Chapter 8: Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood

How does gender identity relate to psychological adjustment?

"Masculine" and androgynous children and adults have higher self-esteem than "feminine" individuals. Also, androgynous individuals are more adaptable—able to show masculine independence or feminine sensitivity, depending on the situation. The existence of an androgynous identity demonstrates that children can acquire a mixture of positive qualities traditionally associated with each gender—an orientation that may best help them realize their potential.

What are the environmental influences from teachers on gender typing?

"Will the girls line up on one side and the boys on the other?" or pleaded, "Boys, I wish you'd quiet down like the girls!" These practices increase preschoolers' gender-stereotyped beliefs while reducing their liking for and willingness to play with other-sex peers. Like parents, preschool teachers encourage girls to participate in adult-structured activities. Girls frequently cluster around the teacher, following directions, while boys are attracted to play areas where adults are minimally involved. As a result, boys and girls engage in different social behaviors. Compliance and bids for help occur more often in adult-structured contexts; assertiveness, leadership, and creative use of materials in unstructured pursuits. As early as kindergarten, teachers give more overall attention (both positive and negative) to boys than to girls—a difference evident in diverse countries, including China, England, and the United States. They praise boys more for their academic knowledge but also use more disapproval and controlling discipline with them.

Child maltreatment takes the following forms:

--Physical abuse: Assaults, such as kicking, biting, shaking, punching, or stabbing, that inflict physical injury --Sexual abuse: Fondling, intercourse, exhibitionism, commercial exploitation through prostitution or production of pornography, and other forms of sexual exploitation --Neglect: Failure to meet a child's basic needs for food, clothing, medical attention, education, or supervision --Emotional abuse: Acts that could cause serious emotional harm, including social isolation, repeated unreasonable demands, ridicule, humiliation, intimidation, or terrorizing

Developmental Sequence of Cognitive Play Categories

1. Functional Play 2. Constructive Play 3. Make-believe Play

Proactive and reactive aggression come in three forms:

1. Physical aggression harms others through physical injury—pushing, hitting, kicking, or punching others, or destroying another's property. 2. Verbal aggression harms others through threats of physical aggression, name-calling, or hostile teasing. 3. Relational aggression damages another's peer relationships through social exclusion, malicious gossip, or friendship manipulation.

Authoritarian Child Rearing Style

Acceptance and Involvement: Is cold and rejecting and frequently degrades the child Control: Engages in coercive behavioral control: Makes excessive demands for mature behavior, uses force and punishment. Yell, command, criticize, and threaten. Demanding unquestioning obedience. Often uses psychological control, withdrawing love (making their affection contingent on the child's compliance) and intruding on the child's individuality and attachment to parents. Resort to force and punishment. Autonomy Granting: Makes decisions for the child. Rarely listens to the child's point of view. Children of authoritarian parents are 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. Boys, especially, show high rates of anger and defiance. Although girls also engage in acting-out behavior, they are more likely to be dependent and overwhelmed by challenging tasks. Children and adolescents exposed to the authoritarian style typically do poorly in school. However, because of their parents' concern with control, they tend to achieve better than peers with undemanding parents. Children subjected to psychological control exhibit adjustment problems involving both anxious, withdrawn behavior and defiance and aggression—especially the relational form, which (like parental psychological control) damages relationships through manipulation and exclusion.

Uninvolved Child Rearing Style

Acceptance and Involvement: Is emotionally detached and withdrawn Control: Is lax in behavioral control: Makes few or no demands for mature behavior Autonomy Granting: Is indifferent to the child's decision making and point of view Often these parents are emotionally detached and depressed and so overwhelmed by life stress that they have little time and energy for children. At its extreme, uninvolved parenting is a form of child maltreatment called neglect. Especially when it begins early, it disrupts virtually all aspects of development. Even with less extreme parental disengagement, children and adolescents display many problems—poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement difficulties, depression, and antisocial behavior

Permissive Child Rearing Style

Acceptance and Involvement: Is warm but overindulgent or inattentive Control: Is lax in behavioral control: Makes few or no demands for mature behavior Autonomy Granting: Permits the child to make many decisions before the child is ready Although some permissive parents truly believe in this approach, many others simply lack confidence in their ability to influence their child's behavior. Children of permissive parents tend to be impulsive, disobedient, and rebellious. They are also overly demanding and dependent on adults, and they show less persistence on tasks, poorer school achievement, and more antisocial behavior.

