INTRODUCTION:

The growth and development of a child from all aspects is the primary concern of a developing society. A good Health and the proper education are the two main domain which provide children with knowledge, skills and behaviors to development and maintain their mental, social and emotional growth. Child development Advertisements not only help to develop the level of knowledge of parents but also help to all attributes with the help of which they become aware and active.

Positive parenting ideas and contents are disseminated to the parents by the government of India through their various advertisements such as immunizations of child at proper age, health and hygiene, importance of iron folic acid tablet, education for all etc. To make our nation develop, parents should develop their attitudes towards their child in proper manner. The changing time and situations of human society have opened the door to the sector of health and education to enter many new concepts and ideas among parents. Changing situation has brought many significant trends to the child development process where active participation of parents has special importance.

Because of rapid social changes, modern life has become very easy and comfortable. Technological changes have brought about many changes to the material perspective of society. No doubt, such changes have helped our civilization to advance more. The more civilization has advanced; the life has become more complex. Such complexities have brought many challenges towards our children’s life. As a result, in most of the situations of child’s life, they have suffered from the problem of both mental and physical illness, problems of personality development, adjustment problem etc. Because of such situation, the process of mental and physical growth, more or less has become complex. For a situation of healthy living , child developmental advertisements help the parents to overcome all the major issues concerning to the process of peaceful as well as healthy life. To create awareness among parents, the child developmental print advertisements of Government departments cover the following issues in their Advertisements–

(i) The causes of mental as well as physical illness

(ii) The means of prevention of such illness or to know and apply practically the preventive measures

(iii) To help to know the technique of living healthy life of their child

(iv) To realize the importance of the educational value and follow them to lead a better life.

All these advertisements deal with the activities of human welfare with special emphasis on children sound health and basic education. Such types of advertisement also deal with the proper human relationship. Government sponsored child development advertisements also emphasize the process of systematic maintenance of child health and education. For this, advertisements give special importance on the maintenance of proper positive relationship between parents and their children in the different section of the society. Parent Child interaction is essential for the growth and development of a child. Therefore, the advertisement focusing on child development explore the ideas among parents in following ways–

(i) To develop the understanding of the parent–child relationship

(ii) To improve of the attitudes of the individuals as well as group towards child development

(iii) Create awareness for the use of techniques through which assistance can be given to those who are in need of such help

(iv) Help to know the preventive measures to overcome the child related problems

Without a sound health and proper education of a child society can’t be developed. Therefore, proper guidance of parents to communicate with their children is necessary. In a developing country like India where most of the parents are not conscious or unaware about their child’s basic needs, advertisement can play a suggestive role to make them aware towards their child’s needs and take up the following measures–

(i) Proper nurture of the child

(ii) Importance of education for their child

(iii) Development of physical as well as mental health of their children

(iv) Suggesting for proper style of living to the parents

(v) Improve food habits

The importance and the process of harmonious growth of a child can be well known with the help of the positive parent–child interaction. It also helps the process of child’s adjustment in different situation of life. Interaction between parents and children act as the means to resolve the child’s various problems as well as minimizes their tension or conflict. Parent–child communication is mainly concerned with the systematic growth of child’s life. Parent–child interaction has special importance for a better and a balanced society. To lead a peaceful life health should be sound and basic education should be the prime importance. Without these one can’t lead life in peace. Therefore, parents should always put importance on health and education of their child. The knowledge of health and education has special importance in parent’s life to know the causes and measures to get relief from the problems that their children have suffered. Parents play a vital role for the proper childhood care and nourishing their child throughout their childhood.

Advertising Campaign of Assam Government:

