Socalization

This week we started our new unit called Socialization. We focused this week on children and using the Growing Man Metaphor we were able to understand how children start out with a certain biology and what comes from nature then grows up and through socialization, grows up into a more aware and conscience person. We learned a lot about how important nurturing children is and we watched a few videos of examples of children who were never nurtured and therefore, they developed at a much slower rate than any other child their age. I was shocked to see how drastically different they were just because of the lack of human interaction they were given. They could not see, speak or move right because they had never been taught how. Simple tasks like chewing and swallowing food that many people probably assume babies are born knowing how to do, is now shown that that is not the case and there are very few things that babies can actually do on their own without learning from someone or imitating someone.

Since my siblings were all born after I was already ten years old I feel like I am one of the few people my age that has seen a baby every day from the time they were born to the oldest one who is now seven. There are so many things that each minute tiny babies need that people may not understand until they spend long amounts of time with a baby. Although I realized all of these things were very important, I didn't understand how crucial the jobs of parents really are. It's so interesting to me to see how strongly just touching a baby's back (out of instinct to many) when they are upset or tired can impact their lives and by doing it frequently enough, the person touching their back is actually making them grow. This unit has already put a whole new perspective on the way I look at parents and the way they raise their children.