Authoritative Child Rearing Style

Acceptance and Involvement: Is warm, responsive, attentive, and sensitive to the child's needs Control: Engages in adaptive behavioral control: Makes reasonable demands for mature behavior and consistently enforces and explains them Autonomy Granting: Permits the child to make decisions in accord with readiness. Encourages the child to express thoughts, feelings, and desires. When parent and child disagree, engages in joint decision making when possible. Most successful - involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting. Throughout childhood and adolescence, authoritative parenting is linked to many aspects of competence. These include an upbeat mood, self-control, task persistence, cooperativeness, high self-esteem, social and moral maturity, and favorable school performance

How do children develop a gender identity?

According to social learning theory, behavior comes before self-perceptions. Preschoolers first acquire gender-typed responses through modeling and reinforcement and only later organize these behaviors into gender-linked ideas about themselves. In contrast, cognitive-developmental theory maintains that self-perceptions come before behavior. Over the preschool years, children acquire 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. Then children use this knowledge to guide their gender-related behavior. Children younger than age 6 who watch an adult dress a doll in "other-gender" clothing typically insist that the doll's sex has also changed. Full attainment of gender constancy is strongly related to ability to pass Piagetian conservation tasks. Indeed, gender constancy tasks can be considered a type of conservation problem, in that children must conserve a person's sex despite a superficial change in his or her appearance. Overall, the impact of gender constancy on gender typing is not great. As research in the following section reveals, gender-role adoption is more powerfully affected by children's beliefs about how close the connection must be between their own gender and their behavior.

Make-Believe Play

Acting out everyday and imaginary roles, especially common between 2 and 6 years Example: Playing house, school, or police officer; acting out storybook or television characters

What are some alternatives to harsh punishment? (mild punishment)

Alternatives to criticism, slaps, and spankings can reduce the side effects of punishment. A technique called time out involves removing children from the immediate setting—for example, by sending them to their rooms—until they are ready to act appropriately. When a child is out of control, a few minutes in time out can be enough to change behavior while also giving angry parents time to cool off. Another approach is withdrawal of privileges, such as watching a favorite TV program.

What role can guilt play for children?

Among Western children, intense shame is associated with feelings of personal inadequacy ("I'm stupid"; "I'm a terrible person") and with maladjustment—withdrawal and depression as well as intense anger and aggression toward those who shamed them. In contrast, guilt—when it occurs in appropriate circumstances and is not accompanied by shame—is related to good adjustment. Guilt helps children resist harmful impulses, and it motivates a misbehaving child to repair the damage and behave more considerately. But overwhelming guilt—involving such high emotional distress that the child cannot make amends—is linked to depressive symptoms as early as age 3. Finally, the consequences of shame for children's adjustment may vary across cultures. People in Asian societies, who tend to define themselves in relation to their social group, view shame as an adaptive reminder of an interdependent self and of the importance of others' judgments.

Self Esteem

An aspect of self-concept that involves judgments about one's own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments. These evaluations are among the most important aspects of self-development because they affect our emotional experiences, future behavior, and long-term psychological adjustment. Preschoolers rate their own ability as extremely high and underestimate task difficulty.

Gender Schema Theory

An information-processing approach to gender typing that combines social learning and cognitive-developmental features to explain how environmental pressures and children's cognitions work together to shape gender-role development.

What is a negative outcome of early childhood according to Erikson?

An overly strict conscience (superego) that causes children to feel too much guilt because they have been threatened, criticized, and punished excessively by adults. When this happens, preschoolers' exuberant play and bold efforts to master new tasks break down.

