Child Development Psych

Question

Options listed below on topics. Attached is the reading material and rubric

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FYI I DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN - HOMEWORK OPTION 4:  “Researchers from Western industrial nations who have worked with non-Western societies have consistently noted the frequency with which infants are held, touched and in close proximity to caregivers. Three-to-four month old Aka infants are held or touched by a caregiver all day (99% of daylight hours) while older 7-8 month old infants are held/touched about 75% of the time. Melvin Konner reports that !Kung 3-4 month-olds are touched more than 70% of daylight hours, while 7-8 month-olds are touched about 50% of the time. Gusii infants of East Africa are held 80% of the time at 3-6 months and about 50% of the time at 9-12 months… These patterns are considerably different from what is found in the industrialized countries of the U.S., Japan, England and the Netherlands. Young infants in these industrialized countries are held/touched 12-20% (2-3 hours) of waking hours and older infants are held/touched less than 10% of the time. Instead of holding the infants, parents place their infants in different types of carrying or holding devices, such as high chairs, walkers, rockers, playpens. U.S. four-month-olds spend about 40% of their day in these devices. Konner points out that psychologists call orphaned infants "deprived" because they receive so little physical contact (held about 5% of the time), and then goes on to suggest that infants in industrial societies are likewise "deprived" by comparison to infants in non-Western populations where infants are held/touched at least 2-3 times more frequently than infants in industrialized countries.” Hewlett

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Other researchers

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 suggest that physical contact may affect a child’s motor development (since children in some cultures with more physical contact have been found to hit motor milestones significantly earlier than those from cultures with less physical contact).

In many communities in the United States, it is commonly believed that picking up, and carrying a child, especially if the child is crying to be picked up, is an “indulgence” that will result in “spoiling” the child.  What is your opinion on this issue?  Do you think that the frequency of physical contact a child receives has developmental implications? Do you think it might affect motor or even emotional development?  Do you agree of disagree with Konner that U.S. infants may be “touch-deprived?” Explain. (If you have children, you might choose to share your estimate for what % of the time you carried or held or were in some physical contact with your child, and whether it is similar to, or different from the research on U.S. babies noted above).