The Government of India as well as Government of Assam along with its nodal advertising agency i. e. Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) act as the key players in providing a new direction to the parents to meet their child’s growing demands and challenges in the field of new millennium. DAVP makes publicity campaign on various developmental issues throughout the country. Performing its role as an agent for information dissemination on national integration, DAVP reaches the people through different means of communication such as press advertisements, print material, audio-visual programmes, outdoor publicity and exhibitions. A number of advertisements were released to various newspapers throughout the country in every year on social and developmental themes to the different areas of the country to disseminate information about the policies and programmes of the Central Government. A multi media campaign for Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched by DAVP. Besides press advertisements, comprehensive audio-visual publicity of the Mission was planned and executed by DAVP in association with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Publicity on various themes viz. Pulse Polio Immunization, Save the Girl Child, breast feeding, anti-malaria/filarial, dengue/chikungunia, blood donation, child health issues, etc. were undertaken through release of press advertisements. The Printed Publicity wing of DAVP looks into the planning, production and supervision of print jobs viz. multi-colour posters, folders, brochures, calendars, diaries, booklets, stickers, wall-hangers, table calendars and other miscellaneous items of printed publicity. Besides Hindi and English, DAVP produces printed publicity material in Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, and Urdu. On the other hand, Outdoor Publicity Wing uses the medium of hoardings, bus-panels, kiosks, wall paintings, banners, animation displays, decorative railings, cinema slides etc. to spread messages. Outdoor Publicity formats were used in a number of important campaigns viz. Bharat Nirman, Central Excise, Child Marriage, Care for Girl Child, Speed Post Service, Prevention of Child Labour, Eye Donation, Health Issues, Lok Sabha TV, Social Justice and Empowerment, Vigilance Awareness Week, etc. Mass Mailing Wing of DAVP, one of the biggest set ups of its kind in the country and has reach up to Block level, primarily deals with dispatch of printed material to various cross sections of people in different parts of the country to make people aware about the different programs and policies of the Government of India.

Child Development demands interaction between Parents and Children. The primary concern of development is the achievement of the parenting skill. Mutual interaction between parents and their children helps to achieve the positive thought in the process of development. Development of a child is basically depends on the qualities and the capabilities of parents. Parents can develop and adapt such qualities and capabilities through following the various advertisements released by the Government for public interests. These advertisements instruct parents to acquire the basic knowledge of child development. Instructions through advertisements also help to give proper shape of parent’s behavior. A well designed child development advertises helps to disseminate desirable information among parents very easily. Advertising is one of the important means of communication with the help of different types of child related issues such as health, education etc. which can be disseminated among parents and can bring requisite changes towards their attitude or behavior. Behavioral changes help to bring changes towards the personalities of the parents. Therefore, child developmental advertisements may be treated as one of the most important means of changing attitude of the parents. A well designed Government sponsored child development advertisement with all necessary information of a scheme or program encourages parents to provide opportunities of active participation of parents in the development process of the nation. There is the need of active participation of parents from different sections of the society in the process of national development.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

‘Parent Child Interaction and Parental Attitudes on Child Development Print Advertisements’ is aimed to fulfill the following objectives–

· To determine the government sponsored child development print advertising messages and the attitude of the parents towards these advertisements

· To study the influence of print advertisements among parents on their children

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Only a few studies were conducted about the influence of advertisement on child development in Assam. However, for better understanding the parental perception of print advertisement on child development, the researcher consults existing literature concerning child development through advertisements. An attempt has been made to include as many studies as found available on the subject and related areas. Following studies are particularly related to the present study which helped the researcher to formulate the present study.

According to Simpson, (1998) almost every parent, regardless of socioeconomic status, is exposed to printed information about parenting, most repeatedly. The author conducted a study entitled The Role of the Mass Media in Parenting Education where he analyzed the strength and weaknesses in media attention to parenting issues. The study reported that Printed parenting materials have proliferated dramatically in the past two to four decades through books, magazines, newsletters, regional parenting papers, pamphlets, and parenting articles in newspapers. The study also revealed that Child and family beat reporters have become quite common at major daily newspapers and child-related stories are a regular feature of the news landscape.

Delgado and Ford, (1998) in their article Parental Perceptions of Child Development Among Low-Income Mexican American Families depicts that cultural differences in parents' perceptions of the importance of various developmental milestones for their children is a significant factor for child overall growth and development.

Sharma, Vaid, and Dhawan, (2004) in their article Parental Concepts about Preschool Education revealed that Preschool has emerged as a downward extension of formal system of education where teaching is aimed at learning skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. During their study parents reported that teaching aids and educational games are used but not very frequently. Parents are generally satisfied with type of education being imparted to their children in the preschools, as they have no alternatives.

