A Study On The Two-child Family Upbringing Style

Since January 1st,2016,China has implemented universal two-child policy all around the country,and many families are facing the problem of family education for two children.Parents have to consider a series of problems,such as the balance between life and work,the contradiction between self-development and the development of children,the misunderstanding between two children for each other,inconsistent educational method between parents and grandparents,etc.Compared with the only children,the historical background,family structure and ecological environment of children in two-child family have changed.Some previous studies characterized the only children as a selfish,self-centered and lazy group.Is this really the case?If this is true,with the changes of the times and ecological environment,can two children in one family avoid some character defects of the only children?On the other hand,parents of only children were born in the most difficult times.There were many siblings sharing limited educational and material resources,however,with wisdom and perseverance,most of them grew into the mainstay of socialist modernization drive.Thanks to them,China ranked among the world powers in just a few decades.What are the characteristics of their parents' upbringing styles?Is it possible for the parents of two-child families to utilize their experience in order to seek a scientific and reasonable way of parenting?This study adopted literature research method,investigation method and comparative research method.With substantial literature review of studies on only children and family upbringing style,the thesis used data gathered from 194 on-site questionnaires and 46 network questionnaires,within which different age groups and geographical positions were covered.The results of 220 valid questionnaires,combined the results of 16 in-depth interviews with people from one-child families and non-one-child families,gave an insight into different family upbringing styles.The study found that different upbringing styles between one-child families and non-one-child families exist.Parents with many offspring showed excessive interference,lower emotional warmth and empathy,and more refusals compared with the singletons' parents.However,there is no significant difference in the severe punishment factor.The upbringing style of the two generations shows a certain degree of preference for boys.Although this kind of upbringing style is not very scientific,it is not hard to find out the reasons for the formation of this kind of family upbringing style in the light of the difference of the two generations.Among them,with the help of the theories of human development ecology and psychological development stage,we can analyze the influencing factors of the differences of family upbringing styles.Different upbringing styles of two generations generate different effects on the formation of children,including personality,social adaptability,etc.This effect is transmitted from generation to generation while some intergenerational variations emerge.None of the two generations applied the best parenting style.In the structure of two-child family,only by first analyzing the psychological development characteristics of each stage of two children and the ecological environment system of children's development can parents find the right upbringing style.