The environment that children grow in has deep impacts on the type of personality characteristics they develop. Social skills are acquired through our many interactions in life, especially the ones in the early stages. Social and emotional development in children is mainly influenced by the Parents as models. Children see how their parents act, display emotion, and interact with other people, and imitate that. This paper will discuss how family factors influence personality and social development in children.
The nature vs nurture complex has been a recurring dilemma within psychology. This debate is concerned with which particular aspects of behavior are either inherited or acquired characteristics. Nature is referring to pre existing characteristics, mostly genetic and hereditary aspects. Nurture is the role external influences, and the environment have on behavior. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what is genetic and what is environmental when talking about children development, and that is because both nature and nurture play a part in it.
In the early stages of life, offspring are learning a lot from their parents. They’re basically having to figure how everything in this big wide world works, and also how they work within themselves. As parents guide their young children from complete infantile dependency to the autonomy of adulthood, their styles of parenting and caregiving deeply affect the child’s social functioning. Children look up to their parents as their role model, and tend to mimmic parental behavior and attitudes. This might be the reason why many children have similar personalities to their progenitors. While there isn’t necessarily a “shy gene” or “extrovert gene” for example, children with shy parents may present introvert behavior by assimilation from their parents behavior. Shy parents tend to raise children with fewer social interactions, by limiting social exposure parent can impact the child’s comfort level and portray other people as sources of stress, making them a bit more reserved themselves.
Emotions are recognized as both products and processes of social relationships. Regulating emotions is critical for promoting social and emotional health in children and adolescents. Emotion management is the ability to weather through certain emotions, while remaining effective, and not letting them consume you. Research suggests that an essential component of children’s successful development is leaning how to regulate emotional responses and socially appropriate behaviors linked to it. The article by Ruth, Otterpohl, and Wild (2017) explores the influence of social relationships in the development of ER (Emotion regulation) abilities.
In the article it is argued that family context impacts the development of ERs in three ways. Through observation, by observing how their parents react and deal with certain emotions. With parenting practices, that can involve emotional coaching and parenting on the subject. And the emotional climate of the family, this one is more subtle and indirect, and involves parenting style, structure of the family, attachment, and marital relationship.
Every family has its own inner dynamic, that is in a constant changing state as children grow up, siblings are added, and the family expands. Big families who tend to socialize on a regular basis offer children with many opportunities to practice their social skills, and typically have more outgoing and social children. Larger families also have a large support system, which can greatly enhance a child’s confidence and self esteem.
If there is a lot of conflict in the family, and children are drawn into many arguments and disagreements, they are much more likely to become withdrawn or have a personality that is conflict-driven as they grow older. If a family lacks structure within the household, children will be much more impulsive and present antisocial behavior.
Family structure plays a major role in children’s social development. The parenting style, and how the parents deal with their own emotions affects the child’s emotional development and control. It is still unsure whether certain personality traits are genetic/hereditary or not, but the environment (nurture) is responsible for either reinforcing those tendencies or suppressing them.