How parents’ behaviors affect the children’s maturity?

Family is our first agent of the socialization process. Not only we learn and construct our attitudes and moral values from them but we also behave like them. By learning from our role models, we reach maturity and develop appropriate manner. Yet, not all role models are good, some of them will lead to a development of maladaptive behavior or even immaturity which in fact, in the eyes of behaviorism, the maladaptive behaviors of individuals are acquired through learning processes (Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis, n.d.).

 

Parents’ influence on children’s behavior and development are acknowledged by the public, nevertheless, we are often unaware of how one simple act by parents can cause huge significance on children. As mentioned by Skinner (Sincero, n.d.), society has a function of shaping our behavior and personality traits. Our maladaptive responses and behaviors are learned (Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis, n.d.) when we are exposed to an unhealthy environment which potentially hindered our maturation process. While some parents may not be aware of it, but certain parenting behavior actually leads to the maintenance of children’s anxiety, especially for parents of children with anxiety disorder who are found to be over-protective, over-controlling and have a tendency to held negative beliefs and expectation on their children’s ability in coping stressful events (Tiwari, Podell, Martin, Mychailyszyn, Furr & Kendall, 2008). As noted by Tiwari and her colleagues (2008), the experiential avoidance that appears in children with anxiety disorder is actually an unwillingness to have contact with experiences that induce stress which is also as opposed to the concept of psychological acceptance — willingness to experience the event without defense or struggle. The intervention of parents not only allowed children to continue avoid stimuli that trigger their anxiety, leading to the persistent of the disorder, but also increase their reliance and dependence on others which they are unable to become autonomous. In this case, children are learned to avoid and maintain the maladaptive behaviors, leading to immaturity.

 

Mature individuals not only present mature behaviors but also corresponding attitudes. When encounter adversity, a mature person tend to face up to the situation and use the stress as a driving force to complete the task. In contrast, an immature person may avoid the situation, blame others and self for letting the situation happened and so on. Although we believe we are always conscious of the development of our own attitudes, in the perspective of classical conditioning, attitude can be conditioned without awareness which is supported by the experiment done by Olson and Fazio (2001). Parents and even the child himself may not notice that some dysfunctional attitudes are actually conditioned and imposed by others, one of the example would be racism. Ethnic minorities, Black and Asians often face discrimination and racism as they are linked to the image of “dangerous”, “dishonest” and “unwelcomed” by the society. For some parents, they might ask their child to run away, avoid these groups of people which create anxiety and hostility in children. When children are conditioned to be fear of, hostile towards people who are different from them, racist and immature attitudes like viewing oneself superior than others and desire to hurt “inferior” groups are therefore developed. On top of that, maladaptive attitudes and behaviors can also be learned by children through observing their parents’ behaviors. As noted by Slatcher and Trentacosta (2013), for mothers who are reported to have higher level of negative emotionality, they had children who involve in arguments with others more frequently as well as used more negative emotion words. On the other hand, fathers with higher levels of negative emotionality had children who cry more and relatively emotionally unstable, showing the negative significance of parents’ behavior on children.

 

Maladaptive behaviors in children might be able to be reduced by raising parents’ awareness of their influences on children. Unfortunately, for children who lack of parental care have no choice but continue be exposed to the unhealthy environment which lead to immaturity. Individuals who received lower parental care, higher parental behavioral restrictiveness and denial of psychological autonomy were found to be higher in neuroticism, lower in conscientiousness, less self-directive and more likely to involve in harm avoidance (Reti, Samuels, Eatson, Bienvenu III, Costa & Nestadt, 2002). An association of antisocial personality with low parental care and maternal overprotection was also found by Reti and his colleagues (2002). Some individuals who were raised by parents who were uninvolved and avoidant, later became develop avoidant personality and compare to others, they feel less obligated and less comfortable to provide support to close friends as they experienced rejection in childhood (Rholes, Simpson & Friedman, 2006). Similar maladaptive responses were found in children who had schizophrenic and depressed mother which lead to the absence of parental care (Goodman & Brumley, 1990).

 

All in all, in the eyes of behaviorists, the maladaptive response and behaviors that contributed to immaturity are developed because of the unhealthy environment that you are exposed to. Learned behaviors and responses may be difficult to overturn, yet it doesn’t mean there is no hope, as noted by Skinner (Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis, n.d.), the maladaptive response can be replaced with an adaptive one.

 

References

Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis. (2016, September 20). Boundless Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/treating-psychological-disorders-19/approaches-to-psychotherapy-98/behavior-therapy-and-applied-behavioral-analysis-373-12908/

Goodman, S. H., & Brumley, H. E. (1990). Schizophrenic and depressed mothers: Relational deficits in parenting. Developmental Psychology, 26(1), 31.

Olson, M. A., & Fazio, R. H. (2001). Implicit attitude formation through classical conditioning. Psychological Science, 12(5), 413-417.

Reti, I. M., Samuels, J. F., Eaton, W. W., Bienvenu Iii, O. J., Costa Jr, P. T., & Nestadt, G. (2002). Influences of parenting on normal personality traits. Psychiatry Research, 111(1), 55-64.

Rholes, W. S., Simpson, J. A., & Friedman, M. (2006). Avoidant attachment and the experience of parenting. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(3), 275-285.

Sincero, S. M. (2012, March 10). Behaviourist Theories of Personality – Skinner and Rotter. Retrieved from https://explorable.com/behaviourist-theories-of-personality

Slatcher, R. B., & Trentacosta, C. J. (2012). Influences of parent and child negative emotionality on young children’s everyday behaviors. Emotion, 12(5), 932.

Tiwari, S., Podell, J. C., Martin, E. D., Mychailyszyn, M. P., Furr, J. M., & Kendall, P. C. (2008). Experiential avoidance in the parenting of anxious youth: Theory, research, and future directions. Cognition and emotion, 22(3), 480-496.