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“aˆ¦Sugar and Spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.” Society today has made a clear cut line about what is appropriate for a little boy and what is appropriate for a little girl. Society has made that distinction through gender stereotyping. If you walk into a preschool class room today, little girls will be playing dress-up with fairy and princess costumes while the boys will be tackling each other or playing with dump trucks. Even though many people believe that gender is not learned, but instinctual instead, there may be outside influences on gender roles that children fall victim to, for example parents influence gender roles by the language they use and media and toys reinforce gender stereotypes in children by character portrayal and advertisements.

There are many different parenting styles that are seen today. Psychologist Diana Baumrind discovered four basic styles of parenting; authoritarian, permissive-indifferent, permissive-indulgent, and authoritative (Morris, 310). Regardless of the parenting style that one family opts for, there seems to be a common thread; the majority of parents will dress little boys in blue and little girls in pink. The thought process behind this is so that their gender can be identified properly by an outside source. No parent wants to be walking through a store with their little boy and have a stranger ask, “How old is she?” Interestingly enough however, according to the article “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?” author Peggy Orenstein points out “when colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the twentieth century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty.” Somewhere along the line, the reverse was thought true; pink was more feminine and blue was more masculine, and is so “enforced” by today’s standards.

Another example of how strongly parents influence gender was learned when an experiment was performed at Harvard University. Male babies were dressed in pink outfits and were then given to adults to handle under the impression that they were girls. The language used with the boy babies dressed in pink fell into the female stereotype, while the girl babies dressed in blue fell into the male stereotype, being called handsome and tough (Pruett). Language is a big influence on gender interpretation. Often we tell boys not to cry and explain things with different tones for boys versus girls. If a little girl hits a friend, parents/caregivers might use a gentler phrase like, “gentle hands on your friends please.” If a little boy hits a friend, parents/caregivers might just shrug the action off as “Boys will be boys” as the common saying goes or raise their voices to get the point across more strongly, “We DO NOT hit our friends!”

Even the compliments that adults bestow upon children can be gender stereotyping. When you tell a little a girl how pretty she looks in her dress is an illustration of that. Parents lead by example. Their children learn behavior from what they see their parents doing, even if unintentional. If a child sees their mother as the one who always does the laundry and cooks the meals and the father as the one who always takes the trash out, then chances are that the child will follow the same roles when as they grow up.

Media also plays a large part in where children learn about what their gender role is. Disney movies are a prime example of this. In these movies, the leading female character, usually a princess, is sweet, romantic, daydreams about Prince Charming, and almost always wears a dress in a pastel color. On the other hand, the same Disney movie can represent the male population watching with a prince, who is usually strong, willing to fight, and always gets the girl at the end. These characters often lead to a misconception of what is feminine and what is masculine. On the spectrum of gender identity, Disney may represent the extremes of what the appropriate gender role is.

Advertisements are often seen using gender as a marketing strategy for toys or games. If you look at a commercial for Tonka Trucks, there won’t be a little girl to be seen in these ads. However, if you see a commercial for Easy-Bake oven, the opposite will be true. There will be no boys in those commercials. Seeing these on television demonstrates to children what should be an appropriate toy for a little boy and what should be appropriate for a little girl. Even the behaviors of children portrayed in television advertisements are stereotypic. Boys are often seen as active and domineering while the girls are portrayed as shy or overly silly.

These advertisements usually lead to the purchase of the toys shown for the sex it was targeted to. Parents often wonder if you give a baby doll to a little boy or a dump truck to a little girl, will they be gender confused. Even the most new-age parents might find it bizarre to see their little boys walking around preschool with a purse and in dress shoes. Boys have a harder time crossing the gender line, whereas some parents of females might think that it’s alright for their daughters to play with dump trucks or Legos. This does not mean that the son will be more feminine and the daughter will be a tom-boy, but a majority of parents do not want to risk that.

Not everyone believes, however, that gender is strictly a learned behavior. In 2009, Texas A&M University used eye tracking software to measure infant’s interest in either “male” or “female” toys (Shaffer). According to an article published in 2010, the author M. Fox, found the results to be extremely informative:

Hormone levels in the saliva, as well as finger dimensions that indicate prenatal testosterone exposure were measured to see if these things could explain why the infants visually preferred certain toys over others. The results revealed that while the girls’ preferences weren’t affected by hormone levels at all, the boys’ preferences were affected by both current and prenatal hormone levels. It appears that the higher the presence of testosterone at the time of the test, the greater the preference for groups of figures over individual figures, and those who indicated a higher exposure to prenatal testosterone had a stronger preference for the ball over the doll.

This means that the boys showed an optical penchant for gender specific toys. In an article in New Scientist, Linda Geddes states that research has been done to show that the introduction of changing levels of testosterone and estrogen while babies are in utero may also have some sway in which toys boys and girls pick.

There are other theorists that believe that there is a cognitive connection to gender development. Carol Lynn Martin and Diane Ruble are two such theorists. They discuss Kohlberg’s theory of gender development is and what the impact is of knowing your gender does not change. This is an important fact for children to learn, generally setting the concepts of what is ‘correct’ behavior for your gender type. Martin and Ruble think that there are important cognitive themes for gender development, rather than the influence of a specific outside source.

The first important theme discussed is “The Emergence of Gender Identity and Its Consequences.” In this stage, it is allegedly general knowledge that children understand that there are two different types of genders, and they have the realization that they fall into one of those two categorizing sexes. This first theme is then broken down into two sub-categories, “Evaluative Consequences” and “Motivational and Informational Consequences.” The former meaning that the child understands and identifies one group as their own and sees this group as a positive. The latter sub-category means that one the child picks a gender to identify with and while the want to understand the opposite sex dwindles, the individual seems only interested it their own gender identity.

The second theme that is thought to be a cognitive gender identity link is “Active, Self-Initiated View of Gender Development” and the final theme is “Developmental Patterns.” In these two themes, the thought is that the main focus is learning about the social gender group that they most identify with, and forming and developing the characteristics that are most familiar with the identified gender. While exploring the cognitive connection to gender, many place a strong association to motivational significances and developmental configurations of the gender identity theory.

Even though many theorists believe that gender is not a learned behavior, but you are born knowing the difference between ‘appropriate’ male behaviors and toys and ‘appropriate’ female behaviors and toys, others disagree. Those people state that there are many possible outside influences on children when they are learning their gender roles in society. Some also believe that being aware of specific gender stereotypes has a connection to how one behaves. The media and toys that children do see and use play an intricate part in the concept of gender roles and parents influence gender identity by using specific language and actions. Whether or not gender is identity is solely obtained by influence or is pre-determined by some cognitive connection, it is an intriguing issue. Should boys and girls be able to make the choice of the toy that they want to play with or what their favorite color is going to be regardless of what society claims is “normal”? With the role that parents or caregivers play in gender role identification, they should learn different methods for breaking stereotypes. Adults could make sure that they use the same language for both sexes or become involved in activities such as cuddling with boys or wrestling with girls. Connecting children of both sexes in such a manner is a good way to encourage the cycles of gender stereotyping to end.

To raise a child of any age comes with many difficulties for caregivers. Most parents strive towards raising children that are responsible, independent and respectable. There are a few schools of thought to disciplining children. One may be to apply discipline by teaching and the other to physically discipline a child as a means to correcting inappropriate behaviors. The Encarta Concise English dictionary defines discipline as “To teach somebody to obey rules or to behave in an ordered or controlled way” (“Discipline,” 2001, p. 409). Physical discipline is based on the use of fear as the motivator to changing a child’s behavior. “Behaviors that do not result in significant physical injury (i.e. spank, slap) are considered corporal punishment, whereas behaviors that risk injury (i.e. punching, kicking, burning) are considered physical abuse” (Gershoff, 2002) Parents who use either form of physical discipline with children need to understand the damaging effects it can have on a child’s emotional, moral and social development.

Emotional Development

A child’s self esteem is developed through caregivers offering encouragement, acknowledgement and nurturing their range of emotions. “Recognition of emotion is particularly important because it represents the early utilization of social cues on which children’s subsequent interpretation and behavioral responses will depend.” (Cicchetti, Hormung, Pollak, & Reed, 2000, p. 680) Using physical discipline as the motivator for altering a child’s behavior affects their emotional stability. “Being slapped or spanked is a frightening and threatening event that arouses strong negative emotions such as humiliation, sadness, and anger.”(Straus, 2005, p.145) The use of punitive measures is in direct opposition to what disciplining is meant to achieve and may affect a child’s development. “They may be slow to reach milestones in social and physical development.” (Crosson-Tower, 2004, p.191) Physical discipline affects the child’s feelings of acceptance and they tend to respond with destructive impulses, rather than positive responses. “Children and adults reared in abuse have had their senses trained in such a way that to use them for receiving or transmitting positive messages is not part of their communications system.” (Helfer, 1980, p.38) Parents and caregivers need to help the child develop self confidence, self reliance and self discipline. Children who recognize self efficacy by being offered simple choices begin to develop moral insight.

Moral Development

Discipline, whether positive or negative, develops a child’s perception of themselves and defines their moral understanding of how they should behave. A child who learns hitting is acceptable may be confused, because in many other areas of their life; school, daycare and recreational activities, hitting is unacceptable. It is in direct contradiction to what they learn at home which in turn becomes a value. In addition, children exposed to physical discipline are more susceptible to becoming abusers themselves (Newman, 1993). Parents who are not armed with the proper parenting tools become frustrated and angry about controlling their children’s behavior. Straus (2005) says, spanking has roots in two cultural myths; one, spanking is okay if done by a loving parent and two, spanking will work if all other methods of discipline fail (p. 140-141). Parent’s who understand their children’s ability to internalize all discipline measures, also realize they are developing their children’s values. “Children’s internalization of morals is thought to be enhanced by parental discipline strategies that use, minimal parental power, promote choice and autonomy and provide explanations for desirable behaviors” (Gershoff, 2002, p. 1) The short term consequences of physical discipline will undermine the child’s developing moral understanding and further debilitates their social development.

Social Development

The expression of abuse with a physically disciplined child becomes apparent when their interaction reveals itself by their behavior with other children. A child who is physically disciplined at home is traumatized. A study conducted by Marin & Beezly (1977) suggests that children were more alert to their environment and cautious of peripheral danger around them (p. 375). Therefore, the resulting animosity that has built up is misdirected to whomever the child comes into contact with outside of the home which is usually learning centers such as schools. In a research study conducted by Eckenroder, Doris & Laird (1993) reporting’s on pre-school children demonstrated that children who have been physically disciplined showed aggressiveness and were more likely to be disciplined from teachers than children who have not been mistreated (p.54). Children who are unable to cope with their pent-up aggression react in a negative way in the school environment. “For the abused child, the lack of social responsiveness becomes more striking.” (Tower, 2002, p. 49)

The physically disciplined child who matures and enters high school with multiple disturbed behaviors reveals other social and psychological impairments. “Insecure attachments to their mothers, lower intelligence scores, impaired language development, lower levels of cognitive maturity and effectance motivation, more negative affect and less positive effect, less pro-social behavior, and more aggressive and non-compliant behavior.” (Eckenroder, Doris and Laird. 1993. p.57). Therefore, the initial bond between child and parent is vital in the development of the child. “A strong child-to-parent bond is important because children are more likely to accept parental restrictions and follow parental standards if there is a bond of affection with the parent.” (Straus, 2005, p. 146). If the trust is diminished from their primary source, namely the communication between parent and child, the bond and relationship is strained. Thus, a child’s friendship with other children, siblings and even family members are greatly affected which causes anxiety with the child.

Conclusion

In summation, the raising of children presents many challenges for caregivers. The goal of raising children to be responsible, independent and respectable individuals is an arduous task. In the teaching method of disciplining, a goal is to strengthen self discipline and personal control so that caregivers relieve themselves of parenting by the time the offspring leaves home. To reach these goals, parents must make sure their children learn the skills involved in problem solving and making decisions. Conversely, correcting inappropriate behaviors by physically disciplining children have long term consequences which will greatly hinder the child’s development as they mature. The short term results of physical discipline on a child’s development manifests long term effects, characterized by low self esteem coupled with morals which contradict the values of society.

Annotated Bibliography

Beezly, P., & Harold Martin, P. (1997, June). Behavioural observations of abused children.

Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 19, 373-387. Retrieved from

http://ibs.colorado.edu/cspv/infohouse/violit/violitDetails.php?recordnumber=3191&vio_nam=violit

A behavioural observation of abused children is an article derived from Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, written by Patricia Beezly and Harold Martin. The article focus on how children’s development is directly affected by being physically disciplined by their parents or caregivers. The authors appear to support the claim that children should not be physically discipline by using case studies and statistics.

Cicchetti, D., Hormung, K., Pollak, S. D., & Reed, A. (2000). Recognizing emotion in faces:

Developmental effects of child abuse and neglect. Developmental Psychology, 36(5),

677-688. Retrieved from http://psych.wisc.edu/pollak/pdfs/recognizing_emotion_faces_devpsych.pdf.

This article is a study by Cicchetti, Hormung, Pollak and Reed with the hypothesis being the lack of recognizing certain emotions as a direct correlation to physical discipline. Utilizing social cues and how the child interprets and responds to them is important for their development and further predicates the child’s familiarity of negative environments. The writer understands the premise however the stats seemed weak in respects to differentiating between normal treated children and physically disciplined children, yet clearly neglected children showed the least responsiveness to the tests. Nevertheless, the outcome supports the paper in regards to physical discipline affecting the physicality of children to their reaction of emotions.

Crosson-Tower, C., (2004). Exploring child welfare: A Practice Perspective. Pearson

Education, Inc.

Cynthia Crosson-Tower, examines the protection of children in chapter 7 titled Protecting Children When Families Cannot-Child Abuse and Neglect. Her premise, “non accidental injury inflicted on a child” defines the quintessential meaning of physical abuse to children. In reference to the paper, the writer needed to support the argument of physical discipline being detrimental to the development of childhood milestones.

Discipline. (2001). Encarta concise english dictionary. London.

The definition of the word “Discipline” was found in the Encarta Concise English Dictionary. The relevance of the term being added to the research paper is so the reader has an accurate meaning of the conveyed idea.

Eckenroder, J., Doris, J., & Laird, M. (1993). School performances and disciplinary problems

Among abused and neglected children. Development Psychology, 29(1), 53-62. Retrieved from http:// http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00121649.

Eckenroder, Laird and Doris ascertained data from a school and examined stats from kindergarten to grade 12 in their study. The study, for instance revealed the personalities of pre-schoolers as aggressive and requiring more attention from the teachers. The writer found the study helpful to the paper in supporting that physical discipline is exposed upon contact with learning centers such as daycares and schools.

Gershoff, E. T. ( 2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated behaviors and

Experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128 (4), 539-579. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.539

This review paper by Gershoff anticipates the use of physical discipline or corporal punishment as detrimental to child behaviors and experiences as relative to pain. The review was helpful in defining how the study differentiated between corporal punishment and physical abuse, yet the bias was supported by Gershoff’s findings.

Kemp, C.H. & Helfer, R.E. (Eds.) (1980). The Battered Child (3rd. Ed.). Chicago:University of

Chicago Press.

In chapter 3 titled Developmental Deficits Which Limit Interpersonal Skills, of the text The Battered Child, Ray Helfer explores how senses vital to our development can be affected by abuse. Senses are developed by the child’s environment and when these external forces are not positive and safe the child suppresses and mutes their own development. Helfer’s focal points on interpersonal skills such as delayed gratification, responsibility, decision making, problem solving, trusting others, feelings and action are affected by childhood deficits.

Newman, F. (1993). Children in Crisis. Scholastic Canada.

Children in Crisis, is a book written by Fran Newman. It covers topics on different types of child abuse, precipitating factors to the events leading to abuse and the impact on family dynamics. This book was somewhat helpful, although the focus appeared to be more on family structure and values, rather than how child abuse directly affects a child’s self esteem and other developmental stages.

Straus, M.A. (2005). Children should never, ever, be spanked no matter what the circumstances.

In D. R. Loseke, R. J. Gelles & M. M Cavanaugh (Eds.), Current Controversies about

Family Violence (2nd ed., 137-157). Thousand Oak, CA: Sage. Retrieved from

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP67%20Children%20Should%20Never%20be%20Spanked.pdf

This article written by Murray Straus was located through Google Scholar’s search engine. The author presented relevant and accurate information on the topic of child development and the ineffectiveness of physical discipline on children. Although the article was interesting, the use of language and vocabulary may present an entry level university student with great difficulty when attempting to read and retain the information.

Tower, C. (2002). Understanding child abuse and neglect. ( 5th ed.). Boston, MA: USA

Cynthia Crosson-Towers in chapter 3 Maltreatment and the Developing Child, studies early childhood development. Infants that have not had the stimuli of care do not reach the required milestones outlined for that age. Milestones, as a standard measurement for development has shown that it is vital that children reach each phase and move onto the next phase for proper development. The material covered in the text was succinct and clear for the understanding of childhood development.

Select one of the following age groups: infants, toddlers or young children. Focus on two developmental domains (select from: physical, social and emotional, language and/or cognitive development) of the child. Describe how these two domains develop within your chosen age group with the support of human development theories and concepts studied in this course. Identify a range of teaching strategies that promote a child’s development in each of the two selected domains.

Development describes the growth of humans throughout the lifespan, from conception to death. The study of human development helps to understand how and why people change throughout life. This includes all aspects of human growth, including physical, intellectual, language, social and emotional and spiritual development. Papalia and Olds (1998) define lifespan development as “a lifelong process of development” (p.10).

This essay describes the physical and cognitive development of infants (birth-12 months) and also discuss about some teaching strategies that promote physical and cognitive development of infants in the early childcare centres.

Physical development refers to progressively gaining control over large and small muscles. Gross motor (large muscle) skills allow a child to do things like roll over, sit, crawl, walk, and throw a ball. Fine motor (small muscle) skills enable children to do things like draw, and eat with spoon. The development of new motor skills allows children to make new discoveries. As they explore, they begin to make sense of their environment (Berger, 2001).

The physical development of infants is very important. Although children develop at different rates, they learn to control their bodies in the same progression (Berk, 2006). Arnold Gesell, an American psychologist, is one of the first theorists who approached to determine developmental measure for children. He developed his theory by studying a number of children (Terry, 2008).

Newborn babies have very few motor skills. Their muscles are not strong enough to control their body, while their sense of hearing and smell are keen. Infants move by reflex when they are newborns. They move automatically in response to various stimuli. Some reflexes help parents to make sure that infants will get what they need to survive (Berk, 2006). For instance, when the mother touches the cheek of a newborn, the baby starts moving his/her mouth in search of a nipple. When the mother touches his/her mouth or when his/her mouth touches the nipple, the baby starts sucking. Also, infants have other reflexes such as reciprocal kicking (Terry, 2008).

In five months, most babies gain control of their arms and head. Gesell considered this process of physical growth “a genetically determines series of events that unfolds automatically” (Berk, 2006, p.14). He believed that physical development occurs to each child in a fixed order, and a certain development happens when an individual’s inner system is prepared. Gesell also suggested head-to-tail and centre-to-edge sequence (Berk, 2006). In other words, control develops from head to toe, and from the centre of children’s bodies out through their arms and legs to their fingers and toes. For example, a child learns to lift his/her head first and then sit, crawl, walk and run (Terry, 2008).

Gesell also stated that an infant gains control of the head before arms, and masters moving arms before fingers. According to milestones of motor development, infants can lift their upper body by using their arms two months after their birth, and sit by themselves a few months later. Then, infants become able to control their lower body to do things like walking and jumping (Berk, 2006).

When the children are of nearly one year, they are gradually developing their fine motor skills like grabbing objects. They begin to stack blocks or other toys. Also they can pick up small pieces of cereal, open and close small boxes, and turn knobs on toys because their pincer grasp becomes more coordinated (Berk, 2006).

Another aspect of physical development is shaping senses. A child’s sense of taste, smell and hearing are more developed than sense of sight. Infants can recognize the difference of flavors, people’s smell and tones of voice, while their vision is unclear. In addition to these four senses (taste, smell, hear and vision), infants develop their sense of touch (Berk, 2006).

Teachers play an important role in promoting children’s physical development. They should provide safe indoor and outdoor spaces for children to move their bodies. Educators should provide materials and equipments according to the age and developmental level of infants (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

Educators can promote physical development of infants by reinforcing and encouraging them. Educators should help and encourage children when they are learning new skills (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991). For example, when an infant is taking the feed from his/her bottle, educator should encourage him/her for holding the milk bottle (Terry, 2008). Educators should provide the opportunities for children to use their senses to explore, shape, volume and other characteristics of objects (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

Educators can promote physical development of infants by providing equipments and opportunities for gross motor skills. To do this, educators should set up the room in a way that infants have the freedom to explore in a range of safe spaces (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991). For instance, some infants have started crawling, so teachers should divide the space so that the infants, who do not crawl, won’t get hurt. Educators should provide a range of materials and equipments that helps children to use their large muscles. For example, push bikes, tunnels and so on (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

Educators can promote physical development of infants by providing equipments and opportunities for fine motor skills. To do this, educators should provide opportunities for infants that help them to develop small muscles by grasping, dropping, pulling and fingering (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991). Treasure basket is a good resource that teachers can use to develop fine motor skills of infants (Terry, 2008).

As human beings grow, they gain knowledge and produce different thoughts, and also their ability of memorizing develops. This change of intelligence is called cognitive development. The early years of a child’s life are crucial for cognitive development (Berger, 2001). Cognitive development of the baby means the learning process of memory, language, thinking and reasoning. Babies develop at their own pace. So, it is impossible to tell exactly when every child will learn a given skill. Jean piaget and Lev Vygotsky are two of the famous cognitive theorists (Tesar, 2008).

After birth of a baby, their intelligence develops rapidly during the first two years. According to Piaget’s cognitive theory, infants explore and understand their world by using their senses. For example, smelling, sucking, throwing, and mouthing and so on. Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development, which he believed occur in a certain order to everyone at individual’s own rate (Berk, 2006).

The first stage of development is called sensor motor stage that applies to children from birth to two year. During this stage, an infant’s knowledge of the world is limited, but developing, to their sensory perceptions and motor activities. Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli. Children utilize skills and abilities they born with, such as looking, sucking, grasping and listening, to learn more about the environment. This stage has further six sub-stages (Berk, 2006).

During first sub-stage, which is reflexive schemes (0-1 month), the child understands the world through inborn reflexes such as sucking and looking. The second sub-stage, which is primary circular reactions (1-4 months), involves coordinating sensation and new schemes (Berk, 2006). For instance, if a child accidentally puts his/her finger in mouth and has started sucking it, then later on, that child intentionally repeat this action. By repeating these actions, infants find them pleasurable (Tesar, 2008).

