CHAPTER 9

Socio-emotional Development in Early Childhood

THE SELF
In early childhood years, young children develop in many ways that enable them to enhance their self understanding.

Initiative vs. guilt

Children have become convinced that they are persons of their own They use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make things happen. On their own initiative, then, children at this age exuberantly move out into a wider social world.

- Young children are more psychologically aware of themselves and others

self understanding
Is the representation of self, the substance and content of self conceptions. -Children often provide self descriptions that involve body attributes, material possessions and physical activities. - Young childrens theory of mind includes understanding that other people have emotions and desires.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Allows them to try to make sense of other peoples emotional reactions and to begin to control their own emotions. Children must be able to be aware of themselves as distinct from others. > Self conscious emotions

Children increasingly understand that certain situations are likely to evoke particular emotions, facial expressions indicate specific emotions and emotions affect behavior, and emotions can be used to influence others emotions.

Parents can play an important role in helping young children regulate their emotions.

Emotion-coaching parents
- Monitor their childrens emotions

Emotion-diminishing parents
- View their role as to deny, ignore,

or change negative emotions.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Moral Development -Involves the development of thoughts, feelings, behaviors regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other people.

Moral feelings
Feelings of anxiety and guilt are central to the account of moral development provided by Freuds psychoanalytic theory. Other emotions also contribute to the childs moral development, including positive feelings.

> Perspective taking

Moral Reasoning
Heteronomous morality 4 to 7 years of age Children think that justice and rules as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people. > Immanent justice -The concept that if the rule Is broken punishment will be meted out immediately.

Autonomous morality 10 years and above Children become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and in judging an action they consider the actors intentions as well as the consequences.

Moral behavior
It holds the processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation The situation also influence behavior The ability to resist temptation is closely tied to the development of self-control
> Conscience - Refers to an internal regulation of standards of right and wrong that involves an integration of all 3 components of moral development- moral thought, feeling and behavior. Parenting and young childrens moral development Parent-child relationships introduce children to the mutual obligations of close relationships. An important parenting strategy is to proactively avert potential misbehavior of children before it takes place.

GENDER
Gender Refers to the characteristics of people as males and females. Gender identity Involves the sense of ones own gender, including knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of being male or female. Gender roles A set of expectations that prescribe how females or males should think, act, and feel.

Gender typing Refers to the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.

Biological influences
Chromosomes, hormones and evolution

Social influences
Social theories of gender > Social role theory - Gender differences result from contrasting roles of women and men.

>Psychoanalytic theory of gender - Stems from Freuds view that the preschool child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent > Social cognitive theory of gender - Childrens gender development occurs through observing and imitating what other people say and do, and through being rewarded and punished for genderappropriate and gender- inappropriate behavior.

Parental influence
Parents by action and by example, influence their childrens gender development mothers socialization strategies fathers socialization strategies

Peer influence
Peers extensively reward or punish gender behavior. gender molds important aspect s of peer relations (best 2010) Gender composition of childrens groups group size Interaction in same sex groups

Cognitive development
Gender schema theory - States that gender typing emerges as children gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate on their culture
schema - A network of associations that guide an individuals perceptions. gender schema - Organizes the world in terms of female and male.

-Parenting -Child Maltreatment -Sibling Relationships and Birth Order -The Changing Family in the Changing Society

The act of functioning as parents or process of raising children.

- is a restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions and respect their work and effort. -children of authoritarian parents are often unhappy, fearful, and anxious about comparing themselves with others, fail to initiative activity, and have weak communication skills.

Authoritative Parenting
-encourages children to be independent but still places limits and

controls on their actions. -parents are warmth and nurturant toward the child. -children whose parents are authoritative cheerful, selfcontrolled, and self-reliant and achievement oriented; they tend to maintain friendly relationships with peers, cooperate with adults, and cope well with stress.

Neglectful Parenting
is a style in which the parent is much uninvolved in the childs life. -children whose parents are neglectful develop the sense that other aspects of the parents lives are more important than they are. -children tend to be socially incompetent

Indulgent Parenting
-is a style in which parents are highly involved with their children but place few demands or controls on them. -parents let them do what they want.

Punishments
- any ill suffered in consequences of wrongdoing.

Reasons why parents or adults should avoid spanking or other physical punishments on children:
When adults punish a child by yelling, screaming, or spanking, they are representing children with out-of-control models for handling stressful situations. Children may imitate this aggressive, outof-control behaviour.

Punishment can instil fear, rage, or avoidance. For example, spanking the child may cause the child to avoid being around the parent and to fear the parent.

 Punishment can be abusive. Parents might unintentionally become so aroused when they are punishing the child that they become abusive. Punishment can be abusive. Parents might unintentionally become so aroused when they are punishing the child that they become abusive. Most child psychologists recommend handling behaviour by reasoning with the child, especially explaining the consequences of the childs action for others. Diana concludes from her research that when parents used punishment in a calm, reasoned manner, childrens development benefitted.

Co-parenting
- the relationship between the marital conflict and the use of punishment highlights the importance of co-parenting, which is the support that parents provide one another in jointly raising the child.

Child-Maltreatment
-involves grossly inadequate and destructive aspects of parenting.

Types of child maltreatment:

Physical abuse Child neglect Sexual abuse Emotional abuse

Sibling Relationships and Birth Order.

