ROLE OF FAMILY FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN

Prof. Madhav Ch. Satpathy

It is a proven fact that all-round development of children depends on their homes. Home is the first school of a child.  It will not out of the scope of this essay to say that due to lack of parental role on children, the children become aggressive, wayward and criminals. Recent news is that a boy shot dead another boy of his school by his father’s licensed revolver for which his father was arrested along with him.

A child’s first teacher is his mother whether she is literate or illiterate- no matter. Let us briefly discuss it.

1.Child’s accidental learning:- This does not mean learning from any accident. It means learning suddenly. A young child hears others’ words, sees others’ works, feels others’ affection etc from his home members. If the environment is conducive in him, there the child’s learning is not inhibited, on the contrary his learning is thwarted. It is advised to treat children equally without discriminating between boy and girl. Give them ample freedom so that their development is not repressed. It is also observed that mothers are better teachers than fathers. So from research it is found that if mothers get preliminary training in teaching, their children will learn better. For this in 70s of last century the first of this training  started in Israel. Its name was  HIPPY (Home Instruction Programme for Preschool Youngsters). It became so successful that now there are institutions in America, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Mexico. In our country there is no such institution for mother’s training. It is, thus, most justified to say that home is the important learning centre. Here both formal, non-formal and accidental learning take  place.

2. Similarity and dissimilarity in child personality:- Clide Blockhome and Henry  Emrue, two eminent psychologists of America said, “We are to some extent, similar to others and to some extent different from others.” Such difference is because of two factors, heredity and environment. Personality is the product of both heredity and environment. Physical appearance and intelligence are mostly hereditary. But behaviour, attitude, interest etc are mostly environmental. A child may go astray with higher intelligence if he keeps bad company or environment. The following picture show how it works.

Self concept is the centre of this circle and is the most important factor of personality. The next is self (I) which speeds up the development of personality. The ring is environment which includes the other two rings. So, for better personality,

(i) Do never repress child’s self-concept that is allowed him to express what he wants.

(ii) Self means belongingness. Let the child feel that he belongs to the family, he has a separate entity and he has his own books, papers, other materials. Don’t ask  other children of the family to share his books etc.

(iii) Environment is the most powerful factor. We have no control over outside environment. But we have control over our home environment. Create always healthy environment in home, never quarrel with your spouse in front of your child and never reprimand to punish your child without sufficient reason.