CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. Background to the Study

Detached parents are neither responsive nor demanding they may be careless or unaware of the child’s needs for affection and discipline. Neglectful parenting is also called in uninvolved, detached, dismissive, or hands-off the parents are low in warmth and control, are generally not involved in their child’s life are disengaged, understanding, low in responsiveness and do not set limits. Neglectful parenting can also mean dismissing the children’s emotions and opinions. Parents are emotionally unsupportive of their children. But still provide their basic needs. Provide basic needs mean food, housing and toiletries. Disorganized children don’t know what to expect from their parents. A child with relationships learns to predict how his parent will react, whether it is positive or negative. Disorganized children will do things that seem to make no sense sometimes these children will speak really fast and will be hard to understand. Child-parent relationship has undergone very significant changes in the recent past mainly due to the processes of globalization, modernization, industrialization, migration, social media and education. Family has important role to make the future of a child because family is the basic social institution in which child socialize properly and inculcate discipline, norms, values and moral of the society. Earlier the child-parent relationship was harmonious and peaceful but now it has been seen as non harmonious and conflicting and children show the signs of anger, confusion, frustration and aggression. Parents of young people are often blamed for the delinquent behavior of their children. In some courts parents are even penalized for the antisocial conduct of their children (Bessant and Hil 1998; Drakeford 1996 ; Dundes 1994 ). Although lay as well as scholarly theories assume that a link between parenting and delinquency exists, clear conclusions concerning the magnitude of this link are difficult to draw. An important reason for this difficulty is the heterogeneity of the studies and their findings in this field of research. 10Face-to-face relationship is regarded as an essence for a good parent-child relationship in which both child and parents understand each other’s needs, wishes, ideas, emotions, motivations and aspirations. In the traditional societies, the Face-to-face relationship between parents and children was very close, strong and appreciating but in modern societies this type of a close bond has weakened mainly due to the social processes like impact of globalization, modernization, migration, industrialization, modern education and specialized division of labour. Two perspectives have been adopted in the parenting literature: research that is focused on dimensions of parenting and research focusing on typologies (Darling and Steinberg 1993; O’Connor 2002; Ten Haaf 1993). Dimensions are concepts to categorize parenting behaviors such as affection, punishment, monitoring, whereas typologies are constellations of parenting dimensions such as an authoritative parenting style which is a combination of supportive parenting, attachment and guiding the child’s behavior by explanation and appropriate expectations for conformity.

1. Statement of the Problem

A loss of parental care has a devastating impact on children’s physical, psychological, and social development and sense of identity. For many children without parental care, being unable to form loving attachments has particularly harmful implications for their development. Attachment theory, initially posed by Bowlby in the 1960s, states that children need to feel secure in the love of at least one career, with this attachment having an impact on self-esteem, confidence, and ability to form relationships (see Oates et al 2005). In institutions, a lack of attachment and of adequate stimulation has been shown to hinder the development of social skills, motors kills and intellectual capacity (Every Child 2005; Tolfree 2003).Research suggests that very young children are particularly vulnerable, with infants suffering unless they are moved to family-based care by the age of six months (Johnson et al 2006). Emotional deprivation in fewer than threes can hinder the physical development of the brain (Rutter 1996).

Some children without parental care, particularly those in long-term kinship care, are able to form attachments, though even this group may face challenges if they are frequently moved around and discriminated against (Save the Children 2007). Other groups, particularly those living on the streets, or in institutions or detention, may be denied the opportunity of this all important bonding process (Thomas de-Benetiz 2007).

This study therefore is to find out the relationship that exist between parental care and child’s life, to know the causes of negligence of parental care on child’s life, to know the effects of negligence of parental care on child’s life and the ways to promote parental care on child’s life.

1. Research Questions

The following are the research questions to be address in the study:

1. What relationship exists between parental care and child’s life?
2. What are the causes of negligence of parental care on child’s life?
3. What are the effects of negligence of parental care on child’s life?
4.  What are the ways to promote parental care on child’s life?

1. Research Objectives

Rising from the research questions, the following are the objectives of the study:

1. to examine the relationship between parental care and child’s life
2. to find out the causes of negligence of parental care on child’s life
3. to examine the effects of negligence of parental care on child’s life
4. to find out ways that can  promote and encourage parental care on child’s life.

1. Research Hypotheses

H0 there is no significant relationship between negligence of parental care and child’s life.

1. Significance of the Study

This study comes at the time where the future of our children is at jeopardy and serious attention is urgently needed. This study will expose the negative effects and causes of negligence of parental care on child’s life. It will also proffer measures to adopt in order to encourage and promote parental care for child’s development, for the betterment of the society. It will draw the attention of the parents and governments to see the need of placing their children care as number priority as the children are the future of the nation.