Mahajan, P and Sharma, N. (2005) undertake a study on Parents Attitude towards Imparting Sex Education to Their Adolescent Girls. Results of the study revealed that the mothers of both urban and rural areas so Jammu were reluctant to talk about sex education to their daughter as they found it embarrassing to discuss these issues. Generally, they avoid any mention to sex in their day-to-day relationships with their children. The study also revealed that sex is still considered as a taboo subject in our Indian society. The reason is that parents themselves lack scientific knowledge about it. Adolescents need to be taught about this topic since ignorance perpetuates myths and superstition.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

· The study will be beneficial for the parents to attract their attention and to ensure their participation in government sponsored child development schemes

· This study will ascertain to spread of the advertising strategies, their acceptance and effectiveness, usefulness of the advertisements for suggesting changes for improvement.

· The study will also be conducted to understand parent’s perception towards various aspects of child development. This can make them aware in making healthy decisions about their child.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The research design for this study is exploratory and descriptive in nature. The primary and the basic evaluation of the study is qualitative approach and followed with exploratory method where the data is collected through questionnaire, interview, observation and relevant references. Upon collecting the data derived from said questionnaire, interviews, surveys and relevant references a careful analysis is done. The data consist of a random sample of parents of the greater Guwahati area of Assam. A questionnaire aimed at determining the attitudes of parents about the influence of advertisement on child development was framed. Interview were conducted on ten families and a survey is made on purposively selected among 100 parents of middle and lower income group which will help to assess the views about the parent child interaction and their attitudes on print advertisements. Since the middle and lower income group are the main targets of such advertisements. The collected data were analyzed by using simple statistical tools like percentage and pie diagram. The data is based on the responses to the questionnaire by the parents.

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY:

Government of Assam had been adopting various schemes and programs for the development of child health and education in the greater Guwahati area of Assam. The Government of Assam in collaboration with its various nodal departments like National Health Mission (NHM), Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), Directorate of social welfare etc. advertise such schemes and policies through the use of different print media advertising tools such as Newspaper, Magazine, Hoarding, Posters, Banners etc. From the collected data it was observed that Print advertisement provides the parents necessary information about their child growth and development. It keeps them updated and informed about the government policies and programs related to child health and education. The view of the respondents was taken regarding parents awareness about Print Advertisement. 58.7% respondents reported that they liked the print advertisements that appeared in the form of newspaper, magazine, Hoarding etc. while 41.3% parents were unaware or sometimes like the print advertisements. Respondents were asked about what type of child development ads they like most. From the analysis it is seen people have chosen both education and health as their priority by 62.3% respondents to attain a better and healthy lifestyle for their children. People have chosen educational ads by 21.3% while 16.4% respondents gave their priority on health related print advertisement. This clearly shows that the basic requirement of health and education for child development through print media ads are important for parents.

Interaction between parent and children is the important factor for a child friendly environment. Therefore, parents were asked whether they consult with their children after viewing a child development advertisement or not. Almost half of the respondents i.e. 53.6% parents said that they were sharing their views with their children by giving proper guidance after viewing a child related advertisement. 42.1% parents expressed that they sometime interact with their children about matters and decisions that affecting their child’s life. The rest 4.4% become unaware or can’t say anything about it. From the above analysis it was observed that majority of the respondents were very conscious about government released print advertisements whose they feel important for their children.

COLLECTIVE ANALYSIS OF PARENT’S PERSPECTIVE:

There were several opinions of the parents collected by the researcher; however some of these recommendations are given by the parents interviewed during this research work. After the in depth interview with parents the researcher collectively analyzed the results and drafted the following statements–

· According to researcher analysis, parents are very conscious towards child development print ads especially related to their child health

· Parents want to give their children what is appropriate to them

· The researcher also feels that parents have started noticing the positive effects of advertising on children. During discussion with the parents the researcher found that parents were interacting with their children about healthy food habits, healthy and hygienic environment, importance of education etc. to make their child smart, active and healthy.

· According to some parents, morals of the Ads by the government sponsored print advertisements definitely reduce the negative perspective of parents

· Habits like washing hands before and after meal, protection and precaution of communicable and non communicable diseases boost the children for a better living environment

Apart from the initiatives from the Governments, NGO’s and Social Workers, Media need to play an active role in developing the society giving importance to Child development particularly in the sector of Health and Education. Adequate stories of child developmental issues, educating the parents of their child’s right and basic needs, highlighting their problems and prospects, making them aware about the availability of resources would definitely bring a positive change in the society. As children growing up the parents should take out time to explain them about various issues which are new to them. Parents should also change with the changing world and become aware of the needs of today’s child

