Children in Society Essay

As children grow up, they are influenced more and more by the sphere outside their homes, and by their friends, parent’s friends, teachers, and people they meet and interact with in the outside world. Hence this essay shall be focussing onhow family influences children and young people, and the effect of parental and family influences on the personality development of children and young people. Furthermore, current social and equal opportunity issues which may influence the development of children in a multi-cultural society in Great Britain will be explored. The roles and responsibilities of Social Services, Health Care Trust, Private Sector, and Child Care Agencies as multi-disciplinary and interagency working together will be analysed. Lastly, this essay will reflect on my personal experiences in my work placement, in relation to diversity; and confidentiality will be maintained all through the learning outcomes. ‘Family’ can be defined differently as there is no typical family model across society (Lamanna et al, 2006). However, United Nations (1948) stated that ‘the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state’. As family patterns change over time, Crawford (1999) asserted thatsociety’s definition of ‘family’ is rapidly expanding and has come to include single parents, biracial couples, blended families, unrelated individuals living cooperatively, and homosexual couples, and so forth. For instance, the Nuer ‘ghost’ marriage in Sudan is different from what is considered as typical family setting in the west as described by Maybin and Woodhead, whichstated that a dead husband continued to be the father of the children born to other lovers by the widow (Maybin and Woodhead 2007). This form of family emphasizes the social connection between children and parent rather than biological ones.McDaniel et al (2005) has a different view about what a family is‘We define family as any group of people related biologically, emotionally, or legally’.From a West African cultural point of view, a family consists of the father, mother, children and extended relatives, which are referred to as the nuclear family (Widmer and Jallinoja 2008). People who live together in the village setting may not have a biological connectionor emotional links but are regarded as a family, as long as they co-exist in the same geographical location. From all these view points, children and young people’s lives are modelled, influenced and dependent upon which family structure they find themselves. Maybin and Woodhead (2007) argued that there is no such thing as a‘universal’ family, just as there is no such thing as an ideal family. According to Piaget as cited by Shaffer and Kipp (2010)children and young people learn from their parents, and they are influenced by family structure and culture, including their genetic makeup, which influences their personality. For instance,introverted, outgoing, clever, sporty, or anxiety might be a copied trait from parents (Sue, 2006). Stark and Buzawa (2009) stated that the family is a child’s first role model: not only do they set examples for children and guide them in how to make good choices, sometimes they end up sending the wrong signals to children and young people. For instance, checking the records of a child from a lone parent who was showing antisocial behaviour at work placement, suggested that the reason why the child has been violent towards other children in the Nursery was because he had witnessed a violent relationship between his parents. Conversely,Chief Judge Judith Kaye as cited by Wilson (2005) argued that â€Å"Exposing a child to domestic violence is not presumptively neglectful†. Not every child exposed to domestic violence is at risk of being violent in many instances.Yet this is an influence that may influence children and young people(Wilson (2005). However, Munger (2008) stated that a lot of researchers have suggested that parents don’t actually have much influence on their children’s behaviour. Munger (2008)further stated that some studies have suggested that mothers have an unbalanced influence on children, and that an authoritative parenting style leads to the best results. The effects of family stru cture on children may be dependent on the gender of the child as described by Hastings (2005) which stated that girls tend to be more helpful, sympathetic, and passionate, while boys are more friendly, engaged, and assertive without being aggressive. All these behaviours are natural traits found in children irrespective of their background (Hastings 2005). Nevertheless, from my work experience, children from violent homes have exhibited some form of aggression towards their peers irrespective of gender. Hence Hastings (2005) opinion on narrowing children behavioural influence to gender may be arguable, in that boys from my work placement experience display more antisocial behaviour than girls. The impact of social influences and diversity can have a huge effect on children and young people, especially those living in social housing, being in a lone parent family and those from the ethnic minority group (Shaw, 2010). For some children, the risk of poverty is a greater influence as a result of their circumstances. Maybin and Woodhead, (2007) asserted that the greatest risk of poverty is for those children and young people who live in a family where no one is in work. For instance, placement observations suggested that children from affluent background tend to attend the best schools than those that are not; hence aspirations from that parent are higher, which in turn affects school performance. Furthermore, indirect discrimination from top academic institutions such as Oxford University is a typical example of social exclusion at the entry stage (Stewart et al,2005).The impact is that choices are limited, which may well affect future job opportunities(Tomlinson, 2009). Within large families, the rate of joblessness in large families is higher than for parents in smaller families. This is largely due to a lack of affordable childcare (Lupton and Tunstall, 2008). As a result of this, children may be excluded from early education where by affecting their life choices. For instance, work records suggested that large families can often struggle to meet the costs of school uniform and equipment, and are also at particular at risk of going into debt. Work records also suggested that young people aged over 16 who do not get family support are much more likely to be poor and as adults to remain dependent on benefits or low paid work. Wilson(2011) stated thatyoung people receive less stable benefit and have a lower minimum wage than older adults, and young people, who receive less income support, are ineligible for tax credits, and are restricted to a lower level of housing benefit making them vulnerable to poverty as young adults (Lupton and Tunstall, 2008). There is a shortage of affordable housing due to high rents in the private sector and a lack of investment in maintaining a good standard of social housing (Shaw, 2004). For instance, children’s information in my work placement suggested that, children who live in bad housing are more likely to suffer from poor health and to suffer from disability or long term illness (Shaw, 2004).Additionally, Power et al, (2011) identified that Social Worker had warned the government on the re-housing of paedophiles in East London estates. The effect of this is that, parents tend not to allow their children to play outside, which could affect peer interaction and create further damage to community cohesion. Statistics in Britain show that children living in poor housing often have poor educational attainment (Hills et al, 2009). They are more likely to have been excluded from school and to leave school with no GCSEs. For instance, Placement data shows that children from poor housing estates, who visit our setting regularly, are often without GCSEs. However, my work settings has adopted a ‘mentoring’ strategy to motivate young people in this category to believe in themselves, and monitoring of this approach has helped a number of young people to resume attending school. The safety and welfare of children is the responsibility of the local authority, working in partnership with other public organisations, the voluntary sector, and service users and carers (Department of Health, 2006). All local authority ser vices have an impact on the lives of children and families, and local authorities have a particular responsibility towards those children and families most at risk of social exclusion. For instance, Greenwich Local Labour and Business (GLLaB) in collaboration with my work placement, liaise to support young unemployed young residents with voluntary work placements to help them gain practical work experience, qualification and training in a range of settings. These local authorities also have responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who are excluded from school, or who have not obtained a school place, for example children in Pupil Referral Units or being educated by the authority’s home tutor service.As a result of (GLLaB) participation in helping young people, a lot of young people from the Greenwich Borough have been employed at the Olympic site inStrafford(Brown, 2006). However, Greenwich Local Labour and Business (GLLaB, 2011) In addition to advice, helps lone parents to access childcare, give information about benefits and tax credits and render support with job searches, CVs and interview techniques to promote opportunity in the borough. Where possible, they also organise paid work experience placements, including a range of training opportunities. Yet, some lone parents often feel isolated and lack confidence. Placement experience shows that they may also experience poor physical and mental health issues and be socially excluded. More needs to be done to help lone parents to overcome the psychological barriers that prevent them from getting back into work. According to Power et al, (2011) the school play active part in bringing families and children from different ethnic and cultural back-ground together, including helping children from disadvantaged background to learn. Power et al (2011) also mentioned that parents of children with special educational needs were positive about how their children’s need has been responded to by the schools, including autism, dyslexia and behaviour issues. For instance, my work placement wasable to support and help a young autistic child from the ethnic minority group who was going through exclusion because there was no trained Special Education Need Coordinator (SENCO) in the nursery.M embers of staff were not able to provide proper care for the child as he was stereotyped as aggressive, and was not interacting with other children. In order to help the child, the nursery had to train a staff member in the area of special need; this approach eventually supported the child andincluded the involvement of other professionals like the Speech and Language Therapist. The child now communicates better than before and is gradually coming out of language delay. Class room experience on this course has demonstrated student integration, as we have a diverse student, ranging from black, white and Asians. Class tutors have been able to peer us together during class work and assignments and different ideas from the group have increased my awareness of how diversity can harness experiences from different back grounds and culture which helps to stimulate learning. According to Halpern (2005) which stated that language difficulties from children and young people that do not have English as their first language could be frustrating from the teacher-learner point of view. I have encountered a situation in the work placement where child â€Å"B†(as he will be addressed in this analysis for data protection reason) was not able to communicate because he is from Africa, he did not play and interact with other children as everything he saw in the nursery seemed strange to him. As a result of his situation, he was losing out of daily task and activities, which in turn affected his mental, spiritual and physical development. To support the child, the nursery had to include a one-on-one teaching in to his care plan, and adopted the visual form of teaching by using pictorial reinforcement to support his learning. Child â€Å"B† is now able to communicate because teachers and care givers did not discriminate and neglect him. The child’s parents also benefited from the nursery’s’ holistic approach to supporting them to enrol for (Esol) so that they can learn and carry on speaking in English to the child at home, although they w ere not discouraged from speaking their original language. The Community Cohesion Programme is an activity my work placement organizes on annual basis to create an awareness of our diverse community, in order to encourage integration, respect and to showour diverse community. Before the event, young people were asked to make a drawing of their country flags andmake a list of food and clothing. During the programme, young people were encouraged to dress in their own native attires, and it also includedperforming cultural dances, and a display of their native foods. Consequent to this, work place records have suggested a reduction of post-code, gang related problems, as young people living in that part of south East London are nowfriendlier. This is in support of the government initiatives in building the ‘big society’ that could accommodate all, irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender and creed (Cabinet office, 2010). In conclusion, this essay has addressed parental and family influences on the personality development of children and young people. Current social and equal opportunity issues, which may influence the development of children in a multi-cultural society in Great Britain has been addressed. The roles and responsibilities of Social Services, Health Care Trust, and Private Sector, Child Care Agencies as multi-disciplinary and interagency working together has been analysed. Reflection upon personal learning in work placement in terms of promoting diversity and equality has been examined. I have also disagreed with some theories that asserted that sex gender did not have an impact in influencing the attitudes of children and young people. Therefore, organisations, schools and institutions should do more in promoting equality and diversity in order to enjoy the benefit of shared ideas, experiences and foster community cohesion in our modern day Britain. As a professional, stereotyping children and young people based on their ethnicity, gender and culture will be discouraged by reinforcing and promoting equality, diversity and fairness at school among children, young people and colleagues. Reference List Ajegbo, K. 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