The paper ” Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth ” is an outstanding example of an essay on social science. Concerted Cultivation is the term used for a parenting style where the parents decide and plan the school and the extracurricular activities of their children with the aim of honing their talent and skills so that it can help them to direct their energies in focused and planned way (Lareau 2). Advantages of Concerted Cultivation:
1. Children acquire skills that are useful for education and professional success. (Lareau 4).
2. Children gain confidence in dealing with socially important people and develop language skills and reasoning ability (Lareau 5).
3. The communication style at home is such that children realize that their opinions are valued and so they become independent and confident about their thinking patterns (Lareau 129).
Disadvantages of Concerted Cultivation:
1. Because of the busy schedules of different events, children are not able to lead a relaxed and happy life.
2. There is a lack of interactions with friends and cousins and so they lose the opportunity of having pure fun of schedule free life.
3. Children have a busy and strict schedule so they become tired, bored and feel restricted.
4. Children become dependent on professionals and lose the opportunity of understanding life on their own.
Natural growth is the parenting style where parents fulfill their duty of providing the basic needs of the childlike home, food, protection, and love, however, they do not take conscious effort in deliberately shaping the social and academic skills and performance of their children. They believe that children will naturally learn on their own to deal with people and life.
Advantages of Natural Growth:
1. Children lead a happy, fun-filled, innocent and childlike life. Their growth is natural and so the innocence and wonder are intact. There is no ‘ achievement’ or ‘ ego’ factor involved when they play (Lareau 3).
2. Children enjoy leisure and develop decision making as they decide their own schedule. Their parents do not control their schedules (Lareau 102).
3. Home is ‘ home’ and not just another place of strict schedules. So children are relaxed and happy.
4. As children learn to respect their parents and elders, they develop a skill of having different communication styles at home and outside the home (Lareau 159).
Disadvantages of Natural Growth:
1. Social skills are not developed so professional and educational success becomes
difficult.
2. Lack of assertiveness can lead to missing out on opportunities in life (Lareau 158).
