One of the most natural but yet challenging things is becoming a parent for the first time. A parent is an individual with the task of guiding and raising up a person from childhood until the person becomes an adult. They are critical since they form the primary example for their children on how they should lead their lives and interact with the world. Good parenting can be interpreted as finding a balance in all the aspects of how a person should become a good parent. If good parenting exists then there must be bad parenting, which in most cases leads to children or individuals with mannerisms that are not accepted or illegal in society. A critical point to note is that parenting has changed over the last years.
Child Development Theories
Different theories of child development are available which can assist first-time parents on how they will raise their children. The strange situation experiment was created by Ainsworth. The analysis examined attachment and the consequences that arise from development, it looked at the actions and behaviors of children when separated from their parents and reunited (Faircloth, 2015). The experiment consisted of having mothers play with their children, leaving the room and finally returning a few minutes later. Ainsworth and her team observed the reactions of the children when their mothers left and when they came back. After observations, the infants were separated into groups which included the securely and insecurely attached.
The children that were securely attached thought of their mothers as safe havens where they could explore the environment. The children were not very upset when their mothers left the playroom and when they returned they greeted them happily (Johnson, 2015). However, for the insecurely attached, they either disregarded the return of their mothers, cried a lot the whole time when their mothers were away or showed a combination of the behavior.
What Ainsworth wanted to highlight was that the behaviors of the children predicted the how they would adjust when they reach adulthood (Chae, 2018). The securely attached would become well balanced in their lives while the insecurely attached would have rockier paths in life.
Therefore for one to raise a secure child, they need to respond to all the emotions of the children, for the infants to learn that all emotions are viable in a relationship. Parents of insecure children do not respond to the feelings of the children, which leads them to hide their emotions. Parents should not respond to only negative emotions of their children since the infants think that the negative emotions assist them to gain attention from their parents. To raise secure children, parents should treat their infants as people who possess their own thoughts and feelings (Granqvist, 2016). The theory suggests that infants with a secure attachment can use it as a stable base from which they can explore their environments. Parents are required to make reasonable and strong relationships with their infants. The connections should not only be focused on physical needs but also psychological development. The adult and the infant social relationship need to fit well, which is referred to as meshing. Meshing is critical since it enables the infant to recognize the meaning of their behaviors and the response that it generates. New parents should, therefore, try to ensure that they raise securely attached children.
References
Chae, Y. M. (2018). How children remember the Strange Situation: The role of attachment. Journal of experimental child psychology 166 , 360-379.
Faircloth, C. a. (2015). Parenting: Kinship, expertise, and anxiety. Journal of Family Issues 36, no. 9, 1115-1129.
Granqvist, P. E. (2016). Prior participation in the strange situation and overstress jointly facilitate disorganized behaviours: Implications for theory, research and practice. Attachment " Human Development 18, no. 3, 235-249.
Johnson, S. A. (2015). Intimate mothering publics’: comparing face-to-face support groups and Internet use for women seeking information and advice in the transition to first-time motherhood. Culture, health " sexuality 17, no. 2, 237-251.
