Child Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology

By Harry Sebastian

Several settings interact to steer children's emotional and behavioral development. In early infancy, personal family networks are important in these contexts; as children grow, their social worlds expand to include daycare and school settings, as well as interactions with friends and classmates. Each of these structures, as well as the interactions within and between them, has an impact on children's growing capabilities. Each is also entrenched in, and influenced by, larger social and cultural influences, and by employing models in access to social and material resources.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harry Sebastian
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201406189

Harry Sebastian

AUTHOR: HARRY SEBASTIAN

Book preview

Section 1

Developing Competencies

Section 1a

Contextual Inftuences upon Social and Emotional Development

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Family and Systemic Influences

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Numerous contexts interweave to guide chil- dren’s emotional and behavioural improvement. In early childhood, own circle of relatives networks are significant to the ones contexts; as kids develop, their social worlds enlarge to absorb childcare and faculty settings, and relationships with buddies and peers. Each of those structures, and the interactions inside and amongst them, influences kids’s developing competencies. Each is likewise embedded inside, and tormented by, broader social and cultural influences, and with the aid of using versions in get right of entry to to social and fabric sources. Ecological theories of improvement [1] emphasize the interaction amongst those numerous ranges of influence, a few proximal to, others greater remote from, the child. Figure 1.1 suggests a schematic ver- sion of a version of this type, highlighting simply a number of the broad  variety of contextual elements recognised to hold implications for kids’s emotional and behavioural improvement.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND PARENTING

Family relationships are complex: every dyadic rela- tionship is tormented by different relationships withinside the own circle of relatives system, and kids each influence and are influenced with the aid of using the ones round them [2]. Even very younger babies have an effect on the character of interactions with caregivers, and versions in kids’s tempera- intellectual patterns keep to rouse differing responses from carers. In component, versions of this type reflect kids’s inherited characteristics; indeed, many factors of own circle of relatives relationships and functioning as soon as idea to be purely ‘environmental’ in ori- gin at the moment are recognised to reflect factors of ‘nature’

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as nicely as ‘nurture’ [3]. Children play an lively component in shaping the environments they experience; their genetic makeup additionally influences person dif- ferences in sensitivity to environmental influences, contributing to each resilience and vulnerability to stress [4].

Families are biologically and culturally developed to sell kids’s improvement [5]. Some of the earliest steps in the ones processes – prenatal and postnatal influences on neurobiological law, and early attachment relationships – are mentioned in element in different chapters. But own circle of relatives relation- ships and parenting display ongoing hyperlinks with the improvement of kids’s behavioural control, and with the law in their attentional, arousal and emotional structures at some stage in childhood. In addition, dad and mom make contributions to kids’s cogni- tive improvement; socialize them into culturally suitable styles of behaviour; sell their know-how of ethical values and the develop- ment in their talents; and choose and stable their get right of entry to to key sources past the own circle of relatives system. Successful parenting includes severa competencies and capacities, various with the age of the child, with culture, and with social context. Underlying this diversity, maximum fashions of parenting spotlight  significant dimensions, one associated with parental involvement and responsiveness (encompassing warmth, availability, advantageous engagement and sup- port), the second one centring on ‘demandingness’ or behavioural control, and incorporating moni- toring, expectancies and behavior management. Combinations of those dimensions were used to represent 4 fashionable varieties of parenting [6]:

Figure 1.1 Ecological model of inftuences on development.

Indulgent (responsive however now no longer disturbing): mother and father are non-conventional and lenient, permit sizeable self-regulation, and keep away from confron- tation.

Authoritarian (disturbing however now no longer responsive): mother and father are obedience- and status-oriented, and assume orders to be obeyed with out explanation. Authoritative (each disturbing and respon- sive): mother and father are assertive, however now no longer intrusive or restrictive. Disciplinary strategies are supportive alternatively than  punitive.  Children  are  anticipated to be assertive in addition to socially responsible, self-regulated in addition to cooperative.

Uninvolved (each unresponsive and undemand- ing): maximum parenting of  this  kind  falls  withinside the ordinary range,  however in  extreme  cases  it would embody each rejecting– neglecting and neglectful parenting.

Comparisons throughout those patterns continuously spotlight authoritative parenting as maximum strongly related to tremendous baby results in a variety of domains: self-discipline, emotional self-control, tremendous peer relationships and faculty overall performance.

