Early Childhood Personality and Social Development

1. 7 Early Childhood Personality and Social Development Chapter 7

2. Early ChildhoodPersonality and Sociocultural Development • Coping With Feelings and Emotions • Aggression and Prosocial Behavior • Developmental Conflicts • Peers, Play, and the Development of Social Competence • Understanding Self and Others • Family Dynamics

3. Theoretical Perspectives • Three main theoretical perspectives help explain the emotional and social development of early childhood • Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic • Freud and Erikson • Social-learning • Bandura • Cognitive-developmental • Piaget • Vygotsky

4. Brief Review of Three Major Theoretical Perspectives

5. Coping with Feelings and Emotions • One of the fundamental tasks of young childhood is learning to regulate emotions • Learning to cope with fear and anxiety is especially important • Children's specific fears are influenced in part by their culture • Fear and anxiety are normal, and can serve a useful purpose • Children may rely on defense mechanisms to disguise or reduce tensions • Rationalization is commonly used

6. Selected Defense Mechanisms Used by Children

7. Selected Defense Mechanisms Used by Children (continued)

8. Emotional Regulation • Emotional regulation means learning to deal with emotions in acceptable ways • Children must learn to deal with guilt, shame, and other negative emotions, such as anger • Children should feel guilt when their behavior violates social norms and they should feel shame when they fail to live up to reasonable expectations of themselves

9. Emotional Regulation • Learning to Restrain Emotions • Learning to manage anger is especially important • Children who express negative emotions tend to be unpopular with their peers • One research study showed that children who had temper tantrums at age 10 tended to have continued problems as adults • Children also need to learn to restrain their positive emotions and to express them in socially acceptable ways

10. Sensuality and Sexual Curiosity • At age 3 or 4, children usually express curiosity about their genitals • They may engage in sexual play and masturbation • They quickly learn not to display such behavior in front of adults • Different cultures respond to children’s developing sensuality in various ways

11. Aggression and Prosocial Behavior • Aggression is universal and natural • Physical aggression increases in early childhood, then declines as children learn to resolve conflict or replace physical with verbal aggression • Children learn to be aggressive by observing aggressive models • Children can also learn empathy through observing models with empathy • Physical punishment tends to increase aggression • Physical punishment often causes frustration • The punisher is also modeling physical aggression

12. Video Clip • Details the concern over the increasing use of electronic media among children (especially with regard to school performance) and how it’s use can be appropriately monitored: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hl-_5FT1ss

13. Television and Violence • Television and other media are pervasive in children’s lives • Many studies have shown that exposure to media violence is linked to aggressive behavior and desensitization towards violence • The media also models prejudicial and insensitive behavior, and encourages stereotyping • Parents can control viewing

14. Average Amount of Time Spent by U.S. Children Age 0-6 in Various Activities From, “The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers and Their Families” (#7500), by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, May 2006. This information was reprinted with permission of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and communicating the best possible analysis and information on health issues.

15. Video Clip • Discusses recent research on the effects of violent media on aggression in children and the controversy surrounding what to do about it: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx0X61jT5dw

16. Prosocial Behavior • Prosocial behaviors are intended to benefit others • Signs of empathy, understanding another’s feelings, have been linked to prosocial behavior • Prosocial behavior develops early; its expression depends on cultural and societal norms • Role playing helps promote prosocial behavior, as does rewarding children for such behaviors

17. Developmental Conflict: Initiative versus Guilt • Young children are torn between their desire for independence and their dependence on their parents • Erikson’s third stage: initiative vs. guilt (ages 3-6) • Initiative: purposeful behavior as they learn and explore their surroundings • Guilt is triggered by emerging conscience • Parents who discourage child’s curiosity and exploration or set unrealistic standards contribute to an unhealthy sense of guilt • Such children may then become passive, anxious, or aggressive

18. Peers, Play, and the Development of Social Competence • Play is the work of children • By age 4, children begin to engage in social pretend play • Many children create imaginary companions, and those who do tend to be more creative and to be more sociable • Cultural and social aspects are embedded in play

19. The Development of Play

20. Social Competence • Social competence is the ability to initiate and maintain satisfying reciprocal peer relationships • Social competence consists of: • Emotional regulation (especially important) • Social knowledge • Social skills • Social disposition • Popular children are more cooperative and prosocial • Unpopular, rejected, children are either more aggressive or more withdrawn

21. Understanding Self and Others • Children must put together special behaviors to create overall patterns of behavior that are appropriate for their gender, family, and culture • Young children internalize social concepts and rules • They incorporate social concepts into their thinking • They begin to build a positive self-concept as their socially acceptable behaviors are rewarded • Children also must develop social understanding—learning how others think

