Communication/Children Development - Essay Example

Communication/Children Development: The popular opinion is that a tutelary complex seeks to defend childhood by coordinating and facilitating it. This complex is of critical value because it hugely influences the way children connect with their parents and society in general. The domain of care and control of children has also been restructured by the complex. This is because in addition to changing the relationship between children and parents, this complex has also denied the patriarchal father the sole authority. Rather, the authority is shared with a group of other professionals also from medical professionals to teachers to social workers to counselors. All these people work together as a team to arrange childhood and govern children through thick and thin times. This is how a tutelary complex operates to guide parents and govern children in context of development. Many times parents lack the right kind of informed advice and this complex helps to facilitate confused parents in fulfilling their duties regarding children. However, this is also true that over time many questions have been raised about the validity of the complex bringing the goods delivered by it into scrutiny. For example, it is commonly argued that the tutelary complex, whose fundamental purpose is to defend childhood, actually only serves to end childhood instead of arranging it in any way. Following discussion attempts to explore the extent to which this argument could be held true. Proponents of the tutelary complex hold this view that such a complex is of immense value because it has modernized the journey of childhood. It has helped many people around the globe say good bye to those days when under a strictly patriarchal system only the father had absolutely authority over development of a child. Introduction of this complex made government through the family an ancient regime bringing in its place instead a richer environment created by a team of well-informed adults from different areas of life. Instead of internalizing the issue of power, the complex externalized the distribution of power for betterment of children and their well-guided development. However, one issue which arises from child development under a tutelary complex is that it ends childhood sooner than necessary because of an apparent dearth of normative expectations and grant of excessive autonomy to children. When there is a suitable percentage of normative expectations emphasized upon children by parents in addition to allowing children to exercise agency in controlled proportions, childhood is appropriately arranged and coordinated. The problem with the complex is that after taking authority away parents or the father, it shares this power with other groups outside of family which often allow children to behave and operate as fully grown adults. Such provision of power to children at such a raw age when their minds happen to be highly impressionable is a flawed strategy and it serves to bring an abrupt end to childhood which can be potentially damaging to children in context of emotional and mental wellbeing. On the other hand, exploitation of children by their parents directly or indirectly is also explosively damaging for sound development because this approach never lets children become adults and autonomous. The tutelary complex helped to bring reforms in society “through an untiring vigilance over childhood education” (Donzelot, 1980, p. 72). In order to address this issue to battle the avalanche of criticism attracted by the tutelary complex from myriad sources, the need of the time is to maintain a balance between agency delegated to children and normative expectations placed upon them. When this balance is not maintained which can happen in case of excessive power given to children in the name of modernization or abundance of normative expectations, the process of development can suffer. This is because excessive power can wretchedly spoil children leading childhood to an early demise and too many expectations can instead prolong the process of childhood as children in this case are forced to act as minors who have no mind of their own. Entire blame cannot be laid on the complex for misguiding the process of childhood as it is a reality that it has contributed much in terms of introducing the once highly private institution of family to the social sphere. This introduction has made possible many good consequences for children in that the head of a family no longer remained able to decide everything for those around him as wished by him. All kinds of operations which promised to further his personal interests could be easily executed by the head of the family under such a system which served to unnecessarily prolong childhood. In this kind of situation, there were a lot of normative expectations and much punishment. Children were supposed to abide by the father’s orders at all costs and even after reaching adulthood they could be punished for not giving up their personal desires and not living up to parents’ expectations. In this situation, children who did not belong to any family suffered immensely because the process of development relied completely on parents. In absence of parents when there was also no involvement of other parties like social workers and medical professionals, these children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds had absolutely nowhere to go. It is wrong to suggest that the tutelary complex is contributing to an early demise of childhood. On the other hand, believing that a misbalance between parents’ expectations and power delivered to children negatively interferes with a sound journey of childhood seems like a more plausible idea. Instead of blaming the complex, on the contrary it should be acknowledged that it began to promise a life of modest opportunities to those when the insecurity of not belonging to any family in addition to an absence of a sociopolitical guardian “posed a problem for public order” (Donzelot, 1980, p. 49). Many such children did not have any safe place to turn to and the complex provided them a network composed of responsible professionals to listen to their needs. However, nothing is perfect and the complex also has had its fair share of criticism due to several reasons like this popular argument that instead of safeguarding childhood, the complex destroys it and ends it prematurely. The complex also took away the discretionary power from the head of a family which contributes to development of children in way that ends up making them wayward and hotheaded. They are not disciplined enough due to lack of parental control over them. On the other hand, a lot of normative expectations placed upon children also keeps them from growing up because this trend does not let them become self-actualized and reach their full potential. The complex should be however commended on grounds that instead of destroying the family by taking all its power and transferring it to the state, it upheld the status of the family labeling it “the best point of support for holding individuals to the practice of hard work” (Donzelot, 1980, pp. 63-64). Concluding, the tutelary complex cannot be entirely blamed for misguided or uncoordinated arrangement of childhood. The complex can be criticized to a limited extent because it is not true that it essentially leads to the end of childhood earlier than necessary. Rather, this argument should also be registered by opponents of the complex that it has served to bring an end to absolute authority enjoyed by a parent, usually a father, and granted children power to act as responsible human beings. Though excessive delivery of power can lead to disastrous consequences like early end to childhood, the complex largely helps to coordinate and arrange childhood to a significant extent. The complex made sure that all responsibilities of families did not remain internalized instead ensuring that a family had external responsibilities toward society also. The complex did not make the heads of families sign a contract using coercive prods, rather it sought to establish an association between this institution and society. Reference: Donzelot, J. (1980). The Policing of Families. Hutchinson. Read More