Is there a right way to treat children? Or: Is Developmental Psychology common sense?

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Is there a right way to treat children? OrIs
Developmental Psychology common sense?

• The stages of human development render childhood
  basically the same everywhere.
• Yes___ No___

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Is there a right way to treat children?

• Historical childrearing practices included
• Infanticide and abandonment
• Early separation from parents
• Wet nursing, swaddling, child labor
• Hardening field trips to view hangings
• Regimen of physical discipline
• Restrictions on marriage choice
• Focus on childrens economic value

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Infanticide and Abandonment

• Children have always been abused and neglected
• Evidence in Jericho 7000 BC of infanticide
• First Century Greeks put to death weak, infirm
  and those who lacked courage
• Second Century Greek physicians instructed
  midwives to dispose of unfit children
• Roman Law of Ten Tables prohibited raising
  defective children
• 19th Century Europe justified infanticide
  children were property and not vested with right
  to live before age 7

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Boswell, John The Kindness of Strangers The
Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from
Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.
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David I. KertzerSacrificed For HonorItalian
Infant Abandonment and the Politics of
Reproductive Control(Beacon Press, 1993)
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Abandonment -- How Why...

• How
• Left on hillsides, side of the road, revolving
  try in monestaries and churches
• Why
• Ancient Greeks Of course a man can do whatever
  he wants with his own children
• Aristotle As to exposing or rearing the child
  born, let there be a law that no deformed child
  shall be reared
• Poverty, too many previous children boy
  preference

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Abandonment became institutionalized in the 13th
century

• Historically, women were more likely to abandon
  if they were
• Young
• Unmarried
• Lacking in social support
• (What do you think Were women who abandoned
  likely to be poorer mothers when they did keep
  their babies later in life?)

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Pope Innocent III organized foundling homes in
12th century Important manifestation of
Christian piety

• Huge increase in abandonment in 1750-1850.
• By early 19th century, babies were being
  abandoned in vast numbers in France, Belgium and
  Portugal.
• Why Crisis of unwed mothers breakdown of the
  family

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Contemporary Abandonment(Photo from
China seehttp//www.taliacarner.com/deadnewbor
ningutter.htm)
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Correspondence between married couple, England,
1847

• Edward Stanley writes to his wife, on hearing
  that she is pregnant for the 10th time.
• This your last misfortune is indeed most grevious
  and puts all others in the shade. What can you
  have been doing to account for so juvenile a
  proceeding, it comes very opportunely to disturb
  all your family arrangements and revives the
  nursery and Williams in full vigor. I only hope
  it is not the beginning of another flock for what
  to do with them I know not.

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Henrietta writes back... A hot bath, a tremendous
walk and a great dose have succeeded but it is a
warning.

• Edward repliesI hope you are not going to do
  yourself any harm by your violent proceedings,
  for though it would be a great bore it is not
  worthwhile playing tricks to escape the
  consequenes. If however you are none the worse,
  the great result is all the better.
• Henrietta responds I was sure you would feel the
  same horror I did at an increase of family but I
  am reassured for the future by the efficacy of
  the means. (Henrietta had another child in
  1849)

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Early separation from parentsWet nursing
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Lack of stimulationSwaddling
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Lack of stimulationSwaddling
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All countries swaddled...
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What were the Advantages, Disadvantages to
Swaddling?
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More Early Separation from Parents...

• By age 6-7 Send children out to work as
• servants in others homes (girls and boys)
• apprentices in a trade
• workers in mines, factories (18th-19th century)

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Miner Breaker Boys
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Child Labor in the Factory
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Family Piece Work
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Newspaper Boys
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Children in Agricultural Work
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But did wealthy families also practice early
separation from parents?
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Nannies, Governesses, Tutors,Boarding Schools...
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Field trips to view hangings...
General hardening, cold water bathings, ghost
stories, morality tales
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Moral Values in Childhood
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Regimen of physical discipline
Paddle used in schools
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The wisdom of brutal beatings became heavily
debated in the 19th century

• In the 1800s, many humanitarians began to protest
  the practice of harsh discipline

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Corporal Punishment was used in Schools until the
1970s in the US and Australia (this photo,
Australia 1926)
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Restrictions on marriage choice

• Before the 20th century in Europe and North
  America, parents fought to control childrens
  marriage choice
• especially wealthy parents

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Why was treatment of children so harsh?

• Infanticide and abandonment
• Early separation from parents
• Wet nursing, swaddling, child labor
• Hardening field trips to view hangings
• Regimen of physical discipline
• Restrictions on marriage choice
• Focus on childrens economic value

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Why was treatment of children so harsh?

• Sociocultural, historical explanations
• Life was hard high probability that children
  would die
• Children understood as property of parents
• Children served necessary economic function
• Cultural factors meant adults had different
  psychology
• Lacked the concepts of progress
• Different understanding of causation, human
  psychology
• Different goals for behavior of children
• Lacked modern idealization of mother love
• Adults lacked emotional maturity, empathy
  (DeMause)

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Life was hard...
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Tenement Life
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Infant and Child Mortality
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Children understood as property of
parentsChildren served necessary economic
function
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Economic Primacy in the Pre-Industrial Family

• Marriage was a contract that revolved around
  economic concerns.
• Having children was an economic decision based on
  need (for labor) or old age support.
• Family represented the main mode of
  productionmostly farmingand it used what it
  produced.

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Who Had Power in the Pre-industrial Family

• Patriarch of familyoldest malecontrolled land,
  the most valuable resource
• This power commanded venerationprofound
  respectbut not necessarily love
• Power of patriarch was based on resources that
  would flow to younger generations.

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Why did this required childrearing that
emphasized obedience?

• Sons could only marry when father turned over
  some land to them
• Relations between parents and children were
  autocratic and based on control of this valued
  resource
• Children had were viewed more in instrumental
  than in sentimental terms (as little adults)

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Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother?
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Cultural factors meant adults had different
psychology

• Lacked the concepts of progress
• Different understanding of causation, human
  psychology
• Different goals for behavior of children
• Lacked modern idealization of mother love
• Adults lacked emotional maturity, empathy
  (DeMause)

So how did society change?
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Urban Life Changes in 100 Years
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Psychology Changed with Social Structure

• Cultural factors meant adults had different
  psychology
• Adults lacked emotional maturity, empathy
  (DeMause)
• Lacked the concepts of progress
• Different understanding of causation, human
  psychology
• Different goals for behavior of children
• Lacked modern idealization of mother love