Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood Chapter 8 © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor

Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood

Chapter 8

© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

8 - 2

Chapter Outline

• Emotional and personality development• Families• Peer relations, play, and media/screen time


8 - 3

Emotional and Personality Development

• Children’s developing minds and social experiences produce remarkable advances in the development of:– The self– Emotional maturity– Moral understanding– Gender awareness


8 - 4

The Self

• Initiative versus guilt– Children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive,

and language skills to make things happen– On their own initiative, then, children at this stage

exuberantly move out into a wider social world– The great governor of initiative is conscience– Initiative and enthusiasm may bring guilt, which

lowers self-esteem


8 - 5

The Self

• Self-understanding and understanding others– Increased awareness reflects young children’s

expanding psychological sophistication– Self-understanding: Substance and content of self-

conceptions– Physical activities are central component of the

self in early childhood – Unrealistically positive self descriptions


8 - 6

The Self

• Understanding others– Children start perceiving others in terms of

psychological traits– Children begin to develop an understanding for

joint commitments– Young children are not as egocentric as depicted in

Piaget’s theory


8 - 7

Emotional Development

• Expressing emotions– Pride, shame, embarrassment, and guilt are

examples of self-conscious emotions• During the early childhood years, emotions such as

pride and guilt become more common

– Influenced by parents’ responses to children’s behavior


8 - 8


• Understanding emotions– Children’s understanding of emotion is linked to

an increase in prosocial behavior– Children begin to understand that the same event

can elicit different feelings in different people– By age 5 most children show a growing awareness

of the need to manage emotions according to social standards


8 - 9


• Regulating emotions– Plays a key role in children’s ability to manage the

demands and conflicts they face in interacting with others

– Parents can be described as taking an emotion-coaching or an emotion-dismissing approach

– Ability to modulate emotions benefits children in their relationships with peers


8 - 10

Moral Development

• Moral feelings– Feelings of anxiety and guilt are central to the

account of moral development – Learning how to identify a wide range of

emotional states in others, and to anticipate what kinds of action will improve another person’s emotional state, help to advance children’s moral development


8 - 11

Moral Development

• Moral reasoning– Heteronomous morality: The first stage of moral

development in Piaget’s theory, occurring from approximately 4 to 7 years of age• Justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable

properties of the world, removed from the control of people


8 - 12

Moral Development

– Autonomous morality: In Piaget’s theory, older children (about 10 years of age and older) become aware that rules and laws are created by people and that in judging an action one should consider the actor’s intentions as well as the consequences


8 - 13

Moral Development

– Immanent justice: Concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately

– Parent-child relations, in which parents have the power and children do not, are less likely to advance moral reasoning• Rules are handed down in an authoritarian manner


8 - 14

Moral Development

• Moral behavior– Processes of reinforcement, punishment, and

imitation explain the development of moral behavior

– Situation influences behavior– Cognitive factors are important in the child’s

development of self-control


8 - 15

Gender

• Gender identity: The sense of being male or female, which most children acquire by the time they are 3 years old

• Gender role: A set of expectations that prescribes how females or males should think, act, and feel


8 - 16

Gender

• Gender typing: Acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

• Biological influences– Chromosomes– Hormones– Evolution


8 - 17

Gender

• Social influences– Social theories of gender • Social role theory: Gender differences result from the

contrasting roles of women and men• Psychoanalytic theory: Preschool child develops a

sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent• Social cognitive theory: Children’s gender development

occurs through observation and imitation of what other people say and do


8 - 18

Gender

– Gender molds important aspects of peer relations • Gender composition of children’s groups• Group size• Interaction in same-sex groups

• Cognitive influences– Gender schema theory: Gender typing emerges as

children gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture


8 - 19

Parenting

• Baumrind’s parenting styles– Authoritarian parenting is restrictive – Authoritative parenting encourages children to be

independent – Neglectful parenting – Indulgent parenting


8 - 20

Parenting

• Parenting styles in context– Authoritative parenting conveys the most benefits

to the child and to the family as a whole

• Punishment– Corporal punishment is linked to lower levels of

moral internalization and mental health– Handle misbehavior by reasoning with the child,

especially explaining the consequences of the child’s actions for others


8 - 21

Parenting

• Coparenting– Support that parents give each other in raising a

child


8 - 22

Child Maltreatment

• Types of child maltreatment– Physical abuse – Child neglect – Sexual abuse – Emotional abuse

• Context of abuse– About 1/3 of parents who were abused

themselves when they were young go on to abuse their own children


8 - 23

Child Maltreatment

• Developmental consequences of abuse– Adolescents who experienced abuse or neglect as

children are more likely to engage in violent behavior and substance abuse


8 - 24

Sibling Relationships and Birth Order

• Sibling relationships– Important characteristics• Emotional quality of the relationship• Familiarity and intimacy of the relationship• Variation in sibling relationships

• Birth order– Compared with later-born children, firstborn

children have been described as more adult-oriented, helpful, conforming, and self-controlled


8 - 25

Changing Family in a Changing Society

• Working parents– Children of working mothers engage in less gender

stereotyping and have more egalitarian views of gender than do children of nonworking mothers

• Children in divorced families– Children from divorced families show poorer

adjustment than their counterparts in never-divorced families


8 - 26


– Many of the problems experienced by children from divorced homes begin during the predivorce period

– Frequent visits by the noncustodial parent usually benefit the child

– Children with a difficult temperament often have problems in coping with their parents’ divorce

– Income loss for divorced mothers is accompanied by increased workloads, high rates of job instability, and residential moves


8 - 27


• Gay male and lesbian parents– Most children from gay or lesbian families have a

heterosexual orientation

• Cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic variations– There are trends toward greater family mobility,

migration to urban areas– Ethnic minority parents are less educated and

more likely to live in low-income circumstances


8 - 28


– Lower-SES parents: • More concerned that their children conform to

society’s expectations• Create a home atmosphere in which it is clear that

parents have authority over children, among others

– Higher-SES parents:• More concerned with developing children’s initiative

and delay of gratification• Less likely to use physical punishment, among others


8 - 29

Peer Relation, Play, and Television

• Peer relations– Provide a source of information and comparison

about the world outside the family– Good peer relations can be necessary for normal

socioemotional development

• Play– Play therapy is used to allow the child to work off

frustrations and to analyze the child’s conflicts and ways of coping with them


8 - 30


– Important context for the development of language and communication skills

– Types of Play• Sensorimotor • Practice • Pretense/symbolic • Social • Constructive • Games: Activities that are engaged in for pleasure and

have rules


8 - 31


• Television– Many children spend more time in front of the

television set than they do with their parents– Extent to which children are exposed to violence

and aggression on television and video games raises special concerns

– Television can also teach children that it is better to behave in a positive, prosocial way


Documents

Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood Chapter 8 © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor