changes occur as both the child and parent grow and develop over time.

child and parent impact each other and give feedback in response to each other’s behavior. Communication and influence flow both ways.

Lifespan Parenting

parenting interactions are manifested in children’s character, behavior, and competency throughout the lifespan.

• John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth
• Having consistent, loving parents or significant reliable caregivers allows development of trust foundation and attachment
• Interruptions may include maternal deprivation, separation anxiety
• Instinctive attachment; biological need
• Strengthened by care and responsiveness Initial studies conducted in orphanages
• Harry Harlow wire-mesh and terry-cloth surrogate mothers study with infant monkeys
• Results pointed to infant need for contact comfort

• Microsystem: environments provided by family, peers, school, neighborhood
• Mesosystem: interactions between first and all other systems, facilitates communication between microsystem and exosystem
• Example: academic performance and social interactions are influenced by child’s family life and vice versa.
• Exosystem: government agencies, community programs, employment setting of parents.
• Macrosystem: larger culture including broad, generalized beliefs, behavior patterns, and value systems of a particular society
• Chronosystem: organization of events and changes over the life span of an individual at a particular historical time.

social roles of family members and how the family integrates with other social institutions

• Structural functionalism
• General systems theory application to humans
• Families operate in ways similar to other systems in nature
• Helps to explain processes of making decisions, setting goals, establishing rules to regulate behavior
• How families respond to change Subsystems of each system

• Wholeness
• Interdependence
• Patterns
• Reciprocal
• Interaction and Feedback
• Boundaries
• Entropy
• Equifinality
• Adaptation

• serve to regulate behavior of members and allow members to anticipate each other’s behavior
• Rules (implicit, explicit, negotiable, non-negotiable), roles, communication styles (verbal, nonverbal, contextual)

establish limits that distinguish a family system from all others and differentiate the members within the family systems

disorder or chaos in system functioning that results from lack of information or input from outside the system as a means of a resolving a crisis or problem

families share common goals but members reach these goals in different ways

changes and adjustments that allow the family to continue to function effectively

• Ernest Burgess
• Family as ‘unity of interacting personalities’
• Wholeness and interdependence
• Family as dynamic system; responds to changes within and outside of system
• Describes how families change in association with the passage of time
• Family members share common processes of developmental changes that occur over time due to stressors that force them to adapt and undergo transitions
• Complex and multigenerational family systems
• Intergenerational family systems with each generation at a different point in the lifespan facing unique challenges

• Erik Erikson
• Mental change as process throughout life span (extension of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical approach)
• Each stage of life has its own ‘psychosocial crisis’
• Trust vs. Mistrust
• Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
• Initiative vs. Guilt
• Industry vs. Inferiority
• Identity vs. Role Confusion
• Intimacy vs. Isolation
• Generativity vs. Self-Absorption
• Integrity vs. Despair
• Significant others assist or inhibit the developmental progress at each stage
• Psychosocial attitudes or feelings resulting from how well a person can meet and master a particular stage

• Bandura
• Explains how learning may occur when there is no visible reinforcer or reward
• Individual responds to complex stimuli by forming associations between appropriate and inappropriate behavior
• Conscious thought assists in shaping behavior and actions

• Operant Conditioning / Behavior Modification (B. F. Skinner)
• Emphasis on roles and rewards (e.g., Little Albert by John Watson)

• Jean Piaget
• How humans come to know and understand the world
• Cognition based on schemes
• Two basic schemes formed in infancy and childhood: 
• Sensorimotor schemes – based in motor acts
• Cognitive schemes – based in symbolism and abstract reasoning

• Assimilation – occurs when new information is incorporated into existing theme
• Accommodation – occurs when an existing theme is modified to match reality
• Parents provide social and physical experiences that create

• Lev Vygotsky
• Emphasizes self-efficacy and self-esteem
• Social interaction is basis of child’s learning
• A child’s culture shapes his or her way of thinking about and understanding the world
• Children are curious and actively involved in learning
• More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
• Children use language to power mental development
• Scaffolding Assertive and supportive care
• Interdependence is central to development

• Jerome Bruner
• Cognitive development parallels physical development
• Children must learn to represent environment in different ways to learn how to think creatively; three ways
• Enactive (action based)
• Iconic (image based)
• Symbolic (language based)
• Parent-child interactions and cultural technologies promote mental development
• Parents should provide stimulating language experiences
• Children are capable of learning anything that is properly organized

potential parent rehearses what it would be like to be a parent with imagery

establishing attachment with infant

realization that parenthood involves strong element of adult authority

adults assume responsibility of interpreting world for their children

parenting adolescent children, demands that parents reexamine the issue of parental authority

parents reflect on all of their experiences in raising children