Parent-Child Relationship and Child Development in Middle Childhood

This essay delves into the significance of the parent-child relationship during middle childhood, examining its profound impact on a child's personality development. The research question focuses on identifying potential traits influenced by parental interactions. The essay conducts a literature review, synthesizing findings from multiple studies. These studies cover various aspects of the parent-child dynamic, including emotional domains, attachment styles, and factors contributing to childhood anxiety. The reviewed articles, such as those by Oliphant & Kuczynski, Parrigon et al., and Kerns et al., offer insights into the reciprocal nature of parent-child intimacy, the role of attachment in emotional regulation, and the predictors of anxiety in middle childhood. The essay highlights the importance of secure attachment, the influence of family context, and the need for comprehensive approaches to address anxiety issues. The conclusion summarizes key findings and suggests avenues for further research, emphasizing the need for a holistic understanding of the parent-child relationship and its lasting effects.

Parent-child relationship in middle childhood
[Document subtitle]

Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
Introduction
Research question- What are the possible traits in a child’s personality that can arise from a
relationship with the parents in middle childhood?
Parent-child relationship plays an important role in shaping a child’s character. The
various emotional and behavioral aspects present in a child’ personality is due to their
relationship with the parents. In this study, we will review different articles that will enhance our
knowledge about the subject area of our research. The articles reviewed touches different aspects
of the relationship and give solutions for the various parenting and child psychology challenges
faced in middle childhood. We have conducted a literature review of the articles that contained a
data related to our topic. The articles are on the emotional domains of a child influenced through
the relationship with the parents, attachment and relationship and risk factors driving anxiety
issues in the child along with possible solutions.
Literature Review
In this section, we will review various literature available on this topic and gather views
of different authors on the subject matter.
In the research paper written on Mothers’ and Fathers’ Perceptions of Mutuality in
Middle Childhood: The Domain of Intimacy, the authors (Oliphant & Kuczynski, 2011) explores
the area of the domain of the relationships between parents and children wherein they interact on
a mutual level. This study described the phenomenon of reciprocal close personal relationships.
Positive experiences are gained through initiating and receiving sound responses from both the
ends. This domain is conceptually known as a reciprocal domain or the domain of horizontal
power. The methodology used by the author was from a practical perspective. The research was
done on the grounds of a questionnaire where parents and children were questioned. Forty-six
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
parents belonging to twenty-three families were asked about the little details of close interactions
and not about their overall relationship with the kid. The study aimed to find out the ways the
parents apply to achieve a close bonding with their children. The study resulted in parents
describing three types of relations between the parents and children as described by the parents
namely shared positive affect, physical closeness, child self-disclosure, and shared projects. The
study implied that the parent-child relationship builds personal relationship which is one step
forward than child-rearing. They gave credit to the children as the initiator of those intimate
memories. Influence of dynamics of one domain is felt over other domains. Only a few numbers
of parents advocated for the authoritative relationship, the rest of them were in support of the
close intimate relationship. This research paper also shows possibility on the number of areas
where further research can be carried out to discover more unexplored areas such as relational
dynamics, rewards and vulnerabilities attached to parenting a child of different age groups. The
area of single parenting is unexplored in this research as it interviewed parents those were living
together.
In (Parrigon, Kerns, Abtahi, & Koehn, 2015), the authors summarize and evaluate the
works of literature illustrating the attachment and its relationship to emotions in middle
childhood and adolescence. The relationship with the parents of the children forms emotion skills
in the child and make them ready to form strategies to cope up with such emotions and manage
their mental health and stability under adverse circumstances. The author suggests that the
emotional relationship with the parents builds the character of the child. The emotional
attachment that the child has with the parents evolve when the adolescence incepts. The
attachment never diminishes but the proximity with the parent's changes after the childhood
ends. The emotion domain that consists of emotional understanding, affective experiences and
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
physiological indicators including the process of regulating emotions are analyzed herein. The
study was based on the data collected representing children as well as adolescents that fell
between the age bracket of 6-18 and included the measures of emotions and attachment between
the parent and the child. It was that found the competencies of a child from the emotional
perspective differed with their secure and insecure attachments whit their parents. An insecure
child shows a higher level of anger issues and emotional weakness. Attachment builds with the
parent’s response when the child has a conversation with them. Secured children are shown to
have more constructive behaviour for coping than a disorganized child has low ability to
discriminate between and label various emotions. The security between a mother and child’s
relation flows from the facial expression, body language and gestures of the mother. The facial
expressions and self-perceived emotions of the adults who were strongly attached to their parents
were more than others. In an experiment were film clippings were shown and adolescents were
asked to mimic the expressions those being emotionally secured succeeded in mimicking the
expressions appropriately than those who had insecurities. The study was also conducted on the
psychological indicators such as cortisol, vagal tone, heart rate fluctuations and skin
conductance. In another study DNA genotyping was done. The study proved to be substantial
research for examining emotional regulations in the children as well as adults.
The article (Kerns, Sienner, & Brumariu, 2011), studied the anxiety symptoms and its
possible reasons in the children in their middle childhood. The authors took data from the
NICHD Study of Early Child Care to examine mother-child relationships, other aspects of family
context, and child characteristics as predictors of anxiety in preadolescence. The study found out
that the children who were behaviorally anxious as preschoolers and had seen negative events in
life with an anxious mother are seen to be more anxious. They studied various etiological models
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
of anxiety and linked them to their finding of the research. The author's main purpose was to
study multiple factors that might lead to anxiety in a child’s mind. The anxiety symptoms vary
over the preschool period and middle childhood. It was found that in later years relationship
between and with parents, negative life events and maternal anxiety did not have a major
connection with the anxiety of the child. It was found that various risk factors were connected to
other risk factors. The combination of various risk factors contributes to the cause of anxiety in
middle childhood. It was identified that biological, cognitive, learning and interpersonal factors
can lead to the development of anxiety in different ways. Several ways can intervene with the
anxiety in the child. The recently developed solution provides ways to cope up with such
anxiety. Some of them were target parenting and improving the quality of the parent-child
relationship. The parents are given training in these solutions about how to help their child in
coping up with such anxiety issues. The family needs to work equally towards this concern and
use complementary approaches that will make the child comfortable rather than the redundant
approaches. However, one of the limitations of this study is that the questionnaire that formed
the basis of the study was completed by the mothers. So, if there is a communication gap
between the mother and the child there can be some important aspects that were left out by the
mothers. This study has given insights on how further studies should be directed that will result
in finding the reasons behind growing anxiety and formulating programs that will help the child
in coping up with anxiety issues.
Conclusion
The literature review of the above mentioned three research papers gave us valuable
insights into the topic of the parent-child relationship in middle childhood. (Oliphant &
Kuczynski, 2011) explained various domains and their linkage with the parent-child relationship
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
and child’s emotional behaviour. This study gave us insights upon how the different domains and
intimacy between parent and children are linked to the child’s emotional quotient. (Parrigon,
Kerns, Abtahi, & Koehn, 2015) explained how attachment with the parents makes a child
emotionally secured that is reflected in their behaviour while tacking emotional issues in life.
(Kerns, Sienner, & Brumariu, 2011) in their study explained risk factors that lead to anxiety in
child and anxious behaviour at different ages. Thus, this research conducted through reviewing
different factors that build a parent-child relationship in middle childhood we gained valuable
insights and found opportunities to do further research in the subject areas that have been
explored.
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Parent Child Relationship in Middle Childhood
References
Kerns, K., Sienner, S., & Brumariu, L. (2011). Mother–child relationships, family context, and child
characteristics as predictors of anxiety symptoms characteristics as predictors of anxiety
symptoms. Development and Psychopathology, 593-604.
Oliphant, A., & Kuczynski, L. (2011). Mothers’ and Fathers’ Perceptions of Mutuality in Middle
Childhood: The Domain of Initimacy . Journal of Family Issues, 1104-1124.
Parrigon, K. S., Kerns, K. A., Abtahi, M. M., & Koehn, A. (2015). Attachment and Emotion in Middle
Childhood and Adolescence. Psychological Topics, 27-50.
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