Approaches to Childhood and Parenting Across Time and Culture

This article discusses the cultural diversity in parenting and how approaches to childhood change with time and culture. It also explores anxieties surrounding childhood and parenting in contemporary Western societies. The background of the family is said to determine how the child grows. The message passed through education influences the approach of the parent and the child.

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Families and intimate life
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How our approaches to childhood and parenting change across time and culture
It is very easy to differentiate one culture from the other based on the characteristics of that
culture. Every group of people has a specific belief concerning various matters in the society.
Members beliefs tend to hold over a period of time and the values are passed to the upcoming
generations. The cultural diversity in parenting is imperative across many societies in the world.
In matters of parenting, every culture has a belief in the way the handle children. The beliefs in
the social influence how a parent would teach his or her child to carry out among the society.
When the child adopts the teachings, he or she is regarded as culturally competent in their
society. However, the approaches to childhood change with time and culture. For instance, when
an American mother is making a command statement to her child, it is seemingly different from
the way an African mother issue the same command because of cultural diversity. What brings
change in approach to childhood across time and culture is interaction (Commonwealth of
Australia Copyright Act 1968: p.10). When the children interact, they get to learn different
stories from what they now. They end up adopting new character traits which influence their
childhood life. Besides, that is education. The message passed through education do not only
influence the approach of the parent but also the child. Education tries to do away with bad
cultural assumptions thus as time goes, the approach to childhood changes.
Some of the anxieties which surround childhood and parenting in contemporary Western
societies.
A lot of anxiety has grown in the Western world on how to bring up the children in the 19th
century. Parents have been considering their children as either monsters or angels. The issue of
the rights and responsibilities of children have been a touching issue. Many historians have
acknowledged such anxieties. Children come from different background and parents tend to give

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them responsibilities according to the status. However, historian claim that the background of the
family determines how the child grows. Some families may be as rich as others are leaving in
extreme poverty. The childhood of children from the two families cannot be the same (The
Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families Edited by Jacqueline Scott, Judith Treas,
Martin Richards Copyright © 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd: p.9).

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References
Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Act 1968
The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families Edited by Jacqueline Scott, Judith Treas,
Martin Richards Copyright © 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd