Child Development Essay -- Child Rearing, Natural Growth

Lareau (2003) reports that social class plays a very important role in a child’s upbringing because it helps determine the way a child will be raised. In Lareau’s (2003) study she came to the conclusion that there were two different patterns of child rearing: concerted cultivation and natural growth. Concerted cultivation is the child rearing method that middle class parents use focusing on not only caring for their child, but developing a personality by enrolling their children in many structured activities and developing language skills (Lareau, 2003). Natural growth is the child-rearing method that working class and poor parents use to raise their children because there is not a lot of time and money for structured activities and long verbal discussions with the children (Lareau, 2003). Families who practice natural growth child rearing practices need to focus on providing the simpler needs of the child like providing shelter, clothing, food, and water therefore unab le to have the structured activities and worry about establishing communication skills. This is important to consider because the way children are raised because this has a social impact. The children that are being raised today will eventually grow up to be a part of their own society; there are social impacts on the current society because of the methods of child-rearing and the consequences that these child-rearing practices are having on children with the way they interact in society, There are benefits and disadvantages to both childrearing methods reported by Lareau (2010) however there are definitive differences in the child’s outcome due to the child’s social class and thus the method the child was raised with. In concerted cultivation children spend a ... ...nd sometimes talk to my extended family I seldom see them or would by any means categorize our relationships as strong kinship ties (Lareau, 2003). This I feel has been an unfortunate result of concerted cultivation because I see how some of my other cousins behave towards each other as they are so close talking everyday and meet several times a week for lunch or dinner. I feel this is sad because while I would love to have stronger ties with my extended family I realize it is not a part of the way I was brought up because of my middleclass child-rearing. The concept of my social connections often being mostly in homogenous age groups as a child is very accurate (Lareau, 2003). Because of the activities I participated in and the area in which I lived and went to school I predominately have friendships through activities with children much like I was at the time.