22. Characteristics of Popular Kindergarten Children

23. Self and Gender • Gender is a particularly important dimension of self-concept • By the age of 2 and ½, children can readily identify people as “boy” or “girl” • They exaggerate and conform to gender-role stereotypes • They develop gender schemes as a part of cognitive development • By the age of 5, they develop gender constancy • Children are intrinsically motivated to engage in gender-consistent behaviors through self-socialization

24. The Development of Gender Schemes

25. Video Clip • Interviews with children to demonstrate the development of an understanding of gender identity: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZb2len6f18

26. Family Dynamics • Many family dynamics affect development during early childhood. These include: • Parenting styles • Number and spacing of children • Interactions among siblings • Parental discipline techniques

27. Four Parenting Styles • Styles vary according to two dimensions: control and warmth • According to Diana Baumrind: • Authoritative • Authoritarian • Permissive • Indifferent

28. Parenting Styles Based on Warmth and Control

29. Effects of Different Parenting Styles • Authoritarian parents tend to produce withdrawn, fearful, dependent, moody, unassertive, and irritable children • Permissive parents may also be rebellious and aggressive, as well as self-indulgent, impulsive, and socially inept. • Indifferent parents tend to engender destructive impulses and delinquent behaviors. • Authoritative parents are most likely to produce children who are self-reliant, self-controlled, and socially competent.

30. Discipline and Self-Control • As parents set limits and children assert their independence, conflicts are inevitable • Productive discipline involves the following characteristics of authoritative parenting: • Setting reasonable rules that are fairly enforced • Establishing a warm, caring, & consistent environment • Keeping two-way communication as open as possible • Parents and children often can reach an agreement on shared goals resulting in a more harmonious family life

31. Sibling Dynamics • Sibling relationships vary widely • Siblings are likely to have different personalities • Few, if any, consistent personality differences result solely from birth order • First born children tend to have higher IQs, likely resulting from increased attention from parents • Only children also tend to be high achievers • Average differences in IQ based on birth order are small • Family structure and income can have strong effects on IQ and achievement

32. Discipline Advice to Parents

33. Child MaltreatmentAbuse and Neglect • At any age, an abusing parent destroys the child’s expectations of love, trust, and dependence that are essential to healthy development • Between 1.2 and 5% of U.S. children experience maltreatment • Physical abuse most often occurs at the hands of the child’s parents. • Younger children sustain more serious injuries • Many who survive suffer traumatic brain damage

34. Abuse and Neglect • Neglect is often associated with poverty and involves failure to provide for a child’s basic needs • Neglect can have severe, long-term consequences • Over 60% of child maltreatment cases involve neglect • Ninety-five percent of sexual abuse is committed by men • Stepfathers are five times more likely to abuse female children than are biological fathers

35. Forms of Psychological Child Maltreatment

36. Effects of Child Abuse • Abused children may: • self-isolate and express aggressive behaviors • have more school-related problems • be at greater risk for depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicidal efforts • have trouble controlling their emotions • be less socially competent • engage in defiance and manipulation in others to escape maltreatment • learn to expect interpersonal relationships to be painful

37. Causes of Child Maltreatment • Multiple forces usually converge to cause child maltreatment • Parents may: • have been abused themselves • have unrealistic expectations of children’s behavior • be socially isolated or experiencing severe stress • have especially demanding children • Physical abuse of children is more common in poverty-stricken homes • Parenting education programs stress social support and learning of non- abusive discipline methods

38. Ecological Influences in Child Maltreatment

39. Summary • From ages 2 to 6, children gain an understanding of themselves and their place in their family and community • They learn what behavior is expected of them, as boys and girls • They learn how to handle their feelings in socially acceptable ways • They learn the norms, rules, and cultural meanings of their society • They develop a self-concept that may persist their entire life

40. Summary • One of the fundamental tasks of young childhood is learning to regulate emotions and cope with fear and anxiety • They have to learn to cope with their negative emotions in socially acceptable ways • Children are naturally aggressive, but then can learn to be more aggressive by observing aggressive models. Children need to learn to channel their aggression and develop prosocial behaviors • These behaviors, which include a sense of empathy, begin to develop at about age 2

41. Summary • Parents can model and reward their children’s prosocial behavior • Beginning at about the age of 3, children show their desire for independence • Erikson called this stage initiative versus guilt • Children’s play becomes more social at about the age of 4. By the age of 6, they can initiate and maintain reciprocal relationships with others • Unpopular children have negative experiences with social adjustment

42. Summary • At this stage of development, children develop a concept of themselves and their own behavior • Gender is a big component of a child’s understanding of the self • Parents play an especially important role in the development of their children • Children of authoritative parents seem to have the best outcome • Sibling relationships are an important factor in development at this stage • Child abuse and neglect can have long-term negative consequences for child development