Ch. 8 Emotional & Social Development in Early Childhood

Development of Play

-games with rules -adult-organized sports -rough-and-tumble play -Dominance Hierarchy -physical education

Rehearsal

repeating information to oneself; happens during early grade school

Empathy

the ability to understand and share the feelings of another

Functional Play

(0-2 yrs.) - Simple, repetitive motor movements, with or without objects

Make-Believe Play

(2-6 yrs.) - Children act out everyday and imaginary activities

Constructive Play

(3-6 yrs.) - Play in which children manipulate objects to produce or build something

Cultural Variations in Play

- Collectivist cultures stress group harmony and discourage self-assertion - Cultures vary in beliefs about the importance of play

Time Out

A disciplinary technique that involves removing children from the immediate setting—for example, by sending them to their rooms—until they are ready to act appropriately

Cognitive Play Categories:

Functional play (0-2 years): Simple, repetitive motor movements, with or without objects Constructive play (3-6 years): Creating or constructing something Make-believe play (2-6 years): Acting out everyday and imaginative roles

Motor Development in Middle Childhood

Gross-motor skill gains: -flexibility -balance -agility -force Fine-motor skill gains: -writing & drawing

Media Violence and Aggression

It was found that there is a +.31 correlation coefficient between TV violence and aggression - In the United States, an estimated 60 percent of TV programs contain violent scenes, often portraying repeated aggressive acts that go unpunished - Verbally and relationally aggressive acts are particularly frequent in reality TV shows - And violent content is 10 percent above average in children's programming, with cartoons being the most violent - Reviewers of thousands of studies have concluded that TV violence increases the likelihood of hostile thoughts and emotions and of verbally, physically, and relationally aggressive behavior - A growing number of studies show that playing violent video and computer games has similar effects

Factors Related to Child Maltreatment

Parent characteristics Child characteristics Family characteristics Community Culture

Identify changes in understanding and expressing emotion during early childhood, citing factors that influence those changes.

Preschoolers' impressive understanding of the causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of basic emotions is supported by cognitive and language development, and conversations about feelings. By age 3 to 4, children are aware of various strategies for emotional self-regulation. Temperament and parental communication about coping strategies influence preschoolers' capacity to handle stress and negative emotion. As their self-concepts develop, preschoolers more often experience self-conscious emotions. They depend on feedback from parents and other adults to know when to feel these emotions. Empathy also becomes more common in early childhood. The extent to which empathy leads to sympathy and results in prosocial, or altruistic, behavior depends on temperament and parenting.

Perspectives on Moral Development

Psychoanalytic Social Learning Cognitive Developmental

Memory Strategies

Rehearsal Organization Elaboration

Effective Models of Moral Behavior

Warmth and responsiveness Competence and power Consistency between words and behavior

Parallel Play

a child plays near other children with similar materials but does not try to influence their behavior

Inductive Discipline

a discipline strategy in which parents explain to children why a punished behavior is wrong

Associative Play

children engage in separate activities but exchange toys and comment on one another's behavior

Matters of Personal Choice

choice of friends, hairstyle, and leisure activities, which do not violate rights and are up to the individual

Child-Rearing Styles

combinations of parenting behaviors that occur over a wide range of situations, creating an enduring child-rearing climate

Uninvolved Child-Rearing Style

combines low acceptance and involvement with little control and general indifference to issues of autonomy

Uninvolved Child Rearing

combines low acceptance and involvement with little control and general indifference to issues of autonomy; often these parents are emotionally detached and depressed and so overwhelmed by life stress that they have little time and energy for children; uninvolved parenting is a form of child maltreatment called neglect; children and adolescents display many problems—poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement difficulties, depression, and antisocial behavior

Social Conventions

customs determined solely by consensus, such as table manners and politeness rituals

Three features distinguish child-rearing styles:

degree of (1) acceptance and involvement, (2) control, and (3) autonomy granting

Proactive Aggression

deliberate aggression against another as a means of obtaining a desired goal; e.g., preschoolers display proactive aggression, pushing and grabbing as they argue over a game; as children learn to compromise and share, and as their capacity to delay gratification improves, proactive aggression declines and enables them to resist grabbing others' possessions

