The Influence Of Context On Children’s Educational Level – Being Parents

The context in which children develop directly and significantly affects their cognitive development. The influence of context on the educational level of children is obvious.

Indeed, this encompasses all the modes of contact of the child with society: family, friends, outings, advertising, what he reads, what he sees, the ideologies that surround him … Everything what constitutes the culture of the place where he grows up, the events he faces, will have consequences for him.

How does the environment influence the educational level of children?

The family as the first context

The first contact of children with society is with the family. It is these relatives who will shape their structure as an individual. 

If the little one receives enough love during infancy, if he has been listened to and valued, if he has grown up with emotional or material deficiencies, if he has been the victim of abuse … All this will influence his ability to acquire new knowledge.

The family provides:

• Basic learning.
• A framework of actions through rules.
• Emotional security.

The first social skills will be drawn from the family nucleus. Thus, when the child arrives in an education system, he already has a lot of information. The image that the child constructs of himself is linked with what he observes around him and with the way in which those around him resolve situations.

The environment as an ally

The intellectual development  of the child goes hand in hand with the social environment in which he grows up. This helps him to train individually as well as in his relationship with others.

No matter if the context in which the child grew up was positive or negative, if we are aware of this and take it into account in educational programs, it will be much easier to help him not to be discouraged.

Besides, it will also help children to know their strengths and weaknesses so that they more easily connect to their purpose in life. It will make them feel good. This is where their education will start.

The influence of the environment on the educational level of children is obvious. And the most important thing is to take them into account more when developing homogeneous educational programs.

Even if it is certain that we cannot make a different program for each student, we must be more empathetic towards them, more open to listen to them and to reinforce their qualities. This is the case in other countries like Finland where they focus on emotional development.

Communication media

If we evoke the influence of the environment on the educational level of children, we cannot fail to mention the media of communication. Indeed, they occupy a large part of children’s attention and constantly bombard us with messages across all media.

The TV is a medium that attracts the attention of smaller and has a great influence on them. It doesn’t take much effort to see and listen to what she is transmitting.

Sometimes children are not even aware of what they are seeing, but the message is clear. And we’re not even talking about the fact that children’s television viewing hours are growing like mushrooms.

Whatever children watch they take for granted. Especially at a young age. This creates a different kind of context in their cognitive development.

Technological news as a context

New technologies are replacing traditional communication media and changing current teaching processes.

Today’s generations need interaction with the teaching process, speed and technological supports. It has to do with how they grew up and the generational information they receive.

To ignore this is to go against the grain and there is no point in denying these advances. Rather, it is about using them, realizing that they are part of the child’s environment and using them in our favor. In general, family and society shape the context of our children and their influence on their educational level and development is evident. 

It is therefore important to create new models that take this into account. This ultimately gives us a valuable frame of reference on the personality of each student.