CHYS -1000 pt2 Flashcards
(84 cards)
How are children affected by family life?
- Examine children’s relationships with parents and siblings
- Address issues of power, control, agency, and resistance in relation to time and space in family life.
- Children often experience family life from a position of powerlessness, but there are opportunities for agency and resistance in everyday family life
How are childer from non-western places affected by family life?
- Not all children live within a Westernized, nuclear family structure (e.g. parent(s) and dependents)
- E.g., Parts of Africa seriously affected by the AIDS epidemic.
- Many children have taken on household head role, because parents have died or too sick to manage the household.
- Concern about child-headed households (CHH) positions:
- Children too responsible (children are meant to be dependent, not responsible)
- Vulnerable victims in need of social intervention.
- People from western society viewed these children as victims- the children didn’t feel that way they wanted to help the family
What does CHH mean?
child-headed households
What was Payne’s (2012) Study about?
- Payne (2012) Article: Extraordinary survivors’ or ‘ordinary lives’? Embracing ‘everyday agency’ in social interventions with child-headed households in Zambia
- Payne explored the daily life in CHHs, from the vantage point of those living in them. Conducted the research with CHHs in rural urban Zambia between 2004 and 2008.
- Qualitative and ethnographic study
- “Everyday agency”: refers to the expressions of agency perceived by children and young people to be part of their everyday life
What did Payne think was important to acknowledge?
1) young people’s roles and responsibilities as household heads as equally important and
2) also recognize these children need protection
* Important to gain an understanding of children’s own perspective of their lives
What was the result of the Payne CHH study?
- Ethnographic study found CHHs are positive about their responsibilities and the challenges they face
- Proud to contribute to family’s wellbeing
- Can be difficult when not CHH. E.g. One young woman cared for family members since 12 years old and helped with family income. Mother was an alcoholic
- She found it difficult to give up her responsibilities on when her mother was able to resume her place as head of the family.
- Difficult to return to being ‘a child.’
- CHHs see their responsibilities as part of their everyday lives – do not feel it makes them vulnerable (Payne, 2012).
- “Social interventions must embrace ‘everyday agency’ and start with children and young people’s own perspectives (Payne, 2012, p.439)”
How do children view family ?
Children’s views of family composition findings:
* Who makes up a family – matters less to children than an atmosphere of love, caring, and support.
* Being loved and cared for takes precedence over blood ties, co-residence, or legal status
What are Children’s Views on Family life during Family Transitions?
- Views during transitions (e.g., parental separation and divorce).
- Family changes often out of children’s control. Children feel that they should have a say in family decisions.
- Should be focused on the children in the family rather than the adults.
- Important to continue to be loved and cared for - more important than the form their family takes (Pryor and Emery, 2004).
- Children experience multiple family forms – reject the concept of a ‘proper family’
- Wade and Smart (2002) examined the strategies and resources children use during times of family change - i.e., parents separated
What are the four types of families categorized by Wade & Smart (2002)
- Aggregated families
- Divorced families
- Meshed families
- Diasporic families
Define the different types of families
Aggregated families, Divorced families , Meshed families, Diasporic families
- Aggregated families: experienced several complex changes, several parents attached to various children within the family
- Divorced families: characterized by small family size, and cooperation between parents post-separation
- Meshed families: extended family is important and children in these families are ‘emotionally literate’ as emotions are not suppressed
- Diasporic families: a parent has returned to the home country or where the extended family is dispersed
What were Wade and Smart (2002) Findings?
- No one family form of childhood that could be made to fit all the children/families. Important to see the complexities of children’s lived realities in terms of family.
- What matters most to children is the quality of the relationships rather than biological connections within whatever family form they live in.
- Children used two main coping strategies at times of family change: diversion and emotional expression.
Define the coping strategies at times of family change: diversion and emotional expression that children use?
- Diversion: want to forget about what happened
- Want to sleep – felt better when they woke up
- Emotional Expression: showed emotions such as anger. Some talked to their friends, but others didn’t trust other children. Didn’t want to talk to teachers - felt that teachers didn’t listen. Children wanted kindness and a choice as to whether or not they would speak with the professionals working with the separating family.
What were children’s views of being parented?
- British study, children indicated that they wanted to be loved and cared for, listened to, and taken seriously by their parents.
