Child psychology is associated with the social and personal development of children and a child goes through several stages before stepping into the adult world. The psychology of children has been studied from various perspectives including issues of nature and nurture and whether the child is a product of genes and heredity or a product of society and environment as also different developmental stages of sensory discrimination and perception, emotional expression and learning through language and cognitive development, development of intelligence and the socialization process. The study of child sexuality and sexual and moral development are also very important especially from a psychoanalytic viewpoint.

Children are vulnerable and affected easily by all events in the immediate environment. Events which are only trivial or unimportant to adults, may leave deep scars or memories in a child’s mind. A child’s mind is extremely impressionable and changeable and before the child reaches adolescence, certain very insignificant events can have great personal significance in a child’s life. So ‘childhood memories’ and ‘childhood events’ are primary factors in determining adult personality pattern. Some major factors which can affect a child’s later development and have potential long term effects are:

1. Loss or gain of a friend or friends
2. Memorable physical/bodily sensations
3. Separation in the family or divorce of parents
4. Domestic abuse or violence
5. Sexual molestation or abuse
6. Learning experiences either at play or during study
7. Personal experiences/events that evoked strong emotions of fear, joy, sorrow etc.
8. Accidents or illnesses experienced or observed
9. Death of family members, neighbors or close ones
10. Change of residence or relocation
11. Emotional relationships with friends, teachers or family members
12. Personal success or failure in school
13. Influence of films, stories, books or news events
14. War, terrorism, conflicts, bomb attacks etc.
15. Natural calamities like earthquakes, flood, famine etc.

The factors here are very general and every child goes through certain very specific events that affect him or her individually although there are certain very general theories in psychology that have been established through research studies and these theories have highlighted links between success or failure in later life and childhood events. Some of the major theorists of child development are John Bowlby, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Lev Vygotsky. Whereas Bowlby emphasized on childhood relationships, Piaget focused on cognitive development of the child through various stages and Freud wrote extensively on sexual development of children. Kohlberg studied moral development of children whereas Vygotsky analyzed the socialization process of children through social contextualism. All these theories on different aspects of child development only prove the immense complexity and the varied number of factors that tend to play a role in the psychological development of children. There are many dimensions to the psychology of children from social, emotional to cognitive, sexual and moral. Here I will provide a brief account of all these different theories and finally provide a comprehensive analysis on how these theories could be used along with the general factors listed above in the study of the psychology of children.

John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist, developed the ‘attachment theory’ in which he emphasized the importance of a mother or primary caregiver in a child’s life. He showed in his study that any infant should develop and maintain a warm and intimate relationship with the mother or mother substitute and all maternal deprivation can lead to serious mental health problems in the child later in life. Bowlby’s theory is very true and a mother should develop a strong physical and emotional intimacy with the child by being physically close to the child at least until the child is 2 years old. Doctors around the world have recommended breast feeding and an important part of this is the physical closeness between the child and the mother which is extremely necessary once the child is out of the mother’s womb. When the child is released from the mother’s womb, the first emotion is fear and the mother’s continued physical closeness instills confidence and a sense of security in the child. Orphaned children or children who are separated from their mothers at birth require a substitute or they can grow up as mentally ill or maladjusted individuals.

Freud on the other hand provided a complete psychosexual theory and emphasized on what many of us don’t like to believe – the sexual pleasure of children. Freud overturned the concept of childhood innocence and suggested that we are born with our unrepressed basic instincts which are slowly tempered with social adaptation. Freud believed that the inherent pleasure seeking desires that we are born with focus on certain erogenous zones of the body and accordingly there are different stages of psychosexual development from oral and anal to phallic, latent and genital stages. In psychosexual development, the child’s pleasure seeking behavior changes from the mouth as in sucking and biting to the anus through toilet training and then finally to the genitals. Thus the child according to psychoanalysis derives complete sexual pleasure by sucking, biting, playing with genitals and releasing waste by defecation. I do not necessarily endorse Freud’s views on the sexual pleasure of children and the pleasure derived from bodily sensations could be explained in other ways as I will discuss in another article.

Jean Piaget, a French-Swiss philosopher established the theory of cognitive development in children and laid out four developmental stages – the sensorimotor period, the pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. The first stage is when the child develops spatial abilities and comes to terms with the world through the senses during the first two years of life. The second stage is about developing and using concepts when children understand meaning of things and this continues until the age of 7. From 7-11 years the child reaches higher cognitive development through concrete operational stage and can sort and classify objects and can use logic to solve problems. The formal operational stage that begins around 12 years of age helps children to understand abstract thoughts, hidden meanings etc. Kohlberg provided a theory of moral development of children through six stages of pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. These are related to concerns for punishment and self interest, as also inner need for conformity and striving for social order, as maintaining universal ethical principles. So moral development seems to move from a belief of ‘what is right and what is wrong’ and whether there is punishment for the wrong to what is universally ethical and acceptable social behavior. Another prominent psychologist Vygotsky highlighted the importance of socialization and interpersonal communication and child development according to this theory is seen as an internalization of social and cultural knowledge.

Of course, all these theories will have to be added up and a complete or comprehensive theory that would provide an insight into the child’s mind and behavior will have components from all these theories. In addition childhood experiences and events which have been highlighted in psychoanalytic theories are also extremely important and not just from a sexual point of view. All the general factors that I have mentioned in the beginning of the essay should be considered as factors that underlie social, sexual, moral, emotional, physical and cognitive development of children. As learning experiences lead to cognitive development, personal emotional experiences lead to later emotional development and maturity. Sexual molestation, abuse or other types of bodily sensations in childhood affect later sexual development and divorce or separation in the family can affect moral development. Thus an individual who has been molested as a child may either develop a fear of sexual activity or may show complete lack of sexual restraint as an adult.

A child who has lived without a father may either become extremely irresponsible or can develop into an adult with a very strong sense of parental responsibility. Experiencing trauma in childhood through death or accidents of family members or living in times of war, natural calamities have deep impact on children and can leave a perennial sense of insecurity or a need for attachment in the children which continues through adulthood and even old age or on the other hand these events can make a child isolated, schizophrenic or simply detached in later life. For healthy life of children it is important to not just depend on psychological theories to understand how a child grows up and perceives the world, but it is also important to focus on events or experiences of the child and use these along with the theories for complete psychological understanding of children.

In contemporary child psychology the focus on events is mainly psychoanalytic and the impact of adverse events is considered especially significant. However it is important that all events, positive and negative are considered and this should then be used to complement psychological theories. To understand the child, it is important to understand the child’s world and memories so an ‘event-based’ psychology of children should be balanced with a ‘theory-based’ psychology of children.

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The importance of parental involvement as an accelerating and motivating factor in their children’s education is a worldwide-accepted fact. This research project provides an in depth explanation along with specific reasons, the importance of parents’ involvement in their children’s education. It also discusses the parenting techniques, their types and their consequences if neglected. It also describes the ways to measure the outcome of the positive parental involvement. Furthermore, it mentions the teachers involvement and the difficulties faced by the teachers in getting parents involved in their children’s (this is further supported by the examples of two teachers who with their deliberate efforts won the parents over to devote their maximum attention towards their children), single-parent involvement, children’s own efforts to improve their academic levels and joint home-school based interventions. A detailed analysis of the different main ideas is given, based on the findings from other research surveys and projects.

INTRODUCTION:

Parental involvement can be seen to fall into three types: 1) Behavioral, 2) Intellectual and 3) Personal. The research explores the effect of multi-dimensional participation of parents and the resulting progress of children in their studies when different parental resources were dedicated to them. Actively participating parents help their children in their academic development by going to schools and participating in open houses. By keenly observing the behavior of their children they can rightly judge the kind of behavior or the allocation of resources required by their children. Such caring parents can also motivate teachers to become more attentive towards a particular student, thus maintaining the cycle of parent-teacher involvement. Encourage Building up cognitive and perception abilities in a child is a major concern in the upbringing of the child. The way the parents involve their children in cognitive learning is by exposing them to different cognitively stimulating activities and materials such as books, electronic media and current events at home. This helps the child to practice all sorts of language comprehending skills at the school. The results show a remarkably positive behavior at the school and with peers.

Two parenting processes namely the Supportive Parenting (SP) and Harsh Parenting (HP) helped a lot in the research of parental involvement in their children’s education. By adjusting the levels of supportive parenting, different levels of successful outcomes were observed. Supportive parenting in even kindergarten students yielded positive results. Four measures of supportive parenting were used in the study, they were:

1. Proactive teaching.

2. Calm discussion in disciplinary encounters.

3. Warmth.

4. Interest and involvement in peer activities.

The assessments were conducted when children entered kindergarten and when they reached grade 6. There was a factor noted to hinder children’s development: family adversity. It was the result of a multipurpose negative process that included the risk of low socio-economic status, single-parenting and family stress. Child maladjustments were found to be more common in families with such adversities. No matter how much negative impacts were cast, SP was found to overcome the risks associated with family adversity. SP was strongly related to adjustment procedures in grade 6 children who had single parent family or experienced low socio-economic status (SES) in their early childhood.

In a way to socialize their children, parents adopted the techniques of calm discussion and proactive teaching. They helped lessen the behavioral problems by carrying long discussions with their children, cultivating in them a sense of respect, calmness and peace of mind. Mothers also participated actively in reducing the peer stress among their children. It is also a widely accepted fact that supportive parenting plays an important role in the children’s development of empathy, prosocial behavior and emotional competence. On the negative side, the absence of supportive parenting may be related to the development of internal problems such as anxiety and depression.

Lack of the necessary parental care and attention is the main factor for the subsequent rise in the percentage of juvenile delinquency (crime among children). The absence of parental instructions causes children to develop irreversible behavioral and emotional problems. They in order to seek attention, resort to crimes thinking that in this way they could fulfill their wishes. They may revert to uncontrolled violence if not kept an eye upon. Such criminal activities cannot be brought to a halt until their distressing symptoms of low self-esteem, depression, dysphonic mood, tension and worries, and other disturbances are relieved. And the importance of parents’ role in this regard cannot be over-emphasized.