Sibling Relationships
-siblings in the presence of each other when they are 2 to 4 years of age, on an average, have a conflict every 10 minutes and then the conflicts go down somewhat from 5 to7 years of age. -in families with two siblings 2 to 5 years of age, the most frequent parental action is to do nothing at all when they are having a verbal or physical confrontation. Laurie Kramer (2006) who has conducted a number of research studies on siblings says that not intervening and letting sibling conflict escalate are not good strategies. However, conflict is only one of the many dimensions in siblings relations. Sibling relations includes helping, sharing, teaching, fighting, and playing, and siblings can act as emotional supports, rivals, and communication partners. Judy Dunn (2007), a leading expert on sibling relationships, recently described three important characteristics of sibling relationships: Emotional quality of the relationships. Familiarity and intimacy of the relationships. Variation in sibling relationships.

 Birth Order
-whether a child has older or younger siblings has been linked to development of certain personality characteristics. For example, a recent review concluded that firstborns are intelligent, achieving, and conscientious, while later-borns are most rebellious, liberal and agreeable. Also more adult-oriented, helpful conforming, and self-controlled. The popular conception is that the only child is a spoiled brat, with such undesirable characteristics as dependency, lack of self-control, and selfcentred behaviour. Somehow, only children are often achievement oriented and display a desirable personality.

The Changing Family in the Changing Society

Among two-parent families, there are those in which both parents work, or have divorced parents who have remarried, or gay or lesbian parents. Differences in culture and socioeconomic status (SES) also influence families.

Working Parents
-working can produce positive and negative effects on parenting. Ann Crouter (2006) recently described how parents bring their experiences at work into their homes. She concluded that parents who have poor working conditions, such as long hours, overtime work, stressful work, and lack of autonomy at work are more likely to be irritable at home and engage in less effective parenting than their counterparts who have better work conditions in their jobs.

Children in Divorced Families

most researchers agree that that children from divorced families show poorer adjustments than their counterparts in non-divorced families. Those who have experienced multiple divorces are at greater risk. -are more likely: to have academic problems, to show externalized and internalized problems, to be less socially responsible, have less incompetent intimate relationships, to drop out of schools, to become sexually active at an early age, to take drug, to associate with anti-social peers, to have low self-esteem, and to be less securely attached as a young adult.

--marital conflict may have negative consequences for the children in the context of marriage or divorce. And many of the problems that children from divorced homes experience begin during the pre-divorce period, a time when parents are in active conflict with each other. Thus, when children from divorced homes show problems, the problems may not be due only to the divorce, but also the marital conflict that led to it. Children who are socially mature and responsible, who show few behavioural problems, and who have an easy temperament are better able to cope with their parents divorce.

 Gay and Lesbian Parents

-Increasingly, gay and lesbian are creating families that include children. Like heterosexual couples, gay and lesbian parents vary greatly -Most children of gay and lesbian parents were born in a heterosexual relationship that ended in divorcein most cases, it was probably a relationship in which one or both parents only later identified themselves as gay or lesbian. In other cases, lesbians and gays became parents as a result to donor insemination and surrogates, or through adoption. -researchers have found few differences between children growing up with lesbian mothers or gay fathers on the one hand, and children growing up with heterosexual parents on the other.

PEER RELATION

Peer Group Functions

To provide a source of information and comparison about the world

To evaluate what they do in terms of whether it is better than, as good as, or worse than what other children do.

Developmental Changes

About the age of 3, children prefer to spend time with the same sex playmates

Friends
Children distinguish between

friends and non friends Preschoolers recognized that boys prefer to play in groups but not that they have more shared friendships than girls Grade 2 children believe that boys have more shared friendships By grade 6, they recognize that friends have access to more information about each other than non friends Older children (9-11 years old) believe that, playing in larger groups is more enjoyable than playing in dyads

The Connected Worlds of Parent-Child And Peer Relations

Interactions with their children How they manage their childrens lives And the opportunities they provide their children .. Their choices of neighborhood Churches Schools And their own friends

- a pleasurable activity in which children engage for its own sake, and its functions and forms vary.

- According to Freud and

Erickson, play helps children master anxieties and conflicts It permits children to work off excess physical energy and to release pent up tensions

 Play also is an important context for cognitive development Piaget and Vygotsky concluded that play is a childs work

Piaget
Said that childrens cognitive development constrains the way they play He thought that cognitive structures need to be exercised.

Vygotsky
He was especially interested in the symbolic and makebelieve aspects of play.

Daniel Berlyne (1962)

Described play as exciting and pleasurable in itself because it satisfies our exploratory drive Play described as an important context for the development of language and communication skills.

Types of Play
Sensorimotor behavior engaged in by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their existing sensorimotor schemes

Practice play it involves repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports.

Pretense/symbolic play the child transforms the physical environment into a symbol. Social play involves social interactions with peers. Constructive play combines sensorimotor and repetitive activity with symbolic representation of ideas.

TELEVISION

Television
- is the most influential mass media that affect childrens behavior.

Effects of Television on Childrens Aggression

The preschool who had seen the TV cartoon shows with violence kicked, choked, and pushed their playmates more than did the preschool children who watched nonviolent TV cartoon shows.

Effects of Television on Childrens Pro-social Behavior

Television also can teach children that it is better to behave in positive, prosocial ways than in negative, antisocial ways.

FIN