Merve CURA - 5

Some people think that the main factors influencing a child’s development these days are things such as television, friends, and music.

Others believe that the family still remains more important. Discuss both opinions and give your opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

It is argued that television, friends, and music have the primary effect on a child's development; whereas, there are other people who are crowded enough to be underestimated believe that family is still has a preeminent place on a child's development. Personally, I partly agree with both ideas, depending on the child's age.

The effect of social interactions, like friends and popular culture's perfect picture created by television and music, on child development is not a secret. Children, specifically teenagers can easily get affected by these kinds of external stimulations. For teenagers, the most important thing is the approval of their peers. They need to be seen, heard and loved by their friends, the phenomenon that stems from their developmental stage. To make this possible, they model the behaviour of other people who already have got their attentions. They listen to the music that others listen to, and they dress as their peer cliques do. The things that design the liking attitudes of cliques are, clearly, TV and music. On balance, I am convinced that TV and music moderate the effect of friends on a teenage's development.

On the other hand, children at earlier ages entirely depend on their families. Families feed them, clean them, love them and teach them. They learn things such as how to behave in society, or what the norms of the society are from their parents. Furthermore, it is the family that can decide what their child going to watch, or play, and, as a consequence of this, even if TV or music can affect young children, they can be controlled by their parents. During these ages, in a contrast to teenagers, the most important things for children is the approval of their family and discovering life. They learn the world from their families and they learn using modelling, which is called social learning. When a child sees something on TV that he or she should not see, the family can give feedback to prevent modelling and parents can use it as an opportunity to teach a target behaviour.

In conclusion, there are people in favour of the idea that the main effectors on a child's development are friends, TV and music. Despite this, there is another group of people who believe that family has the most influence on the development of children. I believe that both arguments are partially true regarding the child's developmental stage.