Teaching Environmental Studies Family and Friends Notes - Family and Friends

 

Family and Friends

 

Family plays an enormously important role in child's social and emotional development. Family relationship lay the foundation for all other relationships.

Through these experiences, children learn to trust others and seek out friendship and comfort. Same way play is also essential for the development of child, it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being of children and youth.

 

1.1 Family

 

The family is a social institution which performs important tasks and contribute to society's basic needs. It is also defined as the core of the social structure and a fundamental unit of society where two or more people are related to each other either by marriage, blood or adoption. In general its consists of father, mother and children. There may be other members in family like grandfather, grandmother, chacha-chachi etc.

Many scholars have defined family in different ways. Some of the definitions of family are given below

According to Charles Cooley, Family is the primary group and we are member of primary group. At birth child is only biological being. His needs are fulfilled by his family. Right from the birth to death, the family exerts a constant influence on the child. There is not a single person who is not a member of a family in one form or the other.

According to Biesenz and Biesenz, The family in one sense may be defined as, "a woman with a child and a man to look after them".

Maclver and Page In their book 'The Society', "Family is a group defined by sex relationship, sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of the children".

1.1.1. Characteristics of Family

 

Some of the important characteristics of family are as follow

• Family is also a system of Nomenclature. This means that the children relates to the families name and that name (like religion and castes name etc) is continued in every generations.
• Universality Family is a universal institution. It is found in each stage of society. There is no society without family. There is not a single person who does not belong to one or other kind of family.
• Nuclear Position in the Society As the basic unit of human body is cell. In the same way, family is the basic unit of society. Society is an aggregation of families.

 

• Sense of Responsibility It is the responsibility of the parents to look after the children of the family.

Parents are responsible for well-being of their children and at the same time, it is also the responsibility of children to obey their parents. At the time of crisis, family is always ready to protect the family's status and prestige in society etc.

 

• Social Control Family is a mechanism of social control. When one is in smaller age he/she does not know what's wrong or right. If you follow right ways you are praised otherwise you are punished.

This gives you understanding of right and wrong; good and bad. 

 

1.1.2 Functions of Family

Let us now see what different functions a family performs

1. Protection

• At birth, the young child is totally dependent upon adults of the family for all its needs. Survival of the baby or new born, would be difficult without adequate care given by the family members.
• In fact, the family looks after not only the children but all the other members of the family too. Caring for and giving protection to the children, the sick and the old is an important function of the family.

 

2. Emotional Bonding

• The affection and love received from parents and other family members is essential for the proper development of children.
• The emotional bonding which close family ties give, make children feel wanted and loved. They grow up to be better-adjusted adults than those who have not felt close family ties.

 

3. Education

• The family is the first school of a child - where the do's and don'ts of society are learnt. Learning how to interact with others, learning to respect and obey elders, learning to be honest etc starts at home.
• The traditional skills are also learnt from home and the child is prepared for future roles and career by the family.

 

4. Financial Security

• The family acts as a financial security provider for all its members. It provides all the basic needs of the members of family like provides the food, the shelter and the clothes that everyone needs. Other requirements of the family members are also fulfilled.

• The work in the family is distributed among all the members. Different members perform different tasks. Some earn, some perform the household tasks. In your own family, you will notice that through this division of labour, all the work gets done and the basic needs of everyone are fulfilled.

 

5. Cultural Functions

A family teaches the customs and traditions of their family to a child. Culture is different from one family to another. This culture is passed on from one generation to the next generation.

 

6. Physical Security

Culture also provides physical security. The duty of the family is to take care of children who are physical and mentally handicapped. Also the old and ill are too the liability of the families. The general notion is that the youngones take care of the old.

 

Some thinkers have also given function of the family.

Following are the functions of family according to thinkers

 

(a) Maclver divided the functions of family into two forms essential and non-essential. Economic function, reproductive function, educational  function, sexual function comes under the essential function while recreational function comes under non-essential,

 

(b) Ogburn and Nimkoff categorised the family's function into affectional, economic, protective, religious, educational and recreational domain.

 

(c) Hundberg divided the function of family into four parts i.e. primary group satisfaction, cooperation and division of labour, care and training of children, regulation of sexual behaviour and reproduction.