During third sub-stage, which is secondary circular reactions (4-8 months), infants start paying attention on the world around them and begins to intentionally repeat an action in order to trigger a response in the environment (Berk, 2006). For example, a child intentionally picks up a toy from the floor to put that toy in his/her mouth (Tesar, 2008).

In the fourth sub-stage, which is coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months), object permanence occurs, demonstrating that memory is developing. Infants realize that an object exists and they begin to recognize certain objects as having specific qualities (Berk, 2006). For example, if the mother shows the baby an attractive toy and then hides that toy under the blanket. The child in this sub-stage can find the toy (Tesar, 2008).

According to Piaget, infants develop their memory and imitation skills through these sub-stages. New born babies respond to what they feel through senses and also imitate facial expressions. As children grow, they enjoy repeating actions as well as becoming able to remember familiar people and objects (Berk, 2006).

The ways children adapt to situations were described by Piaget as assimilation and accommodation. Children organize their own experience when they encounter the similar events during assimilation, whereas in accommodation, the children adjust old knowledge to new understandings when unfamiliar situations come (Bruce& Meggitt, 2005).

According to Vygotsky, children’s learning is influenced by people in their society. His idea of zone of proximal development is that children’s intelligence expands more when they are supported by adults or older children than when they are working by themselves. Infants gain knowledge not only from their own discoveries but also from what other people illustrate to them (Nixon & Gould, 2003).

According to Piaget, the teacher should provide an environment where children can explore themselves. Teachers play an important role in the development of children. Teachers should create an environment where they can interact with the children and observe them closely (Tesar, 2008).

Teachers should provide opportunities for infants to use all senses to explore the world around them. For example, providing treasure basket is a good example to promote infant’s cognitive development. By doing this, educators can help children develop new concepts and gain thinking and reasoning skills (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

By providing musical instruments, teachers can help children to acquire knowledge of different sounds and children know the difference of high and low volume (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991). Teachers should provide finger food to the infants. By doing this, children can smell, taste or squish the food. This helps infants to get familiar with the taste, hardness, softness and smell of the provided food (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

Teachers can promote infant’s cognitive development by interacting with them in different ways. This helps children to promote their confidence and curiousity. Educators can promote infant’s confidence and curiosity by praising their successess. For example, if a child roll over or hold a toy for the very first time, then the teacher should praise that child. By doing this, teachers can help children in buliding their self confidence and inceases their curiosity for achieving success for next time (Dodge, Dombro & Koralek, 1991).

In conclusion, physical development occurs to infants automatically according to genes in the fixed sequence. Also, babies gain control of their upper body before lower body. Infants gain knowledge of world through explorations by using their senses as well as organizing previous experiences when they face unfamiliar situations. According to Vygotsky’s point of view, an infant’s cognition expands with the support from people around them. Educators play a prominent role for the physical and cognitive development of infants.

Objective: To investigate young people’s perceptions of sexual health services that they demand and sex education provided children.

Design: Questionnaires based on open-ended questions.

Setting: 30 young people (aged 19-21 years) surveyed at Anglia Ruskin University.

Method: I interviewed young people using the questionnaires.

Results: 80% young people think that “Confidentiality” and “Friendly atmosphere and staffs easy to talk to” are the important factors, when they ask someone sexual questions. On the other hand, they don’t think that general advice about sexual health and other health matters is important factors. Also, they think that children should be taught different sexual health educations, such as “How to say ‘no’ to sex”, “Contraception”, and “Sexuality, Religious and Morality”, at around 13 years old at school.

Conclusion: I identified that young people’s demands towards sexual health services are comfortable atmosphere and reliable staffs, not sexual health knowledge and counsellor’s advice itself. Also, I felt that young people’s versions of the proper ages that children should learn each sex education are almost the same as that of general Japanese through this study.

[Definition]

The World Health Organisation (WHO) define sexual health as

“Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled”. (1)

According to AVERT which is an international AIDS charity define sex education as

“Sex education, which is sometimes called sexuality education or sex and relationships education, is the process of acquiring information and forming attitudes and beliefs about sex, sexual identity, relationships and intimacy. Sex education is also about developing young people’s skills so that they make informed choices about their behaviour, and feel confident and competent about acting on these choices. It is widely accepted that young people have a right to sex education. This is because it is a means by which they are helped to protect themselves against abuse, exploitation, unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV and AIDS. It is also argued that providing sex education helps to meet young people’s rights to information about matters that affect them, their right to have their needs met and to help them enjoy their sexuality and the relationships that they form”. (2)

[Introduction]

Nowadays, the attentions on sexual health services and sex education towards young people have been increasing, because there are facts that the concept of sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS, Chlamydia, and Syphilis, has become more familiar to young people, and the number of unwanted pregnancies is increasing.

Governments and organisations try to deal with the problems through providing places where people can learn sex education, or establishing special institutions providing sexual health services. In fact, there is The Sydney Sexual Health Centre in Sydney, Australia. They state on their site,

“The Sydney Sexual Health Centre provides a confidential and comprehensive service that helps put you in control of your sexual health. We do this by providing screening, vaccination and management of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) including HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, women’s and men’s sexual health care, education, individual and couple counselling, and needle and syringe program. The service is free and a Medicare card is not required”. (3)

They supply people with knowledge, advice, and testing for different sexually transmitted diseases for free. As a matter of course, there are many similar institutions in the UK, and such sexual health services are provided by National Health Service in each area.

According to AVERT, the purpose of sex education is the following.

“Sex education aims to reduce the risks of potentially negative outcomes from sexual behaviour, such as unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and infection with sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. It also aims to contribute to young people’s positive experience of their sexuality by enhancing the quality of their relationships and their ability to make informed decisions over their lifetime. Sex education that works, by which we mean that it is effective, is sex education that contributes to both these aims thus helping young people to be safe and enjoy their sexuality”. (2)

I think that the supplies of sexual health services and sex education to young people are important for their health and future, so I decided to investigate whether they were taught about sex education at their school or not, and what images young people in Cambridge have regarding it.

[Method]

I created questionnaires which are consisted of open-ended questions, and those questionnaires are based on questionnaires designed by C Reeves, R Whitaker, R K Parsonage, C A Robinson, K Swale, L Bayley in their research paper, “Sexual health services and education: Young people’s experiences and preferences”. (4)

I asked respondents to comment on services they expect counsellors or facilities providing sexual health services, and the right ages that children should be taught sexual relationship education at school.

I interviewed 30 young people at Anglia Ruskin University. I tabulated the data, and I assessed the differences between groups.

[Results]

Young people’s demands towards sexual health services

I asked young people, “If you went for information/advice regarding contraception/health matters, how important would each of the following be to you? For your information, you can choose as many as you feel appropriate”.

Table 1 showed the results. According to the table 1, 80% young people answered that “Confidentiality” and “Friendly atmosphere and staff easy to talk to” are the significant aspects. Surprisingly, they replied that counsellor’s character and comradely atmosphere are more important than their advice or knowledge. As the third best answer, “Tests for HIV and other sexual infections” were an important factor for young people. 63% respondents agreed “Emergency contraception” is also a weighty factor. Those two aspects were concrete and visible rather than abstract and sensuous such as top two factors. Following that, “Not telling your parents without your permission” was the fifth best factor. This might mean that young people are afraid of their parents’ views of their sexual lives. “Unplanned pregnancy counselling”, and “Pregnancy testing”, were important factors, with 53% and 50% respectively. These results might show that young people’s contraceptive use is low when they have sexual relationships with their partner. Also, they look that they understand a risk of having a sexual relationship without a contraceptive item, such as a condom. Next, Young people answered that “Being able to go without an appointment” and “General advice on sexual health” are less important that above sections, with 33% and 30% each. Last, “Advice on other health matters” was the least important element for them.

As I told above, to sum up, young people put importance on sexual health professionals’ character and the mood. On the other hand, they don’t care about advice or knowledge from sexual health professionals.

[Table 1]

The proper ages of being taught each sex education

Table 2 shows that the proper ages that children should be taught different sex education topics from the views of young people. According to the table 2, young people think that children should be taught the following sex education at around 13 years old. Interestingly, each age of “Homosexuality and lesbianism”, “Sexuality, religions and moral values”, “HIV/AIDS and other STDs”, “Rape”, “Abortion”, and “Sexual abuse” was slightly higher than other items. All of these items are related to individual belief regarding sexual relationships, or solemn problems, such as sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual violence.

On the other hand, the ages of children being taught “Contraception”, “How to discuss contraceptive use”, and “How to say ‘no’ to sex” were marginally lower than above one. Also, young people answered that children should be educated “Role of emotions in sexual relationships” sooner than others. According to the table 2, these 4 topics under 13 years old are more basic and central topics than the one over 14 years old.

To sum up, young people believe that children should be taught sex education around 13 years old, but they also feel that there are proper stages of being taught each sexual education topic.

[Table 2]

[Conclusion]

I found out that young people’s perceptions of sexual health services and sex education through this study.

Firstly, I discovered that the strongest demand of sexual health services of young people is the mood and personality of counsellors providing sexual health services, not their knowledge and their advice itself. I think that the reason is young people can get information on sexual problems itself through the Internet, TV, and books. Therefore, I feel that they need the environment and people that provide them with the sense of safety and a feeling of trust in the counsellors. Similarly, their concern about sexually transmitted diseases was a high score, so this might mean that sexually transmitted diseases spread young people. According to the Health Protection Agency’s report in the UK between 1999 and 2008 (5), the number of Syphilis rose dramatically from 223 to 2524. In the same way, there was a striking increase in the number of Chlamydia from 56991 to 123018. Also, the patients caused by herpes considerably increased from 17509 to 28957. Total number of patients went up by approximately 150000 only 10 years. In 1999, similarly, just over 3000 people were diagnosed with HIV in the UK. However, there were 7298 new diagnoses of HIV in 2008, so the increase was more than twice. On the other hand, young people don’t need advices of sexual health and general health so much. As I stated above, I think that the reason why they don’t put importance on these aspects is that they can get similar advice or much better information which are related to their problems through different ways, such as the Internet, magazines, and TV. Hence, they demand friendly atmosphere and conversable staffs on sexual health services.

When I was 11, 12 years old, I studied sex education at my elementary school. So, I found that the ages that young people in Cambridge were taught sex education at school is almost the same as that of general Japanese people experienced at school. According to the table 2, young people think that children should be taught primary and fundamental sex education, such as “Role of emotions in sexual relationships”, “Contraception”, “How to say ‘no’ to sex”, faster than others. I think that it is hard for children who are around 12 years old to understand completely the meaning of taking sex education, because most children don’t have an interest in sexual activities at the age. However, sex education would be important for them in a few years later, so they should be taught basic sex education at the early stage. After that, they should learn more ethical and serious sex education, such as “Sexually Transmitted Diseases”, “Abortion”, and “Rape”. In my opinion, at the same time, I feel that governments and organisations should establish institutions providing sexual health services and sex education for some children who want to study and need it. In a consequence, children’s understanding about sex education would improve, so unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases would decline from a long-time point of view.

I found out that young people’s demands towards sexual health services and the staffs, and their notion of the ages when children should be taught sex education at school through this study. However, I didn’t explore the differences between gender, generation, and countries on this time. As future prospects, I feel that I should increase the number of respondents, and ask their gender, religion, gender, and nationality, and analyse the data. As a consequence, I could get more interesting and broad information regarding the perceptions of young people’s sexual health services and sex education.

