History An observation was performed through an old grade school friend named Stacie who is now married with two children. She has a daughter Mia, a nine-year-old fourth grader and a 23-month-old son named Brady. When Mia was around four years of age, she was very defiant and was showing the behavioral effects of being raised by a single parent. At approximately six years of age, she grew out of the rebellious stage, which was coincidentally when Stacie met her future husband, Erik. Mia responded well to Erik now idealizes him as a father figure. After Stacie and Erik married, she became pregnant with Brady. Mia responded well to the pregnancy and was excited to learn that the baby was going to be a boy. Mia’s behavior has improved significantly with the presence of male influences in her environment.
Brady was born normal and presents a good relationship with both Stacie and Erik. However, Brady has displayed some behavior issues at his daycare. The staff at the center reported that he has been frequently biting other toddlers and has often been sent home. One of the employees at the daycare has stated that Brady bites when he has trouble communicating or expressing emotion. They have since implemented teaching him sign language in order to build his confidence, and he is displaying improvements.
Observation
There has been a considerable amount of time since the last visit with Mia, which made “observing” challenging. She wanted to interact and was indicating that she
There are 2 kinds that I’m going to talk about and they are Home and School environments of development.
Many children tend to act out how they are feeling instead of verbalizing it. They show aggressive and out of control behaviors towards their relationships. Boys tend to be more likely to exhibit these traits. Girls, however, are more likely to hold in anger, fear, and anxiety, leading to depression. Both of these problems can significantly affect how well a child learns. If a child’s education is affected, it could stay with them throughout their lives. (Santrock 201)
How did your parents influence the development of your gender role? In what ways did you model yourself after your same gender parent? In what ways are your conceptions of appropriate gender roles similar to or different from those of your parents? During high school, what influences did your peers have on your gender role development? How important were your boyfriends or girlfriends in developing your sense of yourself as a woman or man? Who are the people who most influence your gender-role concepts today? As a parent, what gender roles will you model for your children?
Craig’s worries about his son’s actions being more feminine as a result of playing with feminine toys is not uncommon. Many parents may become worried if they start seeing their child being more interested in playing with toys designed for the opposite gender. A hypothesis can be drawn up by stating that if boys with typically female toys, then there would be an increase of femininity traits of passiveness.
Those who agree that gender is a social construct would also argue that gendered behaviour is not innate, and that it is learnt throughout development. Gender identity is defined as “the way in which being feminine or masculine, woman or man, becomes an internalized part of the way we think about ourselves” (Ryle, 2014). The idea of masculinity and femininity and the strong distinction between the two are taught to us throughout our lives. An individual’s earliest exposure to the concept of gender comes from parental influence. Many studies show that parents socialize their children from birth by creating distinct environments for boys and girls and treating son’s and daughter’s differently. For instance, parents are more likely to assign domestic chores such as cooking, mending clothes and doing laundry to daughters, whereas sons are more likely to be assigned maintenance chores such as mowing lawn, small household repairs and carrying out garbage (Lackey, 1989). Parents may also use more emotive language when talking to their daughter’s and might encourage certain interests such as math and science in son’s, by purchasing more math and science toys and committing to other promotive activities (Jacobs & Bleeker, 2004; Leaper, 1998; Tenenbaum &
Much research has been done on the influence of a mother on a child’s well-being and development (Pougnet, Serbin, Stack, & Schwartzman, 2011). However, research has shown that an engaged and loving father can contribute greatly to a child’s cognitive, social, and psychological development (Bronte-Tinkew, Carrano, Horowitz, & Kinukawa, 2008; Duursma, Pan, & Raikes, 2008; Pancsofar & Vernon-Feagans, 2010; Wilson & Prior, 2010).
Gender role expectations are inescapable in our society as we naturally tend to sort humans into categories, the easiest one being gender. Upon first meeting a person, most people automatically classify the other’s gender. With this classification come the inevitable gender role expectations. Even for those who consciously try their hardest not to cloud their perceptions of others based on “traditional” gender role expectations, it is almost impossible not to subconsciously succumb to these expectations that are ingrained in our minds virtually since the day we are born. These expectations often influence how one interacts with another. This is especially important when taking into consideration the effects that gender socialization of children through gendered toys, media, and parental affects child development.
