any of them. Because all his children were born out of wedlock
(although to the same mother), they were sent to an orphanage.
Rousseau thus based his beliefs on three sources: his work as a tutor, his
observations of French peasant children, and what he had heard about
children in primitive cultures (Damrosch, 2005). Locke, on the other hand,
was a bachelor and did not have any offspring. Of the influential
“authorities” cited, the only one who gained a rich background of
experience with children and parents before writing his book was Dr.
Spock. Spock authored his book only after a decade of work as a
pediatrician and fathering two children. Even so, he questioned the
wisdom of his own advice and admitted that, “when a young man writes a
book about how to raise children, in a sense, it’s his reflection on the way
his mother raised him” (Morgan & Spock, 1989, p. 136).
 Common child-rearing
• Common child-rearing strategies reflect varied philosophies and approaches,
focusing on development, discipline, and nurturing. Here are some key strategies:
• Authoritative Parenting: This approach combines warmth and structure. Parents
set clear rules but also value children's opinions, fostering independence and self-
regulation.
• Authoritarian Parenting: This strategy emphasizes strict discipline and obedience,
with less room for dialogue. While it may lead to well-behaved children, it might
hinder emotional development and independence.
• Permissive Parenting: Permissive parents are nurturing but rarely enforce rules,
allowing children significant freedom. This can encourage creativity but may result
in challenges with authority and boundaries.
• Neglectful Parenting: This involves a lack of responsiveness to children's needs,
both emotionally and physically. It can lead to issues with attachment and
development.
• Positive Parenting: Focused on encouragement and praise, this strategy emphasizes
building a child's self-esteem and resilience, while also setting appropriate limits.
 Common child-rearing
• Play-Based Learning: Incorporating play into daily activities helps
children learn problem-solving and social skills. This approach values
discovery and imagination.
• Consistent Discipline: Establishing consistent rules and consequences
helps children understand expectations and learn accountability.
• Emotional Coaching: Parents help children recognize and express their
emotions, fostering emotional intelligence and resilience.
• Modeling Behavior: Parents demonstrate behaviors they want their
children to emulate, reinforcing values like respect and empathy
through their actions.
• Cultural Practices: Many families integrate cultural traditions and
practices into child-rearing, which can provide a sense of identity and
belonging.
 Parenting styles
Authoritarian

• dictatorial and overbearing.

• expect to be obeyed without giving a reason.
• Rules are strict, with no room for interpretation,
compromise, or discussion.
• Punishments for violating rules are severe.
• children are rarely given a say in their own lives and
are expected instead to obey whatever they’re told to
do without question.
• Punishments are often used to ensure obedience, and
affection is given sparingly if at all.
Identify parenting style
“Because I said so!”

Developing a “follower” mentality where

these children have trouble deciding things for
themselves
Difficulty discerning right from wrong on their
own
Low self-esteem and seeking confirmation of
their worth from outside authority figures
• Gain self-assurance ?
• Handle responsibility Authoritative

• Figure out how to overcome difficulties

• Become confident in their own judgement
-----------------------------------------------
• Developing poor emotional control Permissive

• Being overly rebellious and defiant when the child doesn’t get their
way
• Giving up when faced with challenges
• Engaging in harmful antisocial behavior, like drug and alcohol abuse
• ___________________________________
• Becoming depressed Neglectful

• Struggling to form close relationships

• Having failed relationships
• Lashing out through delinquent or hostile behavior