INTRODUCTION

The development of children’s rights has been one of the great successes of the United Nations. Children are inherently and carry with them society aspirations for the future. In the words of the Geneva Declaration on the rights of the child, mankind owes to the best it has to give.

Meaning Of Children: Is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of “child” generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. “Child” may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in “a child of nature”.

Children are also defined as a person under the age of 18 years as stipulated in the Children Act, 2001 and The Convention On The Right of The Child.

Parents Teachers Association (PTA)

Parents Teachers Association (PTA) is a formal organization composed of parents, teachers and staff that is intended to facilitate parental participation in a public or private school. It role is to encourage closer link between home and school. The goal of all PTA is to support their school, encourage parents involvement, support teacher and organize family events.

As the largerst volunteer child advocacy association in the nation, PTA reminds our country of its obligations to children and provide parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tool for parents to help their children be successful students.

Aims and Objective of PTA

To promote the welfare of children, adolescent and youth in the home, the school and the community.

To create better understanding between parents and teachers and harmonious relationship between the school and the community.

To create the necessary consciousness among parents to stimulate their interest in their children and the school.

To work for the improvement of the school with the united efforts of parents, teachers on school authorities.

To help parents and teacher to adopt themselves to the changing concepts of society

To produce suitable literature for the purpose.

Functions of PTA

To help the parents to understand the school programs by arranging open days at school when parents can visit the school and observe their children at work.

To arrange for frequent general meetings where parents teachers consultation are possible in a group as well as individually.

To prepare program which can increase cooperation between school and community and can create better mutual understanding between parents and teachers.

To provide various opportunities to parents and teachers to meet on equal footing, and discuss problems of their children.

To arrange for social get-together and program of recreation for parents and teachers.

Meaning Of Discipline

Discipline is the training of mind and character to produce self-control, obedience etc.; school discipline, military discipline, home/family discipline. The result of such discipline allows the individual child to experience various codes of conduct according to personal and social behoural desires. Discipline can also function as a form of punishment. External motivation to help the child choose correct v incorrect ideas of behaviour.

Discipline of children involves a set of rules, rewards and or punishment to teach them about self-control. It is aimed at increasing desired behaviours in a child to aid their development.

Discipline refers to systematic instruction given by both society and parental/family regarding a certain set of rules, values, morals etc. It is means directing a person to follow a certain code of conduct. In its original sense, discipline is referred to as a systematic instruction given to disciple and train students in a craft or trade, or to follow a particular code of conduct or “order” often, the phrase “to discipline” carries a negative connotation. This is because when ensuring enforced instructions the process is often regulated through some form of punishment.

Disciplining a child is to develop and reinforce appropriate social behaviour and to enforce a positive attitude within children. In the field of child development, discipline refers to methods of modelling character and of teaching self-control and acceptable behaviour. For example, teaching a child to wash her/his hands before meals is a particular pattern of behaviour and the child is being disciplined to adopt that pattern.

The main objective of the establishment of child discipline is to foster self-esteem and morals so the child develops and maintains self-discipline throughout his/her life. To discipline also gives rise to the word disciplinarian, which denotes a person who enforces order.

Child discipline is a topic that draws from a wide range of interested fields, such as parents, the professional practice of behaviour analysis, developmental psychology, social work, and various religious perspectives. Because the values, beliefs, education, customs and cultures of people vary so widely, along with the age and temperament of the child, methods of child, methods of child discipline vary widely in this world. “Without discipline there is nothing to be proud of” Richard L Kemp. This is because of the need to maintain order .That is, ensuring instructions are carried out. It is Important to maintain discipline and order, making sure the instructions are executed. Order is often regulated through punishment.

Discipline of children is the process of teaching children to behave in a fit and proper fashion. This is often done with punishment being either physical or involving loss of property or privileges. It is a vital factor in a shaping one’s personality. In western societies, discipline of children is a hot topic. It has been debated in recent years over the use of corporal punishment for children in general and increased attention has been given to the concept of ‘positive parenting” where good behaviour is encouraged and rewarded.

Child Act 2001 (Act 611)

There are some parts of the Child Act that can we relate with this topic about child discipline and abuse on them.

An Act consolidate and amend the laws relating to the care, protection and rehabilitation of children and to provide for matters connected therewith and incidental thereto.

RECOGNIZING that the country’s vision of a fully developed nation is one where social justice and moral, ethical and spiritual developments are just as important as economic development in creating a civil Malaysian society which is united, progressive, peaceful, caring, just and humane.

RECOGNIZING that a child is not only a crucial component of such a society but also the key to its survival, development and prosperity.

ACKNOWLEDGING that a child, by reason of his physical, mental and emotional immaturity, is in need of special safeguards, care and assistance, after birth, to enable him to participate in and contribute positively towards the attainment of the ideals of a civil Malaysian society.

RECOGNIZING every child is entitled to protection and assistance in all circumstances without regard to distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, social origin or physical, mental or emotional disabilities or any other status.

ACKNOWLEDGING the family as the fundamental group in society which provides the natural environment for the growth, support and well-being of all its members, particularly children, so that they may develop in an environment of peace, happiness, love and understanding in order to attain the full confidence, dignity and worth of human person.

RECOGNIZING the role and responsibility of the family in society, that they be afforded the necessary assistance to enable them to fully assume their responsibilities as the source of care, support, rehabilitation and development of children in society.

Below are some of the acts that we means of:

No. 17; Meaning of child in need of care and protection

(1) A child is in need of care and protection ifaˆ¦

a) the child has been or there is substantial risk that the child will be physically injured or emotionally injured or sexually abused by his parent or guardian or a member of his extended family.

b) the child has been or there is substantial risk that the child will be physically injured or emotionally injured or sexually abused and his parent or guardian, knowing of such injury or abuse or risk, has not protected or is unlikely to protect the child from such injury or abuse.

c) the parent or guardian of the child is unfit, or has neglected, or is unable, to exercise proper supervision and control over the child and the child is falling into bad association.

d) the parent or guardian of the child has neglected or is unwilling to provide for him adequate care, food, clothing and shelter.

e) the child has no parent or guardian;

(i) has been abandoned by his parent or guardian and after reasonable inquiries

(ii) has been abandoned by his parent or guardian and after reasonable inquiries the parent or guardian cannot be found, and no other suitable person is willing and able to care for the chid.

f) the child needs to be examined, investigated or treatedaˆ¦.

(i) for the purpose of restoring or preserving his health

(ii) his parent or guardian neglects or refuses to have him so examined, investigated or treated.

g) the child behaves in a manner that is, or is likely to be, harmful to himself or to any other person and his parent or guardian is unable or unwilling to take necessary measures to remedy the situation or the remedial measures taken by the parent or guardian fail.

h) there is such a conflict between the child and his parent or guardian or between his parent or guardian that family relationship are seriously disrupted, thereby causing him emotional injury.

i) the child is a person in respect of whom any of the offences specified in the first schedule or any offence of the nature described in section 31, 32, and 33 and has been or is suspected to have been committed, and his parent or guardianaˆ¦

(i) is the person who committed such offence or is suspected to have committed such offence

(ii) has not protected or is unlikely to protect him from such offence.

j) the child isaˆ¦

(i) a member of the same household as the child referred to in paragraph (i)

(ii) a member of the same household as the person who has been convicted of the offence and appear to be in danger of the commission upon or in respect of him of a similar offence and his parent or guardianaˆ¦

(aa) is the person who committed or is suspected to have committed the offence

(bb) is the person who is convicted of such offence

(cc) is unable or unwilling to protect him from such offence

No. 29 ; Duty of member of the family

1) If any member of the family of a child believes on reasonable grounds that the child is physically or emotionally injured as a result of being ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, he shall immediately inform a protector.

2) Any member of the family who fails to comply with subsection (1) commits an offence and shall on conviction be released on a based on conditions to determined by the court.

3) Any member of the family who fails to comply with any of the conditions of the bond provided in subsection (2) commits an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine no exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.

No. 29 ; Duty of the child provider

(i) if a child care provider believes on reasonable grounds that a child is physically or emotionally injured as a result of being ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed. He shall immediately inform a protector.

(ii) any child provider who fails to comply with subsection (i) commit an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term no exceeding two years or to both.

N0. 38 ; Meaning of child in need protection and rehabilitation

A child is in need of protection and rehabilitation if the childaˆ¦

(a) is being induced to perform any sexual act, or is in any physical or social environment which may lead to the performance of such act.

(b) lives in or frequents any brothel or place of assignation.

(c) is habitually in the company or under the control of brothel, keepers or person employed or directly interested in the business carried on in brothels or in connection with prostitution.

Convention On The Rights Of The Children

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC, CROC, or UNCRC) is a human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Convention generally defines a child as any human being under the age of eighteen, unless an earlier age of majority is recognized by a country’s law.

The Convention deals with the child-specific needs and rights. It requires that states act in the best interests of the child. This approach is different from the common law approach found in many countries that had previously treated children as possessions or chattels, ownership of which was sometimes argued over in family disputes.

In many jurisdictions, properly implementing the Convention requires an overhaul of child custody and guardianship laws, or, at the very least, a creative approach within the existing laws. The Convention acknowledges that every child has certain basic rights, including the right to life, his or her own name and identity, to be raised by his or her parents within a family or cultural grouping, and to have a relationship with both parents, even if they are separated.

The Convention obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities. The Convention also acknowledges that children have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate, to be protected from abuse or exploitation, and to have their privacy protected, and it requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.

The Convention also obliges signatory states to provide separate legal representation for a child in any judicial dispute concerning their care and asks that the child’s viewpoint be heard in such cases. The Convention forbids capital punishment for children.

However, we will not mention and elaborate all the contains of the declaration but only certain part that related with our topic discussion. Those are Article 1, Article 2, Article 7, Article 13, Article 14, Article 15, Article 28(1)(a) and Article 37.

Article 1

For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.

Article 2

1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.

Article 7

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.

Article 13

1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.

2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals.

Article 14

1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

2. States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Article 15

1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.

2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (order public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Article 28

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:

(a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;

Article 37

States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;

(b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time;

(c) Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances;

(d) Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action.

National Child Policy

Malaysia is among the country that totally against the abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation on the children. National Child Policy is a policy on the rights of survival, protection, development and participation of children in order to enjoy the opportunity and space to achieve the holistic development of a conducive environment. National Child Policy aims to produce individuals who are healthy, energetic, knowledgeable, innovative, creative, competitive, progressive and has good values.

First of all, the government held this policy is to ensure that every child has the right to live of custody, care, love, health services, support and social assistance. Second, all the children with disabilities have the right to be protected from any of neglect, abuse, violence and exploitation, and subsequently was habilitation, rehabilitation and integrated into family and community. Third, every child has the right to development of holistic physical, cognitive, language, socio-emotional, and spiritual character. Fourth, every child has the right to speak out, participate in (join) and participate according to their capacity in matters relating to the best interests and welfare. Fifth, parents or caregivers, community and society aware of children’s right to survival, protection, development and participation. And the last, research and development on survival, protection, development and participation of children carried out from time to time.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DISCIPLINING CHILDREN

Discipline is a necessity for children in order to train them to behave in a certain way. In addition, discipline is necessary to ensure the happiness and welfare of a child. Discipline is also important because it enables children to grow in many various aspects of life. If discipline is not applied to the child, they may not be able to lead a decent life. For children who are still at primary school level in particular, they are learning to manage behavior and regulate themselves. These children will go through various challenges and tests. They will have to navigate the challenges and temptations of many different events, and their success will rely upon their attitude and self-discipline.

