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Influences Of Parental Involvement

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Influences of Parental Involvement
As a parent, it is necessary to recognize the importance of the development of behaviors in children and how this can impact a child’s social development. An important aspect of child behavior formation is operant conditioning, an idea popularized by B. F. Skinner. Operant conditioning focuses on the idea that learning certain behaviors involves learning the relationship between one’s own behavior and the reward or punishment that prevails. (Miller, 2011) The perspective on child rearing has changed, but the positive influence parents can have over their child has not. Almost every belief about child rearing has changed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Our whole view of children was shaped into …show more content…

But between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a dramatic shift happened for the role of children in American society and families. “No longer necessary for labor, children became economic liabilities and twentieth-century parents exhibited a new level of anxiety concerning the welfare of their children and their own ability to parent effectively.” (Stearns, 2003) In the early twentieth century, the anxiety rendered more defined roles for parents. The father financially supported the family while the mother focused on the home. Rousseau and Froebel both reflected that a mother’s teaching is particularly important within a child’s development. “Mothers were idolized as the epitome of purity and goodness, and children were taught to model the mother in their character development.” (Berger & Riojas-Cortez, 2012) The modern mother now works right alongside the father of the house. This change led to day care and early childhood programs that could help aid parents raise their …show more content…

History showed that children can learn valuable lessons at an early age. However, it also showed us that because of these impressionable years, children should not be forced to work. Children’s education and child rearing became the focus and parents have been putting their faith into others (teachers and day care facilities) for help in the child rearing

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