Page 547 - Understanding Psychology

Personal Relationships
Reader’s Guide
Exploring Psychology
Raising Your Family
They had been so sweet when they were little. Granny wished the old days were back again with the children young and everything to be done over. It had been a hard pull, but not too much for her. When she thought of all the food she had cooked, and all the clothes she had cut and sewed, and all the gardens she had made—well, the children showed it. There they were, made out of her, and they couldn’t get away from that. Some- times she wanted to see John again and point to them and say, “Well, I didn’t do so badly, did I?”
—from The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Anne Porter, 1930
s Main Idea
People experience different types of love and relationships throughout their lives.
s Vocabulary
• generational identity
s Objectives
• Describe sources of parent-adolescent
conflict.
• Describe different types of love.
In the story above, Granny Weatherall looks back on her life—a life of raising and loving children. The relationships you have with your grandparents, parents, guardians, and others will influence and enrich your life. Your personal relationships with others bring meaning and sub- stance to your everyday experiences.
PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS
Noted psychologists, including Erik Erikson, believed that early and persistent patterns of parent-child interaction could influence people’s later adult expectations about their relationships with the significant peo- ple in their lives. If a young infant’s first relationship with a caregiver is
Chapter 18 / Individual Interaction 533