 

 1.1.4 Types of Family

 We generally see two types of families in India i.e. the nuclear and the joint family

1. The Nuclear Family

The nuclear family generally consists of a married man and woman and their unmarried children. In some cases, however, one or more additional persons may be living with them, e.g. the father's unmarried or widowed sister.

Some advantages of living in a nuclear family are given below

• It encourages initiative, independence and self-reliance among its members.
• It encourages decision making among the children, which gives them greater self-confidence.

There is considerable privacy and opportunities for the members to interact with each other. This results in deeper emotional ties among the members.

 

2. The Joint Family

• The traditional joint family consists of a man, his wife, his unmarried daughters, his sons and their wives and children. If the grandsons are married, then their wives and children are also a part of the same joint family.

 

• A joint family is made up of a number of nuclear families living together under the same roof. They share a common kitchen and hold common property. The oldest male member is generally the head of the family and the decision-maker for the family. But the women also play a significant role in decision making as they influence the male members to a large extent.

 

Some advantages of living in a joint family are given below

• It encourages family members to be cooperative and accommodating.
• In the event of death of parents, a child finds adequate emotional and economic support.
• It cares for the old, the helpless and the unemployed in the family.
• There is more financial security.

 

 1.1.5 Other Types of Family

  Following are the another types of family

 

1. Patrilocal Family In this type of family, married couple live with husband's family.
2. Matrilocal Family In this type of family, married couple live with wife's family. In these type of family, husband has a secondary position in the family.

 

1.1.6 Importance of Family

 

Human life is a journey starting from the initial launch of the family. The foundation of the personality and character of the child has to be in the family. The importance of family is to have a clear picture of social, economic and educational values. Family is important because

• family helps to socialise a child and give him humanistic values.
• the person gets knowledge of society and the ways of living, beliefs, ideals, traditions, values and social responsibility only from family.
• a family is a place where all children receive primary education.
• the family provides physical, mental, emotional, cultural and moral development which is the foundation of his/her future life.
• family helps in making a decision about important issue that can be difficult, and people may feel helpless if they don't know which way to proceed. Therefore, having solid family values helps people make the right decisions in life.
• family is form of guidance for raising children.
• family provides protection from outside influences.

Peer pressure can have a considerable effect on adolescents and adults alike. Family provides protection from peer pressure, helping and guiding people in building and maintaining relationships of families with strong values are able to develop these values in their generations quickly, which then produces a new generation with similar beliefs.

 

 

Heredity and Blood Group

 

• Heredity means passing down of characteristics from parents to children. Similarities between members of a family are due to 'heredity'. Differences between members of the same family are due to different combinations of parental characteristics. These differences are termed 'variations'. Heredity and variation are due to genes and gene combinations and study of heredity is termed 'Genetics'.
• Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) an Austrian monk, was the first to observe the manner in which characteristic features pass down from parents to offsprings.
• Every human being belongs to one of the four blood groups i.e. A, B, AB or O. The blood group of a person is inherited from parents and depends on the combination of these blood group the blood group of child is decided,

Karl Landsteiner was the discoverer of blood group.

 

Possible and Impossible situations

 

Parents Blood Types	Possible Children	Impossible Children
A & B	A, O	B, AB
A & B	A, B, AB, O	None
A & AB	A, B, AB	O
A & O	A, O	B, AB
B & B	B, O	A, AB
B and AB	A,B, AB	O
B & O	B, O	A, AB
AB & AB	A,B AB	O
AB & O	A,B	AB, O
O & O	O	A, B, AB

 

1.2 Friends

There cannot be a single definition of friend or friendship. But in general, friendship refers to the mutual relationship of affection, trust, cooperation, and support between two or more individuals.

True friend shares joy and sorrow, stands with each other in difficult circumstances and tries to protect in all the situations. Friends have mutual respect for each other. Such type of relation between the friends is called friendship.

Friendship alone is that relation in the world where we select partner/friend/companion based on our interest. Everyone is free to select friends of their choice and no one can forcefully be friend with other individual'. Friend leaves an important impact on overall development of a child. Fruitful social relationship in childhood and adolescence time help a child develop better overall personality and protect from later psychological disorders.

We should also remember that everyone who is familiar to us is not friend, but he is usually an acquaintance or associate.

 

         1.21 Types of Friends

          According to Aristotle, friendship can be classified into three type?s i.e.

