The document discusses parental influence on child development from multiple perspectives. It explores theories of attachment, boundaries, and transactions between parents and children. While parental interaction is important, the document emphasizes that child development results from many factors, including parents' responses to environmental influences, children's genetic predispositions, and cultural norms. Development involves both nature and nurture interacting together, not one versus the other. The document concludes that parental influence cannot be viewed as the sole determinant of a child's outcomes due to these numerous developmental influences.

1. RUNNNING HEAD: PARENTAL INFLUENCE IN DEVELOPMENT 1
Parental Influence in Development
Randall L. Noggle
PSY304: Lifespan Development
Instructor Cindi-Willoughby
3/3/14

2. PARENTAL INFLUENCE 2
Every single human being is a unique individual. While some humans may be very
similar in personality types, interests, or upbringing, there is no formula to raise a perfectly
functioning and well-adjusted person. Humans are the result of the biological process of
reproduction. While reproduction is the physical creation of a child, the cognitive and social
creation is a much different story. Upon birth, a child is a blank canvas. However, the earliest
interactions with parents and childcare providers are not the ones who are painting the entire
picture of what the child will become. Parents can neither receive all of the credit nor the blame
for the cognitive and social development of the child since they are a work in progress, if you
will. The interaction of the parental units is more like choosing the palate of colors and defining
a border in a picture, and the rest is to be painted through the child’s individual development
based on numerous factors such their interpretation of themselves in their personal understanding
of the world, their attachment schemes, and their environmental influences. Because these other
influences can weigh so heavily on cognitive and social development, the blame and/or credit of
an individual becoming a certain way can only, in part, be a result of parental upbringing.
The main area of development that parents play an integral role in is the earliest stages,
which would be from infancy to the end of childhood. If using the Attachment and Boundary
Ambiguity Theories, it can be seen that parents due in fact play a major role in the very first
stages of a child’s life. The first few months of a child’s life they are in direct, constant contact
with their parents and/or childcare providers. These interactions provide the “groundwork” for
all future interactions throughout development. It is in this earliest timeframe that parents can
and will make the biggest psychological impact, continuing up through late childhood. In the

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stages of childhood parents serve as an example of ideals and essentially the embodiment of
adulthood and prime example to base further social interactions off of. Parents also serve as a
form of comfort and security for a child is this pivotal timeframe.
While parents cannot be held solely responsible for the end-result of what a child
becomes, there are many things they can be held responsible for. According to Collins, Maccoby,
Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, “Parents play a key role in influencing children's physical,
social, and emotional development, with positive development preparing children to become
well-functioning members of society.” (Gromoske & Maguire-Jack, 2012, p1055). This idealism
is stating that parents are responsible for a child’s physical, social, or emotional development,
but that are merely an influence or one of the numerous factors involved. While there are most
certainly other factors involved during the childhood stages that can have an impact on overall
development, the parental role is pivotal in that it helps the child create interpersonal and societal
schemes in their developing mind. This is where the child learns how to “be” and how to
function as an individual, dependent upon the schemes that they have created.
The amount of verbal and nonverbal responsiveness of parents, especially regarding the
mother’s frequencies of responses directed towards the child, can help predict positive cognitive
and social development (Bibok, Carpendale, & Muller, 2009). This idealism, while viewing the
juxtaposition, is further elaborated by a study done in Developmental Psychology by Pettit &
Bates in which parents believed that predominance in negative perception of a child while having
a lack of positive involvement caused behavioral problems later on through development.
Likewise, the amount and type of interaction also helps the child to learn and understand dyadic
social interactions. This type of interaction, in essence, aids in the child’s cognitive abilities

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regarding how to interact, their actions and the responses that they elicit (Mquaid, Bibok,
Carpendale, 2009).
These concepts are a major influence in future social interaction. Gromoske also
suggests that this helps with child-parent reciprocity, which falls in line the transactional effects
model of parent-child relations (Gromoske, 2012). The entire concept behind the transactional
effects model is that the parent-child relationship is in a constant state of reciprocity. That is,
both parent-child interaction and child-parent interaction are both interdependent while
simultaneously dependent. This balance of reciprocity can be thrown askew by stressors in the
parents live, in that the quality of parenting can be affected by contextual stressors (Yates,
Obradovic, Egeland, 2010). More specifically, the negative and stressful factors in a parent’s life
can have an adverse effect on the quality of their parenting, which in turn affects the child’s
development by limiting successful reciprocity and positive interaction.
While discussing parent-child interaction, there are two other theories that need to be
addressed. Those two theories are the Boundary Ambiguity Theory and the Attachment Theory.
The Boundary Ambiguity Theory stresses what the effects of psychological absence can have on
a child and understanding of roles within the family structure. There are many variables possible
in the absence of roles. It could be present because of parental conflict, drug use, divorce, of
what are more commonly known as “dead beat dads” or, while no popular term is available,
mothers who are not in the child’s life. While the latter (non-present parents) are becoming more
frequent, this theory is primarily based on studies involving whole families (both biological
parents present in the same living situation).

