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Chapter Ten. The Play Years: Psychosocial Development. Emotional Development Parenting Patterns Gender Development. David Rowe University of Arizona.
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Chapter Ten The Play Years: Psychosocial Development
David RoweUniversity of Arizona Found adopted children raised in homes with well-educated parents had a 50-50 chance of above average intellectual performance in their own lives. In contrast, the biological children of those educated parents had an 80 percent chance of such success.
Kyrsten BrookerScience Writer Parents are often unfairly blamed for their children’s behaviors, such as fearfulness, that are largely biological in origin. “Parents who bombard their kids with learning materials might be wasting their time; you can’t force kids to be intellectual when it’s not in their makeup.”
Judith Rich HarrisAuthor “The Nurture Assumption” • The thesis of Harris work is that parents’ importance in shaping their children’s development has been greatly exaggerated. According to Harris, there is a great deal of evidence that the differences in how parents rear their children are not responsible for the differences among the children.
According to Harris, almost every psychologist believes that “what the child learns (or doesn’t learn) in childhood helps them to succeed or fail throughout life.” • Note: Parents should be given less credit for kids who turn out great and blamed less for kids who don’t.
Role Play Exercise Difficulties in Being an Authoritative Parent Scenario: A parent has just come home from the grocery store with her 5 year old child and accidentally discovers a candy bar in the child’s pocket. The child claims that someone “gave” it to them.
3 Styles authoritarian—high standards and expectations with low nurturance children likely to become conscientious, obedient, and quiet—but not happy permissive—little control, but nurturing children likely to lack self-control and are not happy authoritative—limits and guidance provided but willing to compromise children are more likely to be successful, articulate, intelligent, and happy Baumrind’s Three Styles of Parenting, cont.
Developmental Fact or Myth? True/False Questionnaire
Initiative vs. Guilt Erikson’s 3rd Stage self-esteem emerges self-concept—understanding of the self—develops spontaneous play becomes goal directed attention span gets longer pride leads to concentration and persistence guilt is a negative consequence of this stage
Emotional Regulation Ability to direct or change one’s feelings externalizing problems—difficulties arising from child’s tendency to externalize emotions outside the self, lashing out in impulsive anger and attacking other people or things internalizing problems—difficulties arising from child’s tendency to internalize emotions or inhibit their expression, being fearful and withdrawn
Emotional regulation part of brain function also learned through social awareness Genetic variations some people naturally more emotionally expressive Early stress result of damage during brain development either prenatally or postnatally via maternal drug use, illness, stress, or if infant malnourished, injured, or frightened Neurons and Nurture
Care History secure attachment = easier emotional regulation parenting practices securely attached: regulate emotions, show empathy insecurely attached: respond abnormally to other children’s distress ability to modulate and direct emotion essential to emotional intelligence Neurons and Nurture, cont.
First step to emotional regulation: awareness of own emotions and the emotional response of others Emotional intelligence—Goleman’s termfor theunderstanding of how to interpret and express emotions develops throughout life, but crucial in early childhood amygdala—emotional hotspot in prefrontal cortex of brain that children need to govern if they are to become balanced and empathic adults parents can use children’s natural attachment to teach them how and when to express feelings Cognition and Emotions
Empathy—understanding another person’s emotions leads often to prosocial actions helping another without obvious benefit to oneself Antipathy—disliking or hating someone else may lead to antisocial behavior injuring another person or destroying something that belongs to another Empathy and Antipathy
Empathy and Antipathy, cont. Sharing freely done or directed by others Aggression instrumental—used to obtain an object such as a toy reactive—involves retaliation for an act whether or not it was intentional relation—designed to inflect psychic (mental) pain bullying aggression—unprovoked attack
Peers—others of the same age and status peers make the best playmates play is most adaptive and productive activity of children Learning Social Skills Through Play
Rough-and-tumble play helps child develop muscle strength and control caregivers should look for a “play face” when attempting to figure out if child is playing or fighting Active Play
Sociodramatic play helps child explore and rehearse social roles he/she has seen helps child test ability to convince others helps child regulate emotions through imagination helps child examine personal concerns in nonthreatening way Imaginative Play
Parenting Patterns Parenting patterns influence child’s emotions
Baumrind’s 4 important dimensions that influence parenting expression of warmth or nurturance strategies for discipline quality of communication expectations for maturity Baumrind’s Three Styles of Parenting
3 Styles authoritarian—high standards and expectations with low nurturance children likely to become conscientious, obedient, and quiet—but not happy permissive—little control, but nurturing children likely to lack self-control and are not happy authoritative—limits and guidance provided but willing to compromise children are more likely to be successful, articulate, intelligent, and happy Baumrind’s Three Styles of Parenting, cont.
Exercise Parenting Style: Do you have a choice? Imagine that you are the parent of a preschooler who misbehaves in perfectly normal ways. For each of the following misbehaviors, tell how you feel and what you would say and do.
The table is set for breakfast. Your child spills a half-gallon of milk all over the table. • Your little girl is dressed up to attend an important holiday function or religious service. Before you leave she falls, dirties her dress, and tears her tights. • Your three year old son is playing at the kitchen table while you are talking on the phone. Before you notice what he is doing, he has used up a whole package of construction paper and has made crayon marks on the table-cloth and all over the wall.
