I thought the following report might be of some interest in the 'socialisation' debate:
Ruled by Their Peers
by Karen Gram
Southam Newspapers
Vancouver, British Columbia
Inside the kindergarten classroom of an elementary school, the children
gather at the door ready to go home. Some wait quietly for the teacher to
dismiss them. They wave to parents from the threshold and hold up artwork,
eager to show what they have made. Others ignore the adults. They play and
push each other into the hall. They chase each other in circles, oblivious
to admonishments of teacher and parents.
The second group demonstrates perfectly the early stages of what a
Vancouver-based clinical and developmental psychologist fears is a trend
destroying the psychological health of an ever-growing number of people. Dr.Gordon Neufeld calls it peer orientation. It is rampant among juvenile
delinquents, but it is evident in every school and on every playground. He
says the children in the first group take their cues from adults. They are
"adult oriented" and are most closely attached to parents or other adults
responsible for them. But those in the second group try to win attention and
approval of peers - not parents. They are "peer oriented".
"This is scary," says Neufeld, "because as the kids age and their
orientation to peers strengthens, mob rule, a Lord of the Flies syndrome,
sets in and parents and teachers are left in the dust, incapable of reaching
children, morally or intellectually."
Neufeld has led parenting seminars for 16 years; there is a 3-year wait for
private consultations. He says parents today want their children to have all
the best opportunities to learn. So they put them in programs as young as
two years old, enrol them in umpteen after-school lessons or put them in a
day-care so they can work and provide a comfortable home with all the
amenities the kids want. The kids are busy, but they lack the closeness of a
parent. Instead, they are surrounded by other children and end up bonding
with them. Behavioural problems inevitably arise.
Studies show that the worst behaved kids are those who spend the most time
with other kids. Neufeld says peer-oriented people can't see their own
boundaries or maintain their own identities because their priority is the
approval of their peers. In the long run, peer orientation prevents children
from developing into healthy, mature adults who can integrate into society
while maintaining their own identity and morals. In the short run, it
prevents children from learning from teachers or parents. They learn more at
recess and lunchtime than in the classroom, and it creates severe behavioral
problems.
Peer pressure, a phenomenon that became a significant problem with
baby-boomers, is a consequence of peer orientation. But Neufeld notes that
the pressure comes not from the peers but from an internal desire to please
or be similar.
Dr. Joan Pinkus, a developmental psychologist, shares Neufeld's concern.
"It's happening a lot and it is a concern to me," she says. "The things
children need most - stability, empathy, security - peers don't give that.
So they are missing an important element of development." Says Neufeld, "If the child is not connected, if the child's working attachments are peers,
you are left impotent."
That impotence was obvious with the juvenile delinquents he used to work
with, he says. Group discussions with these youths were impossible. They
avoided eye contact and told him they didn't have to listen to him and that
he didn't know anything about them. But their obedience to peers was
outstanding. "If a peer suggested he go joy riding, that's what the youth
did," he says.
So how have peers come to exercise such influence over children today?
"Children naturally seek another human being from whom to learn how to
behave and to develop a sense of their own identity," he says. "In the past,
that has come from adults - parents, grandparents, care-givers and teachers.
Children attached themselves to parents, or parent-substitutes, and
gradually gained from them a sense of security from which to act and an
understanding of boundaries."
But things changed with the babyboomers, the first mass youth culture in
North America. Today's youth are the children and grandchildren of the first
deeply peer-oriented group and the phenomenon has compounded, says Neufeld.
With parents increasingly absent, impersonal day cares and child centres
taking on more parenting functions and television exerting increasing
influence on children, the essential primary bonding mechanism of childhood
is being destroyed, Neufeld suggests. And that's trouble.
"Peers are not nurturers," says Neufeld. "They were never meant to be
nurturers. They compete for nurturing." Parents, on the other hand, have the
capacity to nurture and should give it freely - but frequently don't. "As
parents, we have forgotten our basic function," says Neufeld. "We're the
anchor point, we're the psychological womb, we're the secure home base."
"Parents need to provide the closeness, the contact, the twinkle in the eye,
the interest, the delight that nurtures the child as long as they are
attaching to us," he says.
Neufeld's approach is right, says Elaine Jones, whose name has been changed to protect her son's privacy. Her 12-year old son, "Tom", was so attached to a friend that he wanted to move out when denied permission to go to a party at the boy's house. The friend was like a drug, she said. They got into trouble at school together and when Tom was at home, he just 'did time"
until freed to be with his friend.
After seeing Neufeld, and making an effort to do more family-oriented
activities, her son is back to his old self, says Jones. "He is warm, he has
conversations with us, he talks about his school work, he is back with us."
Neufeld says punishment or authoritativeness would not work in this type of
situation. "Punishment misses the point that the children are taking cues
from each other. The only way they could break the cycle is not through
'teaching a lesson', but through changing their working attachments."
www.familyplayce.org/Articles/Ruled_by_Their_Peers/ruled_by_their_pee
rs.htm