Self Conscious Emotions in preschool years

As their self-concepts develop, preschoolers become increasingly sensitive to praise and blame or to the possibility of such feedback. They more often experience self-conscious emotions—feelings that involve injury to or enhancement of their sense of self. By age 3, self-conscious emotions are clearly linked to self-evaluation. But because preschoolers are still developing standards of excellence and conduct, they depend on the messages of parents, teachers, and others who matter to them to know when to feel proud, ashamed, or guilty.

How does the gender schema develop in children?

At an early age, children pick up gender-stereotyped preferences and behaviors from others. At the same time, they organize their experiences into gender schemas, or masculine and feminine categories, that they use to interpret their world. As soon as preschoolers can label their own gender, they select gender schemas consistent with it ("Only boys can be doctors" or "Cooking is a girl's job") and apply those categories to themselves. Their self-perceptions then become gender-typed and serve as additional schemas that children use to process information and guide their own behavior. We have seen that individual differences exist in the extent to which children endorse gender-typed views. Children who acquire rigid gender schemas use them to filter their experiences. When such children see others behaving in "gender-inconsistent" ways, they often distort their memory to make it "gender-consistent." For example, when shown a picture of a male nurse, they may remember him as a doctor. And because gender-schematic preschoolers typically conclude, "What I like, children of my own sex will also like," they often use their own preferences to add to their gender biases! At least partly for this reason, young children's gender schemas contain both culturally standard and nonstandard ideas. Not until well into the school years do children's gender schemas fully resemble those of adults.

How does attention or praise affect prosocial behavior?

At the same time, reinforcing young children with attention or praise appears unnecessary to induce them to help others. Most 2-year-olds will readily help an unfamiliar adult obtain an out-of-reach object, regardless of whether their parent encourages them. And giving children material rewards for helping undermines their prosocial responding. Children who are materially rewarded come to expect something in return for helping and, therefore, rarely help spontaneously, out of kindness to others.

How can child maltreatment be prevented?

Because child maltreatment is embedded in families, communities, and society as a whole, efforts to prevent it must be directed at each of these levels. Many approaches have been suggested, from teaching high-risk parents effective child-rearing strategies to developing broad social programs aimed at improving economic conditions and community services. Providing social supports to families eases parental stress, sharply reducing child maltreatment. Parents Anonymous, a U.S. organization with affiliate programs around the world, helps child-abusing parents learn constructive parenting practices, largely through social supports. Its local chapters offer self-help group meetings, daily phone calls, and regular home visits to relieve social isolation and teach child-rearing skills. Early intervention aimed at strengthening both child and parent competencies can prevent child maltreatment. In evaluations, parents randomly assigned to Healthy Families home visitation, compared with no-intervention controls, more often engaged their child in developmentally supportive activities and used effective discipline strategies; less often displayed harsh, coercive tactics; and reported less parenting stress—factors that reduce the risk of child maltreatment

What are the environmental influences from parents on gender typing?

Beginning at birth, parents have different expectations of sons than of daughters. Many describe achievement, competition, and control of emotion as important for sons and warmth, polite behavior, and closely supervised activities as important for daughters. Parenting practices reflect these beliefs. Parents give their sons toys that stress action and competition (cars, tools, footballs) and their daughters toys that emphasize nurturance, cooperation, and physical attractiveness (dolls, tea sets, jewelry). Furthermore, parents tend to react more positively when a son plays with cars and trucks, demands attention, runs and climbs, or tries to take toys from others. When interacting with daughters, parents more often direct play activities, provide help, encourage participation in household tasks, refer to emotions, and express approval and agreement. Mothers frequently expressed generic utterances, which referred to nearly all same-sex individuals as alike, ignoring exceptions ("Boys can be sailors." "Most girls don't like trucks.") Of the two sexes, boys are more gender-typed. Fathers, especially, are more insistent that boys conform to gender roles. They place more pressure to achieve on sons and are less tolerant of sons' "cross-gender" behavior—more concerned when a boy acts like a "sissy" than when a girl acts like a "tomboy". Parents who hold nonstereotyped values have less gender-typed children. Children of gay or lesbian parents tend to be less gender-typed than agemates of heterosexual parents, perhaps because of their parents' more gender-equitable expectations and behaviors.

