The idea that the largest motivation parents have in providing a good upbringing and environment for their children to develop is so they can pass their genes onto future generations.

Parental Investment Theory in Evolutionary Psychology

Main points that encompass evolutionary theories in child development:
- natural selection 
-  adaptation (genes, brain size, etc.)
- the concept of "play" being evolutionary

Haverford College in Pennsylvania

- Ethological Theories
- Evolutionary Theories
- The Bioecological Model

Types of Ecological Theories of Development

Siegler, R., Saffran, J. R., Eisenberg, N., Deloache, J., &amp; Gershoff, E. (2017). How Children Develop (5th ed.). Worth Publishers, Inc.

How Children Develop Textbook

There are 4 key systems influencing human development: 
- microsystem- individual, parents, teachers, peers
- mesosystem- relationships between multiple microsystems (e.g. parent-teacher differing expectations)
- exosystem- systems that affect but do not contain an individual (e.g. SES, parental employment and networks, public policy and education, the media)
- macrosystem- overarching sociocultural values and beliefs

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory of Child Development

Ethology is the study of behavior from an evolutionary context. In particular, studying behavior in terms of adaption and survival value. In these theories, researchers believe physical characteristics and patterns of behavior are shaped by evolutionary adaptions.

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