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This works in synergy with the Attachment Theory in that without clearly defined roles
and with some sort of familial turbulence, a child may be unable to create a healthy attachment to
either one or both of the parents. The same variables that play into the Boundary Ambiguity
Theory are also present in the Attachment Theory, just in a different context. The way in which
those factors work into the Attachment Theory affects how a child interacts with each individual
parent on an emotional level. Because of those factors and how they affect each parent
respectively, it can hinder the emotional attachment that a child needs from either parent,
resulting in yet another determining factor of socioemotional development.
The concepts presented by the transactional effects model of parent-child relations,
Boundary Ambiguity Theory, and Attachment Theory all have a common factor: environmental
influences. While these theories seem to place a majority of emphasis on parenting, the
underlying issues are not the parent’s interactions with the children. The real issue is the parent’s
responses to environmental influences and their effect on the way in which a parent interacts
with the child. These environmental influences can range from , but are certainly not limited to:
career choice, marital status, socio-economic status, and cultural normatives.
This leads to the concept of nature vs nurture in child development and parenting. In
essence, nurturing is being influenced by nature. As important as parental interaction is to a
child’s development, it is not the sole factor involved. It reality, it does not become an argument
of nature vs nurture. To the contrary, it is a combination of nature vs nurture. “Environmental
influences, such as parental divorce, life stress, family functioning, and child maltreatment were
associated with (lawful) discontinuity of attachment.” (Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-
Kranenburg, & Van IJzendoorn, 2012, p1278). Any of those influences, as well as a host of
others, can have an immense impact of a child’s cognitive and social development. While the

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view expressed here focuses on the nature aspect, the implications of these factors most certainly
affect the nurture aspect as well. All of those factors, as well as the parent’s responses to those
will be a factor in how a parent interacts with a child. It is interesting that there is a direct
relationship to environmental influences and parenting style. It is almost the same correlation
that exists in reciprocity regarding the parent-child relationship.
The nature vs nurture issue cannot be involved unless the biological factors are also
considered in child development. While negative environmental influences have been addressed
and much emphasis placed on them in conjunction with the parent’s responses as a both a factor
and influence in child development, there is a biological aspect which has an equally important
role. In Beyond Diathesis Stress: Differential Susceptibility to Environmental Influences, Belsky
and Pluess express that there are inherent biological vulnerabilities to certain or specific
stressors, based on the individual that can affect development. Furthermore, the psychological
and socio-emotional developmental differences influenced by environment are a result of
differing developmental plasticity states, in which parenting is not the sole factor, but one of
many factors. In this view, the relationship between nature vs nurture, much like the other views
and theories, go hand-on-hand in overall development.
This brings us to the cultural influence and subsequent impact on parenting and child
development. Cultures vary widely on a global perspective. Everything from religion, to social
expectations, taboos, and normative lifestyle practices are factors involved in both parenting and
child development. Realistically, the goal of any parent isn’t just to help guide and shape the
development of a child to fit their own personally held views and beliefs, but also that of those of
the culture they are a part of. The differences in cultures most certainly shape the way in which
parenting takes place. In Cultural Approaches to Parenting, Bornstein suggests that the cultural

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differences in parenting lie in an adaptive process. Parenting styles are adjusted to help the child
form a culturally respective, as well as responsive, role. This role is further determined by
whether the parent wishes to either maintain or transform the culture. By this, it is meant to
whether to adhere to what could be considered a more “traditional” upbringing which stresses
and values the established beliefs that have been held throughout a cultures development or
progressing in a different fashion. Often times, this transformative path incorporates other
cultural standards, or perhaps slightly alters the perspective in which traditional standards are
viewed and are changed according to the current social climate.
This concept of culturally-influenced and guided parenting can also be viewed in a
historical context. As our global society has evolved, so have parenting practices, especially in
more technologically advanced civilizations. As can be seen in the Western world, parenting has
shifted over time to focus more on the child’s individual development. There is more of an
emphasis on reciprocity of communication and emotional development. It can be argued that the
shift from authoritative to authoritarian parenting styles increases the overall satisfaction and
success in child development by both the parents and the child. While the “happy median”, if
you will, has not and never will be clearly defined, numerous scholars have expressed the
detrimental nature of parental over or under involvement. In reference to parenting style, this
over and over involvement are typically characterized by indulgent and neglectful parenting,
respectively (Santrock, 2012). It should also be noted that authoritative parenting can also be
considered a form of parental over involvement.
Does all of this mean that a child’s development is completely based on cultural and
environmental factors? To give a simplified answer—no. The effects of these variables can be
overcome if caught soon enough, whether it is a genetic disposition towards a certain stressor or