What makes authoritative child rearing effective?

But although impulsive and emotionally negative children are more likely to evoke coercive, inconsistent discipline, extra warmth and firm control succeed in modifying these children's maladaptive styles. With inhibited, fearful children, parents must suppress their tendency to be overprotective. Instead, inhibited children benefit from extra encouragement to be assertive and express their autonomy. The warmth and caring that authoritative parents accord their children are linked to favorable child functioning in many cultures and seem universally necessary. And a variant of authoritativeness in which parents exert strong control—becoming directive but not coercive—yields just as favorable long-term outcomes as a more democratic approach. Indeed, some children, because of their dispositions, require "heavier doses" of certain authoritative features. In sum, authoritative child rearing seems to create a positive emotional context for parental influence in the following ways: --Warm, involved parents who are secure in their expectations model caring concern as well as confident, self-controlled behavior. --Children are far more likely to comply with and internalize control that appears fair and reasonable, not arbitrary. --Authoritative parents appropriately make demands and grant autonomy. By conveying a sense of competence to their children, authoritative parents foster favorable self-esteem and cognitive and social maturity. --Supportive aspects of the authoritative style are a powerful source of resilience, protecting children from the negative effects of family stress and poverty

When is solitary play okay?

But other preschoolers with low rates of peer interaction simply like to play alone, and their solitary activities are positive and constructive. When they do play with peers, they show socially skilled behavior.

What gender differences exist with aggression?

By age 17 months, boys are more physically aggressive than girls—a difference found throughout childhood in many cultures. The sex difference is due in part to biology—in particular, to male sex hormones (androgens) and temperamental traits (activity level, irritability, impulsivity) on which boys exceed girls. Gender-role conformity is also important. For example, parents respond far more negatively to physical fighting in girls. Although girls have a reputation for being both verbally and relationally more aggressive than boys, the sex difference is small. Beginning in the preschool years, girls concentrate most of their aggressive acts in the relational category. Boys inflict harm in more variable ways. Physically and verbally aggressive boys also tend to be relationally aggressive. Therefore, boys display overall rates of aggression that are much higher than girls'. At the same time, girls more often use indirect relational tactics that—in disrupting intimate bonds especially important to girls—can be particularly mean. Whereas physical attacks are usually brief, acts of indirect relational aggression may extend for hours, weeks, or even months.

How does child emotional understanding develop in the preschool years?

By age 4 to 5, children correctly judge the causes of many basic emotions. Preschoolers' explanations tend to emphasize external factors over internal states, a balance that changes with age. After age 4, children appreciate that both desires and beliefs motivate behavior. Once these understandings are secure, children's grasp of how internal factors can trigger emotion expands. Preschoolers are good at inferring how others are feeling based on their behavior. And they are beginning to realize that thinking and feeling are interconnected—that focusing on negative thoughts is likely to make a person feel worse, but thinking positively can help a person feel better. Preschoolers come up with effective ways to relieve others' negative emotions, such as hugging to reduce sadness. Overall, preschoolers have an impressive ability to interpret, predict, and change others' feelings.

How does the development of aggression occur?

By the second year, aggressive acts with two distinct purposes emerge. Initially, the most common is proactive (or instrumental ) 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. The other type, reactive (or hostile) aggression, is an angry, defensive response to provocation or a blocked goal and is meant to hurt another person. Physical aggression rises sharply between ages 1 and 3 and then diminishes as verbal aggression replaces it. And proactive aggression declines as preschoolers' improved capacity to delay gratification enables them to resist grabbing others' possessions. But reactive aggression in verbal and relational forms tends to rise over early and middle childhood. Older children are better able to recognize malicious intentions and, as a result, more often retaliate in hostile ways.

What are the biological influences on gender typing?

