Abstract
Child-rearing practices and expectations for boys and girls are very high in the sense that several differences exist in the upbringing of the two. A child’s background and environmental influences play a significant role in shaping the personality of the child. This report gives a clear depiction of how environmental factors affect the personality of children. It also gives a clear picture of how gender differences contribute to how children acquire skills as they grow up. The report is evaluated according to scientific research done through the snow sampling method and a one-on-one interview with the use of questionnaires. Snowball sampling is a non-potential sampling in which the canvasser starts by spotting another potential respondent (Salganik & Heckathorn, 2004). The process is done repeatedly until the canvasser collects adequate information. This survey involved respondents ranging from 25 to 40 years of age, and have both a male and a female child as well as, from different ethnic groups. The report gives a clear picture of the outcomes acquired concerning child-rearing practices.
The Differences in child-rearing practices and expectations for boys and girls
The personality of a child is shaped by several environmental influences among them child-rearing practices, which are the most significant. In the prevailing culture of the United States probably North America, kids are always brought up in ways that motivate them to become autonomous and self-sufficient (Lareau, 2002). Kids are mostly permitted to take actions to some extent as their parents. For example, their parents involve them in choosing or selecting the type of food and entertainment as well as enjoyment the family will have when it plans for a night out. In some cases, kids are given opportunities to take part in small activities in the house or home compound to edify them on how to be responsible and self-reliant people (Ochoa, Lopez & Emler, 2007).
In spite of the distinctions in child upbringing practices in different places across the globe, there exist some similarities. One of the major differences observed is that boys mingle distinctively to a certain extent in all societies in the world (Baumrind, 2001). They are issued with different messages from parents and other grownups as to what is suitable for them to undertake in life. For instance, boys normally play on their own in games such as football, poker, volleyball, basketball, and many other games. However, nowadays schools permit children of both genders to play together and develop a friendship so that they can live as brothers and sisters (Feinman, 1999). Household chores are always regarded as girls’ works where they participate in washing utensils, cooking, cleaning the house, and washing clothes. The compound works on the other hand are regarded as boys’ work where they cut down the grass on the compound, clean and trim fences as well as participate in activities like washing cars.
In this way, the children grow while acquiring basic skills of life concerning things important to them in accordance to their genders. For instance, girls acquire domestic skills on how to prepare food, design the house and make it look beautiful as well as participate in child-rearing activities. Moreover, children are encouraged to get ready for their future in jobs matching their gender (Lareau, 2002). Boys have the liberty to take part in physical and demanding activities. When children ignore these basic traditional trails, they are mostly identified as trivial or even abnormal.
However, there is always the existence of unusual situations and interpersonal occurrences that assists in modeling children’s personalities. Issues such as rape and harassment can leave permanent damage to a person’s personality. In a household where there is only a single child, it is difficult for the child to learn how to negotiate and cooperate in comparison to children who have many siblings (Schroeder, Osgood & Oghia, 2010). Other significant issues that influence personality include meetings, opportunities, and actions. For example, permission to join an impressive university or being at the right place at the right time and doing the right things with the right persons who will become life partners or spouses can momentously modify the path for the rest of their lives (Baumrind, 2000).
Therefore, it is clear that there are essential behavioral distinctions between girls and boys. These distinctions mount up with age since the intellectual biases of children are embellished and made stronger by the gendered culture. Children never come up with intellectual differences rather they learn them. They occur to them as an outcome of what individuals anticipate a boy or a girl to be (Ochoa, Lopez & Emler, 2007). This means that boys, therefore, end up developing advanced spatial abilities not because of inborn advantage, but because they are anticipated and are motivated to be physically powerful at sports that need particular skills. Equally, it is expected that girls become more talkative and emotional, and therefore, their verbal skills are stressed and enhanced by their teachers and parents (Fletcher et al., 2008).
The latter concept on the issue of verbal abilities is especially revealing according to the argument of neuroscientists. Girls often begin to utter words earlier than boys do by a month or even two, a fact that is seized by the fans of the films “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”. However, if a person draws the distribution of achievements for verbal communication skills of boys and of girls, the person acquires two graphs that cover so much that the person would require a very excellent pencil to display the distinction between them (Schroeder, Osgood & Oghia, 2010). Besides, individuals neglect this large likeliness between boys and girls and instead, overstate rowdily the small distinction between them. This point is well supported by Elliot, one of the scholarly authors of “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus“ who argued that indeed boys and girls, men and women are different.
This report critically examines these differences in child-rearing practices for boys and girls where it analyzes the concept of scientific research thoroughly. The main method used for data collection was the snowball sampling method. This is a method where the researcher finds potential respondents and interview them using a questionnaire (Salganik and Heckathorn, 2004). The process is repeated several times on different potential respondents until enough data is collected. The privacy of the subject is well secured and confidentiality of the data is well maintained. This means that the data gathered has no recognizable data recorded to defend the subjects. The questionnaires used encompassed demographical questions related to child-rearing practices (Lamont, 2000). The questions included issues pertaining to marital status, sex, age in order to illustrate subgroups of respondents. The questionnaires contained open-ended questions and were distributed to respondents from different ethnic groups. The respondents ranged from 25 to 40 years of age, and have both a male and a female child. A tape recorder was also used to record the inclusive interviews with respondents.
The outcomes clearly indicated that there are several differences that exist in child-rearing practices and expectations for boys and girls (Green, 1995). It also shows that the activities and experiences these children go through as they grow up to determine the type of adults they become. Moreover, the outcomes indicate that girls normally begin to communicate earlier than men do probably one or two months earlier (Baumrind, 2001).
References
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