In an effort to describe parental involvement, many researchers use a term “Transition”(Lombardi, Joan). “Transition” is used to describe the time period in which children move from home to school, from school to after school activities, from one activity to another within a pre-school, or from pre-school to kindergarten. The untiring endeavors of teachers in the phenomenon of transition cannot be ignored. They prepared the children and their parents to face the problems of adjusting to elementary school programs that had different psychology, teaching styles and structure than the programs offered at the kindergarten level. In the elementary level schools the teachers had to face serious challenges in motivating the parents to take interest in their children’s activities. The teachers adopted different methods to involve the parents in day-to-day classroom and home activities. They used to send notes, invitation of parent-teacher meetings, invitation of parental guidance sessions and training sessions, continuously directing the parent’s attention towards their children. Patricia Brown Clark suggests that it is very important to keep the line of communication between teachers and parents open, so that the parents can interact with the teachers and get up to date information of their children’s school activities. One way to involve parents is to schedule school events and arranging classroom activities such as volunteering for libraries, acting as classroom aides or efficiently organizing lunch breaks. The teachers also opt for making phone calls at the children’s houses to keep in touch with the parents and getting to know the extent to which they are contributing towards the welfare of their children. Apart from the above activities, the teachers also assign home activities for both the parents and their children so that the parents remain indulged in their children and the children get to study at home. However, it was a bad and disappointing experience for the teachers when many of the parents failed to respond as expected. Many of the parents were so overwhelmed with their official work that they could hardly take out some time for their beloved children.

Moreover, for some parents their schoolings were not positive and character-boosting experiences, therefore they preferred to keep a distance from their children’s school as well. This made it really difficult and at times impossible for teachers to bring the parental involvement to the desired level. Nevertheless, the activities of two teachers proved greatly fruitful in making parents involved in their children. They were Carlos Valdez, an art teacher and 8th grade class sponsor, and Mike Hogan, the school’s band director. They did it by involving parents in music festivals and other school ceremonies. They proved to be great examples for the future teachers to come.

If the children’s academic development programs are to prove successful they must share two characteristics:

1) Developmentally appropriate practice:

A child’s academic progress is clearly reflected by the appropriate practice he/she administers while in school life. During transitions from pre-school to kindergarten, a child if given the exact developmentally appropriate practice tends to learn a great deal of language and playing skills. He develops a keen interest in exploring his environments and interacting (without hesitation) with his adults.

2) Supportive services:

These include the assistance that the school provides to low-income family students. The services include health care, childcare and community care. This strengthens the relation between school and children and creates a sense of security and confidence among the children. They get to learn that their communities are a part of their school since the school’s supportive services strive to help community development.

It is commonly believed that children are good self-teachers. Their self-initiated strategies help improve their expression, creativity, intellectual capabilities and extra-curricular skills. This idea is proved by the documentation of young children’s work provided by Reggio Emilia :

“The Reggio Emilia educators highlight young children’s amazing capabilities and indicate that it is through the unity of thinking and feeling that young children can explore their world, represent their ideas, and communicate with others at their highest level.”(Edwards, Pope. C, Springate, Wright.K)

The climax rests in the fact that how the parents would know that their sincere involvements are really proving worthwhile for their children. The answer lies in the attitude of the children. The degree of parental involvement can be judged by a child’s attitude towards his school subjects, his academic desires and achievements. There is a direct relationship between academic achievements and the attitude towards school. Schunk in 1981 had the following idea of aspiration or academic desires:

“Level of aspiration is defined as one’s subjective probability that he or she will reach a certain level of education.”(Abu, H. & Maher, M)

As a result children who received adequate parental concern were found to be much more confident in their academic desires and achievements than those who could not get the right amount of parental concern.
The individual involvement of mothers and fathers also plays a vital role in the behavioral development of a child. Students from one-parent household were observed to show less positive attitude towards schools and studies as compared to students from two-parent households. One study aimed at investigating parental concern showed that despite mothers’ sincere endeavors, the role of fathers could not be ignored and both served as an important foundation for the future progress of the child. This can be proved from the following fact:

According to a recent report from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1997), compared to their counterparts, children with involved fathers are more likely to have participated in educational activities with their parents (e.g., to have visited a museum or a historical site with their parents in the past month), and are more likely to have access to multiple types of resources at home as well (as measured by the proportion of parents who belong to community or professional organizations, or regularly volunteer in the community). (Flouri, E. And Buchanan, A, Pg.142)

Also, the parental involvement has been discussed and implemented in terms of interventions or prevention programs, which are nothing but safety measures taken to assure healthy and perfect upbringing of the child. The study uses school-based and home-only intervention programs to find out the extent of intellectual capabilities found in children from different family backgrounds. The success of one school-based interventions can be proved from the following fact, which was a part of “Education Service Improvement Plan 2001-2005” of Edinburgh:

—-The Scottish Executive Discipline Task Force, which studied the causes of poor behavior among pupils in schools produced a report of ‘Better Behavior – Better Learning’ in June 2001. The report included 36 recommendations for action, which were then turned into an Action Plan in 2002. Many of these have implications for the Education Authority. (Craig Millar Instep Project)

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