Fundamental Pedagogy Jana Doležalová

Terms to Remember (Key Words) 

Family 

family 
functions

family education styles 

characteristics of modern and 
traditional family 

family development trends 
Introductory Questions and Assignments 
1. What is the most valuable thing about family? 
2. In what aspects is education in individual families different?
3. In what way has modern family changed compared to family 100 years 
ago? 
10.1 Family and its Functions 
Family is the most important social environment for man. Its effects are 
especially crucial in childhood because they impact on one’s entire life. It is the 
initial social environment for every individual after birth. Owing to the influence 
of family members, the child starts applying and developing cognitive activities, 
skills and emotions. Considering the child’s perceptiveness to the surrounding 
stimuli during the yearly years, family has the largest significance for the child’s 
development. All other institutions follow the effects from family. 

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The impact of family is even more significant as it is a small informal group with 
intensive interaction and communication processes shaping emotional ties 
between and among family members.
Early childhood is an important period building the foundations for the 
organism’s development in the coming periods as a result of maturation and 
learning. Although all children undergo the same developmental stages, we can 
still finally see differences between them. They are conditioned both by 
individual peculiarities relating to the children’s inborn dispositions and by 
learning generously stimulated by the surrounding environment. The child 
interiorises everything provided by the immediate reality and identifies 
internally with the closest beings to whom he/she has a deep emotional 
relationship. Externally, the child interprets everything garnered in the 
immediate contact with them. The causes of differences in educational 
outcomes can be seen not only in the genetic foundations and the child’s 
temperament but also in the different stimuli coming from the environment 
(especially from family), both in terms of quality and their frequency. Experts 
say there is a correlation between the genotype and the environment the child 
lives in (In Duchovičová, 2012).