Judith Rich Group Socialization Theory Of Parenting

For many years, parents seemed to bear the full weight of responsibility for how their children turned out. If children turned out respectable, their parents received much credit; if children turned out negative, their parents bore the blame. This perspective seemed to leave little room for other influences for how children turn out; influences such as biological factors and personality type, cultural and peer influences, and the child’s own choices. Judith Rich, however, in her Group Socialization Theory of Development, proposes that influences outside the home, with peer-groups, carry greater importance in development than parental influence.
Using biological evidence, studies of twins and immigrant families, and studies of teenage smoking,
135). Genes determine our temperament which “form[s] our enduring personality” (p. 136). Myers acknowledges that personality may be pre-determined, however, he goes on to address the importance of parenting:
The power of parenting is clearest at the extremes: the abused children who become abusive, the neglected who become neglectful, the loved but firmly handled who become self-confident and socially competent. The power of the family environment also appears in the remarkable academic and vocational successes of children of people who fled from Vietnam and Cambodia—successes attributed to close-knit, supportive, even demanding families (p. 147).
Parents also influence where a child lives, affecting the child’s social environment such as the neighborhood they live in and the schools they attend. Beth Azar (2000) cites studies done by psychologist Alan Sroufe, PhD, and his colleagues, at the University of Minnesota. Sroufe’s studies show a link between parent-child attachment and such outcomes, “as school success and failure, [and] social competence and psychopathology” (para. 23). More evidence to suggest that parents do
No one is born knowing who they are. A child must learn, grow, and explore to learn about themselves and the world around them. Parents are positioned, more than anyone else, to guide their children in this process. C. S. Lewis (1960), writes, “We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.” Parents, hopefully, have discovered who they are, then will be able to guide their children as their children journey to discover themselves. Trying to follow peer group who do not know who they are will like the blind leading the