A Literature Review: Exploring Culture's Impact on Child Development

This literature review delves into the significant impact of culture on child development, highlighting how the surrounding environment shapes children's thinking and behavior. It explores the dynamic and interactive nature of child development, emphasizing the influence of various factors such as culture, environment, family management, and social interactions. The review examines cognitive, social, and emotional development, and the role of parents in shaping children's behavior. It also discusses cultural differences in child-rearing practices, language acquisition, and the impact of education and social environments. The review concludes that cultural factors play a vital role in a child's development, particularly in the early years, and emphasizes the importance of understanding these influences to support children's growth. The review references various academic sources to support its arguments.

Literature Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................1
The influence of culture on children’s development..............................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Culture has a major impact on children development that the surrounding environment
shapes their thinking and behaviour. The essay will cover impact of culture on children
development which is a very interactive and dynamic process. The growth of child is considered
as stepwise developmental process which is influenced by many factors such as culture,
environment, etc. In addition, the discussion will be focused on analysing impact of family
management and social environment towards child development.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The influence of culture on children’s development
According to Felfe & Lalive, (2014) culture influence children development in various
terms such as cognitive, social and emotional improvement. Every child is different and unique
while interacting with others in the world. Children growing in various culture receives specific
inputs from the environment. Cultural and language differences affect development of child. In
addition to this, it can be said that cultural behaviours, values and beliefs within a family impact
early development of children. Culture and children development are connected to each other as
the individuals learn management of behaviours and temperaments through culture. In this
modern world, there are a lot of resources available for parents in order to facilitate their children
development. There are number of opinions on children development and everyone has a view of
how a child grow and develop skills and knowledge in various culture. Children improvement is
an interactive and dynamic process. For example, in North American and Western European
countries, children tend to define themselves around unique characteristics such as I am good at
writing or I am smart, etc. However, in Asian and South American countries, children describe
themselves according to relationship with other people.
Garbarino, (2017) stated that, parents play an important role in shaping and moulding
child behaviour and thinking. Moreover, they are the one who prepares children to interact with
wider society. Interaction of children with their parents often shape their behaviour to others. In
addition to this, cultural differences in interaction between children also affect how they are
going to behave with each other. The world is now changing and cultural differences in children
memory, thinking is normal and how they behave to others has important practical implications
in many areas. Parents are the first teacher for children in their lives and general behaviour of
children is adopted by upbringing given by parents. One of the most common cultural difference
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is language which is a primary medium of communication for them. There are different
languages used by people living in various states. Children adapts language spoken in his/her
surrounding environment.
According to Keller, (2017) relationship between development and culture are systematic
and differential. Formal education level acts as organiser of social milieus that helps to describe
various learning environment for children. In addition, timings of the developmental milestones
emphasize on culture precocities in motor self-recognition development effectively. Relationship
status defines the culture and also the purity of heart of people. There are number of people
living in this world with various culture, nature, behaviour, language and thinking that everyone
has their own beliefs. Children observe things from starting of their childhood and likely to do
the same which could be bad or good. It is the prior responsibility of parents to develop thinking
among child according to their culture to promote better understanding over different situations.
Understanding children development is crucial because as it allows appreciating physical,
emotional, cognitive, educational and social growth of children go through from birth and early
childhood. The child development theory is a psychosexual stage of improvement. The theory
believes that children move through different stages of development due to innate unconscious
sexual drives.
As per Moore, (2017) human behaviour is all about environmental influences. In
addition to this, there are some considerable things and differences between individuals and
children in their early dispositional characteristics. For an example, how a child reacts to a
challenging situation and ability to regulate behaviour and emotional reactions. It is very
important to know how a child grow, learn and make changes. Family plays a vital role in the
development of children that parents are the first teacher for children who helps to increase
knowledge and communication. Family is important that an effective environment and early
childhood care helps to enhance positive vibes in children. This also helps in increase common-
sense of what is right and what is wrong in order to make decisions effectively. The nature and
behaviour of a child depends on what he/she learnt in childhood.
Moreover, since family is the children's primary (Pellegrini & Galda, 2017) social group
the learnings and socialisation are most affected by their family members effectively.
Development of a child is based on social, physical, intellectual and emotional well-being during
development. Thus, socialisation and learning of children is mostly affected by family members.
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During the initial stage of early childhood, attitudes and values of parents can be passed on to the
children. In addition to this, all the environmental factors that affects child development should
be recognised by parents in order to reduce them. Parents are the first educator and have much
longer effect on children that they have intimate and sustained relationship with their child than
anybody else. Children learn through various sources such as environment, surrounding things,
behaviour and attitude of people, etc. These are some vital elements that have a significant
impact on children. A child develops to the sequence of physical, language, emotional and
thought changes that occurs (Sampson, 2017) from birth to the beginning of adulthood.
Environment can affect brain development of a child. Risk factors are statistically associated
with given outcomes. For example, children who grow up poor are more likely to drop out from
school than other children.
In the new edition of families and children in the socio environment, cultural differences
and ethnic diversity are given sensitive and serious considerations. Forces in the environment
influence behaviour and psychological state of children and family members (Keller, 2017). This
progress of children is depended on their guardians, parents and culture in order to enhance
independence. Social environment is also connected with children development that people from
outside have different behaviours and thinking which is observed by children. It is the moral duty
of parents and guiders to provide information regarding what is right and wrong.
Smith, Cowie & Blades, (2015) stated that early childhood care helps to enhance
development of child. Children learn different things while growing that potential care is
required to them in order to keep safety and security. Early childhood care delivers better
understandings of things and also ensures potential growth of children. It is a period for
conception through 8 years of age. There are a lot of benefits of early childhood care such as
concept of cooperation, socialisation, respect, encouraging holistic development, enthusiasm for
life-long learning and value of education through experiences. These are some benefits of early
childhood care that helps to enhance skills and knowledge in children.
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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that there are a lot of factors such as
environment, behaviour and attitude which has a significant impact on child development. In
addition, it is analysed that children development is an interactive and dynamic process that is
majorly influenced by cultural differences. Further, it has been analysed that family members are
responsible for the early care development of their children in order to create awareness towards
outside environment effectively.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Felfe, C. & Lalive, R., (2014). Does early child care help or hurt children's development?
Garbarino, J., (2017). Children and Families in the Social Environment: Modern Applications of
Social Work. Routledge.
Keller, H. (2017). Culture and development: A systematic relationship. Perspective on
Psychological Science, 12, 833-840. doi: 10.1177/1745691617704097
Moore, R.C., (2017). Childhood's domain: Play and place in child development. Routledge.
Pellegrini, A. & Galda, L., (2017). The development of school-based literacy: A social ecological
perspective. Routledge.
Sampson, R.J., (2017). Family management and child development: Insights from social
disorganization theory. In Facts, frameworks, and forecasts (pp. 63-94). Routledge.
Smith, P.K., Cowie, H. & Blades, M., (2015). Understanding children's development. John
Wiley & Sons.
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