ROLE OF FAMILY AND SCHOOL IN CHILD’S

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Child development happens physically, emotionally, socially, and

intellectually as they grow. To make an analogy, if you were
constructing a large building, you have to make sure that it has a solid
foundation so that the rest of the building can stand tall and strong for
many years to come. If the foundation is not strong, the building will
have trouble standing on its own. Just like people, if our foundations are
not solid, we find it more difficult to be successful in our relationships
with others, work, health, and ourselves. So, it cannot be stressed
enough how important the family is in development of a child,
In the early childhood, the family provides the most significant
attachments as well as the care and stimulation required for children's
growth and development. The quality of care – physical, affective and
social – results from steady life conditions, both socio-economic and
psychosocial.
 The interaction of children with adults and their peers is key for an
adequate stimulation in the family environment. The proximal processes
serve as basic mechanisms of this interaction and help children to
develop their perception, and guide and control their behaviors. In
addition, it helps gain knowledge and skills by developing relationships
and building up their own physical and social environment.
 Studies on the association between environment stimulation and
cognition have showed that mothers who were advised to stimulate their
babies through a variety of perceptive experiences with people, objects
and symbols have contributed to their children's cognitive development
and to favorable outcomes in the long term.
The family still acts as a mediator between children and the social
community, promoting their socialization, which is essential to
children's cognitive development. As an open system that evolves
through the exchange of relationships with other systems, the family
went through changes reflecting widespread social changes. Thus, there
have arisen new dispositions, other than those of the formerly prevailing
core family comprised by the couple and their children. No matter what
its structuring, the family remains the basic relational link between
children and the world.
 In their conception of the ecology of human development,
Bronfenbrenner & Ceci emphasizes the complexity of interrelations in
the nearby environment. Human development is affected by the nature
of the existing interconnections with other complementary
environments, which contextualize the developmental phenomena at the
different social levels. We are in an era where more and more families
are turning nuclear and both parents have specific career goals. Due to
multiple responsibilities, parents are always running short of time, still,
they want to practice the best parenting method for their kids. However,
I have seen parents struggling through this phase with little or absolutely
no help around phase with or little or absolutely no help around.
Also, it’s commonly believed that the responsibility of a child is tilted
more towards the mother. But times are changing and we can see many
fathers proudly sharing parenting responsibilities and taking the load off
the mothers’ shoulders.  It is important for parents to be a part of their
child’s outdoor activity. Outdoor play or play dates also help in
improving the child’s social development.
A child still needs their parents around; they feel secure and loved when
parents show interest in what their kids are doing. Just by playing with
your child, you can help in reducing their feelings of anxiety and stress.
Talking to the child and making conversation is very important starting
from an early age to develop their communication skills. And here I am
not just speaking about making general talks, positive interactions with
your child are helpful in a child’s social development too. Yes, your
child’s social development starts with you. When you speak with your
child look into their eyes, respond with a smile and stay focused. Never
shy away from hugging and kissing your child, always make them feel
loved.

All this helps in teaching a child to be affectionate and compassionate to

others.  These positive interactions also help in maintaining a good
parent-child relationship. They should be encouraged to do play-based
learning for. In simple terms, structured play means ‘play with a
purpose ‘, and this may include pre-planned skill-based activities. These
activities provide the right stimulation which in turn boost the child’s
cognitive development. When the parents provide attention and the right
environment, it helps in shaping their child’s physical, social as well as
cognitive development. 
It is not just the parents that affect the student’s cognitive development
but also the schools. Sure, the parents play a major role but as the child
grows and starts to attend school it is where the child will spend most of
his/her time. The importance of school in a child’s development is
reflected in the sense that the school should be a community of growing
up in which students feel successful and satisfied. The school needs to
be the place where they can show their knowledge, skills and
capabilities, non-violently solve conflicts, learn in an interesting and
creative way, develop cooperation and more successfully relations with
others, to be more tolerant, and to use acquired knowledge and
experiences in everyday life. As school could with its influence benefit
to the social development of the students Buljubašić –Kuzmanović
(2008) mention necessary interventions in the school itself and it is the
practicing of the empathy and exercises of compassion, enabling all
students to feel welcomed, accepted and respected. It is also important to
encourage the development of real expectations for each student along
with necessary adjustment, conversation about a role of failures in the
process of learning and learning how to learn. The school that is needed
today is the school that encourages overall development of the students,
respects diversity, and encourages individualisation and socialisation of
the classes. In the school, the student has to, with an active role, acquire
knowledge and develop creativity, and teacher needs to encourage social
sensitiveness and partnership between the parents and the school. We
need the school as a modern institution that is, besides acquiring
knowledge, oriented to the development of the student’s personality and
his/her individuality as a complete young person that is an equal member
of the social community. However, the school today is perceived as the
institution closed for innovations and creativity, without a spirit of unity,
where a talent is not used as an advantage, and empathy, expression and
understanding of your own feelings, self-control, independence,
adaptability, popularity, capability of solving problems with others,
persistence and friendly behaviour are not the priorities of education and
upbringing. The school organised in such a way cannot attract today’s
youth and actively respond to their needs and expectations (Buljubašić-
Kuzmanović, 2010). In addition, in the previous years, there are more
and more emphases on partnership between the school and parents as a
relevant factor of social development of the children so in recent years
there is more and more talk about construction of a model of educational
partnership with parents