When kids are below pressure, own circle of relatives lifestyles also can offer compensatory studies. Cohesion and heat withinside the own circle of relatives, the presence of a very good courting with one discern, near sibling relationships, and powerful parental tracking are all acknowledged to symbolize protecting influences of

this type. Finally, while parenting is compromised, dangers of emotional and behavioural difficulties increase. The implications of excessive issues in parenting, related to abuse or neglect, are mentioned somewhere else on this volume, as are own circle of relatives-primarily based totally dangers for specific early life issues. At a greater widespread level, dangers of this type seem to reflect issues in 4 extensive components of own circle of relatives relationships and parenting:

Discordant/dysfunctional relationships among mother and father, or withinside the own circle of relatives machine as a whole.

Hostile or rejecting discern– baby relationships, or the ones markedly missing in warmth.

• Harsh or inconsistent discipline.

• Ineffective tracking and supervision.

Many own circle of relatives-primarily based totally interventions and parenting programmes are designed to goal difficulties of those kinds.

PARENT AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS

Some discern and own circle of relatives traits additionally display systematic hyperlinks with kids’s danger of emotional and behavioural issues. Parents’ personal intellectual fitness is the various maximum critical of those. In component, those institutions may also reflect heritable influ- ences; in component, they appear probable to comply with from the results of mother and father’ intellectual fitness issues on mar- ital relationships and parenting. Depressed moth- ers, for example, are acknowledged to be much less sensitive

and attentive to their babies, and attend much less, and reply greater negatively, to older kids [7]. Alcohol and drug  abuse  and  fundamental  men- tal issues in  mother and father  may also  impair  parenting in greater wide-ranging methods; while mother and father are delinquent, results will also be mediated thru the endorsement of delinquent attitudes and social learning.

Childhood behavior issues are greater not unusualplace the various kids of very younger moms [8], frequently reflecting related instructional and social dangers and absence of social helps. The specific contributions of fathers’ parenting, father absence and relationships with non-resident par- ents are attracting growing interest in research [9]. Large own circle of relatives length can be related to improved danger for delinquency, however has few hyperlinks with different components of kids’s adjustment. Only kids aren't generally at any improved psychi- atric danger, and proportion with different first-borns a few small benefits in cognitive improvement. Birth order additionally seems to have few implications for behavioural adjustment, despite the fact that youngest chil- dren display a few improved costs of faculty refusal.

CHANGING FAMILY PATTERNS

Recent a long time have visible fundamental modifications in pat- terns of own circle of relatives formation and balance in lots of Western societies [10]. Families are fashioned later, and are smaller, than withinside the past; fewer mother and father marry, and greater divorce; and lots of greater girls now go back to paintings out of doors the house while their kids are younger. As a result, greater kids these days revel in out of domestic and different non- parental care in early early life, and lots of additionally face transitions of their own circle of relatives lives: parental sep- aration and divorce are frequently accompanied through intervals in single-discern households, and ultimately through the status quo of latest step households.

Single mother and father and step households

On average, kids in single-discern and step households display relatively better stages of emotional and behavioural difficulties than the ones in strong two-discern homes [11,12]. In widespread, however, those results are modest, and there may be a lot variant inside in addition to among own circle of relatives types; importantly,  institutions  among  the  first-rate of mother– baby relationships and kids’s adjustment are comparable throughout own circle of relatives settings.

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Single-discern and reconstituted households additionally frequently face monetary pressures, and  may also lack social and own circle of relatives helps; moms will also be below more pressure. Once those versions are taken under consideration, own circle of relatives kind according to se indicates few regular hyperlinks with kids’s adjustment.

Parental separation and divorce

When mother and father separate, maximum kids display a few short-time period behavioural or emotional difficulties; in widespread, those disturbances aren't excessive. School development and motivation  may also  additionally  be  affected, and  longer-time period  influences  have  been  detected on younger people’s personal styles of courting formation and balance later in lifestyles [13]. Research indicates that those responses aren't simply ‘one- off’ results of parental separation; many kids revel in parental discord earlier than their mother and father separate, and divorce itself is frequently accompanied through a cascade of different modifications. Problematic relation- ships among mother and father  may also  continue,  and  par- ents themselves are probable to be distressed. In addition, many households face marked declines in monetary circumstances, and for a few kids parental separation could be accompanied through residence moves, faculty modifications, and different disruptions to their social networks. Later results for kids can be impacted through every and any detail of this complicated community of change.