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:

The salient findings of the present study have been summarized as that child development Print Advertisement was a popular means of information gathering among the parents and found to be influential for enriching their attitudes or perception towards their child health and education. It was also observed that Govt. sponsored print advertisements can make parents aware in making healthy decision for their children. It is also clear from the present study that the interaction between parents and children make a better environment for the children to grow and develop. For faster, better and all encompassing development of a child, it is the prime importance of the parents to perceive all aspects of a child development advertisement sponsored by the Government as well as other nongovernmental organization. If the parents can acquire the quality of positive parenting skills from the government released child development advertisement, they will not only strive for their child’s development and prosperity, but will also for the nation’s growth and prosperity. Developed parenting skills help an individual to achieve more and more information (related to child’s overall growth and development) in order to create better living environment for their children. Developed communication skill also help the parents to maintain pleasant relationship between parents and children which reduces communication gap between them and in this way children get a better living standard in the society. Government’s child development advertisements can develop a sense of responsibility among parents which helps one become a good and a responsible parent. Development is a process of improving the quality of human lives by raising living standards i. e. food, medical services, education through relevant growth process. Rising standard of living and increased access to basic needs of a child make for a qualitative progress among them. In the Indian perspective, Govt. Advertisements can help parents to develop new and sophisticated ideas for the growth and development of their child particularly in the field of health and education.

There has not been any single issue of child development sector have left untouched in the advertisements of the Government of India as well as Government of Assam in molding parents to develop their parenting skills. Such advertisements focus on all aspects of child development in making parents capable in contributing to make their child a better human being. Child development advertisements provide appropriate knowledge to gain positive attitudes among parents. Such knowledge equips them to overcome their emotions, traditional beliefs etc. True knowledge gives us the power to overcome all our fears, prejudices, sorrows, grief, etc. thereby setting us up firmly on the path of development. Therefore, the functions of media or the function of advertisements are not just limited to disseminating information and entertaining masses. It has other significant role to play regarding childhood care and development.

REFERENCES:

1. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.davp.nic.in/

2. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://socialwelfare.assam.gov.in/

3. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.davp.nic.in/AnnRepEng1011.pdf

4. Adams, J., and Reissland, N. (2016). The impact of parenting styles on children developmental outcome: The role of academic self‐concept as a mediator. (A. H. Gewirtz, Ed.) International Journal of Psychology .

5. Bakel, V. H., and Walraven, R. J. (2002, Jan-Feb). Parenting and development of one-year-olds: links with parental, contextual, and child characteristics. Child Development , 256-273.

6. Bornstein, M. (2013, October). Parenting and child mental health: a cross-cultural perspective. World Psychiatry , 258-265.

7. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (https://khoerulanwarbk.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/urie_bronfenbrenner_the_ecology_of_human_developbokos-z1.pdf).

8. Delgado, B. M., and Ford, L. (1998). Parental Perceptions of Child Development Among Low-Income Mexican American Families. Journal of Child and Family Studies , 7 (4), 469-481.

9. Mahajan, P., and Sharma, N. (2005). Parents Attitude Towards Imparting Sex Education to Their Adolescent Girls. Anthropologist , 197-199.

10. Mendiratta, A. (2008). Parental ideas regarding child development and child rearing in Indian context. Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Vadodara: http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/59904.

11. Proulx, K. (2014). Study of Parental knoweldge, Attitudes and Practices Related to early childhood Development. UNISEF Pacific and Solomomon Ilands Ministry of Education and Human Resources.

12. Sharma, N., Vaid, S., and Dhawan, R. (2004). Parental Concepts About Preschool Education. Anthropologist .

13. Simpson, A. R. (1998). The Role of the Mass Media in Parenting Education. In J. C. Westman (Ed.), Parenthood in America( Proceedings of the conference held in Madison, Wisconsin April 19-21, 1998). Published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison General Library System.

14. Talib, J., Mohamad, Z., and Mamat, M. (2011). Effects of Parenting Style on Children Development. World Journal of Social Sciences , Vol. 1. No. 2., 14-35.

15. Tulviste, T., and Ahtonen, M. (2007, March). Child-Rearing Values of Estonian and Finnish Mothers and Fathers. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology , 38 (2):137-155.

Received on 19.05.2018 Modified on 20.06.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(3): 551-556.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00093.1