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the effects of parenting style and interaction based on personal and/or cultural perspective. Like
every other factor involved in a child’s cognitive and social development there is no decisive
way to measure the overall effect and observations can only be made by a child’s behavior,
which often times exclude temperament and environmental stressors (Bocknek, Brophy-Herb,
Fitzgerald, Burns-Jager, & Carolan, 2012).
As has been show, parents provide a huge amount of influence of a child’s cognitive and
social development being as they are the primary source of care, influence, and example. While
parenting attitudes and involvement can help determine the course of development for a child, it
cannot be rightly attributed as the sole influence. While it may be true that the over or under
involvement in parental interaction throughout development, especially in the early childhood
years, can manifest in adolescence as either cognitive or socio-emotional deficiencies, it is not
without the genetic and environmental factors and influences that child development can be
viewed as a whole. The role of parental influence in child development, while essential, cannot
be stressed as a certain determinant in the child’s outcome as a fully functioning, well-adjusted
adult. That being said, neither role in the nature vs nurture debate can be stressed as a certain
determinate either. When viewing the parental influence involved with a child’s development,
numerous factors must be viewed as well. Not only the parent-child interaction essential, but so
are the parents (as well as child’s) responses to environmental factors. These environmental
factors affect the parenting decisions, and also the child’s development based on certain genetic
factors. All of these factors work together in a child’s understanding of themselves in their world
and their attachment schemes. As such, the credit and/or blame of parental upbringing being the
sole influence is invalid. The developmental process of a child has numerous factors and

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influences involved, and placing too much emphasis on any one single instance is doing an
injustice to the other, essential determinates.

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Refernces
Beijersbergen, M. D., Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H.
(2012). Remaining or becoming secure: Parental sensitive support predicts attachment continuity
from infancy to adolescence in a longitudinal adoption study. Developmental Psychology, 48(5),
1277-1282. doi:10.1037/a0027442
Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2009). Beyond diathesis stress: Differential susceptibility to
environmental influences. Psychological Bulletin, 135(6), 885-908. doi:10.1037/a0017376
Bibok, M. B., Carpendale, J. M., & Müller, U. (2009). Parental scaffolding and the
development of executive function. New Directions For Child & Adolescent Development,
2009(123), 17-34. doi:10.1002/cd.233
Bocknek, E. L., Brophy-Herb, H. E., Fitzgerald, H., Burns-Jager, K., & Carolan, M. T.
(2012). Maternal Psychological Absence and Toddlers' Social-Emotional Development:
Interpretations From the Perspective of Boundary Ambiguity Theory. Family Process, 51(4),
527-541. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.2012.01411.x
Bornstein, M. H. (2012). Cultural Approaches to Parenting. Parenting: Science &
Practice, 12(2/3), 212-221. doi:10.1080/15295192.2012.683359
Gromoske, A. N., & Maguire-Jack, K. (2012). Transactional and cascading relations
between early spanking and children's social-emotional development. Journal of Marriage and
Family, 74(5), 1054-1068. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1324449914?accountid=32521

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Mcquaid, N. E., Bibok, M. B., & Carpendale, J. M. (2009). Relation Between Maternal
Contingent Responsiveness and Infant Social Expectations. Infancy, 14(3), 390-401.
doi:10.1080/15250000902839955
Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (1989). Family interaction patterns and children's behavior
problems from infancy to 4 years. Developmental Psychology, 25(3), 413-420.
doi:10.1037/0012-1649.25.3.413
Santrock, J. W. (2012). A topical approach to life-span development. New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.
Yates, T. M., Obradovic, J., & Egeland, B. (2010). Transactional relations across
contextual strain, parenting quality, and early childhood regulation and adaptation in a high-risk
sample. Development & Psychopathology, 22(3), 539-555. doi:10.1017/S095457941000026X