CHILDCARE AND SCHOOLING

By the past due Nineteen Nineties nearly 1/2 of of moms withinside the UK again to complete or component-time paintings earlier than their babies had been 1 yr old. As a result, grandpar- ents play an more and more more critical component in lots of younger kids’s lives [14], and there was fundamental hobby withinside the effect of non-maternal care on kids’s improvement [9]. Research indicates that a couple of functions of early childcare want to be taken under consideration in assessing its results. Higher first-rate childcare (including, e.g., versions in sen- sitive and responsive caregiving, and cognitive and language stimulation) is related to benefits in cognitive and language domains, with higher early educational abilties, and greater prosocial behaviours and less adjustment difficulties. Especially withinside the first yr of lifestyles, a better amount of childcare (in phrases of hours according to week in any form of non- maternal care), is related to a few improved dangers of behaviour issues and disobedience. As

in own circle of relatives settings, person kids’s sensitivity to non-maternal care will range; indeed, for a few at-danger younger kids, out-of-domestic care has been proven to have tremendous results on behavioural improvement.

School lifestyles gives similarly opportunities, needs and challenges. Starting and converting colleges are significant occasions for all kids. Although maximum adapt well, a significant minority of younger kids display a few difficulties after they begin faculty, and lots of younger young people display short-time period declines in each their educational overall performance and their vanity after they switch from number one to secondary faculty. Tests and examinations figure excessive on kids’s lists of fears, and fundamental examinations are frequently related to a few will increase in mental distress. Bullying – a hassle mainly related  with the faculty context – is attracting growing atten- tion as a danger aspect for kids’s intellectual fitness [15]. Surveys advise that pretty big proportions of kids revel in occasional bullying at faculty, and that smaller agencies are constantly victimized. Although such kids may also have proven disturbing and insecure behaviours earlier than they began out faculty, there may be now clean proof that bullying has unbiased results on dangers of later adjustment issues.

Like households, colleges range of their social and organizational ‘climates’ in methods which have modest however unbiased results on kids’s educational development and behavior [16]. In component, those versions reflect versions withinside the heritage traits of the kids every faculty admits; in component, they appear resulting from variations in organizational traits and the tenor of everyday faculty lifestyles. Schools with greater tremendous baby results have continuously been determined to be characterised through useful leadership, con- structive lecture room management, the ideal educational emphasis, and regular however now no longer over- excessive sanctions. For behavioural results, the composition of scholar groupings will also be impor- tant. Young kids are much more likely to emerge as competitive if they're located in training with different very competitive kids, and dangers of delinquency can be improved in secondary colleges with big proportions of low achievers. By the equal token, faculty- and lecture room-primarily based totally interventions can show extraordinarily powerful in behaviour management, and for a few seriously deprived kids

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education may be an critical supply of tremendous studies and support. In addition, experi- intellectual research of preschool programmes have documented critical long-time period profits in phrases of decreased dangers of delinquency and unemployment a few years after members left faculty.

WIDER SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

Poverty and social drawback

Poverty and social drawback are continuously related to versions in kids’s fitness, cognitive abilties and  educational  achievements, and – aleven though relatively greater modestly – with their social and emotional improvement [17]. Disruptive behaviours particularly display hyperlinks with continual own circle of relatives poverty, with results which can be greater  marked for boys than for girls, and are more potent in early life than in adolescence. Research indicates that those institutions reflect factors of each social choice and causal influ- ences. Especially in households of younger kids, results are probable to be oblique, working thru approaches wherein poverty imposes stresses on mother and father, and those in flip effect on own circle of relatives relationships and parenting [18]. In greater affluent societies, relative deprivation – the notion of drawback through contrast with others – might also make a contribution to parental pressure.

Neighbourhood and network contexts Rates of behavioural difficulties (and different mark- ers of baby fitness status) additionally range with neigh- bourhood context [19]; hassle stages can be mainly excessive in chronically deprived inner- metropolis areas, and the project of parenting may also  be greater hard while neighbourhood helps are bad. Once again, a lot of those results appear probable to be oblique in early early life, working thru improved pressure on households. But in seriously deprived settings even pretty younger kids can be without delay uncovered to network violence, and later in improvement neighbourhood influ- ences can be mediated thru institutions with antisocial peers.

Multiple stressors

For many kids, publicity to those and different adversities will covary: kids in burdened households

might also stay in bad neighbourhoods, attend poorly resourced colleges, and be uncovered to deviant peers. Research indicates that  dangers  on the baby, parenting, peer and sociocultural stages every upload uniquely to the prediction of emotional and behavior issues. The overall quantity of dangers explains similarly variance in results, and proof is starting to build up that differing configurations of danger are related to specific emotional and behavioural difficulties [20]. Expo- positive to poverty, for example, may also range in its effect relying on parental traits and the first-rate of own circle of relatives relationships; complete tests of own circle of relatives and systemic influences require that every of those stages of influence, and the interaction among them, be taken under consideration.

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Sibling Influences

WHAT’S NEW

Sibling relationships are characterised through robust emotions: fine, poor and ambivalent. Coupled with the intimacy in their relationships (siblings realize every different thoroughly from early infancy onwards) this emotional depth method the capability for developmental inftuence is large.

Longitudinal studies has documented connections among pleasant early sibling relationships and youngsters’s later social know-how, prosocial behaviour and adaptive functioning. Evidence for continuities in best of sibling relationships is accumulating.

Conftict among siblings is now appeared as a normative function of sibling relationships. The effect of dad and mom on sibling conftict is presently below scrutiny, even as sibling bullying at domestic has been proven to narrate to the revel in of being bullied at school. A heat sibling dating has a defensive impact on youngsters developing up in households with a excessive degree of marital conftict, or confronted with poor existence events.

Siblings developing up withinside the equal own circle of relatives fluctuate extensively in adjustment, in persona and

well-being; that is a primary assignment to know-how own circle of relatives inftuence. Processes implicated encompass differential parental treatment, and different ‘non-shared’ reviews inside and out of doors the own circle of relatives.

Children’s views on their sibling relationships are an increasing number of diagnosed as important, and may be reliably studied.

Interventions have centered on lowering sibling conftict; a brand new path is to sell the fine capabilities of sibling relationships.

The remarkable majority people develop up with siblings, and the sibling dating is the longest-lasting we're in all likelihood to experience. How essential are siblings as an influence at the manner we increase? Clinicians and own circle of relatives therapists have lengthy argued that siblings play an essential and influential component in kids’s development, however till the closing  decades, systematic studies on sibling influence

changed into quite sparse. What has current studies advised us approximately the elements that have an effect on the approaches wherein siblings relate to at least one another? Is there con- tinuity through the years withinside the friendliness or hostility among siblings? What is the proof for sibling influence on adjustment and properly-being, on social and emotional understanding, and on kids’s different relationships?

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS

From infancy to adolescence, relationships among siblings are emotionally powerful [1]. Observational research record that for a few siblings, the bulk of interactions among siblings are intensely terrible, for others tremendous feelings are regularly expressed, for others the emotional first-class is ambivalent. Continuities withinside the emo- tional first-class of the connection are obtrusive from preschool years thru center early life [2].

Why do siblings vary of their relationships with one another? Research withinside the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties centered chiefly on beginning order, gender and age hole as reassets of person variations. For younger chil- dren the proof at the significance of age hole and gender for sibling family members is inconsistent; in center early life gender variations end up extra apparent, with boys reporting much less warm temperature and inti- macy with their siblings. Links among kids’s temperamental traits and their relation- ships with their siblings were stated, however findings are inconsistent throughout research [3]. Recent studies on siblings has now broadened to encompass the first-class of near relationships inside and out of doors the own circle of relatives as reassets of person variations [4], and the proof for sibling influence on kids’s sociocognitive development.

SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS AND PARENT — CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

Positive relationships with dad and mom are related to friendly, being concerned relationships among siblings, even as terrible relationships  among  dad and mom and kids are related to sibling hostility. Children who've stable attachment relation- ships with their dad and mom are stated to have tremendous family members with their siblings [5]. But causal conclusions can't be drawn from those associations: even as such hyperlinks are frequently interpreted as proof for parental influence, it may properly be that kids’s temperamental traits make contributions to difficulties in relationships with each sibling and parent. While a sunny, easy-going baby’s temperament might also additionally make contributions to tremendous rela- tionships with each dad and mom and siblings, steady quarrelling among siblings might also additionally make contributions to difficult parent– baby relationships, and certainly to difficulties withinside the family members among dad and mom.

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In comparison to this proof for hostility throughout own circle of relatives relationships, a few research record that sup- portive sibling family members can increase in households wherein parent– baby family members are remote or uninter- ested [6]. These ‘compensatory’ styles of own circle of relatives relationships can be extra not unusualplace in households going through strain and social adversity. Siblings also can be reassets of guide for kids developing up in houses with marital conflict, and longitudinal studies indicates that kids have fewer adjust- ment troubles following terrible existence occasions in the event that they have a very good heat dating with a sibling (Figure 2.1) [7].

A in addition point  approximately  the  complex  styles of hyperlinks among relationships withinside the own circle of relatives worries the  consistent  proof that in  households wherein there are differential family members among dad and mom and their numerous kids – wherein extra affection and attention, or extra  negativity  or harsh field is proven toward one sibling than to another – there may be extra hostility and conflict among the siblings [8]. These hyperlinks are par- ticularly clean in households which are beneathneath strain. Causal inferences can't be made, however, if the research are cross-sectional. Recent proof has proven that kids’s interpretation of differential parental behaviour is essential [9]. When chil- dren interpret their dad and mom’ differential behaviour as proof that they're much less worth of parental love than their siblings, the sibling dating is specifically in all likelihood to be compromised [10]. These findings remind us how essential it's far to apprehend the context of a couple of own circle of relatives relationships inside which siblings develop up. From the second one 12 months on, kids display the interactions among their dad and mom and siblings with vigilance [11].

The proof that influential reports inside

the own circle of relatives vary markedly among siblings has proven us that it  is  sibling-specific  reports that want to be studied [4]. Innovative analytic strategies were evolved to evaluate and dis- tinguish among those ‘baby-specific’ and ‘own circle of relatives- wide’ influences [12].

SIBLINGS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING

A hanging function of sibling relationships is their intimacy. Siblings recognize every different very properly. When younger they spend extra time interacting with their siblings than with their dad and mom or friends, and

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Low life events

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High life events

Stressful life events

Figure 2.1 Internalizing symptomatology at second time point as a function of stressful life events and sibling affection at first time point. Reproduced from Gass et al. [7], with permission.

from very early in childhood know how to upset, tease and irritate their siblings as well as how to comfort and amuse each other. Sibling studies has given us an critical new angle on a key factor of cognitive development – youngsters’s discovery of the mind. The boom of youngsters’s know-how of feelings, mind and beliefs, and the hyperlinks among those internal states and human beings’s behaviour is a center characteristic of early cognitive development, and one wherein sibling members of the family can play an critical part. Children with siblings start to reveal powers of awaiting others’ intentions, sharing an innovative world [1], and that they interact in speak approximately why human beings behave the manner they do.  Individual variations in reports of conversations with a sibling approximately emotions and internal states, and cooperation in shared fake play, are related to variations in youngsters’s growing adulthood in social under- standing. While the problem of route of influence stays a difficult one, the take a look at of siblings has highlighted the important thing social procedures withinside the family (e.g. sharing cooperative fake play, and dealing with conflict) for those center tendencies in social know-how. The key difference isn't always among most effective youngsters and people with siblings, however alternatively the person variations withinside the great of the connection among the siblings. It is a warm, affectionate sibling courting this is related to the boom of social know-how.

SIBLING INFLUENCES ON ADJUSTMENT

Evidence for links amongst kids’s relation- ships with their siblings and their aggressive oppositional behaviour, and moreover their internaliz- ing (worrying, anxious and depressive behaviour) has accumulated [1,13,14]. The influence is every from older to extra younger siblings and vice versa. Low levels of prosocial behaviour (caring, empathetic and helpful, supportive behaviour) are associated with hostility amongst siblings and the develop- ment of conduct problems [14]. These patterns are independent of the contribution of terrible parent– little one relationships, and are evidence for direct consequences of sibling conflict and negativity on kids. Indirect consequences of siblings on adjustment have moreover been found, as an example withinside the impact of differential parent– little one individuals of the own circle of relatives on kids’s adjustment problems [15].

