Research Assignment on Peer Influence Versus Family Influence (Essay Sample)

PEER INFLUENCE VERSUS FAMILY INFLUENCE
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Introduction
The relationship that children create with their age mates from as early as six months via adolescence exerts significant impact on their future lives. Nevertheless, this tender form of friendship is usually viewed by many guardians as child’s play as they do not realise the enormous impact that the friendship plays in their lives. It is therefore not surprising when it is noted that children tend to learn more from their fellow friends rather than their own parents. Leading psychologists reveal that parents who focus on paying attention to their children as they teach them on the differences between what is good and bad have minimal impact on how they come to develop in future (Graeme Paton. “Children 'learn most from peers not parents.”) The necessity of surviving in school and engaging their friends has been regarded to be an important factor that influences the behaviour of a child. Statistics reveal that children who are brought up in well-disciplined families are equally likely to become hooligans as their counterparts who are brought up in chaotic homesteads if they happen to interact with unruly friends at a tender age. Scholars reveal that this type of relationship fosters positive feelings via friendship and it also contributes to adjustments in school as well as the problems that the child may face in future in the form of harassment and rejection. It is worth noting that children start their lives living together with their families in a social society (Meldrum et al., 2013). However, as the children mature, they begin a new phase of life where they are acquainted to a new social life composed of peers. In this form of living, they mostly spend most of their time with friends of a similar age group.
How Attachment and peer relationships affect the life of a child.
Attachment and peer relationships are experienced by children during their middle childhood when they are mostly in school. It is during this stage that children discover the aspect of independence and they have the sudden motivation to see their sights in higher levels (Bleske-Rechek and Kelley, 2014). The maturing children experience the feeling of detachment as they aspire to be on their own and make personal life decisions. The personal life decisions mostly include the type of company that they want to have, the type of course they wish to pursue in school and general life choices such as the type of clothing. It is clear that the children at this stage are usually conversant with the type of groups they desire to associate with as they mostly retain their first friends that they make while young. However, at this stage, a new form of social group arises usually composed of new children coming from various forms of backgrounds. The new type of environment calls for tolerance as the children adapt to the new and rather difficult social conditions with novel peers (Trzaskowski et al., 2014). The kind of relationships that children cultivate when growing up greatly differ from the behaviour that they experience with their guardians as well as their fellow siblings. The new relationships enable them to learn new skills which considerably influence their development.
Peer relationships tend to be well balanced as the partners seek to unite their unique heights of ability, thinking as well as skills to their group interactions. When schooling, children encounter challenges such as forming new friendships, maintaining the prevailing friendships, fitting in peer groups as well as avoiding bullies. These interactive skills are not easily attained as the kid requires complex thinking coupled with behavioural skills. Peer relationships are common in school and they play an important role as the children learn the values of confidence, how to solve conflicts, how to easily earn respect as well as how to manage aggression (Bleske-Rechek and Kelley, 2014). Psychologists also reveal that playing among peers provides them with essential opportunities that enable them deliberate on feelings, improve on their thought processes and understanding and also experiment on the existing language and their social roles. The behaviour of a child is not entirely determined by the peers they associate themselves with when growing. There is some small degree of behaviour in children that is influenced by their guardians and siblings as they learn from what they do when they are with them. It is more likely for children whose parent who engages in coercive behavior to also emulate their behavior and become like them as they grow. Similarly, when a guardian imparts their children with the aspect of empathy, it is more likely that the children will consider the feelings of their peers as they engage in their daily activities. However, it is worth noting that some aspects of a child’s social competence are innate therefore however much effort is put into changing the behavior, little success is guaranteed.
Children’s Feelings about People Who Belong to Different Groups
The feeling of a child regarding people who originate from various different groups partially determines how they interact with others in the future. How a child responds to people from different nationalities as well as those who are not in their group could tell what type of a person the child is going to be in future. If the child accepts and accommodates the foreigners, then it is more likely that the kid will be accommodative and friendly (Lieberman, 2016). If a kid resists people from different nationalities and outside groups, it is less likely that they will change in future as they are not accommodative when they are young as this is the stage when a person is most honest. Children who accept collaborative learning with foreign students and also accommodate foreigners in their groups are likely to make good leaders in future. The wide geographical knowledge advances in a sequence composed of four major stages. The initial stage is normally the pre-stage that is normally characterized with ignorance. The pre-stage lasts up to around five years from birth then the three stages follow in a developmental manner. The first developmental stage starts when a kid is around five years and lasts up to when the kid is around eight years old (Lieberman, 2016). During this stage, the child begins learning about the presence of various nationalities and groups like the French people, Indian people, Swiss people, British people and many other nationalities. However, the pattern of the children’s preferences, as well as attitudes, is usually idiosyncratic at this young age as they are normally founded on former individual experiences.
It is believed that it is at the intermediate stage that the views of children converge with the views that are usually conveyed in their existing social environments. The views of children in this group tend to favour particular groups while they have negative and neutral views on specific societies based on the existing stereotypes in the community that the child resides. It is also worth noting that teenagers at this intermediate phase start exhibiting systematic preferences towards people found in their group (Jennings and Niemi, 2015). The final stage involves the development of children who are around ten years old onwards. Children in this stage tend to be rather independent of their environment more so the social environment when making decisions as well as evaluations. It is also worth noting that children at this stage undergo the concept of reciprocity about foreigners who visit their countries. Children at this stage tend to believe that foreign tourists have the same emotional feeling to the countries they visit as the feeling that they experience towards their nation. Psychologists also reveal that as early as six years old, a child may not hold any positive stereotypes about a community but rather negative stereotypes (Jennings and Niemi, 2015). It is not always easy making new friends whether in school or in the outside environment as most parents tend to believe. Children find it difficult joining on-going schools and this tendency also exists among toddlers who are find themselves being rejected by fellow peers. Nevertheless, there are those aggressive children who easily join existing groups while some find it a challenging endeavour.
Influences on the Development of Children from a Risk Perspective
Children are normally influenced on their development when they are viewed from the perspective of the risk they are exposed to in their life. There have been risks established to originate from the temperament of a child, inadequate child raising or from inborn genetic factors (Parke and Ladd, 2016). However, there are external risks associated with the development of a child too and they are found in both the parent and chi...