Early Childhood Education: Family and Community Relationships

Genetic and Biological Influences on Children Relative to Addictive Behaviors
Adopted children with one or both biological parents having histories of alcohol abuse, criminal records, and/or major psychiatric illness are at double the risk for drug abuse as those having biological parents without such histories. While this risk is genetic, differential environmental influences can exacerbate or mitigate children's biological risk for engaging in addictive behaviors. For example, adopted children who experience difficulties in their adopted families, such as deaths or divorce, are at higher risk of developing drug abuse problems. Conversely, children whose biological parents' histories put them at higher genetic risk for abusing drugs—but who were adopted into loving, stable families—are less at risk for developing addictions. Researchers conclude that children with higher genetic risks for addiction are more vulnerable to adverse environmental influences in their adopted families than children with lower genetic risks.
Also, genetic risks become less powerful in adoptive families having lower environmental risk factors.

Alfred Adler's Theoretical Concepts of the Effects of Birth Order

Only Child and Oldest Child
Neo-Freudian psychologist Alfred Adler proposed that a child's birth order relative to other children in a family is associated with corresponding influences on the child's personality and behaviors. For example, Adler found that the only child is regarded as a miracle of birth by parents with no prior experience of having a baby. This child receives the undivided attention of both parents, who may be overprotective of the child and/or spoil him/her. Some general characteristics of only children include preferring adults' company, using adult language, enjoying being the center of attention from adults, and finding it difficult to share with other children. Adler said the oldest/older child has been 'dethroned'/displaced by a younger sibling and must learn to share. Parents often have very high expectations of the oldest/older child, give him/her much responsibility, and expect him/her to set an example for younger siblings.
Older/oldest children may turn to fathers once a sibling is born. They may feel entitled to power, developing strict/authoritarian attitudes/behaviors. Given encouragement, they can develop helpful attitudes/behaviors.

Second Child and Middle Child
Psychoanalyst and theorist Adler included birth order as one factor in his study of influences on personality development. He identified general tendencies associated with each family birth position. For example, the second-born child was described by Adler as having a
'pacemaker' in that there is always an older sibling ahead of this child. Adler found that the results of this position include the child's becoming more competitive out of attempts to overtake the elder sibling. He noted that competition could devolve into sibling rivalry. A second child might develop into a rebellious sort or might develop a habit of always trying to 'top' or exceed everybody else's accomplishments. Adler described the middle child in a family as being 'sandwiched' between older and younger siblings, so that s/he can feel 'squeezed out' of any privileged or significant position. Some middle children may grow up to fight against injustice or unfairness; others may encounter difficulty establishing places for themselves. Some middle children develop even-tempered dispositions, with no extreme opinions and 'take-it-or-leave-it' attitudes.

Youngest Child and Twin Children
In his psychoanalytic theory, Alfred Adler included birth order as one family influence on child personality development. For example, he found that the youngest child in a family, like an only child, is never 'dethroned' or displaced by a new sibling. However, unlike an only child, the youngest sibling has many 'parents' in the form of older siblings who help to raise, instruct, and influence him/her. Youngest siblings are often spoiled by the attentions of parents plus older siblings. Some youngest children continue to feel and behave like the 'baby' of the family indefinitely. Many youngest children, always being littlest, wish to be bigger than siblings. As they grow, youngest siblings may make grandiose plans that never succeed. Adler found with twins, one is usually more active or stronger, and is often perceived by the parents as older—s/he may have been born a minute earlier and/or they perceive him/her as more mature. The stronger twin may develop as the leader; the other may develop problems with identity.

Familial Birth Order, Only Boy Among Girl Siblings, Only Girl Among Boy
Siblings, Boy with All Boy Siblings, and Girl with All Girl Siblings 
Adler found that the ways children are perceived and treated by parents and siblings relative to their birth order contribute to their personality formation and behavior. For example, Adler stated the only boy with girl siblings, surrounded by females when the father is not there, can develop either of opposite extremes: he may engage excessively in behaviors to prove he is the 'man of the family' or develop effeminate behaviors through identifying with surrounding females. Adler found when a child is the only girl among male siblings, her older brothers can behave protectively toward her. An only girl among boys may make efforts to please the father and develop either of two opposing extremes: becoming a tomboy to compete with brothers or developing very feminine behaviors to differentiate from them. In families with all-male or all-female children, Adler noted parents who wanted a child of the other sex might dress one child as the opposite sex. The child may either exploit this role reassignment or strongly object to it.

'Ghost Child' and the Adopted Child
Adlerian psychoanalytic theory includes family birth order as an influence on personality development and behavior. For example, Adler described a child who is born after an older child has died as having a 'ghost' ahead of him/her.
Such a child, called a 'ghost child,' is likely to be subject to overprotection by the mother, who fears losing him/her after losing a child previously. The child may respond to parental overprotectiveness by taking advantage of the parent to get what s/he wants. Alternatively, some 'ghost' children resent feeling parental comparisons to the deceased child, whose memory parents have idealized; in this case, the child may rebel. Adler said adoptive parents can be so grateful to have a child and so anxious to make up for the child's loss of biological parents, that they may spoil him/her; thus, the adopted child is more liable to develop very demanding, spoiled behaviors. The adopted child may ultimately either resent his/her biological parents for rejecting/leaving him/her or idealize them, negatively comparing the adoptive parents.

Murray Bowen's Family Systems Theory
Dr. Bowen identified four basic family relationship patterns within what he called the Nuclear Family Emotional System. These patterns dictate where problems develop when the family system is under tension. Bowen labeled these patterns Marital Conflict; Dysfunction in One Spouse; Impairment of One or More Children; and Emotional Distance, which latter is associated with the first three. In Impairment of One or More Children, the parents focus their anxieties on one or more of their children.
Their perception of the child(ren) is either negative or idealized. The more the parents focus on one child, the more that child reciprocally focuses on them, becoming more reactive to parental expectations, needs, and attitudes than siblings are. This process undermines the child's differentiation of self, a key factor in healthy individual development according to Bowen. The child becomes more susceptible to internalizing or externalizing family tensions, affecting his/her social relationships, school performance, and physical and mental health.

Family Projection Process
In the Family Projection Process, Dr. Murray Bowen found that parents can project their anxieties onto their children. When parents worry overly that something is wrong with one child, they may see everything the child does as proof of that worry. Their excessive efforts to remedy the child's 'problem' can actually cause the child to develop the problem in reality, as the child's self-image becomes aligned with parental perceptions. While parents with such worries usually feel guilty of not giving the 'problem' child enough attention, they have in fact directed more attention to this child than his/her siblings.
Bowen found that children less engaged in this process have more realistic, mature relationships with parents and develop into more goal-oriented, less reactive, and less emotionally needy individuals. Both parents participate equally in the process in different ways; both are insecure relative to the child, but Bowen said typically one parent pretends to feel secure with the other's complicity.
In his theory, Bowen referred to the way parents transmit their emotional issues to children as the Family Projection Process, which involves three steps: (1) A parent focuses on a child, fearing something is wrong with that child. (2) The parent perceives the child's behavior as confirmation of this fear. (3) The parent then treats the child as though something really is wrong. When parents try to 'fix' what they perceive is a problem in the child, their perception can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the child eventually embodies that perception. For example, if parents perceive a child as helpless and are always helping her excessively, the child's self-image comes to mirror the parents' perception; the child becomes de facto helpless and dependent even though she may not have been so initially. The more intense this process is, the greater relationship sensitivities children develop, beyond those of their parents.