The evidence from research on the very begin- nings of the sibling relationship – the impact of the begin of a sibling on kids’s well-being – is also smooth. Increases in problems of aggression, dependency, anxiety and withdrawal had been mentioned for first-born kids following the begin of a sibling [1].

SIBLINGS AND PEERS

Research that  includes  kids’s  perceptions of their relationships with siblings, buddies and

mothers, and links with their adjustment paints a complex picture. This can be illustrated thru Stocker’s test of the self-critiques of 7– 8-year-olds on their relationships [16]. First, warmth in individuals of the own circle of relatives with each companion changed into associated with fewer feelings of loneliness in peer contexts and better behavioural conduct. Warmth in sibling relationships and in friendships changed into associated with a experience of self-worth, and  in  friendship changed into associated with a whole lot much less depressive mood. There changed into evidence for some correlations all through the different relationships, but the ones correlations have been now not high. Compensatory tactics have been found, as an example, in kids’s sibling relationships and friendships in phrases of behavioural adjustment. High levels of warmth in friendships compensated for low levels of warmth in sibling individuals of the own circle of relatives (and vice versa) in phrases of adjustment consequences. Finally, kids who perceived  low  levels  of  warmth in their relationships with every mother and sib had significantly worse consequences on loneliness, self-worth and behavioural conduct.

Bullying victimization thru siblings at home has been mentioned, and associated with bullying at school and to adjustment problems [17]. In a test of 12– 15-year-olds in Israel, 16.2% have been bullied at home thru siblings, and further than half of of these have been moreover involved in bullying incidents at school. Ethnic (Jewish vs Arab) and sex versions have been small in comparison to the consequences of the sibling relationship on behaviour problems. The findings advocate that intervention programmes focused at kids’s close to friendships and sibling relationships may be important in improving kids’s well-being.

INTERVENTION PROGRAMMES AND SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS

The not unusualplace conflicts amongst siblings, the evi- dence for sibling bullying and for links amongst sib- ling disputes and kids’s aggressive behaviour has delivered approximately an emphasis on reducing sibling conflict because the vital element mechanism for reinforcing the connection [18], for example thru schooling parents [19]. The short-term consequences of parental mediation (encouraging reasoning, speak of emotions, and taking the perspective of the alternative little one) have been studied with 5– 8-year-olds in Canada. Children responded because it have to be to the mediation, and the programme empowered kids to resolve conflict issues. These programmes do purpose reduced

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conflict, but fail to increase the best factors of the connection. In contrast, Kramer has set out a useful evaluation of the best factors of the relation- ship, and devised a programme for intervention with siblings and parents, ‘Fun with Sisters and Brothers’, based totally completely on the capabilities highlighted withinside the evaluation [20]. These capabilities include:

play; conversation;

mutual enjoyment; valuing help and support;

appreciating sibs’ precise records of each other;

getting to know to apprehend sibs’ views and pastimes similarly to one’s own;

handling emotions in tough situations; getting to know to check faulty damaging attributions; refraining from wild behaviour or bossiness; conflict management; and

for parents, discussing the impact of parental differential treatment.

The contribution of the programme to siblings’ relationships is awaited with notable interest.

It should be referred to that most studies of siblings had been finished with middle-class, urban, two-little one, Caucasian families in North America or Britain; little is idea about minority ethnic or linguistic groups. There are smooth and important opportunities for research, using longitudinal stud- ies, to fill some of the gaps in what we apprehend about this interesting, intense and life-prolonged relationship amongst siblings.

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Culture and Child Development

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INTRODUCTION

With increasing contact between cultural and eth- nic groups the concepts of childhood and the child itself have become sites for intensive study. Anthropologists, historians and cultural child psy- chologists have attempted to study children’s lives and conceptions about childhood in different cul- tural contexts. Wide differences exist across cul- tures [1]. For professionals working in pluricultural contexts a pertinent question is: how are ethnic differences accounted for in prevailing concepts of parenting and childhood behaviours, both ‘normal’ and ‘variant’? These complexities are amplified by the continually changing social and political con- texts in which children grow up, and highlight the very social and historical framing of construc- tions of childhood. Ethnic variations in parenting may express adaptations to different conditions for child development necessitated by divergent eco- logical, social and cultural priorities, rather than inherent, static ‘ethnic differences’.

