Reproductive Choices
What procedures can assist prospective parents in having healthy children?
Genetic counseling helps couples at risk for giving birth to children with genetic abnormalities consider appropriate reproductive options. Prenatal diagnostic methods allow early detection of genetic problems. Reproductive technologies, such as donor insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and postmenopausal-assisted childbirth, permit many individuals to become parents who otherwise would not, but they raise serious legal and ethical concerns. Many parents who cannot conceive or who have a high likelihood of transmitting a genetic disorder decide to adopt. Although adopted children tend to have more learning and emotional problems than children in general, most fare well in the long run. Warm, sensitive parenting predicts favorable development.
Genetic counseling helps couples at risk for giving birth to children with genetic abnormalities consider appropriate reproductive options. Prenatal diagnostic methods allow early detection of genetic problems. Reproductive technologies, such as donor insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and postmenopausal-assisted childbirth, permit many individuals to become parents who otherwise would not, but they raise serious legal and ethical concerns. Many parents who cannot conceive or who have a high likelihood of transmitting a genetic disorder decide to adopt. Although adopted children tend to have more learning and emotional problems than children in general, most fare well in the long run. Warm, sensitive parenting predicts favorable development.
Video: Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems
Environmental Contexts for Development
Describe family functioning from the perspective of ecological systems theory, along with aspects of the environment that support family well-being and children's development.
The first and foremost context for child development is the family, a dynamic system characterized by bidirectional influences, in which each family member's behaviors affect those of others. Both direct and indirect influences operate within the family system which must continually adjust to new events and changes in its members. Socioeconomic status (SES) profoundly affects family functioning. Higher-SES families tend to be smaller, to emphasize psychological traits, and to engage in warm, verbally stimulating interaction with children. Lower-SES families often stress external characteristics and use more command, criticism, and physical punishment. Many affluent families are physically and emotionally unavailable, thereby impairing their children's adjustment. Poverty and homelessness undermine effective parenting and pose serious threats to children's development. Children benefit from supportive ties between the family and the surrounding environment including stable, socially cohesive neighbourhoods that provide constructive leisure and enrichment activities and that offer parents access to social support. HIgh-quality schools with frequent parent-teacher contact are also vital. The values and practices of cultures and subcultures affect all aspects of children's daily lives. Extended-family households, which are common among many ethnic minority groups, help protect children form negative effects of poverty and other stressful conditions. Collectivist societies, which emphasize group needs and goals, and individualistic societies, which emphasize individual well-being, take different approaches to developing public policies to address social problems, including those affecting children. Largely because of its strongly individualistic values, the United States lags behind other developed nations in policies safeguarding children and youths.
How about in Malaysia? How do we emphasize our needs, are we collectivist societies or individualistic societies? Throughout the years since Malaysia Independence, which public policies have we implement to address our social problem, especially to the children.
The first and foremost context for child development is the family, a dynamic system characterized by bidirectional influences, in which each family member's behaviors affect those of others. Both direct and indirect influences operate within the family system which must continually adjust to new events and changes in its members. Socioeconomic status (SES) profoundly affects family functioning. Higher-SES families tend to be smaller, to emphasize psychological traits, and to engage in warm, verbally stimulating interaction with children. Lower-SES families often stress external characteristics and use more command, criticism, and physical punishment. Many affluent families are physically and emotionally unavailable, thereby impairing their children's adjustment. Poverty and homelessness undermine effective parenting and pose serious threats to children's development. Children benefit from supportive ties between the family and the surrounding environment including stable, socially cohesive neighbourhoods that provide constructive leisure and enrichment activities and that offer parents access to social support. HIgh-quality schools with frequent parent-teacher contact are also vital. The values and practices of cultures and subcultures affect all aspects of children's daily lives. Extended-family households, which are common among many ethnic minority groups, help protect children form negative effects of poverty and other stressful conditions. Collectivist societies, which emphasize group needs and goals, and individualistic societies, which emphasize individual well-being, take different approaches to developing public policies to address social problems, including those affecting children. Largely because of its strongly individualistic values, the United States lags behind other developed nations in policies safeguarding children and youths.
How about in Malaysia? How do we emphasize our needs, are we collectivist societies or individualistic societies? Throughout the years since Malaysia Independence, which public policies have we implement to address our social problem, especially to the children.
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