Cognitive-Developmental Theory

emphasizes thinking—children's ability to reason about justice and fairness; maintains that self-perceptions come before behavior

Empathy-Based Guilt

expressions of personal responsibility and regret, such as "I'm sorry I hurt him"; Freud was correct that guilt motivates moral action—by explaining that the child is harming someone and has disappointed the parent is particularly effective

Sympathy

feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune

Social Learning Theory

focuses on how moral behavior is learned through reinforcement and modeling - Certain characteristics of models affect children's willingness to imitate: 1) Warmth and responsiveness — Preschoolers are more likely to copy the prosocial actions of warm, responsive (as opposed to cold, distant) adults; warmth seems to make children more attentive and receptive to the model and is itself an example of a prosocial response 2) Competence and power — Children admire and therefore tend to imitate competent, powerful models—especially older peers and adults 3) Consistency between assertions and behavior — When models say one thing and do another—for example, announce that "it's important to help others" but rarely engage in helpful acts—children generally choose the most lenient standard of behavior

If you ask preschoolers to describe themselves, they usually

give concrete descriptions that include physical appearance, possessions, and everyday behaviors.

Psychological Control

in addition to unwarranted direct control, authoritarian parents engage in a more subtle type of control, in which they attempt to take advantage of children's psychological needs by intruding on and manipulating their verbal expressions, individuality, and attachments to parents

Gender Schema Theory

is an information-processing approach that combines social learning and cognitive-developmental features; it explains how environmental pressures and children's cognitions work together to shape gender-role development

Authoritarian Child Rearing

is low in acceptance and involvement, high in coercive control, and low in autonomy granting; parents appear cold and rejecting; to exert control, they yell, command, criticize, and threaten; they make decisions for their child and expect the child to accept their word unquestioningly; if the child resists, authoritarian parents resort to force and punishment; children are more likely to be anxious, unhappy, and low in self-esteem and self-reliance; when frustrated, they tend to react with hostility and, like their parents, use force to get their way - They engage in a more subtle type of control called psychological control

Authoritarian Child-Rearing Style

low in acceptance and involvement, high in coercive control, and low in autonomy granting

Importance of Modeling

moral behavior is acquired through modeling, just like any other set of responses

Cooperative Play

more advanced type of interaction, children orient toward a common goal, such as acting out a make believe theme

Relational Aggression

nonphysical acts, such as insults or social rejection, aimed at harming the social connection between the victim and other people

Gender Identity

our sense of being male or female

Corporal Punishment

physical force that inflicts pain but not injury

Moral Imperatives

protect people's rights and welfare, from two other types of rules and expectations

Androgyny

scoring high on both masculine and feminine personality characteristics

The attributes, abilities, attitudes, and values that we believe define ourselves comprise our ____________________; the judgments we make about our worth and the feelings associated with those judgments are our _____________________.

self-concept; self-esteem

Preventing Child Maltreatment

strategies needed for family, community, and society: family social support, improved parenting practices (healthy families America, nurse-family partnership); combating poverty; government intervention; legal termination of parental rights

Psychoanalytic Perspective

stresses the emotional side of conscience development, especially identification and guilt as motivators of moral action; but contrary to Freud's view that morality develops out of fear of punishment and loss of parental love, conscience formation is promoted by induction, in which adults point out the effects of the child's misbehavior on others

Erikson's stage of initiative versus guilt builds on Freud's idea of

the Oedipus and Electra conflicts Recall that Erikson's theory builds on Freud's psychosexual stages; for Erikson, the negative outcome of early childhood is an overly strict superego that causes children to feel too much guilt because they have been threatened, criticized, and punished excessively by adults

Emotional Competence

the ability to control emotions and know when it is appropriate to express certain emotions •Improvements in: emotional understanding, emotional self-regulation •Increases in: Self-conscious emotions, empathy •Vital for successful peer relationships and overall mental health

