Parent-Child Relations: The Nurturing and Interdependent Stages

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The first family that I interviewed fell into the Parenting Stage II: The Nurturing Stage. The couple, who are both 22-years of age, have been together for three years. They have been living together for about one year and are not married. The couple lives with the father's family: his mother and father. They are all from a Hispanic background. The father works as a computer technician and the mother is a supervisor at a bakery. There annual income is about $45,000. The couple recently had their first child together. They are the parents of a 5-week-old infant. My relationship to the couple is friendship, I used to work with the mother at the bakery but we are not that close of friends. This family has 3 major concepts that I found connected to parent-child relations: 1. Birth 2. Gender Roles 3. Child Care There was also an important developmental issue found in this family that fitted with a statement proposed by psychologist Harriet Rheingold. Birth: The birth experience for this couple was an exciting and memorable event, just as Jerry J. Bigner (2002) stated that this "is a particularly memorable occasion for couples who are experiencing it for the first time," like in this case (p. 189). The couple said that the birth of their baby girl was the happiest day in their entire life. The type of delivery that they had chosen before the birth was the psychoprophylactic method or also known as the natural childbirth. Since their daughter was born at 7 months and was premature, it was easy for the couple to stick with this type of delivery. The couple said that the mother's water broke at 6:35am, they got to the hospital at around 7:00am, and the baby was born at 7:41am. The... ... middle of paper ... ...h the infant opposed to the father and being tired. I know that there are other factors to take into consideration, however, this is what I saw when I observed the family for two hours. Nonetheless, she did interact with the child when she was feeding her, which I think is more important. In conclusion, parenting is different in every household and should be respected, whether it goes Erickson's way or not, unless it affects the well-being of a child. My respects go out to the families that I interviewed for their success at the stage they are at as of now. References Bigner, J. J. (2002). Parent-child relations: An introduction to parenting (6th ed.). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall Hendrick, J. (2001). The whole child: Developmental education for the early years (7th ed.). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall

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