Parents Are the Primary Cause of Disturbed and Disturbing Behaviour in Their Children Essay

P atomic number 18nts are the primary cause of wild and disturbing behavior in their pip-squeakren this essay will look at bear witness for and against this claim. It will start by explaining the meaning of the phrase disturbed and disturbing demeanor and because move on to explain the situation that conjure ups play in the cause of disturbed or disturbing behaviour within their tiddlerren. In the past theorists would have agreed with this phrase, having just evidence to support their theories. stock-still this is now considered by many to be a naive view of a childs development.The essay will look at three different lays, the medical beat, the favorable milieu model and the transactional model. It will conclude by flavor at the role of the child in the process and looking at whether there is conclusive evidence to support this claim. There is a large minority of children who encounter certain circumstances difficult to adjust to and because of this their behaviour is considered by others to be difficult, withdrawn, disturbed or level bizarre. Parents of these children may describe them as being substantial to manage, demanding, and battleful.People who work with these children for case teachers or health lot workers could consider them to have behavioural puzzles. The expression disturbed and disturbing behaviour is very unclear, it can have several meanings at one time. unrivaled suggestion could be that the child is the victim of incompetent or abusive fireing. Then a nonher suggestion is that the child is the cause of the enigma with behaviour that needs to be contained. What is meant by a problem? Childhood signs of psychological abnormality are, by and large, manifestations of behavioural, cognitive and emotional responses common to all children.Their quality of being dysfunctional lies in their inappropriate intensity, frequence and persistence (Herbert, 1991, p. 13). Children are said to present problems when their behaviour falls out of the post of tolerance and age-appropriateness. That range maybe more(prenominal) or less wide depending both on the context and the attitudes of those making such(prenominal) judgments. To put it bluntly, many children are only seen as having problems when they become a problem to others. So, whose problem is it? Where does the problem reside (Chapter, 2, p. 63)?Individuals have different perspectives of the problem. From the medical view the problem capability be set forth in terms of disorders which locates the problem unwaveringly within the child as part of their psychological make-up. The entree to treatment was to prescribe medication or psychotherapy. This model was very prevalent during the 40s and 50s which came under much criticism. Emotional and behavioural difficulties were not considered within the medical model. The social surround model was sustainmentful not to put labels like disturbed on to the child.As the medical model focuses the problem withi n the child the social environment model sees the problem as being exterior the child for example a poor home situation, incompetent or abusive parental bid or inadequate survey at school. Bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation is a good illustration of this perspective, which was highly influential in the 1950s in the construction of post-war social policy on the functions of the family and especially the role of women, as mothers, in promoting childrens psychical health (Chapter, 2, p. 8).Referring to children and their behaviour there is a very common phrase used in everyday life I blame it on the parents. This spanned many generations believing that the explanation for childrens bad or disruptive behaviour lay firmly within the home environment and the quality of parenting. Believing this removed the attention from the child themselves and the role that they force play in their behaviour and it excessively removed the attention from society and its responsibility for the welfare of the child. intimately all-important(prenominal)ly, this belief is not just a feature of a particular ideology it has become a foundation stone for some psychological theories about the processes of typical and disturbed development (Chapter 2 Pg 69). Kessen (1979) alerts us to the fact that some ideologies masquerade as psychological knowledge, information which is extremely important when taking into deem inquiry links in the midst of mother and child relationships and the development of disturbed behaviour.Many studies have suggested that disturbed/disturbing behaviour in children can be tie in to difficulties in the relationships with their mothers, which may reflect the mothers mental states (Murray and Stein, 1991 Garver, 1997 Wakschlag and Hans, 1999 Halligan et al. , 2004). Maternal responsiveness is important to an infant as is a mothers mind-mindedness (the ability to know what is going on in their infants mind) but this sensitive response can be affected by different factors. One example would be postnatal depressive disorder.A study done by Murray (1992) found that 18-month- gray-haired infants whose mothers had suffered from postnatal depression were more likely to be assessed as insecurely attached in the strange situation. This was more prevalent in boys. Insecure attachment has been consistently linked with psychological difficulties (Greenberg et al. , 1993 Sund and Wichstrom, 2002). Murray also found that children of discourage mothers were more likely to have difficulties such as temper tantrums, eating problems, have trouble quiescency and be over clinging.This could suggest that infant temperament may also be causing problems. even so not all depressed mothers develop difficulties in their relationships with their offspring (Cox et al. , 1987). Although maternal depression is one nerve tract to behavioural difficulties there is another research has been carried out which traces the origins of antisocial behaviour to hars h and inconsistent discipline and ineffective parental control strategies which unwittingly reinforce the childs negative, coercive behaviour (chapter, 2, P. 73).In disturbed relationships the people involved not only behave towards each other but they also think about each other. They both have an internal working model of the relationship which message that the cognitive as well as the social and emotional