The infant as a member of society.
An analysis of the social development of the infant and young child offers a salutary view of human nature. To defend that claim I use as an example a recent study of how boys and girls in the second year of life assist their mothers and fathers and other persons in performing some everyday tasks. Although the behavior falls under the rubric of social behavior, it will be examined by the different components comprising it. In turn I consider the social, emotional, cognitive, and motor components of the children's helping and briefly trace their development. Their behavior revealed a well-developed concept of self and despite the children's immaturity deserved the appellation of prosocial. Although wide differences appeared among pairs of children and parents, no differences were found by sex of child or parent, and no differences by culture are anticipated. No current theory of the development of social behavior encompasses all the facets of the whole child here portrayed as active and perceptive, enterprising and creative, and above all responsive. The parents of this study, as well as those of other studies, such as sharing and caregiving, and even obeying, by children in the second year of life, seemed scarcely aware of these socially valued behaviors. In fact, parents, like the rest of us, tend to ignore what goes right and fasten on what goes wrong. Not only a good start to mental health but a better start can come from recognizing and rewarding such behaviors at their onset. If we wait until we think children are ready to be taught them, we pay the penalty of a lost opportunity. At any age children are indeed important members of families, but above all they qualify as members of society by providing a glimpse of what could be accomplished by nurturing the early and spontaneous development of their praiseworthy behavior.
Rheingold
H L
HL
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment