Parental Influence On Children

A human is a social animal. In social life gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt their roles in the society that are not fair and same for both sexes. As children reach into adolescence, they are exposed to the different layers of the social life, this exploration knowledge has been gained through different sources among these sources, their parents are the main sources of their knowledge. Parents are the most influential personality for their children. Social life is categorized in many functions layers that a person has to perform in the particular era of his age. Every child have to play his gender role in the society as it grow up and passes through various stage of its growth life cycle.(Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990).

INTRODUCTION

Children learn often very soon what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society through numerous activities, encouragements, discouragements, opportunities, overt behaviors, covert suggestions, and various forms of guidance, children experience the process of gender role socialization. This is very difficult for a child to grow to the adulthood without experiencing some form of the limitations and privileges that a gender does have in our society. These privileges and limitations are called the gender roles that a human being has to play based on relation with the same gender. (Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990).

A child’s mushrooming sense of self, or self-concept, is a result of the whole host of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs to which he or she is exposed and the knowledge stream flow around the child surroundings. This surrounding has been initiated from the parents and then it widens with the growth of the children.(Santrock, 1994).

As children moves in the larger world their social circle widens and they include the friends and other members of family and teachers and so many people who make them realize their social responsibilities and rights.

Parental Influence

A child’s earliest exposure to what it means to be male or female comes from parents (Lauer & Lauer, 1994; Santrock, 1994; Kaplan, 1991). The parents treat their children male or female in different manners when they are babies. The discrimination has been made in the style of dressing, type of dressing, colors of the dresses and their toys and expecting different behavior from the children belonging to different genders.(Thorne, 1993). One study indicates that parents have differential expectations of sons and daughters as early as 24 hours after birth (Rubin, Provenzano, & Luria, 1974).

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Children began to respond the internal messages of their parents belonging to their gender roles of social life when they are just of two years old. (Weinraub et al., 1984). A research has resulted with a conclusion that children of the age of two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to generalize gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Fagot, Leinbach, & OBoyle, 1992; Cowan & Hoffman, 1986).

Parents provide first glimpse of social behavior to his child. They instruct their child how to converse with each class and category of the social components of the whole society. Parents are the first social teachers of their children; they teach them how to react and how to resolve the conflicts of the life and how to advance in social life. (Fagot, Leinbach, & OBoyle, 1992; Cowan & Hoffman, 1986).

Role Models

The most important influence on the social life of a child that the parents have is the role modeling. Parents are the first role models for the child. This is proven fact that visualization and practical implications have deeper effects on the mind in comparison of listening. When the children observe the practical behavior of their parents towards different people relating to their social circle they learn the same and implement in their upcoming life. For example, if a child observes a polite behavior of his parents towards the home servants, they would also start to respect and polite attitude with them and if their parents would be rude with them, they would be like wise. This also have been researched that the children of the shy and non-confident parents remain shy and non-confient and unsuccessful and the children of sharp and intelligent parents become socially strong and confident. This is all because of role modeling effect. (Hoffman, 1977).

Instilling Confidence:C:Documents and SettingsNaveedDesktopindex.jpg

Socialization revolves around the globe of confidence. Confidence is the key to achieve success in every portion of life. Parents can instill confidence in their children in a number of ways. Parents can instill confidence in their children through allowing them in independence and providing them friendly and cooperative environment.. As the children grows up and enter his feet in the Middle School or high school this concept become so important. Children start to build the basis of their career and social life from this age. Children with great deal of confidence become the team players and team leaders depending on their level of confidence that have been given through their parents. If a parent has taught her child that the sky is the limit and has promoted his self confidence, he will be more likely to act upon that, leading him to make friends easier and stand up for himself. But here is a very important factor to consider by the parents the independence would be folded in the social and moral limits. Independence does not mean to be unsocial or beyond the limits of the morality and modesty. (Haslett, Geis, & Carter, 1992).

Social Image and Ambition Building:

Many studies have shown that parents treat sons and daughters differently (Jacldin, DiF’ietro, & Maccoby; Woolett, White, & Lyon; Parke & O’Leary, in Hargreaves & Colley, 1986; Snow, Jacklin, & Maccoby, 1983; Power, 1981). However, parents play vital role in the development of the sense of ambition about the social status for the children. For example, if the parents are constantly encouraging the child and seeking to mold its attitude towards someone great, the child is more likely to believe that this fate is possible. So the children will be confident enough to speak with college admissions counselors or potential employers, because all of her life he or she has had a support system that told her she could do it. On the other end the children who are taught the limitations of destiny ad fate, they always would be least confident and put all their lack of efforts at the fate and luck and would not try much in life to attain the expected social and professional expectations imposed by his or her parents. . (Miller & Lane in Ber- ryman-Fink et al., 1993).

Conclusion:

Parents are the key elements in the social life of the children. As the consolidated and strong base ensures a strong and reliable building. Likewise, parents are start of the social life of the children and they are role model to their children. Their social behavior would be developed with observation of their parents social behaviors. Children first friend would depend on the social circle of their parents. Their per-school and school, their field of study and their social status would all be dependent on their parents.