Finally, the author examines how gender personality shapes a woman’s mothering capacities, and thus reproduces the cycle of mothering. The different structures of the oedipal triangle (binary for men, triangular for women) contribute to the formation of gender identity in children. The psychoanalytic object choice also ensures that the heterosexual relationship will result in women mothering and taking on the role of primary caretaker, leading to an asymmetrical organization of parenthood where men are mainly absent or removed. However, male-dominant households ensure that women will remain unfulfilled in the relationship, leading to a desire for a child, and rearing this child in a socially gendered family. In this manner, due to women’s nurturing role and their narcissistic attachment to their daughters, they contribute to the perpetuation of “their own social roles and position in the hierarchy of gender”.
David Newman identifies several ways in which parents treat their sons differently from their daughters. He mentions how parents are more likely to talk about sadness with their daughters than with their sons and are more likely to talk about anger with their sons than with their daughters. This is because of the widespread belief that girls are “delicate” and sensitive to emotions while boys are taught to not show weakness. He further discusses how parents are more likely to “verbally teach and direct their sons” and use more “action verbs” and “numbers” with them as well. This is because parents expect their daughters to stay at home with the family while sons are expected to go out and work. Furthermore, Newman states how parents are more
There are several parenting styles which guide children throughout their life. These parenting styles can be either good or bad and this will have an effect on the child; either a positive or a negative one. This essay investigates the parenting styles from which emerge questions about the role of the mother and the father. It also focuses on the ways that either too much mothering or too much fathering might have an effect on the child’s identity later on in its life.
Gender is the characteristics of people as females and males. During preschool years, children begin to fall into their cultures gender roles. Gender roles are the expectations that society has in regards to how females and males should think, act, and feel. Two social theories that are central to children’s gender development are psychoanalytic theory of gender and social cognitive theory of gender. Freud proposed in the psychoanalytic theory of gender that children develop a sexual attraction to their opposite-sex parent, but eventually loses this attraction causing them to identify with their same-sex parent. In the social cognitive theory of gender, children’s gender develops through the rewards and punishments from their parents for gender-appropriate behavior. Both theories rely heavily on the influence of parents. Moreover, children in both theories learn about gender roles through observation. They adopt the sources characteristics and imitate what they see. In contrast, social cognitive theory contains other sources from which children learn gender roles such as culture, school, peers, etc. Also, psychoanalytic theory believes that children are aware of their gender much earlier, while social cognitive believes that children become aware through the negative or positive experiences they encounter. Bandura believed in reinforcement, while Freud took a biological approach.
In our society, there are norms of what is considered to be feminine and what is to be considered masculine, but how are these norms constructed? Through the use of toys, books, and clothing, children are socialized into their “appropriate” gender. These objects provide influence over behavior and appearance, showing boys and girls what is appropriate for each gender. After some investigation it was found that the toys, books, and clothing that children use not only foster the norms of gender behavior and appearance, but also construct gender roles in their young minds.
The “Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant,” financially funded the studies and research that had been conducted. The researchers in this experiment were Jan Blacher, Bruce L. Baker, the Undergraduates and Graduates from UCLA as well as UC Riverside. Now, it had been understood that fathers who take the time to care for their children with behavior issues or any sort of disability can naturally diminish psychological difficulties within their child. A father will always have a diverse relationship with their kids. The ideal reasoning behind this experiment was to
has begun to form. When we meet a new person, we are instantly judging whether they are male
The assumption is that girl babies really are different from boy babies and the difference ought to be displayed. This different treatment continues throughout life, therefore a sex difference at birth become amplified into gender difference as people mature (Schwartz 4). Gendered experiences have a great deal of influence on sexual desire. As a boy enters adolescence, he hears jokes about boys’ uncontainable desire. Girls are told the same thing and told that their job is to resist. These gender messages have power not only over attitudes and behavior, such as, whether a person grows up to prefer sex with a lover rather than a stranger, but also over physical and biological experience. For example, a girl may be discouraged from vigorous competitive activity, which will subsequently influence how she develops physically, how she feels about her body, and even how she relates to the adrenaline rush associated with physical competition. Hypothetically, a person who is accustomed to adrenaline responses experiences sexual attraction differently from one who is not (Schwartz 5).