Tin Tức

Children are sometimes referred to as a blank slate on which society, which includes both a child’s family and the outside world in which they grow up, writes. As children grow into adults, many studies have been undertaken to look into just how significant a role each of the factors affecting a child’s development play in it, especially in proportion to that of another. To this day, there has been no clear-cut answer on the matter, but the one consensus that has been reached is that no factor in a child’s life plays a significant enough role to justify neglecting the others. In other words, the successful, for lack of a better word, development of a child is dependent on a balance between the effects of both the worlds inside and outside of their home. 

On a societal level, families are essentially the building blocks of society as we know it, and within these families are individuals who function as the particles that make up said units. To put it simply, society would not exist without the cradles of individuals known as families, which is why there is such an important distinction between what happens to a child inside and outside of the home. Within the family home, children are taught and familiarised with some of the most basic and fundamental values in life. It is within the family that the child first witnesses what it means to be human, what it means to be loved, and what it means to love. This rarely, if ever, happens outside of the home, for it is often exclusively family members that hold such a special bond with the child. Such observation often constitutes a great portion of what the child defines as the foundational principles of how the world works, the process of which is often unknown to the subject themselves. 

Once a child grows up, however, they inevitably interact with the world around them. It is from this stage that they learn, and continue to learn, of the vastness of the world outside the walls that are their home. As humans have invariably done since ancient times when faced with foreign living conditions, the child adapts, by means of learning the ways of that world as well. This results in a child whose development is and continues to be influenced by both their family and the society in which that family lives. Every day, the child is expected to face information and experiences that conflict what they have already established within the home. With time, the child decides for themselves how and whether or not to accept the society version or the family version of a matter. Despite the fact that family-taught values have often been fairly cemented by the time the child experiences that conflict, we see time and time again children who prioritise what they learn in life over what is taught to them within the home as a young child. 

It is often easy to overstate the importance of any given factor in a child’s development in the name of a singular narrative. Such is the case of parents holding society accountable for their child finding joy in video games, or society criticising a child’s family for the child’s manners in public. However, it is important that we remain impartial when considering why a child acts a certain way, for it is often not the result of any singular contributor that we are looking at.

VOCABULARY
 

a blank slate (n): một “tờ giấy trắng” 

 clear-cut (adj): rõ ràng

consensus (n): sự đồng lòng

particles (n): những mảnh nhỏ

cradle (n): cái nôi

bond (n): sự gắn kết

vastness (n): rộng lớn, mênh mông

cemented (v): được thắt chặt, gắn bó

prioritise (v): ưu tiên

overstate (v): nói quá, phóng đại

impartial (adj): công bằng