Many parents mistakenly believe that children are not disciplined well or often enough. They can be dissatisfied with what is happening in their environment and how they perceive society is dealing with the new generation. Many teachers can have a bad experience within their daily working day. They were confronted with badly behaved students. This has led them to wonder whether they are being disciplined at all. Often when people refer to individuals who are not well disciplined they point out certain characteristics such as a lack of motivation, apathetic behaviour, rowdiness, and even jealous, spiteful and deceptive behaviour. How is it that they behave this way? This is a mysterious question. If discipline is to work properly what must happen is that the child needs to feel valued and then they can begin to appreciate themselves. So, how can this be manifested in children? The most accurate answer perhaps is that it must be learned over time through a consistent set of disciplined measures instigated in the home and school environment. However, one must be careful to not over play the discipline card it must be administered in a loving natural way depending on the situation, such as in the classroom, church, on the football field, playing in the swimming pool to name but a few scenarios. Why do we discipline? We discipline to provide for social order and individual productivity.

Behaviors: Child discipline is essential in order to install good behavior amongst youngsters. Without good discipline the next generation could display personalities of a lower quality. Everybody has their own opinion on how we should discipline a child. All of this (opinion) is strongly influence by culture and religion.

Nature and nurture: Nature is somebody’s character that is built from society and or environment. Nurture is education and care that is given paternally and both will affect a child’s development and attitude. One must also consider what we have inside of us, the personality we are born with. Again this has an effect on the person we become. So, in connection to discipline all of these have an effect on why and how we discipline a child. Parents may have an agenda, for example religion, and society may has an agenda, for example don’t be lazy, pay taxes, all of this has an effect on how we want a child to behave and how we want a child to be disciplined. Parent should consider the environment that their child exists within as well as their own personal agenda when deciding on appropriate ways to discipline. Parents must also be cautious not to sometimes repeat certain methods of discipline that were once administered to them when they were young. Violent forms of correcting behaviour can be very damaging to the individual and can cross the line from discipline to abuse.

Moral: We should try to implement the same code of conduct even though around the world there are differences in culture, religion and race. We have to find the similarity between us all as much as is possible. Individual rules are the ways we personally want a child to behave and social rules are the ways that society wants a child to behave. Both of which strongly influence the ways in which a child is disciplined and the different ways that discipline is carried out.

However the fundamental reason is that as parents and as a society on whole we have a duty and responsibility to try our best to enable every child the full amount of love and opportunities available and it seems that iscan only be achieved through a common self of beliefs and codes of conduct instructed via various form of discipline.

HOW TO DISCIPLINING THE CHILDREN

Discipline means “to teach and train”. Caregivers or parents and teachers need to be good disciplinarians, to acquire skills that will accomplish the goal they set for themselves.

There are several ways to “make” children behave. One is by using force, fear, and punishment. Unfortunately, these three methods imply that the caregiver is superior and should overpower the child. Rather than leading to a child with inner control, they make the child angry, resentful, fearful and dependent upon force. As the caregivers, they should not teaching and disciplining their children without using force, fear, and punishment. By offering parents and teachers proven ways to reinforce good behavior and minimize misbehavior it is hoped that the vicious cycle of child abuse and neglect will be broken

There is another way to discipline children. Though it may not appear to get the immediate results we might like, it is safer, more natural and humanistic. It is based on the assumption that children are by nature good, fair, and honest and ultimately capable of responding to that which is good, fair and honest within us. This method is to treat the child with respect. It is treating the child as if he or she is as important a human being as others.

Consistency also important for discipline and this same goes to parents who are teaching and instilling discipline on their children. Disciplining children are not easy and with the lack of consistency on caregivers or teachers discipline, it makes the children unsure and confused with the teaching. But once they are consistent, the children will take things seriously and obey them. Parents or caregivers should make an exception when disciplining the children. For instance, when they are for holidays or at grandparent’s house, parents must keep on focus and remind the children about it so they will know it is important for them to obey their parent. However, if the situation persists, parents should make a special exception and let the children know earlier about it and tell them this is not permanent. Caregivers or teachers must be realistic in their expectations of the children. They must not ask the child to do anything that that child cannot do. Asking the child to do what he or she able to do, or the child will get frustrated and be less likely to listen to them in future.

It is important for the children to understand that the same result will come from the same behavior. Parents and caregivers must make the child feel like he/she has control their life. If they can count on the rules staying the same, they are more likely to obey by them. Beside that, caregivers, parent and teachers must giving explanation in terms the child able to understand. Taking time to explain the reasons behind why they are asking he/she to behave in certain ways is among the best way in disciplining the child. For example, if the child understand the kind of behavior that them avoid of, they are more likely to apply that reasoning to different situations, instead of learning to stop one behavior at a time.

DISCIPLINING THE CHILD IN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES

There is a strong requirement in Islam to show love and mercy towards children, and to preserve their dignity – this is just as much a right of the child as the right to be fed, clothed, and educated. One of my favourite stories is this one:

Abu Hurairah reported: The Prophet (Muhammad) kissed his grandson Al-Hasan bin `Ali in the presence of Al-Aqra` bin Habis. Thereupon he (Al-Aqra` bin Habis) remarked: “I have ten children and I have never kissed any one of them.” The Messenger of Allah (Muhammad) looked at him and said, “He who does not show mercy to others will not be shown mercy”.

Fear as a method of raising children is effective in that it limits behaviour and enforces compliance. The consequence is that this fear damages the relationship between child and parent. Children are unlikely to confide their troubles to parents who they fear. A parent should not be resorting to fear, but to respect and love. The best form of discipline is, of course, being an example yourself of the kind of conduct you wish to inspire in your children. The proposed referendum is mischievous in its intent. The wording does not mention Section 59, it does not provide any solutions to dealing with the “reasonable force” defense which resulted in juries discharging parents who had used severe forms of physical violence. The referendum question shows little interest in the welfare or the rights of children, and that is its biggest failing. Children are not able to speak or advocate for themselves, nor do they have any ability to participate in the law-making process. It is up to us, as adults, to protect those rights and ensure that the vulnerable are kept safe. Gentleness is preferred according to the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the examples set during his own life.

Child abuse is forbidden in Islam. Islam teaches love and affection . As quote the hadith in which the Prophet SAW narrated “show respect to your elders and affection to your youngers”. Islam allows disciplining of children out of necessity, so that children do not go out of hand. On the other hand, such strict rules have been imposed in this matter, that does not allow any abuse of authority by the parent. In accordance with the teachings of Islam, occasions do arise when children need to be disciplined, even to the extent of employing corporal punishment. Among the ten important advises that Nabi (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) had enjoined upon his beloved companion, Hadhrat Muaaz bin Jabal (Radhiyallaahu Anhu), one of them is ‘let your rod be hanging on them (children), as a warning and to chastise against neglect of their duties towards Allah’. (Ahmad; Tabraani-Kabeer). According to this Hadith, it is evident that Musli

Though parental liability laws are creating a great deal of controversy, there is little doubt that parents exert a huge influence on children and their behaviour. One research proves that alcoholics were likely to have parents who were alcoholics, while domestic abusers were likely abused themselves as children. Academic and research literature contains a wealth of information tying parental influence to children’s behaviour. In the area of peer influence, for example, Chen et al (2007) note that, in a study among California and Wisconsin high school students, it was found that parental influence on peer affiliation still is significant even as parental involvement in adolescents’ lives diminishes. But it isn’t only growing teens that respond to parental influences. Infants, even very young infants, respond to parental stress and react to it (Molfese et al, 2010). In fact, it has been revealed that parental stress and/or reaction can actually have an impact on vocabulary and cognitive development (Molfese et al, 2010).

On the other side we’ve seen literature extolling the positive benefits of tools such as parental training on the success of children. For example, Sheely-Moore and Bratton (2010) discussed how a family-oriented, strengths-based approach toward working with lower-income African American families helped raise children’s grades while lowering school discipline problems. The authors in this study pointed to the need of positive parental involvement on children’s academic achievement and socio-economic development, though pointed out that parental involvement can be difficult for those who live in poverty (Sheely-Moore and Bratton, 2010).

Furthermore, it has been proven that parental influence also has an influence on driving among their teenage offspring (Crawford-Faucker, 2009). According to the National Young Driver Survey (involving 5,665 students in grades 9 through 11) parenting styles had a definite impact on choices the young drivers made (Crawford-Faucker, 2009). The authoritative parenting style combining emotional support with clear rules and monitoring had a definite (and positive) influence on driving-related behaviours and other attitudes among adolescents (Crawford-Faucker, 2009). These teens had a lower crash risk, experienced fewer crashes as passengers and were twice as likely to wear seat belts as a driver (or passenger) then were teens with uninvolved parents (Crawford-Faucker, 2009). Furthermore, this group reported less alcohol use (Crawford-Faucker, 2009).

But harsh verbal and physical discipline isn’t necessary the way to go, either. McKee et al (2007) studied harsh verbal and physical discipline and child problem behaviours in a sample of 2,582 parents and their fifth and sixth grade children. The findings indicated that the harsh discipline was associated with child behaviour problems, with one dimension of positive parenting – parental warmth – helping to buffer children from the more detrimental influences of the harsher physical discipline (McKee et al, 2007).

In this section that parents have a huge influence on their kids, whether those kids are tiny, helpless infants or defiant teenagers. Children tend to mimic their parents, for better or for worse. Some years ago, the organization Partnership for a Drug-Free America aired a series of advertisements showing a father breaking into his son’s room, drug paraphernalia in his hands. “Where did you get this?” the father thunders. “Where did you get this and how do you know about it?””I know about it by watching you!” the son cries out. “I watched you do it!”

The point of the commercial, of course, is that children will take their cues from their parents. If parents act in a responsible manner and own up to a mistake or problem situation, children will take that same cue. If, however, parents are carelessness and put the blame on other people for their own mistakes, children will do the same things.

Discussion

The issue we need to address here, however, is that this is not necessarily a black or white scenario. Tyler et al (2000) point out that the parental liability laws, in which parents are charged with the crime committed by their offspring, could end up penalizing the poor. In a poor family, both parents might be working leaving their children to their own devices, simply because they can’t afford child care. Furthermore, if a child is delinquent, poor people (at least, in theory) may not be able to afford counselling to find out the problem.

Few people want their children to be delinquent (especially lower-income people). But then again, even among poor families, we find out that not all children are delinquent. What is the difference between the well-behaved children of poorer families and those who act out? One word: Parenting. Even if there isn’t a male role model in the house, many times, the matriarch of the family takes a strict stance among her offspring, raising Cain if the offspring get into trouble.

Furthermore, there are resources for parents of lower income families to find help for their children if there are issues. Though going through governmental red tape can be a hassle to find a counsellor, a community agency or even religious organization official can be of great help in an area such as this. The point here is that there is really no excuse for the parent not to get help if the child acts out.What about if the child’s mother is little more than a child herself? If this is a situation of a teenage mother who doesn’t know how to parent, the situation changes a little, but not a whole lot. The teen mother still needs to be penalized, and then needs to be mandated to attend parenting classes. Failure to do so is the teen mom’s choice and if the teen mom doesn’t attend classes, this tells the law enforcement officials that her defiance could be passed on to her children.