Self-esteem

the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments

Authoritative Child-Rearing Style

the most successful approach- involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting

Alternatives to Harsh Punishment:

timeout, withdrawing privileges (such as watching a favorite TV program), and positive discipline

Nonsocial Activity

unoccupied, onlooker behavior and solitary play

Emotional Self-Regulation

•By ages 3-4, can verbalize strategies for alleviating negative emotions •Aided by: language development, understanding of emotions' causes and consequences, gains in executive function, watching parents express and manage emotions

Self-Conscious Emotions

•Examples: shame, embarrassment, guilt, pride •Increasingly sensitive to praise and blame as self-concept develops-Intense shame linked to maladjustment •Appropriate, moderate guilt supports good adjustment •Supportive parents focus on improving performance •Vary across cultures

Emotional Understanding

•Preschoolers correctly judge: causes of emotion, consequences of emotion, behavioral signs of emotion •Challenged by situations offering conflicting emotional cues from others •Parents help by discussing child's emotional experiences and validating feelings

Positive Discipline

- Use transgressions as opportunities to teach - Reduce opportunities for misbehavior - Provide reasons for rules - Have children participate in family duties and routines - Try compromising and problem solving - Encourage mature behavior

Consequences of Child Maltreatment

- impair the development of emotional self-regulation, empathy and sympathy, self-concept, social skills, and academic motivation - adjustment problems—cognitive deficits including impaired executive function, school failure, deficits in processing emotional and social signals, peer difficulties, severe depression, aggressive behavior, substance abuse, and violent crime

Effects of Harsh Punishment

-Punishment can model aggression -Children develop a chronic sense of being personally threatened; children become resentful, more self-focused, less sympathetic -Parent-child relationship is more conflict-ridden, less supportive; child may learn to avoid the punishing parent, as a result, has little opportunity to teach desirable behaviors -Relief that comes to the adult can spiral to abuse -Use of physical punishment may transfer to the next generation

When parents do decide to use mild punishment, they can increase its effectiveness in three ways:

1) Consistency — permitting children to act inappropriately on some occasions but scolding them on others confuses them, and the unacceptable act persists 2) A warm parent-child relationship — a warm parent-child relationship; children of involved, caring parents find the interruption in parental affection that accompanies punishment especially unpleasant; they want to regain parental warmth and approval as quickly as possible 3) Explanations — providing reasons for mild punishment helps children relate the misdeed to expectations for future behavior; this approach leads to a far greater reduction in misbehavior than using punishment alone

Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations

1) Direct influences: • Arranging informal peer activities • Encouraging child to be a good "host" • Offering guidance on how to act toward others 2) Indirect influences: • Secure attachment • Sensitive communication, emotionally positive parent-child conversations and play • Parent-child play as a model of good interaction

Describe and evaluate theories that explain the emergence of gender identity.

Although most people have a traditional gender identity, some are androgynous, combining both masculine and feminine characteristics. Masculine and androgynous identities are linked to better psychological adjustment. According to social learning theory, preschoolers first acquire gender-typed responses through modeling and reinforcement and then organize these behaviors into gender-linked ideas about themselves. Cognitive-developmental theory

Describe the development of self-concept and self-esteem in early childhood.

As preschoolers think more intently about themselves, they construct a self-concept consisting largely of observable characteristics and typical emotions and attitudes. A warm, sensitive parent-child relationship fosters a more positive, coherent early self-concept. Preschoolers' high self-esteem consists of several self-judgments and contributes to their sense of initiative.

Describe the impact of child-rearing styles on development, and explain why authoritative parenting is effective.

Compared with the authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved styles, the authoritarian style promotes cognitive, emotional, and social competence. Warmth, reasonable rather than coercive control, and gradual autonomy granting autonomy granting account for the effectiveness of this style. Psychological control, which is associated with authoritarian parenting, contributes to adjustment problems. Although some ethnic groups effectively combine parental warmth with high levels of control, harsh and excessive control impairs academic and social competence.

Describe peer sociability and friendship in early childhood, along with parental influences on early peer relations.

During early childhood, peer interaction increases as children move from nonsocial activity to parallel play, then to associative and cooperative play. Nevertheless, both solitary and parallel play remain common. Sociodramatic play seems especially important in societies where child and adult worlds are distinct. In cultures that highly value group harmony, play generally occurs in large groups and is high cooperative. Interactions between preschool friends are unusually positive, but friendship does not yet have an enduring quality based on mutual trust. Early childhood social maturity contributes to school readiness and academic performance. Parents affect peer sociability by influencing their child's peer relations and through their child-rearing practices.

Describe the development of aggression in early childhood, including family and media influences and effective approaches to reducing aggressive behavior.

During early childhood, proactive aggression declines while reactive aggression increases. Proactive and reactive aggression come in three forms: physical aggression (more common in boys), verbal aggression, and relational aggression. Ineffective discipline and a conflict-ridden family atmosphere promote children's aggression, as does media violence. Effective approaches to reducing aggressive behavior include training parents in effective child-rearing practices, teaching children conflict-resolution skills, helping parents cope with stressors in their own lives, and shielding children from violent media.

Discuss biological and environmental influences on preschoolers' gender-stereotyped beliefs and behavior.

Gender typing is well under way in early childhood. Preschoolers acquire a wide range of gender-stereotyped beliefs, often applying them rigidly. Prenatal hormones contribute to boys' higher activity level and rougher play and to children's preference for same-sex playmates. But parents, teachers, and peers also encourage many gender-typed responses.

Discuss the multiple origins of child maltreatment, its consequences for development, and prevention strategies.

Maltreating parents use ineffective discipline, hold a negatively biased view of their child, and feel powerless in parenting. Unmanageable parental stress and social isolation greatly increase the likelihood of abuse and neglect. Societal approval of corporal punishment promotes child abuse. Maltreated children are impaired in emotional self-regulation, empathy and sympathy, self-concept, social skills, and academic motivation. The trauma of repeated abuse is associated with central nervous system damage and serious, lasting adjustment problems. Successful prevention requires efforts at the family, community, and societal levels.

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought

Operations are concrete: applied to information children can perceive directly work poorly with abstract ideas Continuum of acquisition: children master concrete operational tasks gradually, step by step

Child Maltreatment

Physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse

What personality changes take place during Erikson's stage of initiative versus guilt?

Preschoolers develop a new sense of purposefulness as they grapple with Erikson's psychological conflict o initiative versus guilt. A healthy sense of initiative depends on exploring the social world through play, forming a conscience, and experiencing supportive parenting.

Gender Constancy

a full understanding of the biologically based permanence of their gender, including the realization that sex remains the same even if clothing, hairstyle, and play activities change

Cooperative Play

a more advanced type of interaction, children orient toward a common goal, such as acting out a make-believe theme

Elaboration

a second strategy that comes soon after rehearsal; grouping related items together; e.g., all state capitals in the same part of the country; happens during early grade school

Organization

a second strategy that comes soon after rehearsal; grouping related items together; e.g., all state capitals in the same part of the country; happens during early grade school

Dominance Hierarchy

a stable ordering of group members that predicts who will win when conflict arises

Proactive Aggression (also called Instrumental Aggression)

a type of aggression in which children act to fulfill a need or desire—to obtain an object, privilege, space, or social reward, such as adult or peer attention—and unemotionally attack a person to achieve their goal

Societal Modernization

access to contemporary resources for communication and literacy (use of laptops) is broadly associated with improved cognitive function

Prosocial, or Altruistic, Behavior

actions that benefit another person without any expected reward for the self

Induction

an adult helps make the child aware of feelings by pointing out the effects of the child's misbehavior on others

Reactive Aggression (also called Hostile Aggression)

an angry, defensive response to provocation or a blocked goal by another, which is meant to hurt another person

Gender Typing

any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one sex or the other in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes

Social Learning Theory

focuses on how moral behavior is learned through modeling; giving children material rewards undermines prosocial behavior; alternatives to harsh punishment such as time out and withdrawal of privileges can help parents avoid undesirable side effects of punishment; parents can increase the effectiveness of mild punishment by being consistent, maintaining a warm parent-child relationship, and offering explanations

When parents berate their children and are critical of their attempts to do things, children

give up easily or are discouraged after failure.

