Family and Child Welfare

Family and Child Welfare 3 (3+0)

Lesson 10 : Roles and Responsibilities of Parents and Children

The child’s role

As Sarbin (1954) notes, particular role must be appropriate to the physical and intellectual capacity of the role participants”. The child’s role is inevitably somewhat more limited.
Totally or partially dependent, the child’s is limited in physical and mental capacity and possesses a limited repertoire of skills. Nevertheless the status of child carries with it a set of obligations and there are reciprocal to the parental role.

1. If the parental role requires that the parent teach the child the appropriate attitudes and values of the society the role of the child demands that he learn these attitudes and values and that he act in accordance with them.
2. If the parent’s role is to discipline the child, the child’s role is to accept such discipline, to obey the parent and to make the necessary changes in his behavior. The child is required to display the behavior that is acceptable to the family, to the peer group and to the community.
3. The child is expected to meet some of the emotional needs of his parents by responding affectionately to them, confiding in them and respecting them. The child is expected to act in a manner that will reflect credit to his parents and elicit praise for them in the community.
4. The child must co-operate with the parent in the parent’s efforts to protect him from danger and harm and to meet his physical, emotional and educational needs. The child is required to eat the food offered to go to school and to refrain from activity likely to be physically, socially or emotionally damaging.
5. The child has some responsibility for maintaining family unity and reducing family tensions by co-operating and sharing with other family and by showing loyalty to members of the family group.
6. The child is required to perform whatever appropriate chores are asked of him and to care for whatever clothes toys and furniture the parents have provided.

The older child also has some responsibility in performing three different significant roles, on a child in the family unit, as a pupil in the school system and as a friend in his peer group.