Poverty isn’t a good thing and it makes things very difficult, especially as it pertains to the parent-child relationship. But to use that excuse not to charge parents for a child’s conduct is passing on responsibility. Such a situation may serve as a wake-up call for not only the child, but the parent who is involved with the child’s upbringing.

Conclusion

Parenting is not an easy job and there is nothing more frustrating than hearing from the school – or from the police – that one’s child is in trouble. Furthermore, there are those who point to the fact that trying to manage an unruly team is tough, and it’s not the parents’ responsibility if the teen gets into trouble.But this isn’t true. We’ve shown, through the literature, that parents have influence on their teenagers, even if their teenagers don’t seem to be listening to them. Parents who keep lecturing to their kids about the evils of drugs and alcohol abuse are likely to have kids who grow up disdaining both of those substances. However, if kids see their parents freely addicted in alcohol (or drugs), the kids will ask themselves “why not?” and go ahead do the same thing.

Parental liability laws aren’t meant to be malicious, nor are they meant to beat up on parents. What they are trying to do is to help parents teach their kids some responsibility. Even parents in poverty stricken families have a choice as to how they raise their kids. If they make the wrong choice, and the kids break laws as a result, the parents need to be held responsible.

Commercials and posters flood our daily lives by projecting images of helpless children who are in desperate need. Many people are aware of the children living in poverty, orphans, and abusive households. The media portrays neglected children who suffer from malnutrition, starvation, and the absence of love. In return, the advertised organization seeks for a small contribution of a dollar a day to help make a child’s life better. However, what about the child who endures the exact opposite of neglect? Less attention is veered towards the silent abuse of parents who control their child to the extreme that they are actually hindering their development and performance by not allowing their child to grow and experience life healthily. Does a child who is overly cared for and overly protected by their extremely overprotective parent still possess a better life than the child who is neglected? Or is the overprotected child just as helpless as the neglected?

Significance:

The children today are the future and faces of tomorrow. A child’s future is greatly influenced by his or her parents. A parent who is abusive restricts a child from possessing a healthy lifestyle and developing healthy relationships with other individuals. However, a parent who is over controlling will limit a child from developing essential skills necessary to govern and direct their own life in a positive and healthy manner. Yet many fail to acknowledge this and assume that parents are just being loving and caring; emotions that all parents and guardians are expected to express. Therefore, many people do not listen to these children and believes that their problems are not as severe as the children who suffer from physical or verbal abuse. This is significant to human development because many children suffer from the limitations their overprotective parents impose and do not have access to the same amount of help and assistant as children with abusive parents.

Problem Statement:

Through my research, I hope to raise public awareness of this silent abuse. Most importantly, I hope to reach out to parents who are over controlling, as well as abusive, and have them place their child’s interests before their own. If a parent, who is over protective of their child, cares about their child deeply, then they should care more about their child’s wellbeing rather than their own personal desires and expectations of their child.

Literature Review:

Parents who overprotect their child to the extreme can prevent their child from acquiring the basic fundamental skills of life. As a result, the child can become emotionally handicap and rely on his or her parent throughout their life. As stated by Cossentino, “children in this situation are not able to develop a knowledge of independence and remains bound to the parent while the parent is bound in a cycle of overprotection” (The Overprotected Child). This dangerous cycle leaves the child and parent bonded together in such a way that it is unhealthy for both members. The child relies on their parent immensely that the parent is responsible to attend to every single matter of the child’s life; from basic chores, resolving a conflict, to communicating with acquaintances of the child. This often stifles the growth and development of a child, who cannot live without authority. Thus, the parent cannot leave this cycle because the parent raised the child in this manner.

“Children lack a knowledge of resolving conflicts and have a high chance of being rejected by their peers due to low confidence and an inability to stand up for oneself” (Cossentino). With parents always protecting them, the child will never be aware of how to stand up for oneself and is unable to confront the realities of life. These children have the inability to be very social among others besides their own parents, which causes them to develop a low self-esteem as well as low self-confidence.

The inability to make decisions on his or her own can cause a child to be unprepared for the future and is unable to live without a parent or authority figure. As stated by Cossentino, “children will lack life-experiences of decision making, life skills, age appropriate freedom, and conflict resolution”. An overprotected child becomes bound to a parent in a way that is similar to how a baby is bounded to its mother for the rest of its life. The child is completely unprepared for freedom and responsibility, finding it hard to exercise self-discipline and is more vulnerable to getting emotionally hurt.

As argued by Guthrie and Matthews, “Overprotecting parents can lead children to develop Peter Pan Syndrome” (No More Push Parenting, 44). The ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ affects people who do not want or feel unable to grow up. In other words, people with the body of an adult but the mind of a child. Peter Pan was a fictional character who refused to grow up and had a never-ending childhood. Those with this syndrome do not know how or do not even want to stop being children and start being adults. These people are unable to grow up and take on adult responsibilities; they see the adult world as very problematic and glorify being a child, which is why they want to stay in that state of privilege.

Children who have been neglected on the other hand are in complete control of their life and are forced to survive on their own. Neglected children do not have an authority figure and may be more likely to replace the unknown feeling of love with hate and anger. “Children tend to try and please their parents to gain affection. However, when they cannot please their parents, they become filled with rage and take their anger out destructively” (Nguyen). The violence neglected children seek for may be towards other individuals or other substances, but for some, they seek to hurt themselves. “Children repress rage only to become depressed and suicidal” (Watkins, A3). These children possess a great amount of emotion built up inside them that it becomes unbearable and hard to deal with. Thus, they try to fill the void of love in their life with other things or someone’s acceptance. As Andron stated, “Children with low self-esteem search for someone’s acceptance, which usually winds down a damaging path eventually set up for death or become life-threatening” (23). More than likely, they fall under peer pressure or experiment with drugs and alcohol, anything to make them feel accepted. Because they lack a knowledge of what is normal or who to trust, they are more vulnerable to perpetrators and are often abused by their peers.

One form of violence an individual may express is through school. For example, the University of Texas massacre in Austin left 18 dead while the Columbine High School took a death toll of fifteen, and the highest toll of thirty-three lives was the Virginia Tech massacre (Watkins, A3). When an individual commits a crime, he or she is questioned for the reason of their action. However, few people turn to the parents or even glance at the child’s home life. “Children turn to destructive manners for coping as a way to test if their parents really care for them or not” (Nguyen). By hurting oneself, an individual tests the love of a parent, or to see if anyone else bothers to really care.

Many parents are incapable of seeing the damaging effects of placing their own needs before their child’s. They fail to see the atmosphere and living situation they created and forced their child to endure. Most importantly, they fail to treat and raise their child healthily. By overprotecting to the extreme, a parent not only shields a child from pain, but also robs the child of their adulthood by keeping them from developing friendships, intimate relationships, and independent skills along their journey of life. Thus, through neglect, a child is forced to learn how to survive through life on their own without the protection of a parent, without the love and guidance a parent has to offer, and without the comfort of a real family. Therefore, what is worse: overprotection or abandonment?

Methodology:

By listening to the personal stories of my volunteered subjects, I hope to obtain data that reflects whether or not both children, who are on opposite ends of the spectrum, share the same difficulties. The individuals I will choose will be children and their parents who reside in Cambodia.

Cambodia is a poverty-stricken country and the home to many neglected children who roam the streets begging for food. Sadly, because of this, it will not be difficult to find a neglected child to speak with. The difficulty will be trying to find the parent or guardian of the neglected child and persuading him or her to share their own personal story.

In addition, families who are wealthy have higher expectations for their children and try to mold their child into what they want by controlling every aspect of their child’s life. Because of this, I will listen to the stories of a child is in a more well-off family and his or her parent’s story .

Urie Bronfenbrenner theory is based on ecological theory, which is focusing on environmental factors (Santrock, 2011). The Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory is explained how natural environments can be a big influence to the development of persons. In other words, the development of persons can be affected by the surroundings from home to the wider context such as culture. Bronfenbrenner stated that there were many different levels and types of environment effects that might affect how a child grows and develops (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). There are the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem.

The microsystem refers to the interactions between a person and the people surroundings him or closes to him. To put in differently, it is the small and immediate environment where the person lives in for instance a person’s family, school, peers, neighborhood play area and work. The second of Bronfenbrenner’s environmental layers is the mesosystem. The mesosystem is defined as the relationship or connection between different parts of the microsystem like the relationships between family and teachers, family and peers, and teachers and religious group. Next is the exosystem. The exosytem level has the less interaction or may not have it all between the children or adolescents and the other people or places but they may affect the development of the person herself, for instance parents’ work environments, extended family members and neighborhood. Last but not least is the macrosystem. Bronfenbrenner defines that the macrosystem consists of cultural, subcultural, or social class context (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). It is wide, and the largest level in this theory but still it has a great influence to the person. The macrosystem includes the economy, government, wars, the relative freedoms and cultural values. Therefore, the persons can get the positive and negative impact from this level. Finally is the chronosystem. The chronosystem is about how the pattern of individual’s life is changing over time depending on the environmental events. Besides, the environmental changes caused by cognitive and biological changing that occur at the puberty as well as the age of the individual.

How the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory apply to child development

Family, teachers and community members play important role in raising children with applying values and customs to socialize them so they can contribute something to the society. From the views of Barbour, Barbour and Scully (2011), children develop some attitudes by observing actions, hearing words and surmising the feelings of significant others in their environment.

At this point, family, peers and religious group are located in the Bronfenbrenner’s innermost environmental layer, or microsystem. It means people in the microsystem are the major influence of the child especially at the early age. Children’s perceptions and behaviors can be developed early from home and the direct interactions take place in the microsystem like the interaction between a child and parents, siblings, teachers and peer group. Besides, the good environment and better encouragement to the child will affect how better the child will grow up (Oswalt, 2008). According to Oswalt (2008), “Each child’s special genetic and biologically influenced personality traits, what is known as temperament, end up affecting how others treat them”.

Another case is how some parts in microsystem having the connections or interrelationships among them like parents, teachers and peers. For example, a child’s parents have a good relationship with teachers will have a major influence on children’s learning and acceptance of school. Also parents and teachers support the children’s interest and the competition that they participate. As a result, it will help the child’s overall growth. The child might feel confident about her talent and ability consequently will affect her performance in study and have good relationship with other people. This kind of interaction between different parts of the microsystem is called the mesosystem. . According to the Shaffer and Kipp (2010), Bronfenbrenner argues that development of a child will be effective if the connections between microsystems are strong and supportive. Conversely, if the connections are non-supportive, it can produce trouble on child.

For the third environmental layer or exosystem, this may not have contact with the child but might affect the development of the child. As an illustration, parents’ work environment. If both parents have their own careers, it might cause the conflict between the caring for children and the responsibility at the workplace. The conflict is largely happened to the mother because beside responsibility for children, they also have full participation at the workplace. Therefore, this will give the impact to the children and the time for family interaction will decrease, increased dependence on child care and fewer choices in recreation. As a result the family will have less information about the children’s activities and the children only depending on her friends who can be good or bad friends. Oswalt (2008) states that the child at home can possibly be affected by a parents experience at work.

Then, another environment is about the larger context called the macrosystem. For example, the family role in culture, how children should be treated, what they should be taught and the goals they should achieve. The styles of interaction within family will reflect the roles expected of children (Barbour, Barbour & Scully, 2011). For instance, in most European American families encourage their children to go outside and find and establish other relationship. While in Asian families’ cultures, they pay respect for elders and the children are expected to be family oriented and encouraged to work hard for the family. To sum up, very family has different styles in raising their children and from that it will influence their behavior.

Lastly is the chronosystem. The chronosystem is about how the feeling, perceptions and attitudes of child can be changed over time. This model includes a temporal dimension (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). It is focusing on the ecological context of development or the transformation of the child can influence the way that development is likely to take (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). For instance, when the child is found out he is an adopted child, he will feel rejected and abandoned. He will have low self -esteem and struggle with identity development issues. This event may affect the child for a few years, but after he has grown up, the curiosity, sensitivity and the rebellious are becoming less and the interaction with family will be more stable. After all, the environmental factors like age, cognitive and biological changing play a major role in human development.

How the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory apply children in preschool and early primary levels

Normally children are only exposed to the family at home until they are placed in day care, preschool classes and begin their formal schooling. When they grow up, there are more exposures from many sources to them. In the microsystem, family is one of the factors that affect children in development. Furthermore, family plays important role to the physical development of children in aspect of education and family income. Family who has good education and good income usually has awareness with their diet. Therefore, parents will model healthy eating habits for their children, who are also dependent what food is put in the table. When the child gets enough nutrition in his diet, he will develop well. Besides that, environmental factors like family and peers also affect the social development of child. For example, when a child is shy, aside from inherited characteristic from a parent, it also can be caused from interaction between parents and child. Sometimes, parents are having less interaction with the child and the parents don’t even speak to each other. It will affect the social development of child, however, the difficulty to have appropriate sociality with peers will decrease after he enters the school. It can be concluded that, parents can influence the social actions of child but it will change after being exposed to the peers, hence surely can be influential factor to the development of child.

The interaction between people in the microsystem is essential for the development of child in the aspect of emotional development. For instance, family-teacher relationship that many people overlooked the importance of this relationship especially the teachers that only focus on to their relationship with children only. Children in the school always feel insecure, difficult to accept criticism, or punishment and unadaptable. Therefore, parents and teacher should work together for child’s growth and development. Teacher can know the family background of the child and their culture. Furthermore, it is really important for teacher to maintain the children’s culture since cultural identity and family connectedness are critical emotional health. In addition, both teacher and parents can discuss the children’s problem in school and together helping to solve the problems that may have lifelong consequences. Also, when their relationship is good, they can inform one another and the information might be useful and has lifelong effects on the child. Invite families to the social events in school and hold a parent-teacher conferences are some of the ways to build the partnership. On the whole, this relationship can provide support to children and build children’s emotional health.

Next we proceed to the level where children do not make any contact with these people and places but still have an effect on them. This level is the exosystem. Parents’ workplaces and mass media can be a largely affected to the children in term of emotional problems and cognitive development. Parents nowadays usually spend their time at work more than at home with their children. It will result in having less time to spend with children. They don’t have time to know their children’s activities, they can’t control their children and they don’t have time to help their children in developing important skills. Stress at work also influences the children because they might release their stress by resting and sleeping at home and lead to have less interaction with children. So then, the emotional problem will be faced by children because don’t have bond with parents. Studies have shown children who are given plenty of attention and love usually less have emotional problems than those who do. Besides that, mass media also influences the development of children. Children can develop and acquire the cognitive development from the good television shows. For example Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go!, and The Smurfs. Moreover, another electronic media source is internet that also contributes the cognitive development of children. It provides children to solve problems, practice skills and creativity, and widen their knowledge base (Barbour, Barbour & Scully, 2011). For instance, practice chess, puzzle word and creative writing. But, as long as parents monitor their children from accessing inappropriate websites, internet can be a rich resource for children’s lives.

The next layer of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory is the macrosystem. Government plays a big role to the development of children. What government can do is enacting the law for protecting the children hence to ensure the well-being of development of children. The examples of the law are Education Act 1996 [Act 550] and The Compulsory Education Act. Both are related to the compulsory for parents to make sure their children attend preschool and primary school. Preschool Education is for all children to improve their necessary skills at the early age and the programmes are provided by Government in rural and urban area. The purposes are to develop basic communication skills, and characters, moral values, doing physical activities for good health and improve critical thinking skills through senses. Besides, the Education system in preschool emphasizes on nine elements for children development like Malay language, English language, Islamic education, moral studies, civics education and children’s physical development. From the policies, personal development and the socialization process can be acquired by children and can affect children positively.

Summary

Children acquire many things from surroundings for their development and they depend on how good and bad of their environmental are. Adult people should know their roles as parents, teachers and societies to the development of children. Although they affect the children’s growth and development in some ways, their behaviors and viewpoints also affect their perceptions and attitudes. However, adult also can be influenced by children. The family is the major influence in the systems because they are the most trusted by children. So it is essential for family to stress on the development of children in the elements of physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. The place also like home, is supposed to be the suitable place for children to develop with more tools provided and more interaction with children. Even though some environment is out of family’s control, but they can do their best to develop their children necessaries’ skills for their lifelong consequences.

“Play is like a reservoir full of water. The deeper the reservoir, the more water can be stored in it and used in time of drought.” (Bruce 1991). In this literature review I will discuss the theories surrounding learning through play, a widely explored approach to learning and teaching within the early years setting. I will attempt to assess how it can be used to support the learning of children within the Primary Framework. Research into play based learning approaches relating to older children is more limited, although I believe there are some key themes that are relevant to teaching and learning for all children.

Before exploring the benefits of learning through play, it is important to grasp an understanding of play. It is difficult to define what play is. There are no less than 33 different definitions of the word in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary. Play varies among activities, social contexts, and age groups. It might involve a game, but not always. Play can involve imagination, but it may also base itself on reality. Many theorists have endeavoured to make concrete attempts to clear the water on the definition play. Huizing (1950) states that if an activity is fully absorbing, includes an element of uncertainty and involves a sense of illusion then it is play. Groos (in Hyder, 2005) argued that play is a means through which children make sense of adult roles within society. According to Piaget (1969) play is a way for children to unify experiences, knowledge and understanding. Vygotsky (1966) considered play to be important for an individual’s cognitive development. Smith (1998) believes a definition of play is important, while noting the quandary in attaining a single, all-embracing definition. Fisher (2002) supports this view, arguing as there is no single definition of the word then playful activities can be open to interpretations in different ways.

Goodale and Godbey (1988) define play more in relation to its opposite – serious work. However, Blanchard and Cheska (1985) assert that defining play as the opposite of work is mistaken. According to them the opposite of work is leisure and work has the potential to be considered as play as well.

Throughout life play is occurring with the form of play varying as a child grows. Children play every day. Play, in one form or another, continues from childhood into adulthood. People who do not take part in any form of play are believed to be more likely to suffer stress, depression and boredom. Bruner et al (1976) found that play reduces stress. They viewed play as a form of problem solving which required self-initiation, therefore increasing a child’s problem-solving ability. Additionally they argued that play enables children to focus and establish their own learning experience goals, thus enhancing learning attainment. In the same vein, Eden (2008) argued the benefits of therapeutic play being particularly beneficial for children who are experiencing stress as it allows them to become absorbed, putting aside any fears and frustrations and restoring confidence.

Play has an important role in the physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive development of children and in essence it is a learning experience. Play contributes to children’s general personality development, allowing them the opportunity to practice their linguistic, cognitive and social skills. Play is also associated with creativity, especially the ability to be less literal and more flexible in one’s thinking.

There are four types of play that reflect increasing levels of children’s social interaction and sophistication. Solitary play is a play that takes place alone, often with toys, and is independent of what other children are doing. Parallel play involves children engaged in the same game or activity side by side but with very little interaction or common influence. Associative play is much like parallel play but with increased levels of interaction in terms of sharing, turn-taking and general interest in what others are doing. Cooperative play occurs when children join and work together to achieve a common goal, such as building a large castle with each child building a part of the structure.

Play can be divided into two definite categories: free play and structured play. Free play takes place when the child is leading the play experience, setting out the rules and boundaries. This type of play will often hold the child’s interest longer and children can become engrossed in the activity because they developed it themselves. Structured play is adult led, guided and planned. Structured play tends to be more limiting and minimises the child opportunities to be inventive. Good quality play provision begins with providing activities to stimulate all areas of development. It is important that in a child’s development there is a good balance between free and structured play. (Too descriptive??)

There has been a strong case argued for play as a means to teaching and learning, moreover it is now widely seen as a child’s primary need. The Charter for Children’s Play (2007) state that play is something that children want to do naturally and is the most effective way of learning as they can explore the world around them, develop their imagination, participate, share and socialise with others.

To appreciate the benefits of play, we must recognise that children learn better when they can experience, manipulate, explore and experiment from direct sensory encounters around them. Play allows children the opportunity to develop sharing and turn taking skills, whilst also providing an outlet for a child’s feelings to be displayed. Montessori placed emphasis on children’s self-initiated learning stating that play supported the maturity and development of the mind, body and brain in terms of gaining greater awareness and sharpening abilities to gather and organise information. Montessori supported Gross in his view that when children play, it is their work.

In evaluating the value of teaching and learning through play there are a wealth of psychologists and theorists including Piaget, Bruner, Vygotsky, Isaacs, Montessori, Froebel and McMillan all documenting a variety of research supporting the effectiveness of play based learning. All see it as an integral factor in supporting and promoting children’s social and emotional development. Much recent research on play cite the work of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed through play children can discover the world, formulate opinions and impart some meaning to their ever-changing view of the world. Piaget argues play parallels development, while Vygotsky puts forward that play promotes development. Piaget (in O’Hara and Smith, 2004) believed that children were actively in control of their own learning, with their major task being that to develop an ability to organise their experiences and learn from them, thus enabling children to make sense of the world. Piaget’s play theory reflects his focus on the intellectual development in children, concentrating on the child’s construction of reality rather than on the social context of learning. Piaget perceived play as a method which children use to develop their cognitive abilities and to practise their emerging cultivated capabilities. He also saw play as a child’s adaptation to the world around them through application of assimilation. Piaget claimed there are three stages in the development of play; imitative or purposeful play, imaginary play, and play with rules.

Vygotsky’s (1978) view differed from Piaget about there being stages in play development, however he agreed that play stimulates the development of abstract thought. Vygotsky advocated play based learning, not merely for younger children but those in late childhood too. He argued that through experimental play and experiences children are able to develop vital thinking thought structures.

Dewey (1966) supported this concept of experimental learning, maintaining that being able to experiment with and manipulate objects and situations is a significantly more effective teaching and learning method. He refutes methods that rely heavily on content and passive learning, where children are required to memorise information from a book or other source.

Gardner (1991) argued that all pupils do not learn in the same way, believing formal learning methods do not take into account those who have different learning methods therefore short-changing all but those who happen to match the teaching of the instructor.

Bruner and Haste (1987) argue that being active is what causes children both physically and cognitively to construct their own view of the world, to personalise the experience and to apply it in ways that makes sense to them. Fisher (2002) supports this view, believing that as children are active learners the most appropriate curriculum for them is one that offers experiences which enable them to investigate, explore and play. She further argues for a learning environment that offers relevant, meaningful and worthy of active involvement is necessary. In other words, according to Rieber, (1996) a learning environment that encourages children to play. Piaget echoes this belief, deeming the child learns through hands on experience.