 

1. Friendship of Utility In this kind of friendship, two people are friend for sake of their own interest.
2. Friendship of Pleasure In this kind, people share common interest and pleasure. They share their moment of pleasure with each other.
3. Friendship of the Good In this kind of friendship, two friends have mutual respect for one another. This type of friendship is not because of mutual interest and pleasure.

 

 1.2.2 Importance of Friends

Friendship means closeness, association, relationship and mutual trust - without any selfish motive. For children, making friends is a vital part of growing up and an essential part of their social and emotional development. Friendships enable children to learn more about themselves and develop their own identity. And, as children nature, friends are able to help reduce stress and deal with challenging life experiences, especially luring teenage years.

It is beneficial for children to manage and build their own relationships. As a parent or guardian one should have interaction with friends of the child.

Some of the other importance are as follow

• Creating friendships develops life skills that will increase your child's wisdom, confidence and self-esteem.
• Friendship gives the opportunity to develop leadership skills increases as children play with other children.
• The opportunity of playing freely with other children helps them develop their imagination which is important for a child's development.

They will have peers to communicate their concerns, dreams and fears which will make them feel less alone and isolated. 

 

 

1.3 Family Relationships

 Relatives are those individual in a society or family who are connected to each other by blood relations, marriage, feeling or emotions etc.

Relative and relationship does influences the child in growth and development. Child develops initial communication skill, interpersonal relationship by interacting with them and observing them.

Child develops attitude towards life, qualities like sympathy, empathy, compassion, sensitiveness, awareness towards culture, religions practices and traditions of family and society by observing the family and his relatives.

Family relations depend on the way every member behaves and interacts with each other.

 

       1.3.1 Classification of Relation

       Generally, relationships are of two types. These are as follow

 

1. Marital Relationship These kind of relationship arises due to marriage, e.g. husband-wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law etc.
2. Blood Relationship In this relationship, a person is related to one another by birth rather than by marriage, e.g. son-daughter, brother-sister, sister-sister, father-aunt, father-uncle etc.

 1.4 Work and Play

Famous educationist Maria Montessori has said, "Play is the work of the child". Play activities are essential to healthy development for children and adolescents. The activities by children stimulate and influence the pattern of the connections made between the nerve cells.

Activities influence the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialisation, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.

The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. Play links sensorimotor, cognitive and social-emotional experiences and provides an ideal setting from brain development.

 

1.4.1 Importance of Play in Development of Child

Work and play forms an important component for overall development of child that is why play has been given important place in schools curriculum. Through games or play, it is easier to teach children and concept taught by the way of play remains in their memory for very long time as they grasp it easily by observing it practically.

Playing influences the development of fine and gross motor skills, language, socialisation, personal awareness, emotional well-being, creativity, problem solving and learning ability.

The most important role that play can have is to help children to be active, make choices and practice actions to mastery. They should have experience with a wide variety of content (art, music, language, science, math, social relations) because each is important for the development of a complex and integrated brain.

Through constructive activity and game, child tries to learn something new. These plays and games help in building the imagination power, developing thinking skill, enhancing creative skill, building cooperation among children, team work etc. Games, sports and other physical activity helps in developing the immunity and enables body to fight against diseases and infections.

Cognitive development includes forming self-concept, forming concepts of size, shape and colours. Different types of blocks, beads, toys, clay, sand, puzzles and other natural materials, enable children to learn to differentiate between different shapes, size, colour, texture and volume.

Socio-emotional development includes establishing, relationships, developing behavioural controls and social skills that make them acceptable in their family, school and community.

According to Montessori, the essential dimensions of play are as follow

• Voluntary, enjoyable, purposeful and spontaneous.
• Creativity expanded using problem solving skills, social skills, language skills and physical skills.
• Helps expand on new ideas.
• Helps the child to adapt socially.
• Helps to thwart emotional problems.

If play is the work of the child then toys are the tools.

Through toys, children learn about their world, themselves, and others. Toys teach children to figure out how things work.

• pick up new ideas.
• build muscle control and strength.
• use their imagination.
• solve problems.

learn to cooperate with others:

With the ever expanding influence of electronic media including TV, videos, video games and the internet, child are spending much of their time being passively entertained by or minimally interacting by way of a keyboard or control pad with an electronic device.

Even today's toys are more often structured by onboard computers that dictate the play experience. This robs children of unstructured play with other kids as well as individual playtime spent in creative play. Parents need to understand the play needs of their child and provide an environment to meet those needs.