Ego Development and Social Acceptability as Functions of Past Living Experience: A Study of the Interrelationship Between Impulse Control, Dependency, and Sociometric Status and the Extent of Life Spent in Foster Home: Astor Home for Children, Rhinebeck, New York; January 1, 1958
Abstract
Although the age old nature-nurture conflict persists, current theories of personality development place increasingly greater emphasis on the primary significance of early experience in the determination of mental health or illness in the maturing individual. Such being the case, the loci of a child's early living experiences, e.g. in his own home, foster home, or institution, became major determinants in the formation of personality and social skills. Until recent years institutionalization has been the treatment of choice for dependent and neglected children. However, over the space of years evidence has been gradually accumulating indicating the stunting effects of prolonged institutionalization upon the development of children, stunting of intellectual and social skills and even of the body itself. The foster home movement gained impetus as the result of the growing appreciation of the necessity of a one to one relationship between child and adult, a relationship quite impossible in an institutional setting. The philosophy of foster home care has proposed that no form of substitute care can entirely take the place of a child's own family, but when parents are temporarily or even permanently incapable of helping their child satisfy his basic emotional and physical needs, then the next best form of family life be provided - foster family care. However, foster home placement is not the end-all of child care. Placement failures are frequent, some through poor selection of foster parents and children and others through mismatching of otherwise eligible children and parents. Foster home failure has many negative psychological implications for the child and certainly can be just as damaging as in-situational rearing
Subject Area
Developmental psychology|Mental health|Individual & family studies|Social work
Recommended Citation
Ewasko, Paul Stephen, "Ego Development and Social Acceptability as Functions of Past Living Experience: A Study of the Interrelationship Between Impulse Control, Dependency, and Sociometric Status and the Extent of Life Spent in Foster Home: Astor Home for Children, Rhinebeck, New York; January 1, 1958" (1958). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30509592.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30509592