dimensions of the relationship need to be interpreted into account. In an Australian large-scale longitudinal study they found that mothers who had negative attitudes towards their infants at 6 months old were more likely to field of study behaviour problems when their children were 5 years old, especially for boys (Bor et al. 2003).The fathers also have a role in care giving. A fathers child-rearing beliefs, working hours, personality and age predicted fathers care giving activities. Fathers were more likely to assume care giving responsibilities if they had more positive per sonalities and were younger. They also faux more care giving responsibilities when they contributed lower proportions of family income and were employed for fewer hours. Also marital intimacy predicted fathers care giving activities with fathers more involved when mothers reported more imitate marriages (Research summary 3, chapter, 2, p. 6).Much of the research which has explored fathers roles in shaping childrens behaviour has focused on the relationship between antisocial behaviour in fathers and childrens development. There is now strong evidence that there is a significant relationship between the two (Deklyen et al. 1998 Margolin and Gordis, 2000 Jaffee et al. 2003). Absence or low inter-group communication of the father has been shown to be associated with poor outcomes for children (Scott, 1998 Carlson and Corcoran, 2001).Research shows that a fathers involvement at age 7 protected against psychological maladjustment in adolescents from cut off families. For boys, early father involvement protected against later delinquency as measured by the childs history of trouble with the police (Flouri and Buchanan, 2002) and for girls, father involvement at aged 16 protected against subsequent psychological detriment (Flouri and Buchanan, 2003). Many studies have focused only on the amount of father involvement, neglecting the quality of the relationship (Research summary 4 pg 77).Although it is important to acknowledge the role of the parents involvement in their childrens adjustment we need to recognise that the child also has a role in the process. Attitudes about some agencys of parenting as being the cause of atypical child behaviour, reflects a social environment perception seeing the child as a passive victim of circumstances. Traditional questioning of the effect of environmental variables on childrens development and adjustment has been challenged through various researches.In a report from a study carried out by Sears et al. they offered a socia l environment interpretation, arguing that it was the combination of parents permissiveness and punitiveness that caused their children to become aggressive. A highly permissive style means that children do not have clear guidance on appropriate behaviour, where as a highly punitive style means that, at the same time, they may have been frustrated by bouts of severe punishment (chapter, 2, p. 79). chime (1968) argued persuasively for changing the direction of effect.He maintained that it was the childs temperamental characteristics that determined how aggressive he or she was and that it is the parental disciplinary approach that attempts to adapt the childs behaviour. Johnston et al. s research illustrates the dangers of presuming particular directions of causality. It would be wrong to assume that environmental risk factors would be in some backbone causing childrens problems. There could be some circumstances where the characteristics of the child could add to family stress, ch anging parental attitudes and influencing maternal behaviour.The relative influence of parenting behaviour versus child behaviour will vary, according to the characteristics of the child and of the parent and the circumstances affecting both (chapter, 2, p. 80). It is clear that children can have both direct and indirect influences on their environment. Children and environments can also share transactional relationships. Consider a child who is easily disoblige and also hard to soothe, the so called difficult temperament.Such a child with a parent who has a good social support network an a well-provided home and is relatively easily able to contain the childs distress and minimise upsetting experiences, may end up experiencing only brief and infrequent periods of upset and evoking a lot of supportive, sensitive care giving from the environment. The same child, however, might evoke a very different kind of care giving in a more stressed kinsfolk with a parent who is less able to b ehave sensitively and protectively and reacts to the childs distress in overly emotional ways.Thus environments can differ in their reactivity to childrens behaviour (Method and Skills Handbook pg 41). Chess and Thomson introduced the concept of goodness of fit to describe the transactional relationship between child and environment. As they state, goodness-of-fit results when the childs capacities, motivations and temperament are adequate to master the demands, expectations and opportunities of the environment (Chess and Thomas, 1984, p. 80). Looking at the evidence presented above it is inconclusive that parents are the primary cause of disturbed and disturbing behaviour in their children it is important to reaffirm that there are multiple pathways to disturbed behaviour and that maternal and paternal behaviour conciliate just two among a constellation of social context, family and parental risk factors that have been found to be associated with childhood difficulties (chapter, 2 , p. 77).The evidence presented by Murray and Stein, 1991 Garver, 1997 Wakschlag and Hans, 1999 Halligan et al. , 2004 stating that disturbed/disturbing behaviour in children can be related to difficulties in the relationships with their mothers, is refuted by Cox et al. saying, not all depressed mothers develop difficulties in their relationships with their offspring. The issue is not about whether the direction of effect runs from child to mother or from mother to child it is about their shared influence as partners in a relationship.Children as well as parents play an active role in the process of development (chapter, 2, p. 80). In summary any particular problems that a child might present need to be understood in terms of the demands of the context, the history of similar experiences faced by the child and the history of the adult who finds the childs behaviour disturbing (chapter, 2, p. 64).