Child Health Care (Essay Sample)

Child Health Care
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Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2012
Child health care has faced tremendous changes in the society, and it has embarked on multicultural strategies to necessitate competitiveness and effectiveness in the society. The focus has been on sociological perspective. According to Lerner (2002), sociology involves an analysis of social life of human being, societies and groups. It incorporates analysis of human interaction as they mature, both mentally and physically, in the current society. Sociology emerged as a separate discipline in the mid-1800s in Western Europe. The current research has analyzed the social perspective and its implication in the health care sector. In social perspective, it implies the symbols that are imminent in the society, and how the symbols used can interact with other human beings in the society. The three sociological perspectives that are relevant in the society are functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory. The current society is extremely diverse with different cultures, especially with people living in the same area. In culture, I imply that the cumulative experience, knowledge, values that are acquired by a given group, which aims at shaping their ways of norm. As I grew up in New York, I have noticed the languages, behaviors and even the materials they own based on their religion that has been passed down for future generations.
Parents' roles are crucial in the development and growth of a child not only because of their genetic influence on their children, but also due to love and care in which they subject to their children. The physical and emotional condition of a child is dependent on the extensive family interaction (Knott and Willacy, 2009). Although social interaction among family members is essential in realization of child's emotional build-up, relationship between parents and their children is significant in the social and cognitive development of a child. However, as the world continues to develop, people are compelled to adapt to the rapid changes it undergoes. Unlike the past, the modern children are exposed to new social trends in the society including entertainment. As the society continues to adapt to these new changes, it can be noted that these developments has deteriorated parental care and subjected children to independency in the society.
In most developed and developing economies, increasing incidents of behavioral problems among children are often blamed on the failing condition of parental care. Such behavioral problem is not only caused by direct influence or ignorance of the parent but also on the environment issues in the society. Over the past decades, the characteristics of families have experienced tremendous changes. For instance, within the last three decades, two-parent families in the United States have declined tremendously from 85% to the current 69%. With such a significant decrease in only 30 years, it is predicted that, in the next few years, most of the children would be either under the care of a single parent or no parent at all. In the case of Great Britain, the reports indicate that the percentage of children who have single parents have increased from 18% in 1991 to about 23% in 2001. The other change that families have experienced is the rise in divorcees amongst the population. Knott and Willacy (2009) posit that, within the last 50 years, the number of reported divorces has increased by 100%.
Towards the end of the 20th century, the challenges that the social sector, preferably children's social life, faced necessitated the initiation of child welfare. Being a human service practice, its mandate is to ensure that children's fundamental rights and freedom are observed in the society. With the changes in the family characteristics, the human rights activists and human service practitioners were concerned with the potential crisis that the current condition may generate. Some of these problems that the children face include social problems, discipline problems, and educational problems. In social problems, the children do not have the freedom to interact with one another due to restriction from their parents or guardians (Fitzgerald et al., 2003).
Reports have indicated that children with disability are the vulnerable group in which they are oppressed by their parents. They can be enclosed in a building thereby inhibiting their mobility. In educational problems, the children may be restricted through access relevant education because of their gender. The situation is often reported when a girl-child is discriminated from accessing education. Finally, discipline problems have been attributed to lack of parental guidance. Unlike other problems, discipline problems are caused by excessive freedom given to the children. However, the three conflicts are interrelated. Discipline problems, such as selfishness and recklessness, may lead to educational problems, such as being troublesome and having poor academic performance. This will result to social problems of losing confidence and finding support from various vices such as alcohol and drug abuse.
With these incumbent problems, child welfare has been the key solution in the contemporary society. For instance, in the United States, the current statistics has revealed that there are 22.5% of children who have experienced abuse. The data was based on the 50 states in the U.S. It is projected that there are 794,000 children in the U.S. who were victims of maltreatment in 2007 (Fitzgerald et al., 2003). Although United States have stringent policies that safeguards children against exploitation from their superiors, the number of children being abused is increasing each year.
The report also outlined that both non-developing and developing economies experience extreme child abuse unlike the developed countries. Another issue that impedes children's freedom is the relationship between parents and their children. The existence of numerous child care establishments reflects that the parents and children relationship is already in a critical condition even at a young age where parental care is mostly needed. As a result children grew separately from their parents, and these resulted into either educational problem, social problem or discipline problem.
The emergence of human service in the society aimed at achieving the viable form and condition of social life among the population. It has imposed in itself the responsibility of being an active agent in social transformation. As such, its mandate is to protect the children against any abuse as they are considered the future leaders of the society. According to Fitzgerald et al. (2003), in 1999, the demand for secondary care among children at a very young age has been recorded to be at 61%. The results provided were based on the National Household Survey conducted towards the end of 1999. The information was recouped from children below the ages of four years. Fitzgerald et al. (2003) also accounted that in the 61% of the individuals who demanded for secondary care, 44% of them were infants or were below ...