By analysing the children’s social development and the theories of

the social development, it is evident how the children’s social
development is under the influence of the family, peers and school,
especially in the period of middle childhood. Influence of the family is
still present even though the influences of the school and peer are
involved when they start the school. The family by its support and
cooperation with the school can help with right social development of
the students. Their mutual cooperation in particular can be manifested
during the creation of school activities that will encourage social
interactions between children. Especially important role is a role of the
teacher in the creation of the classes that need to be enriched with
activities that encourage the cooperation and mutual respect between the
children. The classes that encourage the social development need to be
lead by humanistic and holistic approach encouraging the quality social
relationships. It is of great importance the influence of the peers on the
social development in the period of middle childhood because it is the
period of creating the first friendships. Considering the aforementioned,
it is more and more necessary to encourage interaction-communicational
education related to the interpersonal relations, the quality interaction
and communication as well as readiness for the cooperation. To
understand this better let us take an example of a popular Bollywood
movie “Taare Zameen Par”. It surrounds a story of a kid of 8-9 years. He
is suffering from a psychological disease ‘dyslexia’. No one around him
can recognize him that he is a slow learner. All teachers and specially
his father behave him very bad by giving him punishment. He has the
problem of identifying the words and therefore he cannot read and write
properly. After several complain from the school and building, his
frustrated father decides to send him boarding school to ‘be
disciplined’. There he sinks into a state of fear and depression. But his
internal world is rich with wonders that he is unable to convey to
others, magical lands filled with colors and animated animals. He is an
artist whose talent is unrecognized. At boarding school, a new art
teacher gets worried to see the condition of the boy. After investigating,
he comes to know the actual reason and attempts to make him brilliant.
He teaches him using different techniques which he can understand. In a
very short interval, the kid learns everything even reading and writing,
and in the ending of year, he gets high grades in his class. This movie is
actually a criticism on the teachers and parents and gives some important
messages for them. Parents force their ambitions onto the delicate
shoulders of their children and they don’t bear the load and becomes
unsuccessful and faces punishment from every side. Parents should
understand that every child has its own abilities. They should
acknowledge the area of interest of the children and then should provide
them proper guidance.
The role of parents shown in the film is a typical role existing in
our society, may be in different form. For instance most fathers believe
that they are responsible for earning money and therefore the internal
responsibility of the house including child development is of the wife.
This is a very dangerous notion, because the children may develop an
indifferent attitude towards their fathers. 
Parents should be very careful and try not to make the child realise
as if he/she is a burden on them, this affects the self-esteem of the child.
A mother being with their children all the time is not giving quality time
rather a mother who even spends less time but is of quality is much more
important. 
Another critical situation is presented in the film that is comparison
of the two brothers, a reality existing in our society. It’s not fair.
Children are very different from each other; even twins have got
different abilities which need to be tackled differently. Praising one child
in front of the other and stating that the other is so duffer, creates many
psychological problems for the child as it stops the personality
development, and affects the self-esteem which many lead to failure in
life.
 The role of the traditional teachers shown is an eye opener to our
society. We should move away with it. In afraid of getting punishment
students cram their lesson without clearing their concepts. But on the
other hand, the role of new art teacher is quite different. Can we imagine
this role of teachers in our schools? All teachers believe that all students
have same ability in a class and teaching one student is same for all
therefore whatever one student learns in the class should be learnt by all
equally well. Is this a right belief? Even teachers blame students, “that
stands first in the class and learns all material I give, do I teach him/her
differently?” Another thing is our educational system is that the strength
of a class is 70-80 but one teacher is there to teach all of them. Is this
possible to have equal attention to all students at a time? Obviously it is
not.
The teacher’s attitude towards student should be friendly and
nonthreatening, therefore the students are able to follow the instruction
and share their problems easily. This applies not just to the teachers but
also to parents if the child does not receive love and care at home and is
misunderstood then how can that child expect that he/she will receive it
outside. This misunderstanding leads to depression and as talked about
before and through the example of thus movie is clear that both parents
and school play an important role in a child’s development but they
can’t do anything on their own. There needs to be communication
between both the parents and the teachers so that the child can flourish
mentally, socially, emotionally and intellectually.