Culture And Social Emotional Development Research Paper Example

Self-regulation

It is evident that cultures shape the interpersonal relationships amongst their members and the earliest interactions between the child and the caregiver. The patterns of infant-parent relationship and the family relationships reflect the social hierarchies, cultural values and methods of survival inherited through different cross generational populations. The attainment of self-regulation among young children is among one of the major milestones in the development of that child. Heidi (2014) argues that this process involves two processes, and they include the mobilization of the desired response from the social agents in the society and the inhibition of prohibited behavior on command. In simple terms, the two factors represent the dos and don ts of the moral development of the child.
Self-regulation should be noted as a pan-cultural construct in that it represents the child’s ability to accept rules persist in activities, tolerate frustrations, postpone gratifications, adapt to transitions and attend to new material. In every society, children are prepared in certain ways so that they can be able to adapt to the social requirements that they are expected to meet. The process of socialization among the children and their peers across all societies allow for internalization of norms and regulations that they are expected of them. The process of self-regulation can occur my different stages and occur differently in the diverse societies of humankind. For some children, early parenting enhances their ability to self-regulate very early in their lives. According to Heidi and Hiltrud (2009), the faster a child acquires the ability to self-regulate the more easily the society bodes with the child. This means that the child can be able to avoid punishments that are met with them when they are not in a position to self-regulate. Additionally, different forms of punishments can be used in the process of enabling the child to self-regulate.
The cultural beliefs and the upbringing of any individual can affect how they react to different circumstances in life. As a child, my parents always taught be the need to be helpful to others and share the little that I have with my friends. This has enabled me to grow immensely in terms of my morals, and I am in a position whereby I am able to give assistance to any individual in need. The self-regulation concepts that my parents imparted to me even though they might have not known at the time has enabled be to be a respectful member of the society. One of the main cultural belief in our society is the belief in karma. This means that for any action that one does to another individual, then there is an equal reaction to that action. The community that I come from believes that if an individual does not help others in instances of need they would to be helped if they are found to be in the same predicament. The act of self-regulation taught me to be able to tolerate frustration situations even If I had the possibility of doing the act without being caught. I remember one day while I was playing with my friends in the playground, one of my friends had a football that I liked very much. I decided to take the ball without borrowing. Once I was at home, my mother noticed what I had done. All that my mother could do in the process of teaching me the aspect of self-regulation towards the properties of others was to take all my toys for the punishment. All that I felt was the feeling that the other child felt when I took his ball. This taught me that one had to exercise restraint towards the properties of other people. Additionally the fact that I still remember that feeling means that I would also one day want to impart to my children the value of self-regulation. In terms of the cultural development of social regulations, the whole society was responsible for the manner in which child behaved in public. The children were not allowed to be disrespectful to other members of the society in that anyone had the responsibility to reprimand the child in case of the occurrence of an event that was seen as disrespectful. My community believed that a baby belonged to the parents while the child belonged to the whole community.
In terms of my moral obligations and self-regulation all I had to do was what my parents and bigger siblings had approved me to do. This also is represented by the saying that a child should be molded while still young. The moment the child becomes fully grown individual, then it becomes difficult to change the way they behave in certain circumstances as they have behaved like that for many years. The community also has a proverb that says that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.
The cultural development of a child in terms of self-regulation thus begins with the parents of the children and then the next of kin. The community comes in when the child begins interacting with other people and, therefore, the educators of the children during their early days should be taken seriously.

References

Heidi K, Hiltrud O. (2009). The Cultural Socialization of Emotion Regulation during Infancy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology Volume 40 Number 6 November 2009 996-1011
Heidi K. (2013). Attachment and Culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology: 4(2) 175 –194. jccp.sagepub.com