Social, Physical, and Intellectual Development vary from one child to the next. This chapter will review cultural differences in parent-child interactions and family experience.

Not all babies interact with adults in the same way. Parent-child interactions vary across cultures. Parents of some cultural groups are more likely to console their babies by feeding them. Snuggling, distraction, and other techniques are not always a part of some babies' experiences. Only through a full understanding of parental beliefs, socialization practices, and family relationships can teachers meet the unique needs of individual children.

1. Parent Beliefs About Child Development

1. Parent-child interactions are influenced by beliefs about what children are like and how they should be treated at each developmental level
2. Poverty and Beliefs About Children

1. Poverty poses a significant threat to healthy child development
2. Poverty and Beliefs About Infants

1. In a study of parents in impoverished African villages, Levine discovered unique beliefs about child rearing
2. Parents in these communities held physical survival and health as the primary goals of infant care, while intellectual stimulation was considered relatively unimportant
3. Parents in poor communities wish to protect and nurture their children, on the one hand, but help them to become independent, on the other
4. Other cultural groups in America adopt very different beliefs in the face of poverty
5. Low-income Mexican-American parents have been found to favor dependence and attachment over self-sufficiency in their child rearing.

1. Poverty and Beliefs about Preschoolers

1. In some impoverished communities, parents believe that young children should be encouraged to grow up quickly, stand on their own two feet, and contribute immediately to the economic well-being of the family
2. Poverty may lead to greater expectations for mature behavior
3. Although some of these parenting practices seem harsh and restrictive, they often stem from concern for the child and the family in the face of brutal economic hardship
4. Such practices are intended to transform immature preschoolers into self-reliant children who can contribute to the survival of the family

1. Poverty and beliefs about Primary Children

1. Parents who believe that educational attainment is a means to economic well-being and upward mobility may hold high academic ambitions for their children at this age
2. This achievement orientation stems, in part, from the experience of poverty and a drive to better one's family circumstances

1. Oppression and Beliefs About Children

1. Oppression and Beliefs About Infants

1. Oppression influences beliefs about how babies are cared for
2. In families who believe that infants should be toughened in preparation for the harsh realities of prejudice, early autonomy and boldness might be major goals
3. Another family might feel that babies should be taught to seek refuge from racism within the family
4. Enmeshment is the ability to cooperate with and rely on others
5. In infant care, these families emphasize attachment rather than separation from the family
6. As mentioned earlier, oppression has caused many African-American parents to adopt goals of early self-sufficiency and achievement
7. Their desire is to raise strong individuals who can stand up to the challenges of a biased world

1. Oppression and Beliefs About Preschoolers

1. In some families it is a goal to teach young children how to defend themselves physically
2. Such family beliefs may clash with typical school regulations against fighting
3. For some families, fighting back is a way of defending against prejudice, and failing to retaliate is seen as a sign of weakness and results in a loss of dignity
4. Other cultural groups socialize their preschoolers to be extremely polite and obedient in order that they might be assimilated into an inhospitable world
5. Such families emphasize compliance rather than fighting back or speaking one's mind
6. An orientation toward fitting in and making good within the dominant society is an effective adaptive strategy which some families use in the face of mistreatment and racial animosity

1. Oppression and Beliefs About Primary Children

1. Parents of some families, adopt unique socialization goals aimed at offsetting the negative effects of prejudice
2. Some African-American parents emphasize racial pride, an understanding of cultural heritage, and the grim realities of racism

1. Parenting Beliefs and Professional Practice

1. Parenting beliefs arise from unique personal and cultural experiences
2. In most cases, it should not be the goal of professionals to change what parents believe

1. Adult-Child Interactions

1. Due to differences in child-rearing beliefs, parents adopt different ways of interacting with their children
2. Interactions vary across cultural groups in four major ways: communication, responses to crying, teaching, and carrying and holding
3. Parent Communication

1. Some characteristics of communication with children are universal
2. For example, parents in all cultures use exaggerated intonations and unique words and sentences when speaking to their sons and daughters
3. Parents of all cultures tend to comment on concrete objects, using many nouns, when they talk to their young children
4. Parents of all cultures seem to have an intuitive ability to adapt their speech to children's desires and developmental levels
5. Some families are very talkative, others quiet
6. English-speaking Euro-American parents tends to use lots of language with children
7. Talkativeness in child-adult interaction has also been observed within Cuban-American and Puerto Rican families
8. Mexican-American, African-American, and Native-American parents have been found to be less talkative with children
9. Children of some families may have more passive and less verbal temperaments
10. Silence is viewed as a sign of respect in some cultures, and quiet interchanges with children may be an early attempt to impart this concept
11. Quietness within these cultural groups does not mean that there is no communication
12. They may talk less but hold, rub, or bounce young children more
13. Research suggests that the frequency of verbalization is not related to language ability
14. Children in quieter cultures still become proficient at language and communication

