Essay on Child Rearing in the Us and Colombia

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Pages: 8

Early care-giving is a major factor for a child to feel secure to explore the world around them (Carbonell, Alzate, Bustamente & Quiceno , 2002). How different is this early care-giving between two cultures such as the United States and Colombia? This is a look at the differences and similiaries of raising girls, both born in 1988, in Colombia and the United States. Both girls were raised in nuclear families, with one older sibling, close enough in age to be a major part of each girl's daily life. One was raised in Colombia, although she moved to the United States at the age of eleven, while the other was raised completely in the United States. Both parents of each girl were interviewed as well as the girl herself. The basic stepping …show more content…
Often times the food "required" is not healthy food, but rather sugary or similar to fast-food, like chicken nuggets or French fries. Paulina ate dinner together with her family every night, generally at eight o'clock, as is customary in Colombia. Her mother did most of the cooking, and after dinner, either her mom would not clean up, or her mother would, but with the help of her daughters, while her father did other household things. On weekends, most meals were eaten together. Breakfast was generally around ten o'clock in the morning and lunch was around three o'clock in the afternoon. Very few times, her father would cook, although he cooks more now that they live in the United States. Food was as healthy and fresh as possible. Snacks were fresh fruits, and there were never packaged foods in the house. Jane would eat dinner with her family as well, often around seven o'clock in the evening, when her father came home. She would eat breakfast and lunch with her brother until this was no longer possible because of school. Jane's mother did most of the cooking, and the children were expected to help. Snacks were often dry cereal like Cheerios, apples, crackers, or cheese. Paulina started learning numbers and how to read and write at the age of four, when she went to preschool. The debate of how children should be taught to read can be broken into two sides; phonetics and whole language (Berger, 2006). Phonetics