Good Example Of Essay On Parental Work, Neighborhood Conditions And Family Processes

Research seems to indicate that there is a broader social environment that has a significant effect on the family processes including parental effectiveness. These factors that are usually external to the family’s environment and significantly influence the extent to which parents are able to effectively socialize with their children (Simons, Simons and Wallace, 2004, p. 93).
Economic hardship is an example of an external factor affecting parenting. Families plagued by economic hardships “are characterized by financial strain, worry and hardship” (The Effects of Parental Work and Neighborhood Conditions on Family Processes, 2014). This also tends to have a disruptive effect when it comes to parenting. Additionally, economic hardships foster aggressive and irritable state in the family (Simons, Simons and Wallace, 2004, p. 97). Parents, for example, engage in “negatively biased scanning of their environment” including their children (The Effects of Parental Work and Neighborhood Conditions on Family Processes, 2014). Such parents might view their children as difficult and might engage in punitive and harsh punishment. This increases the risk of delinquency and behavioral problems of the children in the future.
Parental employment also has an effect on parenting in that parents often attempt to foster kinds of behavior in their children that are “conducive to success in their own paid work” (The Effects of Parental Work and Neighborhood Conditions on Family Processes, 2014).
Neighborhood conditions are also influential on family processes. For example, children living in neighborhoods where the rates of deviance and crime are high are at increased risk of getting into their lifestyle. According to research, the effect of the parent discipline and monitoring as well as it consequences is dependent on the prevalence of deviance and crime in the community. There is, therefore, a great need for parents to identify programs that will be effective in different kinds of neighborhoods. According to Byrnes et al., (2011), the context of the neighborhood can interfere with the abilities of the parents to monitor their children effectively, but at the same time, this may be related to specific strategies in different ways. For example, it is showing that mothers who perceive greater problems in their neighborhood often use in less effective monitoring strategies (Byrnes et al., 2011). The questions that arise from this are: How can parents adjust their monitoring strategies in accordance with the neighborhood conditions to ensure that that they are effective? How can parents ensure that their children’s behavior remains upright in spite of them living in a crime and deviance laded neighborhood?

References

Byrnes, H. F., Miller, B. A., Chen, M. J., & Grube, J. W. (2011). The roles of mothers’ neighborhood perceptions and specific monitoring strategies in youths’ problem behavior. Journal of youth and adolescence, 40(3), 347-360.
Simons, R.L., Simons, L.G., and Wallace, L.E. (2004). Families, Delinquency, and Crime: Linking Society’s Most Basic Institution to Antisocial Behavior. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. (ISBN 1- 931719-30-6).
“The Effects of Parental Work and Neighborhood Conditions on Family Processes”. Families and Crime. (CCJ 4931). 2014.