Psychology of a Lonely Child Essay
Psychology of a Lonely Child Essay A lonely child has one stereotype of being stigmatized, spoilt and of a bratty for of behavior. When proper care is taken to them as they grow they are mostly high achieving, quite successful and self-motivated. Stigmatization comes with the fact that they are lonely only serves as an excuse to deter them from reaping the benefits associated with being in a huge nuclear family. Mostly their social interactivity is hampered due to their lack of siblings thus though they may have adequate brain or intellectual capacity their social skills are reduced in a great deal. It is common knowledge that children should be exposed to other children of the same ages as their play groups. They must also form play groups from these friends failure to which they will lack friends as parents can not provide that much needed companionship to their children.
Lonely children do not easily get assimilated into larger groups of children and the amazing is that when they try t fit in they dominate these groups. What is important is acquiring the required communication skills as they are mostly simple hearted if not spoilt? A child that comes from a rich family if not well exposed to the community at large he becomes short sighted in terms of the social classes that normally exist in a family.
Major psychological traits involved in lonely children apart from stigmatization and social skill inadequacy include introversion and extroversion. Introversion is concerned with directing inner feelings and thoughts towards self. Here the child only sees himself and what is immediately relate to him other people do not matter maybe with the exclusion of his parents. So child may take quite a long time to fit into a group of worthy playmates notwithstanding the age bracket associated. Extroversion is the aspect of being particularly interested in the external world or other people and things instead of simply focusing on one self.
This trait appears dominant as it drives the child so that he is at times willing to dessert his lonely nature and be together with the age mates. This serves as a remedy of curing loneliness among children and it will be elaborated later in the paper. Further explanation is that introverts have a higher level of arousal as compared to extroverts. They are conditioned much easily and a case like social interactions heightens or multiplies the situation making them uneasy and they tend to avoid social interaction. Extroversion thus provides a perfect way of diversion and it makes lonely children to be more socially inclined.
Psychology of lonely children is inclined towards self sufficiency and they believe that they can do anything on their own. In this case lonely children are all alone as their qualities develop and of course this is bond to affect them. An only child’s growing environment forces him or her to acquire both characters involved in introversion and extroversion in spite of their natural inclinations. This has its own advantages as the child will have to show extroversion qualities when he wants to acquire friends and relate socially but introversion will come in handy when the child wants to focus only on his thoughts when playmates are unavailable.
Other factors engraved in psychology of lonely child include pre and post natal development. This affects the behavioral capacity and the adaptation of their emotions when faced with a difficult situation. Another factor is the parent to child attachment where a lonely child considers his or her parent as the only one who understands her and no amount of friendship can divert this. The third factor on this aspect is the concept of helplessness associate with learning, the theory of attribution and the general locus or concentration of control.
On the issue of pre and post natal nutrition and prenatal developments are the major linking aspects. For an only child under nutrition during pregnancy is associated with smaller head circumference, less weight of the brain and body weight at birth and even pre mature births. With no doubt this facilitates the psychological make up of an only child and the infants are constantly vulnerable to vicious health problems. These type of lonely children process information very slowly thus their thinking capacities are abnormally low and have high rate of irritability. For this reason they have a great problem in regulating their emotions and also responding to their parental attempts for them to interact with their peers.
The post natal effects affect the brain’s adaptation to new environments and for this instance lonely children face a great trauma in trying to fit in new environments as the psychological stress is affected by physical and emotional conditions and they are interconnected to make the child want to be isolated. This isolation prevents self exploration and it hinders the exposure to a variety of developments surrounding him or her. If parental responsiveness does not come quick the child may face years of self banishment and may have a general feeling of self condemnation.
Lonely children psychology is affected by children’s behavior and they may tend to be insecure when faced with a situation that requires them to interact with their peers. When contrasted with secure children who are cooperative, persistent in doing their wills, empathic, competent and persistent insecure lonely children are the direct opposites. They are disobedient, generally aggressive and they lack self control. Such children need parents who have a greater sense of self control or efficacy and confidence. These parents are able to engage their children in a more responsive manner. When they have strong support networks it becomes easy for them create a more secure form of attachment to their children.
Lonely children psychology is inclined towards the general feeling of powerlessness and they n not elude aversive conditions that torment them. Due to this condition the children remain passive and will do nothing to improve or even gather courage to tackle difficult situations. A case study is whereby a lonely child is faced with constant bullying at school or a new institution where he is new to. Such a case has led to many children taking away their own lives. Another case study is with the issue of exams where a psychologically impaired lonely child will blame himself if he fails the tests. Causes of his failure will either be not studying adequately or he is not smart enough as compared to other students in class. The normal response of other children will be the unfairness of the tests or that they don’t measure true intelligence and are generally not worth.
Psychologically challenged lonely children are more helpless when they are from a poor background. Poverty creates a formidable barrier and also causes biological risks that limit the general healthy development of the newly born. The economic aspect affects parents and their behavior towards their children as they have a low level of efficacy that they can pass on to their children. This of course translates to low self esteem and they have a big unbelief on their success. From their parents they acquire the attribute of hopelessness which might make them to drop out of school or even from the work force though they had a bigger opportunity to succeed or perform.
The general psychological stereotype associated with lonely children irrespective of their economic background is that element of harshness, spoilt, over-protected, and egocentric and have a lack of independence with their own private abilities. The bad thing with this aspect is that the lonely children themselves know that they have a sense that other people view them in this same way. This increases their feeling of being out of place in a society that assumes that it is peculiar being in a family as a single child. Their lack of independence makes them to be over dependent on their parents and to their friends they have that aspect of being unable to share.
Lonely children being firstborns themselves exhibit psychological traits that are similar to those of firstborns of other families with siblings. When nurtured carefully they display conscientiousness, ambition, academic orientation, conformity, conservativeness, leadership inclination and general respect to their parents. Only children have a better self esteem and are generally higher achievers than children with siblings.
Children with siblings are affected with issues of sibling rivalry which is not an issue with only children as they get all the attention that they need to help them grow. Thus no family competitions are visible which may lead to destruction of family resources and even vicious killings. The psychology of only children is inclined towards satisfaction as they get all the loving that they can possibly get from their parents.
Only children have greater variance of personality types but the lack of siblings has deadly repercussions to them as they lack that direct social interactions from the first family. Developing social skills automatically becomes a problem and for this reason they must diligently work to acquire a friend which is not automatic as with other children of a much bigger family background.
