Reducing the Influence of Parents on School-Age Children - Essay Example

Running Head: Peer Acceptance in Middle Childhood The Importance of Peer Acceptance, Social Status, and Development of Friendship in Middle Childhood [Client’s Name] [Affiliation] Parents are often troubled by the decrease of their influence on their school-aged children (children whose ages are from six years old to 12 years old are referred to as school-aged children). Children on the other hand are finding it difficult to focus on their parents’ advices since their world has began to expand to involve friends, classmates, peers, and teachers. With the growing issues faced by school-aged children in their new and expanded world and as the influence of their parents waned considerably, it becomes necessary to understand the importance of peer acceptance, social status, and development of friendship of school-aged children and how these factors affect their learning and development. In order to achieve this level of understanding, this paper will look into how these elements affect the school-aged children’s (a) self-concept and personality, (b) self-understanding, and (c) self esteem and social relationships. Self-concept and Personality Middle childhood is a stage in the development process characterized by massive changes in physical, social, emotional, and cognitive developments in children as they start to enter school and interact with classmates and teachers. As frequent interaction with a larger social circle outside the family occurs during this stage, family influence experience latency if not massive decline (Sullivan, 1953). At this stage, growth spurts in brain activity are noted (Butterworth & Harris, 1994; 184) as childhood development is greatly influenced by their experience in school (199). It is also in this stage that school-aged children develop self concept and personality. While children are still with their parents, their self concept is shaped and reinforced by their parents. As children explore their new environment and meet new friends in school, their self concept changes to include the perception of their peers, friends, classmates, and teachers in school. This makes understanding the development of self concept and personality on school-aged children important. A person’s self concept is how he thinks about himself in terms of the physical, emotional, personal, social, and moral aspects. Self-concept is influenced by two major factors which are (a) the opinions and judgment of people on the person and (b) the person’s perception of the degree of similarity (or difference) he has from the rest of his immediate society (Gergen, 1997). According to Cooley (1907), the feedback a person gets from his environment is crucial in the development of his self perception. In other words, the more positive the feedback a person gets from his immediate environment, the more positive his self concept is. For example, a student who always gets complimented for his brightness will frequently think that he is bright and thus project a bright “self perception” which could actually help him develop his intellect. The same thing can be expected to a child that is bullied by his classmates or peers and be called names according to his peculiar physical or mental characteristics. That is to say that there is a high probability that the child will perceive himself as what his peers tagged him as and thus live his life fulfilling the concept he has made of himself. Personality is defined by Warren & Carmichael (1930) as “the entire mental organization of a human being at any stage of his development”. Its main goal is to explain the characteristics of people that makes them do what they do (HOGAN, 2009). It can be said that personality is the collection of a man’s motives, thoughts, emotions, skill, temperament, intellect, and other mental processes including his perception about himself. A person’s personality is the most obvious manifestation of his feelings, moods, and emotions and it is evoked or hampered by social interactions. From this, it is easy to draw an inference that personality is composed, shaped, and is determine by the existence of the internal (or identity) and the external (or reputation) personalities (HOGAN, 2009). Simply put, a child’s personality is determined by his or her self concept (internal personality) which is defined in turn by the judgment of his peers and friends and is exhibited in his or her actions (external personality) Self-understanding Self-concept and self-understanding are two similar and related concepts. While self concept is how he thinks about himself based on the inputs and feedbacks of the people around him, self-understanding is how the person thinks about himself based on his inherent perception of himself from a given reference period, attributes, or characteristics. That means to say that self understanding precludes self concept and at the same time it follows self concept. For example, a six year old child who is about to enter the big school has acquired some degrees of understanding of his own identity like he is good in math, is bright, and is sensitive. When this child is exposed to his classmates that are much brighter than he is, he will develop another self concept based on his experience at school and will begin to understand his capacity relative to his or her classmates. According to Markus & Nurius (1984; 151), children in middle childhood stage undergo through four basic phases of development in order to establish their self-concept and self understanding. These four phases of development are (a) developing a relatively stable and comprehensive understanding of the self, (b) refining one’s understanding of how social world works, (c) developing standards and expectations of one’s own behaviors, and (d) developing strategies for controlling and managing one’s behavior. Once children will have a stable understanding of their identity, they go through the phase where they fine-tune their understanding to accommodate the perception of the world towards their roles which in turn prompt them to develop certain characteristics and personalities that they are expected to perform or acquire. School-aged begin to relate behaviors and relationships around them and they begin to create a deeper understanding of the world they revolve in. In most cases, their understanding of the world is facilitated by their friends, peers, and the people that surround them (152). More often than not, school-aged children aligns their view of the world based on the view and understanding of their immediate environment of the world. The more school-aged children interact with their friends and peers (which consequently lower the time they spent interacting with their parents or with the authorities in the house), the stronger they attach and base their personal understanding of the world on the understanding of those they interact with. The more radical the worldview of a child’s peers is, the more likely the child will develop the same perception his peers have. Self-Esteem and Social Relationship Self esteem is another idea that is similar to both self understanding and self concept. According to Robert Reasoner (2008), self-esteem is founded and connected to the feeling of self-worthiness and competence through the positive emotion usually associated with feeling good. A person who has a good self concept and who has a positive self understanding will most likely have a positive self-esteem as well. This is because self-esteem is highly dependent on self-concept and self understanding (Butterworth & Harris, 1994). According to an article from www.brightfutures.org, middle childhood is an important stage for the continuous development of self-esteem because children are becoming more involved in social interactions that directly or indirectly influence how they perceive their roles and importance in their immediate societies. That is to say that self-esteem as well as the two other related concepts are highly dependent on social relationships and their formation will be based strongly on how social relationship affects childhood development. Social relationships for toddlers and babies are generally confined to their immediate families – parents, siblings, guardians, immediate relatives. The social contact of school-aged children expands as they enter middle childhood because of the presence of classmates, peers, and teachers whose social (and probably cultural) backgrounds differ from what they are familiar with.. School-aged children form groups, join peers, and develop friendships between and among each other. As their social interactions become more apparent and more frequent, they eventually feel social issues such as peer pressure, social status, and development of friendships which may alter their perspectives of their self-concept, self-understanding, and self-esteem. For example, a child who was raised as a Catholic and was taught the tenets of Christianity may change his or her perspective in accordance to his or her interaction with non-Christian friends, which could possibly turn off their other friends. In the event that the child’s other friends exert pressure on his or her interactions with the hypothetical non-Christian friends, his self concept and self esteem will be affected proportionally. Analysis and Discussion A child’s social interaction during pre-school years is limited to immediate family and relatives and so their exposure to social pressures such as peer pressure and social status is somewhat limited. They are more dependent on their parents and relatives whom they frequently interact with. As they grow up, they are exposed to other types of social relationships which typically involve friendship and peer groups as they move to big schools. As a result, school-aged children are more prone to social issues and psychological concerns as they begin to expand their horizons outside their homes. This paper has identified three sources of social issues for school-aged children which are peer acceptance, social status, and development of friendships. Peer Acceptance Without doubt, school-aged children’s self concept and personality are influenced by their peers. There have been many situations where children were able to influence their peers to commit malicious acts. Because of the need to identify with a particular group, school-aged children do what they have been commanded to do even if they know that the act would result in unpleasant consequences (“Middle Childhood”, n.d.). Middle childhood is the stage of human development where children start to associate themselves with people apart from their families as they enter school age. As children enters school and acquires peer and social groups, peer acceptance becomes a factor in their cognitive, social, intellectual, and emotional development. Peer acceptance refers to a wide range of activities that pushes school-aged children to conform to the in-group rules set by peers. Peer acceptance may be a new struggle for school-aged children especially if this will be the first time that they will be forced to conform to the will of their peers. The difficult it is for a child to handle peer pressure, the harder it is for her or him to develop a positive self-concept which could help her or him in coping to his or her new environment. Social Status Part of children’s struggle to belong is to attain a certain social status or social acceptance. As Markus & Nurius (1984) puts it, the importance of social status becomes more apparent the moment the child interacts with a bigger world. Social status in middle childhood is gauged through the acceptance of his peers towards his identity and authority. Social status in middle childhood is achieved through unique abilities, strength, knowledge, brute force, and other aspects of child’s intellectual, physical, and emotional features that capture his or her peers. The more his friends identify him as someone superior, the more he attains an unparalleled social status. Typically, a child’s social status is gauged by how much he influences his peers and friends (Cooley, 1907). The ease with which a child gains his social status among his peers and friends is directly proportional to his self concept and self esteem. Development of Friendships A child with a high self esteem and a positive self concept is more successful in making and maintaining social relationships than a child who has a low self esteem (Reasoner, 2008). This is because social relationships are established using some degrees of trust, understanding, and acceptance of the other person or persons which children with self-esteem issues could not freely attain because such issues bar them from achieving the goal of friendship. While development of friendships can not be entirely considered as the cause for the social issues identified earlier, it does exert its influence on middle children (as well as on other stages of development). For example, when a child easily makes friends and keeps one, his self-esteem increases and he is more likely to become more confident of himself as his self concept leans on the positive side. In the same manner, the harder it is for a child to develop friendship, or to keep one, the lower his self esteem becomes. Conclusion Middle childhood is the stage of childhood development where children see an end to their pre-school years. Children ages 6-12 are expected to go to school and learn which in turn allow them to interact with other children from different backgrounds and profiles. As school-aged children spend more of their waking hours in schools, they are confronted with new issues and they tend to resolve it their ways. That is to say that they may express their reluctance to have their parents’ involvement on their issues with their peers. In other words, parents gradually lose their influence on their school-age children as their children frequently interacts with their peers and friends from school. The perspectives of school-aged children towards their self concepts and self esteems are influenced by peer pressures, social status, and their development of friendship in both positive and negative ways. While this research do not provide statistical and quantifiable measurements to assert the point, various researches on psychological development showed how a wrong influence from these three social issues can tip children and adults alike to the negative side of development. As Sullivan (1953) puts it, authorities and parents need to prevent negative influences from social groups from entering the minds of children in order to create a society free from flaws. References Butterworth, G. & Margaret Harris. 1994. Principles of Developmental Psychology. 1st edition. Psychology Press. Cooley, Charles. 1907. Social Consciousness, American Journal of Sociology 12, 675-687  HOGAN Assessments. 2009. The History of Personality. Accessed on April 14, 2009 from http://www.hoganassessments.com/history-of-personality Gergen, Kenneth. 1967. Realities and Relationships: Sounding in Social Construction. Harvard University Press. Mannheim, J. 2008. School-aged Children Development. MedlinePlus. Accessed on April 14, 2009 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002017.htm Markus, H. & Paula Nurius. 1984. Self-Understanding and Self-Regulation in Middle Childhood. Development During Middle Childhood. National Research Council. National Academy Press. “Middle Childhood”. Accessed on April 15, 2009 from http://www.brightfutures.org/mentalhealth/pdf/05BFMHMiddleChild.pdf Reasoner, Robert. 2008. What is Self-esteem? National Association of Self Esteem. Accessed on April 15, 2009 from http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/what.php Sullivan, Henry S. 1953. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. New York: Norton. Warren, H. C., & Carmichael, L., Elements of human psychology (Rev. Ed.; Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), p. 333 Read More