What makes a person behave a certain way? There are many aspects that can change over time, but one thing that almost everybody agrees on is that the environment has a huge role in what a person is going to be like and what a person considers normal. It’s not the same whether you grew up in a liberal family which believes that playing bingo is fun and has nothing against using the Heart Bingo bonus code and others to play online, and the family which considers any form of gambling as something unacceptable and banned. This is a more extreme example, but there are noticeable differences in even smaller aspects of life.
How does the environment influence youth development
Many studies have shown that various factors in an environment can have a huge impact on a child’s development. Many have argued that the environment is one of, if not the biggest influencer on youth development. One of the biggest ways that our environment influences our development is the way in which our environmental experiences during the development stage maps and forms our beliefs and behaviours later in life, a concept commonly known as the internal working model. The internal working model is the way that we understand and understand the world. The environment in which we develop in is pivotal in the growth and formation of our internal working model, we often use our experiences as a child to understand our experiences in adulthood.
Examples of environmental impacts on youth development
Example one
One example of how our environment impact youth development is relationships. A child with parents who are happily married and often publicly display signs of affection for one another may grow up to take a positive view of relationships and love, whereas a child with divorced parents may grow up to take a negative view.
Example two
Another example can be found in how children learn. If a child is exposed to daily challenges which require logic and creativity to overcome, then they may develop to become significantly better at abstract problem solving and thinking later in life in comparison to those who were not presented with these challenges during the development stage.
How parents can use this information
As a parent, there are a variety of actions that you can take to ensure that a different environment is optimal for your child’s development. Below, we have listed a few examples of techniques you could use to do just this:
Create controlled challenges
You can set a variety of challenges for your child to overcome on a daily basis to help prompt and promote the development and formation of strong problem solving and abstract thinking skills that they can use later in life.
Lead by example
As a parent, one of the most important things you can do to help the child youth development is through leading by example. By this, we mean that you should promote positive views and experiences as much as possible to help your child form the same positive views and attitudes towards certain ideas later in life (one good example being relationships).
Treat any experience as progress
Finally, you should treat any experience, good or bad, as progress in your child’s development. Based on this, you should try not to discourage your child from negative experiences and should instead encourage them to embrace them, as part of promoting their youth development.