Understanding Children Through Tv Parenting Show

Understanding children through TV Parenting Show

Recently, I am watching a Korean TV show which is about the celebrity fathers look after their children within forty-eight hours without any help, including mothers’ help. Mothers can have their own free time in these two days. In this show, it is not just about how those fathers communicate with their children, they are also required to bring their children to try new things. Some of the children are just one to two years old, their dads teach them some simple words and how to hold the tableware when they are playing and dinning. Started knowing the knowledge of Psychology, it stimulated me trying to think about why we should learn how to eat, drink, talk and walk.

Since we have born, we are learning every day from our parents and teachers. When we were small, parents taught us how to eat, drink, walk and talk. According to the Functionalism purposed by William James, behavior can be inherited in animals and people ( Ciccarelli & White, 2015). It can explain the reason why little children must learn how to eat, drink, walk and talk. For example, without food and water, humans will starve and dehydrate. There is no doubt that eating, drinking, talking and walking are the essential things for us to survive. If children did not learn those survival skills in childhood, it can cause a huge problem in their future. For instance, if we cannot talk, we cannot communicate with others and express our feeling directly. It may cause mental illnesses, such as depression and sociophobia. As learning those can survive better, passing it to the next generation can also help to avoid extinction too.

In addition, in the TV show, I discovered that those fathers usually praise their kids. In an episode, the children were asked to finish some missions given by their father, such as buying some food or drink. When the children have completed those tasks, undoubtedly they will be praised. Actually, those missions are not easy for a two to three years old kid since their concept in money and communication is not as well as an adult, therefore it is not surprised that they failed to complete the missions sometimes. However, even they failed, their father still praised them, gave them a big hug and encouraged them to try it next time.

Due to the experimental results by Skinner, it should be a positive reinforcement which can teach children to try it again next time and learnt from this failure and find an effective way to succeed next time (Skinner, 1948). It is true that environmental factors can affect behavior. When I was small, if I performed well in exam, my mother will buy me something that I would like to have for encouragement. Even if I did not get a satisfying result, she will still give me some rewards like bring me to have buffet. It can really motivate me to do revision in the next examinations, which means the behavior ─ doing revision for exams, can be increased by praises.

Besides, according to McLeod (2007), Law of Effect by Edward Thorndike had explained that when a response can lead to a pleasurable consequence, the response will be more likely to be repeated in the future. For example, children had learnt how to make dumplings, and then their father gave them a great compliment. Next time, when they were asked to make dumplings again, they can finish it confidentially and become more likely to repeat this behavior in the future, as they still remember the last experience. I remember in another episode, their father asked the children to make dumplings by themselves again. They did it willingly and successfully. It also demonstrates what Skinner purposed ─ the positive reinforcement. Confidence is quite important for kids. When children did something well and impressively, parents should always give them complement as it can build up the confidence for their child.