Introduction
Relationships between parents and their children change considerably over the life span. During the early years, the parents have to support, nurture, and direct the development of their children. As young people change from adolescence to adulthood, the relationship generally changes, shifting from the dependent relationship between a child and parent to a more mutually supportive, equal relationship between two grown-ups.
Children need their parents more than ever during their adolescence stage. It implies that recognizing and comprehending a child’s development and the evolving relationship between the child and parent over time is critical to fostering a positive relationship (Blagg & Godfrey, 2018). The essay explores how relationships between parents and children change over the lifecycle.
Child Development
Understanding and recognizing a child’s development and how the correlation between the child and parent changes throughout the life span is essential. Consequently, development is referred to as systematic continuities and changes in a person that happen between conception and death. Human development is classified into cognitive, physical, and psychological domains.
The life-span development study describes, explains, optimizes, and predicts development. A description of developmental goals features the roles of people from age to age, and during this state, no two persons can be the same. Individuals are not the same based on the prediction development and influences, which have been developed before explanation may be accomplished (Polan & Taylor, 2019). Optimization examines ways of having intellectual growth throughout one’s life span.
Furthermore, based on Freud’s psychoanalytic, newborns are intrinsically hostile creatures compelled by instincts that inspire behavior that can transform over their development into a personality. Freud identifies the id stage at birth, the ego stage, and the superego stage. After children attain the superego, they have more understanding.
Comparatively, Skinner’s theory versus Bandura’s theory of learning entails watching a model through punishment or reinforcement. The effects of the models’ behavioral things learned from the Bandura theory are that cognitions, skills, and behaviors comprise one learner who has not directly strengthened for demonstration.
Skinner’s theory engages the responding effects of one’s behavior, punishment, and reinforcement. The human cognitive model learning outlines Skinner’s operating conditionings (Feldman, 2019). Therefore, prenatal steps, behavioral states, mothers’ experience, moral understanding, problem-solving, emotional development, social personality, secureness, and parenting affect how relationships between children and parents grow and change over the life span.
Parent-Child Relationships
Subsequently, it is important to know as parents, we are our children’s models with high self-esteem reinforcement. Therefore, when a parent shows a negative attitude, your children will most likely follow the negative attitude of a parent. It shows that parents have a great influence on the behavior of their children. Encouraging, praising, and giving affection are considered parental support required for the child’s behavior (Blagg & Godfrey, 2018). Similarly, children attain more emotional competence as they age, developing characteristic patterns of greater emotional understanding, emotional expression, and better emotion control skills.
Moreover, developmental theorists affirm that social correlations are essential in human development, although they have disputed which relationship is more critical. Freud’s perspective noted that a stable and warm mother-child correlation is important for normal personality growth. Nonetheless, other theorists trust that peers are as important as parents during development.
In this view, attachment theory by John Bowlby, attachment involves a strong affectional bond that binds an individual to an intimate companion (Feldman, 2019). The objects of people’s attachments are unique throughout one’s lifespan, irreplaceable to individuals with whom we need to be close. From those, we get a sense of belonging and security.
Studies reveal that with a positive family atmosphere comprising open parent-child communication, fun family activities, and the encouragement to engage in positive community and extracurricular activities, adolescents can easily navigate these childhood years. The conflict between a parent and a child escalates as children become adolescents (Bouchard, 2014). Although this trend is not unavoidable, it is typical and may be quite distressing for adolescents and parents.
Further, in these modern days, the relationships between children and parents have significantly changed. Parenting has become a challenging issue, which differs from the past years. In modern-day society, it is impossible to bring up a child unselfconsciously.
There is a lot of conflicting advice on raising a child, and parents must decide how best to raise their children. A parent must consider whether to become lenient or strict, performance and achievement indulgent or focused, lay back or pushy (Whitson, 2019). Modern parents need clarification on whether or not to emphasize academics and other achievements or provide their children with freedom, free time, and free range to learn from their surroundings.
Similarly, parents have become more sensitive to the dangers that their children experience, both psychological and physical. These days, parents seek to ensure that their kids love them in contrast to the early years when they expected their children to love them (Mintz, 2015). Hence, most parents seek to guarantee that their kids are always energized and happy; thus, most overcompensate.
Furthermore, family life is more demanding when a single parent takes all household responsibilities. Children in the single-parent household sometimes feel a sense of loss or cheated; hence, it becomes essential for single parents to identify the given needs of their kids. The feelings children have concerning their correlations with both parents, present and absent, develop dynamics that influence their ability to trust. Circumstances of divorce or when a parent passes away affect the correlations of a child with the members of the opposite sex negatively or positively (Blagg & Godfrey, 2018). However, in both situations, experiences of loneliness and abandonment can interfere with the ability of a child to trust and invest in relationships (Chirban, 2015).
It has been observed that during childhood, intimate family relationships may improve hardship, which affects lifespan and physical health. Family relationship features comprise support, obligation, conflict, and parenting behaviors that change and evolve from childhood to adolescence to adulthood (Chen et al., 2017). These features determine whether childhood family correlations balance positive influence on moderating roles where they mitigate the consequences that childhood hardships have on an individual’s physical health.
Conclusion
The knowledge of human growth and development shows that it is more than parenting to keep and build a healthy relationship with one’s children. Developmental theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Albert Bandura, and B.F Skinner identified physical, psychosocial, and cognitive development. Therefore, psychosocial development aligns with physical development because as people’s bodies and brains change, along with their surroundings, they shape their identity and their relationships with other people. Each parent needs to understand and become a good parent, keeping a good relationship with their children.
References
Blagg, N., & Godfrey, E. (2018). Exploring Parent-Child Relationships in Alienated versus Neglected/Emotionally Abused Children using the Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test. Child Abuse Review, 27(6), 486–496. Web.
Bouchard, G. (2014). How do parents react when their children leave home? An integrative review. Journal of Adult Development, 21(2), 69-79. Web.
Chen, E., Brody, G. H., & Miller, G. E. (2017). Childhood close family relationships and health. American Psychologist, 72(6), 555–566. Web.
Chirban, J. T. (2015). Changes in the family: Impact on child relationships. Psychology Today. Web.
Feldman, R. S. (2019). Child development (8th ed.). Pearson.
Mintz, S. (2015). How parent-child relations have changed. Psychology Today. Web.
Whitson, S. (2019). The dynamics of conflict between parent and child. Psychology Today. Web.