Friedrich W. Froebel, (1782-1852) studied childhood play and developed the concept of focused early learning experiences, based on play. Through his studies and observations, he took the natural play of children and gave it status, making it of central importance in his philosophy for the education, care and development of young children. He considered free-flow play an important aspect, common to all human beings, and saw every child as a unique individual needing sensitive and appropriate help to develop and learn optimally. Over the years he developed a curriculum around children’s free play, which he believed was the highest form of learning, where the “children were encouraged to learn through playful activities and songs”. (MacLeod-Brudenell, 2004, pg 4)

McMillan and Isaacs were early play pioneers who recognised the importance and value of play for children’s development. In particular, Isaacs was so convinced of the value of play that she claimed “that play indeed is the child’s work, and the means by which he or she develops.” (Isaacs, 1929) MORE ON McMILLAN AND ISAACS

The Government is aware of how important and significant it is for children to have access to suitable and safe play opportunities and experiences, both indoors and outdoors and have included plans to create as many opportunities for this as possible within its document, The Children’s Plan.

The Government recognises play as “important for children’s development, build social and emotional resilience, develop social skills, strengthen friendships, help children learn how to deal with risks – and of course because children enjoy it.” (Every Child Matters, The Children’s Plan, pg 30 para.1.46) CHARTER FOR CHILDREN’S PLAY AND EYFS.

Macintyre (2001) documents young children’s desire to succeed and be right, often causing them to avoid certain situations, ones which they believe will result in them failing. Play has demonstrated itself as an effective method of developing self-efficacy. In the Early Years Foundation Stage children are able to experiment with no apparent fear of failure. Macintyre (2001) argues that this allows children to challenge themselves and embark upon experiences they might otherwise avoid. As children move into the subject based Primary Framework they are conditioned into searching for the right and wrong answers which Macintyre (2001) believes may make them begin to withdraw from certain learning experiences altogether.

Dewey (1966) believes that through a play based teaching and learning context children are given an opportunity to gain new information and concepts, thus enabling their intellect to be engaged and to support progression.

A direct link between play and learning is believed, however there are some theorists who criticise the use of learning through play, and disagree with the research findings. Anning (1991) assert little empirical evidence has been found for the pedagogical value placed on play. Bennett et al (1997) point out that whilst the case for play may be strong ideologically, it is debatable whether it provides a coherent framework to guide education practice. They argue that in the current climate of target setting and assessment play is hard to evaluate and may not produce any tangible outcomes. Meadows and Cashden (1998) consider children’s play to be brief and at times aimless and therefore not resulting to anything prolific. Smith and Cowie (1991, in Fisher, 2002) believe that the lack of confidence in the importance of play is due to the lack of any real evidence that play does or does not have the effect and benefits proposed. Meadows and Cashden (1998) believe that observing and assessing the implicit learning in play is not an easy thing to do, therefore the value given to an activity most likely depends on the understanding and observational skills of the observer. Fisher and Williams (2004) consider that if play is to serve as an educational tool it needs to be purposeful and requires the intervention of supportive, knowledgeable adults, who encourage children to think about what they are doing and provide them with opportunities to explore and experiment with ideas. Horner and Ryf (2008) consider the teacher’s role to be crucial in extending learning. Vygotsky (1978) emphasised the significance of an adult or more knowable other, assisting a child to acquire skills and understandings that they may not reach alone. He refers to this gap between what children can do alone and what they can achieve with help, as the ‘zone of proximal development’. Vygotsky (1978) maintains that when children play they give cues to adults about their readiness to learn new skills with assistance.Sylva et al (1980) advocate the need for teacher interaction and intervention at opportune moments to ensure optimum value in play can be appreciated. Brown (1998) stresses the importance of approaching children’s play with sensitivity, getting involved and possibly provided a new direction, but not taking over.

Dewey (1966) contends that it is not enough simply to introduce play, but that everything depends upon the way in which play is employed. Adams et al (2000) found positive gains through play when it was used as a teaching tool rather than being viewed as an addition to the ‘real curriculum’. Moyles (1989) argues the case for play to be looked at as a way of teaching and learning rather than as a separate entity. “Because of the relevance and motivation of play to children, play must pervade how teachers present potential learning activities, not sit as an uncomfortable and somewhat suspect activity in itself.” (Moyles, 1989, p.86)

Umek and Musek (2001) believe that when properly structured, play can enable teachers to see pupils demonstrating their understanding of a subject, thus making it a method of effective assessment. They argue that “Children can achieve higher levels of individual cognitive functions (conservation, one-to-one correspondence, decentration) in their symbolic play than they demonstrate when the same mental operations are tested and measured in formal, non-play, situations” (Umek and Musek 2001, p64).

After reading the document produced by Tom Burkard and Tom Clelford, “Cutting the Children’s Plan” which gives an insight of why the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) should be scrapped. It states that the Statutory Framework EYFS which was launched in 2007 should be scrapped to save ?315 million. However the authors do not state which areas of the EYFS they want scrapped, which causes concern. The EYFS is a large framework for practice and assessment and is the umbrella under which all the children aged 0 – 5 years who receive care and education. It has been a great impact within the early years establishments as well as having influences of various theorists to support the children’s learning and development. Before thinking of scrapping the EYFS altogether the authors should consider looking through the framework and see what the positives and negatives are as some aspects of the EYFS don’t work for some whereas other aspects are of great use. As it mentions in Pugh.G et al (2010:100) “There are also those who think it goes too far and is too perspective. (Open Eye, 2007:2008)”.

Within the document it is mentioned that the EYFS is an intrusive attempt to ‘micro-manage’ all 0 – 5 childcare establishments as well as dictating ‘best practice’ including parents. Within the EYFS it does not specify that the parents should do as they are told neither does it specify how practitioners should work with the children. Therefore Pugh.G et al (2010:105), states that “It requires the practitioner to differentiate to understand each child as an individual and personalize the curriculum content to match their needs and interests”. However practitioners should have an in depth knowledge of their key children, so that they can use the EYFS Framework to support and help plan opportunities and activities. These will then enhance children’s learning and encourage the individual children’s development in a way that will interest them.

The EPPE Project (Sylva et al, 2004: Chapter 4) identified the importance of a form of interaction between children and adults, that they call ‘sustained shared thinking’ in promoting children’s learning and development which is now as part of the EYFS. On the other hand working in partnership with parents is essential as it helps all children to achieve their full potential. As stated in The Times (2008), “The EYFS is about responding to the individuality of each child, in the context of loving and secure relationships and creating a stimulating and enabling environment that will promote age – appropriate experiences for learning and development”. Furthermore, Nurse A.D (2007:73) states that “Children can be said to prefer to learn through the enactive mode as their ability to represent images and use symbols is less well developed”. In this Bruner agreed with Piaget that active, first – hand experiences are an appropriate way to present new knowledge to young children.

The document also questions whether the EYFS encourages good practice. According to Pugh.G et al (2010:105) “we need to focus the curriculum on what is important for the children, the things that they need to be doing at this stage of their development”. By looking at the research and practice the most important things are Being Social, Being Positive, Being a Communicator, Being Creative and Being Healthy and Safe (ECM:2003). By introducing reading and writing at an early stage it could be argued that it can lead to complications later on and also delaying phonic work, therefore the EYFS recommends that practitioners use their professional judgement with introducing phonics. On the other hand the authors are claiming that children who come from a less stimulating disadvantaged environment ‘waste an entire year’ falling further behind their middle class peers in learning (e.g reading), whose parents generally know better than to delay reading instruction. This is not entirely true, Gaunte (2010) clarifies that “Parents with the support of the wider family, are children’s primary educators. What parents do at home with young children has the most impact on all aspects of their development – social, emotional, intellectual and physical”.

Nevertheless it could be alleged that children who have strong home learning environments are ahead socially and intellectually by the age of three, which is continued into schooling. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development emphasises the role of the wider environment and the children’s interaction within it. Bronfenbrenner and Caci (1994) proposed that the environment was the main influence on children’s development. Bronfenbrenner produced systems which included the following ‘Microsystems’, ‘Macrosystems’ and ‘Exosystems’. The following diagram illustrated below shows how these systems are interacted and impact on the child’s learning and development. (Smith et al: 2003). Bronfenbrenner also led the ‘Head Start’ programme in America which required helping disadvantaged children overcome their poor beginnings.

The EYFS recognises the importance of the wider environment both in working in partnership with parents and the ethos of the EYFS, providing equality of care and education for all. Research has shown that good quality early education and care has wide – ranging benefits for all children. Being provided across nurseries, reception classes, pre – schools, children’s centres and childminders, it enhances social and cognitive skills and is of particular benefit to disadvantaged children (N.A: 2010). However other curriculums have also the quality input that the EYFS has, for example the High Scope Curriculum, Montessori etc. It could be argued that children who have an intellectually and physically stimulating environment will maintain a more complex network of synapses in the brain (Bee: 1997). These biological changes in nature can have implications for practice, the EYFS however has a variety of suitable activities planned for those at different ages and stages of development. This is a prime example of how ‘nurture can influence nature.

Additionally Bowlby’s (1907 – 1990) research found that babies/children succeed if they receive care from one main caregiver which is usually the mother. They are also more likely to make secure attachments and then initially grow up into being well – balanced adults. (O’Hagan et al: 1993). Therefore modern researchers have disputed the fact that only the mothers can perform this task (Smith et al: 1993), regardless the debate of ‘working mothers’, it still remains that the children’s emotional and cognitive development are best when there is that continuity of care available. When in care children under the age of 5 should each be allocated key workers so that children can form key attachments with this person, this is where secondary attachments are formed. The key person is a key to developing relationships with the children that are assigned to them as swell as sharing and collecting information by working in partnership with parents of the key children allocated. The EYFS reflects this by stating that “Each child with early years care and education should be allocated a key person” (EYFS: 2007). By having a key person allocated to the children it enables them to develop an attachment with the practitioner on a secure basis knowing that they can rely on the key person.

Lastly the authors stipulate that despite the ambitions of the EYFS, childminders have not been able to see the practical effect of this. It could be argued that there is too much paperwork involved for them within the EYFS. However there is evidence that most childminders have developed knowledge and understanding of how to put the EYFS into practice and use it to identify, plan and provide foe individual children’s needs in their care. On the other hand many childminders have given up their jobs due to this and others who are thinking of this. On one forum a childminder writes her views on the EYFS Curriculum and how she feels about it which can be accessed on

The childminder states:

“I, like many other childminders, gave up an enormous amount of personal time just to prepare for my Ofsted. I spent weeks compiling my Portfolio, cataloguing my Toys, books, games, puzzles and equipment; compiling cleaning rotas, putting together endless policies, parent information booklets, files for training, files for resource collections, working out a system for recording each child’s development, the list goes on and on. I still cared about and loved the children, I still provided the caring environment, and I still try to help each of my little ones to blossom and flourish, to feel loved and cared for, to be aware of the needs and feelings of others and to know that each one is recognised as being unique and valuable. Yes it should be obligatory for childminders to attend relevant courses and keep up to date with current thinking and procedures, in order that they can prepare to do the job effectively, but the burden of delivering EYFS in a childminding setting is too much for many childminders, and this needs to be reviewed.

Mrs R Richardson, Registered Childminder”

Therefore it could be argued that the EYFS should not be scrapped but reviewed again. Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association argues that “We are receiving clear signals about the positives of the EYFS and recommend that the Government focuses on refining and improving the EYFS rather than introducing radical change”.