Chinese parents use storytelling to

guide children toward socially responsible behavior.

Physical Aggression

harms others through physical injury - pushing, hitting, kicking, or punching others or destroying another's property

Verbal Aggression

harms others through threats of physical aggression, name-calling, or hostile teasing

The ability to judge others' emotions is more advanced in children who

have parents who explain feelings, and who negotiate and compromise during conflicts.

Permissive Child Rearing

is warm and accepting but uninvolved; are either overindulgent or inattentive and, thus, engage in little control; instead of gradually granting autonomy, they allow children to make many of their own decisions at an age when they are not yet capable of doing so; children of permissive parents tend to be impulsive, disobedient, and rebellious; are overly demanding and dependent on adults, and they show less persistence on tasks, poorer school achievement, and more antisocial behavior

Permissive Child-Rearing Style

is warm and accepting but uninvolved; permissive parents are either overindulgent or inattentive and, thus, engage in little control; instead of gradually granting autonomy, they allow children to make many of their own decisions at an age when they are not yet capable of doing so; children of permissive parents tend to be impulsive, disobedient, and rebellious

Psychoanalytic Theory

stresses the emotional side of conscience development—in particular, identification and guilt as motivators of good conduct - According to Freud, young children form a superego, or conscience, by identifying with the same-sex parent, whose moral standards they adopt; children obey the superego to avoid guilt, a painful emotion that arises each time they are tempted to misbehave; moral development, Freud believed, is largely complete by 5 to 6 years of age

Positive Parenting

the most effective forms of discipline encourage good conduct—by building a mutually respectful bond with the child, letting the child know ahead of time how to act, and praising mature behavior

Authoritative Child Rearing

the most successful approach—involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting; are warm, attentive, and sensitive to their child's needs; establish an enjoyable, emotionally fulfilling parent-child relationship that draws the child into close connection; they exercise firm, reasonable control; they insist on mature behavior, give reasons for their expectations, and use disciplinary encounters as "teaching moments" to promote the child's self-regulation; engage in gradual, appropriate autonomy granting, allowing the child to make decisions in areas where he is ready to do so

Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage

the period of cognitive development between 7 and 12 years of age, which is characterized by the active, and appropriate, use of logic

Initiative vs. Guilt

the psychological conflict of the preschool years; Erikson's third stage in which the child finds independence in planning, playing and other activities Initiative = independence - young children have a new sense of purposefulness - they are eager to tackle new tasks - join in new activities with peers - discover what they can do with the help of adults - also make strides in conscience development Guilt - the negative outcome of early childhood is an overly strict superego (or conscience) that causes children to feel too much guilt because they have been threatened, criticized, and punished excessively by adults - guilt causes task mastering to break down

Self-concept

the set of attributes, abilities, attitudes, and values that an individual believes defines who he or she is

In Freud's Oedipus and Electra conflicts,

to avoid punishment and maintain parents' affection, children form a superego, or conscience, by identifying with the same-sex parent; as a result, they adopt the moral and gender role standards of their society

Reactive Aggression

verbal and relational forms tends to rise over early and middle childhood; during early childhood, proactive aggression declines while reactive aggression increases

cognitive-developmental perspective

views children as active thinkers about social rules; by age 4, children consider intentions in making moral judgments and disapprove of lying; preschoolers also distinguish moral imperatives from social conventions and matters of personal choice; however, they tend to reason rigidly about morality, focusing on salient features such as physical harm

Parallel Play

when a child plays near other children with similar materials but does not try to influence their behavior-preschoolers use parallel play as a way station

Regulating Screen Media Use

• Limit TV viewing and computer and tablet use • Avoid using screen media as a reward • Watch TV and view online content with children, helping them understand what they see • Link TV and online content to learning experiences • Model good media practices • Use a warm, rational child-rearing approach