Application of Theory to Social Concerns or Human Behaviors

¶ … Social Concerns

Theory to Social Concerns or Human Behaviors

The Theory of Social Concerns or Human Behaviors provides a broad framework into which more narrowly focused research can be viewed from. This analysis will consider three individual research journal articles and first provide an overview of the work that was conducted. Then this analysis will try to relate the study and its results to the broader theories mentioned. The external factors related to a child's development can have a substantial influence on their development as well as be highly correlated with MEB issues later in life. The paper will conclude with a short discussion of why this research is important to society in regard to public health initiatives.

Parenting a Child with a Disability

Parents who have children with disabilities often have additional challenges that are presented in the situation when compared to the responsibilities of parents when their children do not have disabilities. As a result, having a child with a disability can pose a significant risk to the parents' physical and emotional well-being (Ha, Greenberg, & Seltzer, 2011). However, the effects of having a child with a disability are not equal in all cases and can affect families differently depending on a range of different factors. Some of the factors that are likely to play a role are the financial burdens that come with the treatment and care of the child's condition, there is also problematic behavior exhibited by the child in most cases, and there is also social stigma that is associated with such conditions (Ha, Greenberg, & Seltzer, 2011).

This study considers whether the negative effects of parenting a child with a disability are evenly distributed among racial groups. African-American parents may have additional effects from the disability because of the increased likelihood that they will represent a single family household with less social support than might be found in other demographics. The study examined the extent to which having a child with a disability affects African-American parents' well-being and the role of positive and negative interactions with non-spousal family members in parental adaptation (Ha, Greenberg, & Seltzer, 2011). The study found that the urban-dwelling African-American families that were included in the study had a great likelihood of experiencing worse physical and mental health outcomes.

There are several reasons a child with a disability can bring a family additional challenges than what can be found in more typical family arrangements. These challenges can be amplified by the absence of nonspousal support or an extended family network that can help in these matters. The presence of positive social interactions can somewhat buffer the effects that the disability can have on the family. Positive social reactions can reduce stress and stress-related conditions. The opposite can also be said, negative social interactions can also amplify the challenges found in parenting a child with a disability by increasing stress levels.

Prolonged exposure to chronic stress, such as the stressors found in an adverse family environment, have been correlated with the impairment of health and development of children at different stages of their lives. The adverse stressors can consist of factors such as physical, sexual, and psychological abuse that can also include less severe forms of aggression such as persistent arguing, sibling aggression, and overt hostility among family members (Herrenkohl, Lee, Kosterman, & Hawkings, 2012).

Furthermore, given the additional financial burdens placed on a family with a disability, the family is also more likely to live in poverty. One conceptual framework produced by Yoshikawa, Aber and Beardslee (2012) examines four aspects of poverty and how these relate to the family and the children present in this arrangement. These factors are the main subjects or selection factors, the multidimensional nature of poverty, the mechanisms through which poverty affects children on an individual, relational and institutional level, and the multidimensionality of children's outcomes (Yoshikawa, Aber, & Beardslee, 2012). Of all the types of interventions studied, what showed to be the most effective was grounded on strategies formed by various economist and policy experts and were simply focused on reducing poverty as a solution. Based on multiple research findings, the authors are able to provide evidence that a causal effect between poverty and the negative impact on M-E-B health of children exists.

Discussion

The theory of Social Concerns or Human Behaviors suggests something of a cause and effect type relationship between the person and their microsystem and well as broader systems that can be considered. The external factors related to a child's development can have a substantial influence on their development as well as be highly correlated with MEB issues later in life. However, children often lack the ability to seek a "goodness of fit" with their family environment during development. Thus the unity between a child and their parental environment is generally fairly static until the child reaches adult age.

This is an important developmental period as well because the environment has actual been shown to influence genetics and therefore the interactions a child has during development can have a lasting effect has indicate by several studies which adds credence to the perspective of viewing a family as a system. Although people have the capacity to change, the intimacy of the microsystem can have substantial effects on development and even their physiology. One question that remains is one that has plagued philosophers and researchers for centuries, where does free will come into play? Or does it?