Author: Kelly Lenskold

During lecture 12, we discussed child development and more specifically child-rearing practices. Child development has a lot to do with parental guidance and influence. We learned that there are 3 main types of parenting styles: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Permissive parenting is when a parent is submits to their child’s demands and needs. In this case, the child is usually not disciplined much and basically wears the pants in the relationship with his or her parents. For example, a permissive parent would be one to give in and buy the child something that is unnecessary with no argument. Authoritative parenting is the most common in todays day. This is when a parent is demanding but is still responsive to their children. They are able to see both sides of the situation and discipline when absolutely necessary. Lastly, there is authoritarian which is the most extreme type of parenting.  This type of parenting comes with many rules and they expect obedience from their child. These types of parents are extremely strict and expect a lot from their kids, they see only their vision and demand their ways from the child. Luckily, my parents are not the authoritarian type, yet I’ve dealt with this type of parenting from a middle school friend whose parents were extremely strict. It was 7^thgrade and I was meeting a bunch of new people who were also starting middle school. I became really good friends with a girl, and we decided we wanted to hang out. So, one day I went over to her house and by the end of the hangout, I was basically terrified of her parents, especially her mom. Automatically, there were many snappy comments towards my friend, which was her mom’s way of reinforcing the house rules. A vivid memory that I have from the hangout was when we were hanging in my friends room and out of the blue her mom reminded her that she hasn’t yet cleaned the kitchen or emptied the dish washer. I didn’t think much of it, but after my friend asked if she could do her chore after I left, the situation exploded. Her mom became furious very quickly, and there was no exception, the kitchen was being cleaned now. This was just one of the multiple situations that took place, but this one was a major shock to me because that was not how situations were handled in my house growing up. Her mom always expected a lot from her and expected it to be perfect. It was uncomfortable to see that her mom had no problem showing her authoritarian side to a new friend. Today, I am still friends with the same girl, and I now realize that her personality, which is a perfectionist who needs everything extremely organized 24/7, was most likely created by her authoritarian mom, who always needed everything to be done her way and in order all the time. This situation was definitely an odd, but good, eye opener for me because I was able to realize that every child is brought up differently, and parenting has a major impact on how the child grows up to be like.

Human bodies are known to do amazing things from simply having the five senses all the way to women being able to create babies. But, one underrated task that the human body is gifted with, is the ability to “fight-or-flight”. Many people don’t realize that our reaction to a dangerous or startling situation is purely instincts because of our sympathetic nervous system. Without our sympathetic nervous system, our reaction to a situation where we need to act fast would most likely be a failure and could potentially leave someone or something in trouble.

The sympathetic nervous system is a part of the involuntary nervous system and is in charge of regulating many body functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion, and so on. During high-intensity situations, neurons in the body cause different reactions by making different muscles take action. Neurons are not the only thing that causes the body to react, because when “fight-or-flight” kicks in a wave of hormones take over the body and send blood rushing to the heart, which then speeds up heart rate, breathing, and alertness.

Everyone will most likely experience the “fight-or-flight” response at some point in their life, and my experience came particularly early. I was in 8^th grade at the time, and it was very early in the morning because I was getting ready to go off to school. My dad had just gotten ACL surgery but still insisted to get up to make me breakfast, even though I told him he’d be safer in bed. Yet, with his stubborn attitude, he was up and making my breakfast within 15 minutes. It was just him and I home so there wasn’t much happening, it was a pretty quiet morning. But of course, that quickly came to an end when he paused dead in his tracks. I glanced over and didn’t think much of it until he told me that he suddenly got pretty dizzy. As he took a seat at our high-top kitchen table, it didn’t take long for his eyes to roll back into his head and his body to go completely limp, smashing the hard floor and hitting his head on a nearby end table on the way down. This is where my “fight-or-flight” reaction kicked in immediately, it took a split second to realize what I had to do, my heart was racing, and I began to sweat. Even though I had never dealt with that type of situation before, I somehow knew how to react. I ran over to elevate his head as much as I could to get more blood flowing, and made sure there were no other injuries as I called 911. Without my sympathetic nervous system, my instinctive reaction wouldn’t have been as prepared, or even prepared at all. With major chaos my situation felt like it lasted a lifetime, even though it was truly only a couple of minutes, my reactions were too fast that I didn’t even have time to process or think about what was happening, my only goal was to help my dad. A persons “fight-or-flight” reaction within the sympathetic nervous system is extremely underrated because without that I wouldn’t have been able to give my dad the help he needed.

 

 

Lanese, Nicoletta. “Fight or Flight: The Sympathetic Nervous System.” LiveScience, Purch, 9 May 2019, www.livescience.com/65446-sympathetic-nervous-system.html.