Gender Roles and Children

¶ … Childhood Development Were I advising my friend about the age-specific eating habits of her four-year-old son, I would begin by telling her that her son is at the age in which children simply want to eat the food that tastes good. They do not necessarily want to eat the food that their bodies truly need to grow and thrive, because they want to eat the food that is pleasing to their palates. However, I would also advise her that family mealtime routines can significantly affect that behavior.

The strategy my friend could use to create healthy and peaceful mealtimes would be predicated on explaining to her four-year-old that during meals, everyone eats from the different food groups. She should tell the child that as a member of the family, the child is expected to do the same. Also, my friend should tell her child that the best way to eat is to eat all of one's food in moderation. It is necessary to alternate between the different food groups with almost every bite.

If the child likes bread, for instance, then he or she should follow a bite of bread with that of vegetables, followed by meat, and by whatever else is on the plate. 4. Peer relationships change drastically from early to middle childhood. During the latter phase, children become much more socially aware than they are during the former.

Whereas children may only care about toys or friends who they like for some reason or another in early childhood, in middle childhood they become much more aware of groups and cliques of peers. They become cognizant of how they look and appear to others, and may become self-conscious or adopt poses of becoming cool in response to this situation. Also, moving to a different geographic region can have different effects on a child depending on his or her age.

When children are older, moving between geographic regions can greatly affect them, because they might be leaving old friends and forced into a position where they have to make new ones. Depending on how different that geographic region is from their previous region, they may incur varying amounts of difficulty with this process. With younger children, the impact of moving is mitigated since they are not quite so advanced in the social stages of life. 5.

Environmental influences can shape the course of gender development in childhood in a couple of salient ways. Depending exactly what those environments are, children might be exposed to limitations in gender roles in greater and lesser amounts. This fact is particularly true of children that grow up in rural areas in which there are very clear distinctions between what men and women do. Typically in such settings, women are responsible for domestic duties while men are responsible for fulfilling the role of the breadwinner.

Adults can buffer children against overly restrictive gender roles and expectations by explaining to them that people are not.