Children and the Shaping of Personality

Socialization, Deviance & Social Control

Socialization in Children

Human beings are essentially born without culture, they have what is commonly referred to as Tabula rasa by psychologists, meaning and empty and receptive mind or brain. It is the society that plants the relevant culture into this empty mind and makes the child a member of a certain culture. It is the society that makes the individual a socially and culturally aware individual or animal. This process of generally acquiring culture is known as socialization. Generally, during the socialization process, the individual learns the language of the culture they are born in and also the roes that they are expected to play or undertake within that society. It is at the early ages of childhood that the children also learn of the occupational roles that they are expected to assume once they grow up and the behaviors that are held by the majority of the members of the community or the society. At childhood, the individual is also expected to learn of the norms of that particular society. Norms are the acts or behaviors normally considered to be appropriate as held or practiced by the members of a particular community. This process of being socialized into a given culture is also referred to as enculturation by anthropologists (Merriam Webster, 2014).

Socialization or enculturation is normally significant in building up the personality of a child and a future adult. This therefore is normally done through systems that are put in place, whether they are formal or informal. Thee systems usually ensure there is uniformity in behavior through the socialization that they conform each individual into. Childhood is the most important stage in socialization and it is when personalities take shape. In the contemporary society, the socialization is done through education systems and the books that children read at attender age. One such book is the "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. The ethnic group that forms the basis of the adventure book is a white boy, telling from the illustrations. It gives the accounts of a young boy Max who faces scary adventures but enjoys the outdoor adventures and also equals the challenges presented by the monsters. The wild tings scare Max that they would eat him up but Max surmounts this scare and conquers these scary creatures and becomes their king, well after all a boy should focus at being a conqueror of problems and be a leader or king in the future as is expected in this society portrayed here. This socializes a boy child into a person who does not easily bulge under scary conditions, has a tough take on challenges in life and has more of the outdoor orientation than being indoors in order to have an adventure worth remembering.