Journal VI: The Echoes of Bronfenbrenner
The development of a child varies with the context of the environment and the formation of relationships, according to the ecological system theory of Bronfenbrenner. The external and diverse influences fuels the advancement of awareness within a certain setting, and that enables the children to demonstrate culturally accepted norms on their behavior for the sole purpose of adaptation. However, there are impediments that allow distressing occurrences to flourish in the youth. For example, the deprivation of needs which restricts a person to explore to the further system of society. Also, a poor parental education will produce incompetent child and incapable to adapt to the surroundings. Then, the exposure to violence that limits the steps of the children, and simply focus on the safety than development; for an instance, the certain video in social media where the young girl is vulnerable to the Syrian civil war, the bombings and rifle shots are throughout the area, but instead, her father implies it as strange humor to avoid the manifestation of trauma. These are the inevitable circumstances that the children may experience, they may either proceed to healthy growth or display wound for a lifetime.
Further, the environment possesses five complex structure which influences the children's progress in socialization aspect, these are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
The microsystem is the immediate environment of a child. Their beliefs and actions are still reversible and affected by the surrounding people such as the family, peers, and teachers. This is the system through which the child recognizes the value and worth of the members of his or her environment. Kael, for example, was raised in a strict household. His time and movements are calculated according to his parents' rules—to the point where violence occurs and is justified as a discipline; thus, he thought it was the right lifestyle for a child and builds resentment later on when he acquires education. Then he wonders, what if he is fostered in a more nurturing environment, what his principles and goals will be now.
Besides which, the mesosystem is the interaction of two influential people with the intention to affect the child's development. In primary school, for example, it is a common practice for parents to stick with the teachers by obeying all commands and requests until the trust is earned. There is nothing wrong with it; however, it influences the teacher's perspective toward the students, biases emerge, and a specific child is favored. To be honest, this system-dependent function is beneficial in some ways, but not on campus and must be abolished at once.
The exosystem, on the other hand, refers to external influences which do not necessarily involve the child. One time, a huge fire once disrupted Kael's home, and he was not present at the time. When he returned home, his mother's face was flushed with stress and grief. He was still young, and his instincts would normally allow him to cry. But, as the eldest child, and given the state of their home and the dominant emotion throughout, he must maintain a calm demeanor or else despair will consume all emotional supports. That moment, he grasped the fact—his duty as the family's third in command, that personal feelings must be controlled when everyone falls into anguish and pessimism.
Nonetheless, the central factors of macrosystem are cultural elements such as wealth, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity, and how it stimulates changes in child's well-being. This is the system which stereotyping poses relevance. On a normal day in the streets of Manila, a child with a dark complexion and a tattered outfit is presumed to execute atrocious behaviors. Accept it or not, prejudice is rampant, and it triggers certain qualities in developing children.
Then, the final system, chronosystem, or basically all the environmental changes throughout the child's developmental process.
The ecological system theory is a complex structure of a child's relationship. From the person's immediate surroundings to the larger ones, the person strives and interacts in the pursuit of development. The I Individual advancement is not primarily oriented upon one's endeavours, but also extends beyond—from a broader perspective, the child develops in accordance with the context of ecology.
