Life Span Behaviour And Development

1. Describe why the term ‘good enough parenting’ is used in preference to ‘good’ parenting. How does this support good practice in social work?

Good enough parenting is the term, where the parents are willing to provide proper guidance to their children in order to effective physical and mental development of their children. Good enough parents provide suitable environment to the children, where they can live safely ad develop their physical and mental condition successfully. The parents try to fulfil the needs and preferences of the children and the parents allow their children to make mistakes in their life as according to the good parenting practice, for the parents mistakes and failures are inevitable component for their children to learn more (Smyth and Newland, 2019). Good enough mothers is the term, used by the British psychologist Donald Winnicott, who explained that the children develop a stronger sense of self as the mothers meet boundaries and fail them in tolerable ways. It is considered as good practice in the social work as it provides a scope to the parents to fulfil the requirements of the children and help them to understand the meaning of self. It is supports the social work as god parenting is characterised by setting rules and boundaries, be patient and forgiveness, supportive and loving, respectful as well as becoming a good role model for their children.

2. What does it mean to call children egocentric?

Egocentric is the inability for differentiating between self and others. The children sometimes are called as egocentric due to the inability t understand the perception of others and only give value to their own thoughts. The meaning of calling the children egocentric is that the children are unable to understand and see the situation from other’s perspective. The children think that the other person also thinks hear and feel exactly same as the chid does. Specifically, the children with aged between 2 to 7 years are considered as egocentric where their imagination is developing and they think that the other person think the same as they are thinking, hence they value their thought and perspective over others. In this stage of child development, the children are also unable to understand the perspective of others and for which the children sometime are called as egocentric (Offer and Fischer, 2018). In the situation such as focusing on one perception and opinion, lack of empathy and inability to recognise the needs of others as well as the decision making practice around own needs and excessive thoughts and giving importance to own self, the children are called as egocentric.

3. Explain the concept of and how you might use these terms today.

Poverty is the state of being inferior in sufficient in amount or quality and the two types of poverty are absolute and relative. Absolute poverty is considered where the people are not able to meet their basic needs and the household income is below the necessary level of the individuals. On the other hand, the relative poverty is the condition where the person’s household income is a certain percentage lower than the median income. Absolute poverty is utilised to calculate the numbers of people living below the poverty line and on the other hand, the relative poverty is used to identify the numbers of people who are suffering from poverty relative to other people, region or nations (Ravallion and Chen, 2019). The absolute poverty is not changing with economic growth, but the relative poverty is changing with the economic growth, where the percentage of median income is also changing over the period. In the recent era of globalisation, the term relative poverty is utilised to analyse the country’s position and understand the economic condition. On the other hand, the absolute poverty is used to acknowledge the numbers of people suffering in the economy to fulfil their basic needs to live such as food, shelter clothing and water etc.

4. What are the five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Please give an example of each type of need.

As per the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the five needs are psychological needs, safety, love and belongings, esteem needs and the need of self actualisation. The psychological needs are the basic needs of the individuals such as food, shelter water, rest and warmth. In order to lead a normal life, it is required for the individuals to fulfil the basic needs. The safety need is also mandatory for the individuals, where security and safety at the society provide the individuals to stay with comfort. The need of love and belongings is also another necessary step where the bonding, relationship and friendship are important for the individuals to lead a normal life. Esteem needs also necessary to be fulfilled and it provides prestige and the feeling of accomplishment among the individuals in the society (Fallatah and Syed, 2018). As per the self actualisation needs, achieving one’s full potential as well as enhancing the creativity and innovation among the individuals are the activities through which the people can fulfil he need of self actualisation. For the people to improve their standard of living, it is essential to fulfil all the five needs. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the individuals can improve their standard of living by fulfilling all the needs.

5. Briefly describe a life-span approach to development and give an example of a biographical and a sociological factor that might influence human development.

Life span approach is the development of the human being over the period of time, and the stages of life span approach are such as infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and old age. It is the full process of human development from birth to death and through the life span approach; it is also passively for the individuals to understand cognitive emotional, psychological and social changes that the people are going through over their life. The major biographical factors influencing human development are gender, nutrition, genetics and structure which influence the child development (Payne and Isaacs, 2017). On the other hand, the sociological factors are such as family and household characteristics, parenting style, features of physical development, environment including attitude, temperature and climate are also influencing the child development in the society. There are also other sociological factors which influence child development and the factors are language, communication with the parents and the other family members at home, community and family structure, relationship with others, ideology and religion, which also help to reshape the human being in the society.

Reference List

• Fallatah, R.H.M. and Syed, J., 2018. A Critical Review of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In Employee Motivation in Saudi Arabia (pp. 19-59). London: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
• Offer, S. and Fischer, C.S., 2018. Calling on Kin: The Place of Parents and Adult Children in Egocentric Networks. In Social Networks and the Life Course (pp. 117-138). Springer, Cham.
• Payne, V.G. and Isaacs, L.D., 2017. Human motor development: A lifespan approach. London: Routledge.
• Ravallion, M. and Chen, S., 2019. Global poverty measurement when relative income matters. Journal of public economics, 177, p.104046.
• Smyth, C. and Newland, J., 2019. ‘Good enough’parenting: Negotiating standards and stigma. International Journal of Drug Policy, 68, pp.117-123.