DEVELOPMENTAL NICHE AND ECOCULTURAL PATHWAYS

The concept of a developmental niche was introduced as a framework for studying the production of health and development of the child via the interaction between the physical and social settings of the child’s everyday life, culturally determined customs of childcare and parental theories about children [2]. The components of the niche form the larger strategy for childcare and the

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daily routines for the child. The everyday routines embody the core goals and fashion cultural developmental pathways for children in specific ecocultural contexts [3]. LeVine [4] demonstrates how in parts of the world where child survival is precarious, close physical proximity with the baby is maintained by carrying, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, immediate response to crying, and substitute care by siblings when the mother is working. The pursuit of learning is postponed until survival is assured. The increased physical contact and stimulation promotes growth, and develop- ment of attentional processes and neuromuscular competence [5]. By contrast, in technologically advanced North America, where child survival is of less concern, but preparation for competency in future occupational roles graded by  mastery of literacy-based skills is important, mothers emphasize the attainment of language skills and mastery of the object world through communica- tive interaction and naming of objects from an early age, rather than close physical proximity.

The models are also useful in understanding changes in parenting styles related to alterations in the ecocultural context.

CHILDHOOD AND PARENTING ACROSS CULTURES

As most accounts of children’s development and needs are framed within writings from North America and Europe, the normative description of childhood is often based on children growing up within the Northern cultures, and even within this

differences across class and socioeconomic strata are subsumed. Culture is often consigned to the role of an ‘add on’ variable to assumed normative standards applied universally. However, recent cultural studies of children have questioned assumptions about ‘cultural universals’, and have highlighted the centrality of culture in shaping human behaviours, crucially here of parents and children. How integral is culture to concepts regarding childhood,  child  development  and the goals that frame parental strategies for bringing up children? Although children achieve developmental maturity along broadly similar species-specific lines, and the goal of  parenting is similar across cultures, namely for children to become competent adults in one’s own cultural, moral and economic world, there are wide differ- ences in what constitute the desired competencies and  the  means  for  achieving  them.  Shweder

[6] makes the point that any aspect of human

nature that we endeavour to understand must have a central essence, but that essence consists of a heterogeneous collection of structures and inclinations substantiated by the historical experi- ences of different cultural communities, resulting in ‘One mind, many mentalities: universalism without uniformity’. This is different from culture being perceived as variations from a normative standard. For children, James [7] eloquently posed the question: ‘One childhood or many?’ These issues are further explored via examples commonly encountered in cross-cultural work.

INFANCY

Developmental stages

The very notion of stages of childhood is cul- turally constructed. Developmental psychologists mark the end of infancy with the beginning of ‘toddlerhood’ normatively defined at age 2 years and marked by language and motor competency. However, this is not a biological fact, but a cul- tural convention based on the assumption that life stages should be delineated by absolute points in time. It is different from norms in cultures where the crucial reference point is the acquisition of moral sense [8]. Puritans of New England began strict discipline at age 1 year, when they believed infancy ended and the Devil begins to exert con- trol. The ethnographic record shows that in most parts of the world active teaching begins at least

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after 5 years, as it is believed that before this children are too immature or lacking in ‘sense’ to be taught important lessons [1]. The Baganda of Uganda typically train their infants to sit indepen- dently as early as 4 months as sitting up and smiling is an asset amongst the Baganda, who value highly face-to-face contact [8].

Attachment

Cross-cultural research on attachment behaviour has thrown up challenging questions regarding how deviation from  supposed  universal norms is  to  be  understood  at  a  population  level. The Bowlby– Ainsworth model of attachment describes a universal model of attachment behaviour predicated on the primary carer’s sensitivity to the infant’s signals. Ainsworth’s work in different parts of the world testifies to the universality of attachment behaviour in infants, with group B attachment behaviour being modal in most cultures [9]. However, the model does not allow for variations other than as suboptimal or pathological. A review of the literature on attach- ment taking into account population variations, raises the question whether there is a multiplicity of optimum patterns for humans [10] reflecting different meanings attributed to optimal patterns of attachment behaviour in different sociocultural groups [9]. For example, a study of attachment

[11]  in  Bielefeld  (Germany),  showed  49%  of

the infants to have anxious-avoidant attachment behaviour, which related to a highly valued cultural emphasis on obedience and self-reliance, the training for which began in infancy. It was an accepted practice to leave infants in bed alone for short periods, and mothers compared the extent to