What are your views about socialization?
These ‘positions’ are clearly recognizable
and different to each other, and have been widely held
by many parents in different historical periods and parts
of the globe. However, for many of us, we hold a mixture
of beliefs.
- Which of the above is closest to your own view?
- Or do you have another way of viewing socialization?
- Do you think that there is a ‘right’
way to be a parent?
- How do you view children? As little devils? Or little
angels?
Reflecting on your beliefs about child-rearing and
recognising that there are many different ways of being
a parent can help you to make more conscious decisions
about what sort of parent you want to be. It can also
help to become more aware of how your view your child’s
nature.
Perhaps a really significant feature of living in 21st
century is that parents now have a wide range of models
and views to draw on to construct their own ways of
being parents, rather than simply, passively, following
in their own parents’ footsteps.
Parents aren’t the only influences
An important part of socialization goes on between children
and their siblings and peers. It is common for children
to have their own ‘sub-cultures’ with their
own special words, ideas and ways of doing things, all
of which have to be learnt. Relationships with peers
and siblings are also an arena for working out ways
to deal with conflict, a different sort of setting to
parent-child conflict.
Children’s engagement with modern media also
offers them many models of different ways of being a
member of their culture, both youth culture and the
wider cultures of the nation. Children do indeed socialize
themselves, in part through identifying with particular
‘role models’. ‘Social modelling’
is one label that has been given to process by which
children imitate and appropriate the behaviour of significant
others. But in so doing, they also often modify and
adapt what they learn to make it uniquely their own.
Recognizing this highlights the creative nature of
socialization. Through peer culture, and through identification,
children have the opportunity to ‘re-invent culture’.
After all, they are going to be the parents of the future,
taking their own values as a basis for engaging in the
socialization process with their own children.
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