The Role of the Family

1
The Role of the Family
2
What is a family?

• Nuclear family
• Extended family
• Functions of family
• Sustenance
• Developmental
• advocacy

3
The Family System

• The family is a social system
• A constellation of subsystems defined in terms of
  generations, gender and roles
• Important terms
• Reciprocal socialization
• Scaffolding
• Family Life cycle

4
The Family Life Cycle

• First stage Launching, leaving home and
  becoming a single adult
• 2nd stage The New Couple, Joining families
  through marriage
• 3rd stage Becoming parents and families with
  children
• 4th stage Families with an adolescent
• 5th stage Families in mid-life
• 6th stage Families in later life

5
Parenting Roles and Styles

• Baumrind, 1971
• Authoritarian
• Authoritative
• Permissive (neglectful/indifferent and indulgent)

6
Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle
Childhood
7
Physical Development in Middle Childhood

• Weight
• First close to 2 lbs. Lighter at age 6, 2 cm
  shorter at age 6
• At age 11, girls experience growth spurt
• Not until age 14 or so do boys becoming heavier
  and taller
• Gradual decrease in fatty tissue, increase in
  bone/muscle development

8
Nutrition and Health

• With nourishment, children 6-12 grown 2-3 inches
  and gain 5-7 lbs. A year
• Height is better indicator of good nutrition than
  weight gain.
• Height requires better nutrition -protein,
  vitamins, minerals, etc.

9
Obesity

• Contributing Factors
• Overeating consume more than is expended
• Genetics Metabolic rate
• Modeling of eating patterns
• Inactivity (possibly a very prevalent factor in
  U.S.)
• Use of food as a reward (emotion induced eating)

10
Controlling Obesity

• Primary control method is prevention
• Especially with children genetically predisposed
• Balanced diet
• Food Pyramid
• Self-control
• Do not use food as a reward

11
Sex Differences in Motor Skills

• Boys physical strength is superior to girls even
  though the average girl in this age range is
  taller and heavier
• Boys out jump girls and are better at kicking,
  throwing, catching, running and batting
• Girls are better at muscular flexibility tasks
  and rhythmic movements
• Are the differences biological or learned?

12
Cognitive Development

• Piagets Views
• Concrete Operations
• Ability to conserve
• Logic of classes and relations
• Understanding of numbers
• Thinking is still concrete (not abstract)
• Reversibility in thinking

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Figure 9.4  When asked to draw the fluid level in
a tilted jar, young children typically draw the
figure shown in (A) rather than (B)not because
they have ever seen anything like (A) in the real
world, but because the logic they use in their
attempts to make meaning out of their experiences
is not always appropriate.
14
Horizontal Decalage

• Intellectual accomplishments in one area may not
  generalize to other areas
• Learning conservation of mass
• What about volume?
• What about number?
• What about weight?
• What about area?

15
Conservation

• Thought Question
• How could conservation skills be enhanced?

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Figure 9.5  Some simple tests for conservation,
with approximate ages of attainment.
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Figure 9.5 (cont.)  Some simple tests for
conservation, with approximate ages of attainment.
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3 rules of logic important to acquisition of
conservation

• Identity nothing ahs been added or taken away,
  so must be identical
• Reversibility deformed object can be reformed
  into what it was so it must contain the same
  amount
• Compensation deformed object appears to have
  more material b/c of its shape (longer), but its
  thinness makes up for its length.

19
Figure 9.6  Suppose X comes in exactly two
shapes, each of which can be either black or
white. How many different Xs are there? Right
There are four. The concrete-operations child may
have some difficulty with the simple
classification problem because its too abstract.
X is not concrete enough. The problem is simpler
if we ask, instead, How many kinds of balls do
we have f we have big and small red ones, and big
and small green ones? Such a problem can be used
to test a childs ability to classify objects.