Importance of Early Social Experiences (part-1)

Happy social experiences encourage the child to want to repeat the experiences. By contrast, too many unhappy social experiences tend to encourage unwholesome attitudes toward all social experiences and toward people. Because children can be made social, unsocial, or antisocial more easily during the early, formative years of their lives than later, their early social experiences are important in determining what sort of adults they will become.

It is commonly said that a person is a "born introvert" or a "born extrovert." There is little evidence to substantiate this belief. On the contrary, evidence points to the fact that the person was made an introvert or an extrovert by the type of early social experiences he had. Because his early associations are almost exclusively with family members, the individual's attitudes and behavior in social situations are, in the strictest sense, homegrown.

While it is true that unfavorable attitudes and behavior patterns may be modified and changed as the child grows older and discovers what a handicap they are, it is questionable whether they can ever become as favorable as they might have been, had his early social experiences given him a better start.

★Family Influences.

No one specific member of the family nor any one specific aspect of family life is responsible for socializing the child. If the total character of the home environment is favorable, the chances are that favorable social attitudes will develop; if the home atmosphere is marked by constant friction and tension, the chances are equally great that unfavorable social attitudes will be generated. Furthermore, the size of the family in which the child grows up will affect his early social experiences.

Studies of social adjustments have revealed that specific early influences in the child's home life are highly important. Children who come from a socioeconomic background that provides opportunities for healthy physical and psychological development ment make better social adjustments than children who come from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds. The type of relationships that exist between the child's parents, between him and his siblings, and between him and his parents and the position of the child within the family—whether he is the oldest, the middle, the youngest, or an only child—are contributing factors to his social adjustments. Only children, for example, or those with siblings widely separated in age or of a different sex tend to be more withdrawn when they are with children outside the home than children with siblings nearer to them in age or of the same sex do. When children have siblings of the same sex as they, they find it difficult to make associations with children of the other sex outside the home but easy to make associations with those of the same sex.

The social behavior and attitudes of a child reflect the treatment he receives in the home. The child who is rejected, for instance, may carry the resulting attitude of martyrdom outside the home and even into adult life. He will go around with a "chip on his shoulder," interpreting everything people say or do as an indication of their rejection of him. Another example may be seen in the effect parental expectations have on the child's socialization. Each year, the child becomes increasingly aware that he is expected to overcome his aggressiveness and antisocial behavior if he wishes to win parental approval. Children from middle-class families are under greater pressure to conform than those from lower-class or even upper-class families.

Of all the home factors in the early years of life which influence the child's social behavior and attitudes, perhaps the most important is the type of child-rearing methods used by his parents. Young children who are raised democratically are active and socially outgoing. In the democratic home, there is not only freedom but also a high level of interaction between parent and child through the parents' spontaneous expression of warmth. The child is encouraged to engage in activities demanding intellectual curiosity, originality, and constructivism.

Children who are indulged, on the other hand, show physical apprehension and lack of skill in muscular activities. They become inactive and withdrawn in their social relationships. Children who are subjected to authoritarian child-rearing methods are quiet, nonresistant, well behaved, and unaggressive. Curiosity, originality, and fancifulness are restricted by parental pressures. Children from democratic homes usually make the best social adjustments.

In summary, then, it is apparent that the home may be regarded as the "seat of learning" for the development of social skills and of the desire to participate in activities with other people. Only when children have satisfactory social relationships with members of their family can they enjoy social relationships with people outside the home, have healthy attitudes toward people, and learn to function successfully in groups of their peers.