Social and Emotional Development in Early Childhood

1. World of Children 1st ed • Chapter 9 • Social and Emotional Development • in Early Childhood

2. The social and emotional selfWilliam James • Self : the characteristics, emotions and beliefs people have about themselves • 1. I-self : awareness that I exist as a separate and unique person – that I have my own thoughts, experiences, feelings • personal agency: understanding that your actions and emotions can affect the environment, behavior, and emotions of other people. • 2. Me-self: what I know about myself – gender, age, personality, physical, cognitive characteristics.

3. The social and emotional self • Sense of self not present at birth • Children construct I-self and me-self through interactions and experiences with others • Me-self present by age 2 – very concrete at first – become more abstract and more realistic over time • Ex: I have brown hair • Ex: I can ride my bike fast. I need help w/ spelling and math.

4. Self regulation • The ability to control behavior, emotions or thoughts, based on situations • Inhibit first responses- impulse to take money during Monopoly when one is looking • Resist interference- ignore distractions while counting money • Persist in important tasks- cleaning up after.

5. Self regulation • Develops over time due to : • brain maturation – development of frontal lobes (ages 4-7) • modeling – imitating behavior of others (Bandura) • internalization of rules, standards, private speech (Vygosky)

6. Emotions • Infants reflect emotions of those around them (emotion contagion) • By age 2 children are aware that their emotions may be different from others • By age 5 children understand that events can trigger emotions • Positive emotion bias : children have tendency to report positive emotions more than negative ones

7. Emotions • 5 year old is less likely to report being sad than a 7 year old • Boys get the message to hide sadness as they mature • Children are more accurate at recognizing other people’s positive emotions over negative emotions.

8. Gender • By 2 ½ children can apply gender labels correctly but they focus on appearance girls have long hair, boys don’t • As early as 2 yrs old, children show preference for sex-typed toys – dolls for girls, cars for boys • By age 3 they show gender segregation – preference to play with others their own gender • Gender stereotypes are well established and fairly rigid by age 5

9. Gender • Kindergarteners react negatively to cross gender behavior • Boy’s gender stereotypes develop earlier than girls • Boys and girls tend to object cross-gender behavior more in boys

10. GenderLawrence Kohlberg • 3 stages of gender understanding • Gender identity (by 2 ½ yrs) – ability to categorize self and others correctly as boys or girls • Gender stability (by 4-5 yrs) – gender is a stable characteristic over time • Gender constancy (by 6-7 yrs) – gender is consistent regardless of outward appearance

11. Moral Development • Children develop a conscience – sense of right and wrong – as they internalize rules and begin to feel guilty about their own behavior, and have empathy for others • Morality : knowing the difference between right and wrong, and acting accordingly • Moral reasoning : the ways people think about right and wrong

12. Moral Development • Lawrence Kohlberg studied stages of moral development based on Piaget’s theory • children’s moral reasoning develops depending on… • 1. cognitive abilities • 2.Perspective taking: ability to understand the psychological perspective, motives, and needs of others • 3. cognitive disequilibrium: children must have experiences that challenge their current thinking in order to grow

13. Kohlberg’s Theory

14. Parenting • Parenting patterns established early • Dimensions of parenting • Parental warmth – acceptance, responsiveness, compassion • Parental control – setting limits, enforcing rules, maintaining discipline • Physical control • Psychological control

15. Research on Parenting • Diana Baumrind identified 4 distinct styles of parenting that represent different combinations of parental warmth and control • Authoritative Authoritarian • Permissive Rejecting/Neglecting

16. Research on Parenting

17. In later work, Baumrind expanded styles authoritative democratic non-directive authoritarian-directive nonauthoritarian-directive unengaged good-enough Also expanded dimensions parental warmth parental control maturity demands democratic communication intrusiveness Research on Parenting

18. Discipline vs Punishment • Discipline : techniques adults use to teach children appropriate behavior • Punishment : techniques used to eliminate unacceptable behavior • In a 1994 survey, • 65% of parents reports hitting or spanking infants • 90% spanked their 3 yr olds • 35% hit or spanked their 16 yr olds

19. Physical punishment • Parents are more likely to hit or spank if: • they are young • they were hit or spanked as children • they are being hit by boyfriends or husbands • Middle income parents use spanking most but low income parents who spank do it more often

20. Physical punishment • Research shows consistent correlations between physical punishment and • aggression • delinquency • antisocial behavior • child abuse • spousal abuse

21. Discipline • Basic steps to positive discipline – with emphasis on teaching rather than punishing • manage situation • set clear rules and limits • praise good behavior • use explanation and reasoning • remove privileges or use timeout

22. Friendships • Toddler relationships based on convenience – whomever is available • Preschool relationships based on opportunity and similarity • children have larger group of peers and spend more time with them once they begin school • children form friendships with those similar in age, gender, race, attitudes, play styles

23. Gender Segregation • tendency to play with others of the same gender • clear preference by age 2-3 • firmly established by age 6

24. Gender Segregation - theories • play compatibility – children seek partners whose play styles match theirs • 1st to segregate are active & disruptive boys/socially sensitive girls • cognitive schemas – children develop ideas about what boys and girls are like • operant conditioning – sex-typed behavior is rewarded by parents and society • sissy or tomboy • psychoanalytic theory – children avoid interactions with opposite sex to avoid guilt

25. Gender Segregation - effects • Boys and girls grow up in different gender cultures • This can cause conflict as they begin to spend more time together as teens and adults – they have trouble understanding each other’s perspectives

26. Play • pleasurable activity • engaged in voluntarily • intrinsically motivated • contains some nonliteral element (pretend) • Play gives children opportunities to develop coordination, social skills, problem solving

27. Play • Parten’s study – 42 children ages 1 to 5, observed during free play over an 8 month period • 6 levels of play ages 1 and 2 unoccupied onlooker solitary ages 3 to 5 parallel associative cooperative

28. Sociodramatic play • common in children by age 3 • acting out of different roles and characters – either realistic or fantasy • Allows children to • imitate adults • reenact family relationships • express needs • express forbidden impulses • reverse roles

29. Child Care • Four times more children being cared for in family day care or daycare centers in 1995 than in 1965 • High quality care is linked to greater cooperativeness, greater independence, less anxiety, higher social competence, • cognitive gains • Children in day care homes are less likely to show benefits

30. Child Care • Determining quality • Structural quality : objective aspects, such as child-adult ratio, caregivers’ education, size of facility • Process quality : interactions between adults and children, materials and activities that support development

31. Child Care

32. Group A Dimensions of parenting & how they affect children’s outcomes Physical and psychological control 4 parenting styles and an example of each Group B Difference between discipline and punishment Is spanking affective or ineffective? What is effective discipline? Research on spanking Group Work