1. Responses to Crying

1. Crying is the way infants and young children communicate needs, and parents' responses to crying will influence their children's emotional and intellectual development
2. Euro-American mothers have been found to vary considerably in how quickly they respond when their babies cry
3. Some wait a very long time to respond to infant upset, while others pick up their babies the moment crying begins
4. African-American mothers and Cuban-American mothers have been found to more consistently wait and see when crying occurs
5. An overriding concern among these parents is to give just the right amount of attention, so that children will be neither spoiled nor neglected
6. The methods mothers use to soothe crying children also vary across cultures
7. African-American parents have been found to prefer using a pacifier or physical stimulation in response to crying, while Euro-American parents more often use physical touch, holding, and breastfeeding
8. Cuban-American mothers were found to use a combination of both a pacifier and cuddling, depending on the circumstances
9. Although parents' responses to crying vary, parents of all cultural groups respond in some way to child upset
10. That babies of all cultures become attached and secure suggests that there is not one correct way to respond to crying

1. Teaching Behaviors

1. Some parents label objects for their infants and preschoolers children and pose problems and challenges
2. Others provide educational toys and physical stimulation
3. Some parents become involved in their children's homework in the primary years
4. Other parents are less likely to engage in these kinds of activities
5. Chinese-American mothers more often report that teaching is primarily the responsibility of the family and parents
6. Jewish-American families also place great value on learning
7. From the earliest days of life, many Jewish children are provided cognitive stimulation with the goal of enhancing later academic achievement
8. Euro-American and Mexican-American mothers have been found to view instruction as only one small part of the parental role

1. Carrying and Holding Practices

1. Some children are carried around in a parent's arms all day long for the first 6 months of life
2. Others are rarely held
3. Still others spend the day in a sling on a parent's back
4. Cultural diversity in methods of holding babies has inspired many misconceptions, stereotypes, and simplistic theories
5. For example, carrying practices in which infants are swaddled or bound have often been viewed as detrimental to children's development, and parents using these methods are sometimes portrayed as misguided or neglectful
6. Likewise, parents who seldom carry their babies are sometimes viewed as negligent
7. In fact, carrying and holding methods are a function of cultural norms, the practical demands of work and family life, and the temperament of infants themselves
8. In societies that have a high mortality rate, babies are more likely to be strapped against their parents' bodies in slings or packs

1. Extended Families: Grandparents, Siblings, Friends, and Fathers

1. The extended family, in which parents, grandparents, other relatives, and even friends live together, is growing more and more common
2. Although many different persons care for children within modern families, parenting research still focuses almost exclusively on mothers
3. Family structure varies by culture and socioeconomic status
4. A high percentage of children of color and poor children are born to single mothers
5. Grandparents

1. In traditionally under-represented ethnic groups, grandparents are more likely to be directly involved in child-rearing duties
2. Grandmothers play several key roles in children's lives
3. They provide an extra pair of hands in caretaking and other family duties
4. Grandmothers also teach parenting skills and provide knowledge about child development to their daughters
5. One way that grandmothers teach their daughters parenting skills is through modeling
6. It is critical to include all adults with caregiving responsibilities in parent education programs, parent conferences, and all other means of communication with families

1. Siblings

1. Families from traditionally under-represented groups in the US generally include larger numbers of children than Caucasian families
2. Siblings may play a greater role in some families due to scarce resources
3. Siblings are most involved with younger children in large families
4. The larger the family, the more likely an older brother or sister is to be assigned direct disciplinary or supervisory responsibilities
5. Older brothers or sisters promote the social development of their siblings
6. Siblings also contribute to ethnic socialization-that is, they teach their younger brothers and sisters the roles and competencies that are important in their particular culture

1. Friends who are like Family

1. It is not uncommon for children of historically under-represented groups to have primary caregivers who are non-family members
2. In African-American communities a system of informal adoption has sometimes evolved in which neighbors or friends care for children outside their own family
3. Non-related adults who are of the same culture and community are often invited to join families and to share child care responsibilities
4. Compadrazgo, a form of co-parenting in which specific duties for meeting social and economic needs of children are assigned
5. Child care providers and teachers may wish to consider including friends who are like family in parent programs and activities

1. Fathers

1. Across cultures, fathers are less involved than mothers in the care of children, particularly infants
2. When they do interact with their sons or daughters, they are more likely to engage in physical play and less likely to assume diapering, feeding, and bathing responsibilities
3. Fathers have been found to be more active in child rearing when mothers are not present
4. When they do interact with their sons or daughters, fathers tend to be as warm and sensitive as mothers, and children form critical attachments to them
5. Children whose fathers are absent from the home usually adjust well, particularly if the separation of parents occurs in infancy
6. Some developmental problems have been observed among boys living in mother-headed households
7. Social and behavioral problems can emerge later in life; mother-son relationships tend to be more strained
8. Such problems may be due to the fact that children adjust less well when the same-sex parent is absent
9. If the absent father is accepting and actively involved with a child these problems diminish
10. Children who enjoyed regular positive interactions with their outside-the-home fathers were better adjusted than those whose fathers were unavailable
11. The presence of a non-father male role model was found to have a similarly positive effect
12. Children who were rejected by both their father and stepfather were particularly at risk
13. Whether or not fathers live within the home, they must be considered important caregivers, especially for boys, and teachers and child care providers should make every effort to include them in parent programs and conferences

1. Foster Parents

A. More than half a million children in America have been removed from their families by child protection agencies and placed in temporary foster homes

1. The primary reason is abuse and neglect by parents
2. Foster care is often not a temporary arrangement, as it was designed to be, and almost 20% of children currently in foster care have been there for at least 6 years
3. Extended family members may be better caregivers for children than foster parents