Your five year old knocks over a display of glassware in the department store, breaking three very expensive crystal glasses? • Review each question in your mind. Imagine now that you are a parent with three children and you have very little money. For example, suppose you have an income of no more than $500 a month after you pay your rent: Your gas and electricity, food, clothing, and any extras must come from this sum. Do your responses change? If so, how and why?
Baumrind’s Three Styles of Parenting, cont. Recent studies have found link between parenting styles and child behavior less direct than Baumrind’s original research indicated impact of child’s temperament influence of community and cultural differences on child’s perception of parenting in poor or minority families, authoritarian parenting tends to be used to produce high-achieving, emotionally regulated children: strict and warm can be successful
Punishment Discipline an integral part of parenting
Punishment • Studies of the effectiveness of punishment in humans demonstrate that punishment is most effective when it is “immediate, firm, consistent, delivered in a variety of settings, and accompanied by a clear (and fair) explanation” • Psychologists generally agree that reinforcing good behavior is preferable to punishing bad behavior.
Techniques of Discipline Culture is a strong influence expectations offenses punishments In United States time-out is used child stops all activity and sits in corner or stays inside for a few minutes
Techniques of Discipline, cont. In deciding which technique to apply, parents should ask: How does technique relate to child? child’s temperament, age, and perceptions crucial considerations
What About Spanking? Reasons for parenting variations culture, religion, ethnicity, national origin parents’ own upbringing Developmentalists fear children who are physically punished will learn to be more aggressive domestic violence of any kind can increase aggression between peers and within families
Dilemma for parents about letting children watch television and play video games parents find video a good babysitter parents believe video can sometimes be educational tool Experts suggest parents turn off the TV to avoid exposing children to video violence The Challenge of Video
Exposure to violence great—good guys and bad guys show violent behavior All good guys male; no non-white heroes Women/females portrayed as victims or adoring friends—not as leaders Content of video games even worse than than that of television more violent, sexist, racist The Evidence on Content
The Evidence on Content, cont. • Children, especially males, who watched educational television became teens who earned higher grades, read more • Children, especially females, who watched violent television had lower grades
The Evidence on Content, cont. • Content of video games crucial reason behind great concern of developmental researchers • research shows that violent TV and video games push children to be more violent than they normally would be • computer games probably worse, as children are doing the virtual killing
Several long-term studies clearly demonstrate that television violence may correlate with overall aggressive behavior in both sexes.
L. Rowell HuesmannResearcherUniversity of Michigan In a 20 year study of more than 300 Chicago-area children, Huesmann found that the more violent television a child, boy or girl, watched between the ages of 6 and 8, the more aggressive behavior that child displayed.
15 years later in interviews with the now adult participants, the correlation between the television-viewing habits of childhood and adult aggression remained significant. The more television violence the child watched, the more aggressive the man or woman was. Note: 16.7 percent of the young women who had been “high-violence” television viewers as girls reported having punched, beaten, or choked another adult, in contrast to 3.6 percent of other women.
The Evidence on Content, cont. Developmentalists look at the following to evaluate poor content perpetuation of sexist, ageist, and racist stereotypes depiction of violent solutions for every problem and no expression of empathy encouragement of quick, reactive, emotions rather than thoughtful regulation of emotions
Male or female—important feature of self-concept Sex differences—biological differences between males and females far less apparent than in adulthood Gender differences—culturally imposed differences in roles and behaviors more significant to children than to adults Boy or Girl: So What?
Exercise Gender-Role Quiz
By age 2, awareness of gender-related preferences and play patterns By age 3, cognitive awareness of own gender By age 4, awareness of “gender appropriate” toys or roles By age 6, well-formed ideas and prejudices about own sex and the other sex Development of Gender Awareness
Psychoanalytic Freud’s view: sexual attraction to opposite-sex parent phallic stage—according to Freud, 3rd stage of psychosexual development; occurring in early childhood when penis becomes the focus of psychological concern and physiological pleasure Theories of Gender Differences
Oedipus complex—according to Freud, occurring in the phallic stage, in which boys have sexual desire for their mothers and hostility towards their fathers; guilt and fear resolved by gender appropriate behavior Identification Superego—personality part that is self-critical and judgmental Electra complex—girls’ understanding they can’t replace mother, so want to be like her Theories of Gender Differences, cont.
Gender-appropriate behavior learned through observation and imitation Children learn gender-appropriate behavior by modeling it after that of people they want to imitate Especially for young boys, conformity to gender expectations rewarded, punished, modeled Behaviorism
Gender typing occurs after concept of gender has developed Once gender consistently conceived, child organizes world based on that understanding Gender schemaorganizes the world in terms of male and female internal motivation to conform to gender-based cultural standards and stereotypes guides attention and behavior Cognitive Theory
Gender values strenuously kept Many traditional cultures emphasize gender distinctions To break through restrictiveness of cultural expectations, some embrace the idea of androgyny—a balance of male and female psychological characteristics true androgyny possible if supported by whole culture Sociocultural Theory
Every aspect of human behavior a mix of genetics and environment environment shapes, enhances, or halts genetic impulses Differences between male and female brains Environmental influences Epigenetic Theory