Abstract
I will be examining the effects of child discipline and child behaviour and how it affects our society in a negative or positive influence by observing the interactions of parents and children in a public place during different times of the day. I hope to be able to learn about the behaviours of children now opposed to the behaviours of children and parents that my generation had displayed. I have heard many arguments about child development and how corporeal punishment effects children’s mental health during the developmental stages of life.
The locations I have chosen were two various McDonald’s locations. The first location is in my home town of House Springs, Missouri and I am familiar with the history of the area. This familiarity will allow me to be able to gauge the behaviours of the parents and children to analyze if behaviours are regional or not. I feel that the demographic differences are important in this study because there may possibly be differences in childrearing depending on location. The second location was in Rolla, Missouri. I am unfamiliar with this territory, and I find that this will be useful in observing the “other”.
By going to these locations I hope to be able to decipher any differences in the way parents discipline their children, and if this will have any negative or positive effects on our Society today. The changing views of appropriate child discipline is effected by the different age groups and different regional demographics.
Introduction
Growing up in Jefferson County, I have witnessed many young children in the newer generations that do not adhere to rules or the demands of their parents. Children in the area seem quite uncontrolled, and I wish to try to discover if this is perhaps part of the regional differences in culture or merely more universal through various locations in Missouri.
Child development is a highly important stage of a person’s life, in which they learn all the necessary behaviours required for adult life in social, private and intrapersonal relations. Our childhood experiences are obviously influenced strongly by the interactions we have with others around us, and, most especially, our parents. The way our parents interact with us possibly effect the way we judge our own experiences in our lives, and the way that we perceive others in our immediate and social surroundings.
Children are imperative to the further advancement and development of our society because children are the ones who will run the society in the future after the adults now have gone. In order to shape the children of the future, the parents are placed with the duty of raising them in order to create the appropriate behaviours required by a “good” and productive member of society. Different modes of raising children include teaching, language, obedience, discipline, and social interactions. Parents are also placed with the duty of gender development of children.
However, times are seeing a change in the way parents interact with children, and especially in the way that parents discipline their children. These different forms of behaviours in parents towards children have sparked a new generation in which the children are becoming the more important members of society. This is creating a society that caters to the needs and rights of children, as opposed to a society in which the adults train the children to become better adults. A society in which “children rule” can be dangerous to the development of culture and the fixing of present social issues.
There once was a day in which children were spanked with a belt if they misbehaved, or paddled by teachers in school should they disobey rules. Now, we are seeing a large change and shift in what is considered to be “acceptable” punishment behaviour. Schools and teachers are suffering due to the lack of parental support and more complaints of “so-and-so teacher has failed to tend to my child’s needs”, whatever those needs may be. Educational systems appear to be focusing less and less on actual education and more on the “special needs” of the children in American schools.