- 71 % of 11-year-olds actually felt loved and cared for by their parents, and this declined with age
- The older the children got, the less likely they were to report feeling loved and supported.
-Being listened to and Taken Seriously
What are children’s perspectives on family time?
- Family Day in Ontario. Holiday for families to spend more quality time together.
- Children perspective - Do not need quality time, but instead, ordinary time with parents (e.g., eating meals and watching TV together).
Parental control of children’s time
Parental control: Children’s Time is Subject to Control
* In everyday family life, struggles over resources and time
Children’s time is subject to control:
* Parents decide children’s chores, sleep times, play times, homework times
* Parents have the power to interrupt children’s activities with requests and demands
How can children be in control of their time?
- Christensen’s (2002) examined children’s strategies of resistance. Children resist by not immediately doing what parents asked – comply with demands ‘after a few minutes.’
- Montandon (2001) found that children employed a range of strategies to resist parental control:
- “Wearing down’ parents”
- Negotiating - arguing and bargaining.
- Although subject to parents’ demands, children did not see themselves as ‘defeated’ by parents. Children view themselves as full participants in the family setting
How do Parents Control Indoor and Outdoor Space?
- Children deal with spatial restrictions within the family.
- Increasing parental fear of ‘stranger danger.’ keeps children indoors. Limiting and controlling children’s access to outdoor space.
- Opposite beliefs: the outdoors is the perfect space for children and a dangerous place for children.
- Children, aware of potential dangers in public, see themselves as experts in their own lives, and feel that their personal safety is not the responsibility of their parent (Valentine, 1997b: 78). * One strategy to negotiate access to public space: Not telling parents about risky situations, so parents don’t worry. Children don’t want their freedom curtailed.
- Children do not simply passively accept parental restrictions
- Children see themselves as competent to deal with the dangers of their neighbourhoods.
- ‘Stranger-danger’ fear amongst parents is limiting children’s outdoor play (Holt et al., 2015)
“Five reasons why kids need risk, fear and excitement in play” by Dr. M. Brussoni
- Will be more physically active and less sedentary
- Develop resilience, self-confidence and risk management skills
- Do better in school
- Children are more capable than we give them credit for
- Safer time to be a kid in Canada. Death due to injury at an all-time low
Payne’s (2012) work investigated child-headed households in Africa. According to Payne (2012) it is important for individuals involved
in developing policies and intervention programs aimed at supporting child-headed households to acknowledge:
a) these roles and responsibilities are important and demonstrate children’s competencies
b) that these children need protection
c) that legislation making the role of child-headed households illegal is urgently needed
d) All of the above
e) Both A and B
e) Both A and B
Bessel (2011) carried out research with child workers in Indonesia and found that:
a) Some children were expected by their families to work, but poverty was the main reason children worked
b) Most children worked as their families expected them to work after the age of 9
c) Female child workers did not demonstrated agency in relation to the work they did
d) All of the above
b) Most children worked as their families expected them to work after the age of 9
What is birth order theory?
- Sulloway (1996) birth-order effects theory: firstborns are more dominant and less agreeable. Laterborns are more extraverted and sociable.
- Some found firstborns rated more conscientious whereas laterborns were more rebellious (Paulhus et al., 1999)
- Boccio and Beaver (2019) results did not suggest a strong link between birth order and the development of personality
What were the sibling relation outome ?
- Social geographer Samantha Punch - children’s perspectives on family relationships, specifically sibling relations.
- Her research shows children, as competent social actors, negotiate and interact in the sibling relationship.
- Time and space – affects relationships
Siblings strategies – Bride or “Barter” with each other
Sibling Relations: Age, Power, and Negotiation
Findings:
- Felt siblings were “always there.” Hard to get away from. They didn’t extend as much effort as with friends
Why were Child siblings negative interactions?
- Shared history, Permanence of the sibling bond, Lack of privacy and control of space in the home and the obligation of living together.’
- Physical proximity does not always relate to feelings of closeness among siblings (e.g., Twin study)
What were twin siblings relationships like?
- Feelings of always there: shared bedroom, toys, clothing.
- Some employ strategies to “feel alone”
- Some use strategies to put distance between themselves and their twin – e.g., dressing differently, preferring different music
- Even if siblings dislike each other– often protect siblings at school if sibling bullied.