After infancy the demands increase and cultural differences in the kinds of experiences that children have become more striking. Parenting styles differ and—along with many other aspects of material and social culture—constitute a complex and important developmental niche for children. Various studies demonstrate that parental behavior styles are often predictors for children’s cognitive development.
Socialization is the process by which individuals acquire the beliefs, values, and behaviors judged important in their society. Socialization prepares people to participate in a social group by teaching them its norms and expectations.
By socializing the young, society controls their undesirable behavior, prepares them to adapt to their environments and function effectively in it, and ensures that cultural traditions will be carried on by future generations.
Parents, peers, schools, churches and other people and institutions contribute to the socialization process.
During this process, the child acquires specific roles, attitudes, and responses that typically conform to the social pressures of the environment. Cross-cultural studies of parenting have indicated that the impact of parents’ child-rearing practices upon children’s development is mediated by socio-cultural factors e.g., socioeconomic status; or education of the parents.
The expert believes that parents everywhere have three very broad goals for their children:
*The survival goal – to promote the physical survival and health of the child, ensuing that the child lives long enough to have children of his or her own.
*The economic goal – to foster the skills and behavioral capacities that the child will need for economics self-maintenance as an adult.
*The self-actualization goal to top foster behavior capabilities for maximizing other cultural values (for example, morality, religion, achievement, wealth, prestige and a sense of personal satisfaction).
Children socialization goals
