The influences of culture play heavily into the making of the person of a child, creating oftentimes beautiful and sometimes bitter trends in development. But culture itself poses so much possibility it becomes difficult to establish what of culture affects child development.
Where Culture and Child Development Find Meaning:
How does one child react to this culture as compared to the other child within this same culture? One child may find the daily routine of the American cultural tradition of daycare to be invigorating, affecting the life beyond childhood and into an adulthood of active involvement in community. Another child, in the same daily routine, may find it overwhelming and grow up to avoid exposure to large groups, preferring a life path more secluded.
Culture and child development takes on meaning where it intersects with the degrees of sensitivity within each child. Within culture, we find the significance of the child’s unique reaction to the culture of daily life and from that reaction is the influence on development.
Landmark Influences Common to All Cultures:
What is commonly experienced and can be identified as consistently influential in every life? While we cannot determine how each child will react to cultural influences, it is critical that the most important influences be identified in order to give children the best opportunities to thrive.
Studies and, plain observation itself, suggest three landmark influences prominent in the dynamics of culture and child development:
1. Security
2. Education
3. Socialization
There’s no denying the fact that the physical and social surroundings of a child’s daily world create or destroy the atmosphere of security. Cultural styles will directly influence just how much a child feels secure, molding the development of that internal security needful to venture out into life. To say a domino effect flows from the one level of either security or insecurity is to understate. Essentially, of all the possible cultural influences on child development, it is important to identify what will foster security.
From the influence of security a child moves forward into the world of education. Educational resources within any given culture will mold the development of a child powerfully by either broadening or narrowing the fields of possibility for that one life, weaving together with either a secure or insecure worldview. Obviously, where the culture upholds the value of education, the child develops more broadly and with more possibilities to prosper on every level.
From these influences and within them are the workings of socialization. Socialization is simply the integration into society as either a positive experience perpetuating healthy, balanced living or some variety of struggling to integrate, to sustain a thriving life.
Caretakers can hold to the consistent work of safeguarding security, of education and of socialization in order to help children develop appropriately. In the final analysis, culture and child development narrows itself down to the intimacy in relationships between caretakers and children, an intimacy that nurtures the best of security, education and socialization no matter the cultural tide.
By: Wendy Pan
About the Author:
Wendy Pan is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about children within your culture [http://parentingadvicesite.info/your-child-within-your-culture], please visit Parenting Advice Site [http://parentingadvicesite.info] for current articles and discussions.
