What exactly has the most pronounced impact on children is still a matter of debate. While a whole host of factors undeniably play their role, I believe familial influence is the most profound one.
The factors other than the family include but are not limited to such external forces as school, peers, television, and social media. These might indeed instigate children to make certain choices or to pursue certain activities that they otherwise would not. For example, while a good school might encourage a student to study and instill hard work as a value, thereby laying the groundwork for a successful future, social media might do the opposite by contributing to the development of clip thinking or by promoting superficial beauty as a value, neither of which is likely to be conducive to future success. Since a child can be swayed into potentially life-changing decisions by some factors from their external environment, it might be reasonable to say that these factors play a role.
I, however, believe parental influence is the ultimate formative force in terms of the child’s upbringing. One reason for this is that this influence starts immediately after the child is born, which means a lot of reactions and behaviors are engrained long before the child is even aware of them. Equally important is the fact that, regardless of how much time children spend at school or online later in life, they still spend the overwhelming majority of their early life with their families. Given this, they indelibly acquire more habits and values from their family than they possibly could from other sources. On a final note, the potential influences discussed in the previous paragraph are often down to parenting choices too in that the school the child goes to or the TV programs they watch are a result of actions done by parents, whether intentionally or not. All of this shows that parental influence is what underpins most life outcomes that extend well beyond childhood.
To conclude, it is likely that children are to some extent shaped by absolutely everything they encounter. The extent of the environmental influence, however, can be considered very limited, unlike that of the familial background as this influence starts much earlier in life, has more presence, and affects the other factors as well.”