Chapters 6 & 7

After reading the beginning section of chapter 6 I am shocked that there are not more benefits to breast-feeding. I am most surprised that those children who were breastfed did not develop more secure relationships later on in life. I think the researchers should have looked into the relationship between breast feeding and social relationships because those results would be interesting.

After reading chapter 6 I think it is important to just keep your children on the right track. Like we read in this chapter often times skipping ahead is not beneficial. I think each step for a child is important and a parent should not rush the early childhood years by pushing their children ahead. I do understand the case of the child who is advanced and becomes bored and distracted in the classroom and may therefore become disruptive. I think in that case, it is okay to skip a grade, but it may be more beneficial to take accelerated courses or attend a more advanced school.

In chapter 7, I did not find the fact that the death of a parent does not impact life-span mortality surprising, because my grandmother lost her father when she was a teenager, and now she is almost 90 years old. I think children are able to adapt and move on from tragic experiences and therefore the death of a parent would not impact their own longevity.

After reading chapter 7, I do not agree with the finding that parental divorce was a risk factor for death from injury or disease. I think this is a very powerful conclusion and I do not think the researchers provided the readers with enough evidence to back up their claim. Divorce impacts what seems like the majority of families these days, and I do not think that it plays that large of a role in the longevity of those children affected. Although, I can understand why divorce may lead to financial hardships, which may consequently impact the actions of children from divorced families.

I thought it was interesting how the impact of divorce was different for men versus women. It makes sense that during this time, the men were expected to be the head of the household, and therefore bring home the income. Due to their parents’ divorce they may have not completed their education and therefore were not able to make a comfortable living for their families. Resulting in them participating in risky behaviors such as drinking and smoking.

I think it would be interesting to see if the smoking percentages between men of divorced parents versus intact families differed today. I believe it would, because I think smoking has become less prevalent than it was during this study. I also think it would be interesting to see how this study would differ if it was done today, because half of marriages end in a divorce, and it seems to be the norm in the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Response to Chapters 6 & 7

  1. Alexa Bertrand says:

    From your post, I really loved that you mentioned the males having a stronger effect than women in terms of parents’ divorce. The thought just occurred to me that most divorces end in the woman taking custody of the child(ren) and how that may affect a boy growing up. Maybe the male children are more likely to participate in risky behavior because they don’t have that fatherly figure to guide them in their aggressive and sporty behavior, which may lead them to express that in an unsafe way later in life.

    I found the section on breastfeeding actually not very surprising. I feel like as long as it’s the mother or a parental figure feeding the baby milk, not necessarily actually breast milk, that bond can be built with the child. I do think it would be important to study the parents’ involvements with the child throughout their childhood and young adulthood and see if involvement has any sort of correlation with the relationship the child perceives with the parents, or better yet, if that can lead to differences in longevity.

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