Prosocial Behavior and How Children Learn

Prosocial Behavior and How Children Learn

Abstract

What kinds of childbearing practices foster the development of helping, sharing, and other prosocial behaviors? What roles do biology and culture play in the development of prosocial behavior? Let's examine the variety of influences that contribute to children's prosocial development, including the media, parents, peers, biology, culture, personal characteristics, as well as situational determinants. Some may argue that prosocial behavior can be learned and is modifiable, and they suggest ways that parents, teachers, and other can enhance prosocial development.

Everyday children are born into this cruel and complex world. Their interactions with parents are the first type of social exchange infants experience. Healthy exchanges create a bond or attachment. Attachment is a sense of connection between two people that forms the foundation for a relationship. Exchanges such as facial expressions, movements, and verbal interactions help create an attachment or bond. Experts feel that the first year of life is a critical period for bonding. Bonds create a sense of trust that supports an infant's exploration of the world and serves as a base for future development some studies have shown that infants with secure attachments to their mothers and fathers have an advantage for acquiring competencies in language and in cognitive, social, and emotional development If attachment does not occur, children may have problems later in life and may display asocial behaviors.

At the societal level, children and youth contribute to and are affected by such things

as good social relations and level and quality of social capacity in terms of ability to live

and work peacefully and productively with one others. Children and youth impact

society's quality of life through their character, civility, spirituality, and tolerance as well

as their activities in terms of environmental lifestyle and voluntary community

involvement. Children's and youths' well-being is influenced by a number of conditions

at the societal level, including the society's standard of living, income distribution, health

care system, and child care system.

I was brought up believing that God existed and that He was nearer to us than I could ever know. As a young girl, I was encouraged to attend church and respect all the other religions that existed. Naturally, I was introduced to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. Through this story, I was taught that the serpent tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit and as a result of this act; Eve soon tempts her partner, Adam into also partaking of the fruit. Hence, begins the moral degradation of man upon the earth. I do not believe that the first man was born. I believe that the first man was created and from this man, God created woman by removing one of his ribs and formed the woman that is called Eve. I believe that because of this entire Biblical account, from this point on forward, all human life proceeding from Adam and Eve were born with what is commonly referred to as "original sin." I do not believe that man was originally created bad; this condition was a result of a disobedient act performed by Eve. I would rather believe that God's eternal purposes for man was intended for good and that man was created for the soul reason of entering into a life of long and blissful fellowship with God Himself and every human being that was created in the image of God on the face of the earth.

Hereditary is a very broad term. I do not believe that a parent waits for their child to reach a certain age before instructing him or her to become selfish, evil, rude, disrespectful, unruly, egotistical, and everything else that makes a child a public menace. Children of all ages naturally gravitate toward being self-centered all on their own especially if they are an only child with little or no contact with other children their own age. A child becomes everything a parent teaches them to become. Parents lead by example and during the early childhood years, children model after those examples closest to them and unfortunately, many times family members such as parents, uncles, cousins, and even grandparents have been guilty of modeling negative examples of how children ought to act. A child does not question if what they are acting out is correct or not. Children do not have the slightest clue what is right or wrong. I believe that as human beings, there is a sense of moral responsibility that is intricately placed into the area referred to as conscious and that even as children, we can sense when certain actions performed are either good or bad. Heredity will teach us that if an older family member be it grandparent, parents, or cousins commit acts that often times offend or hurt others, then learning to do the same negative acts is definitely a right thing to do. Conscience is suddenly replaced with a philosophy that dictates a feeling rather than a responsibility. I have heard people say, "If it feels good, do it." In my opinion, this type of philosophy is very misleading because a person is encouraged to become emotionally driven and not conscience driven. Hereditary that models this philosophy to children only leads them to a self-centered style of living. I believe everything our children become is a byproduct of the type of teaching and philosophies parents and their parent's model for them during the tender years of social development.

I believe the impact that environment, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, technology, and education are a tremendous influence in the type of success students will have, but are not necessarily the final determining factors. Certainly the best development and learning experiences can result when a child is placed into conditions where very little or no adverse circumstances are encountered, but when social contact becomes necessary, strong social skills and character will be lacking. Highly vulnerable children who live in challenging neighborhoods and the constraints of comparable cross-state time series data. Six key measures

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