Certain ones—male activity level and physical aggression, female emotional sensitivity, and preference for same-sex playmates—are widespread among mammalian species. According to an evolutionary perspective, the adult life of our male ancestors was largely oriented toward competing for mates, that of our female ancestors toward rearing children. Therefore, males became genetically primed for dominance and females for intimacy, responsiveness, and cooperativeness. Experiments with non-human mammals reveal that prenatally administered androgens increase active play and aggression and suppress maternal caregiving in both males and females. Research with humans shows similar patterns. Girls exposed prenatally to high levels of androgens, due to normal variation in hormone levels or to a genetic defect, show more "masculine" behavior—a preference for trucks and blocks over dolls, for active over quiet play, and for boys as playmates. And boys with reduced prenatal androgen exposure, either because production by the testes is reduced or because body cells are androgen insensitive, tend to engage in "feminine" behaviors, including toy choices, play behaviors, and preference for girl playmates. Some researchers argue that biologically based sex differences, which affect children's play styles, cause children to seek out same-sex playmates whose interests and behaviors are compatible with their own. Preschool girls like to play in pairs with other girls because they share a preference for quieter activities involving cooperative roles. Boys prefer larger-group play with other boys, due to a shared desire to run, climb, play-fight, and compete. Research confirms that preschoolers are drawn to peers who engage in similar levels of gender-typed activities. But they also like to spend time with same-sex peers regardless of type of activity—perhaps because they expect a playmate who is like themselves in so basic a way to be more enjoyable . At age 4, children spend three times as much time with same-sex as with other-sex playmates. By age 6, this ratio has climbed to 11 to 1.

Parental influences on early peer relations

Children first acquire skills for interacting with peers within the family. Preschoolers whose parents frequently arrange informal peer play activities tend to have larger peer networks and to be more socially skilled. In providing play opportunities, parents show children how to initiate peer contacts. And parents' skillful suggestions for managing conflict, discouraging teasing, and entering a play group are associated with preschoolers' social competence and peer acceptance. Many parenting behaviors not directly aimed at promoting peer sociability nevertheless influence it. For example, secure attachments to parents are linked to more responsive, harmonious peer interaction, larger peer networks, and warmer, more supportive friendships during the preschool and school years. The sensitive, emotionally expressive communication that contributes to attachment security is likely responsible. Warm, collaborative parent-child play seems particularly effective for promoting peer interaction skills. During play, parents interact with their child on a "level playing field," much as peers do.

What are some risk factors for developing high aggression?

Children who are emotionally negative, impulsive, and disobedient and who score low in cognitive abilities—especially, language and executive function skills necessary for self-regulation—are at risk for early, high rates of physical or relational aggression (or both) that can persist. Persistent aggression, in turn, predicts later internalizing and externalizing difficulties, social skills deficits, and antisocial activity in middle childhood and adolescence.

What are the environmental influences from peers on gender typing?

Children's same-sex peer associations are a potent source of gender-role learning. By age 3, same-sex peers positively reinforce one another for gender-typed play by praising, imitating, or joining in. In contrast, when preschoolers engage in "cross-gender" activities—for example, when boys play with dolls or girls with cars and trucks—peers criticize them. Boys are especially intolerant of cross-gender play in other boys. Children also develop different styles of social influence in gender-segregated peer groups. To get their way in large-group play, boys often rely on commands, threats, and physical force. Girls' preference for playing in pairs leads to greater concern with a partner's needs, evident in girls' use of polite requests, persuasion, and acceptance. Girls soon find that gentle tactics succeed with other girls but not with boys, who ignore their courteous overtures. Boys' unresponsiveness gives girls another reason to stop interacting with them. Over time, children come to believe in the "correctness" of gender-segregated play and to perceive themselves as more similar to same-sex than other-sex peers, which further strengthens gender segregation and gender-stereotyped activities. As boys and girls separate, in-group favoritism—more positive evaluations of members of one's own gender—becomes another factor that sustains the separate social worlds of boys and girls. As a result, "two distinct subcultures" of knowledge, beliefs, interests, and behaviors form.

How is Chinese parenting different?

Compared with Western parents, Chinese parents describe their parenting as more controlling. They are more directive in teaching and scheduling their children's time, as a way of fostering self-control and high achievement. Chinese parents may appear less warm than Western parents because they withhold praise, which they believe results in self-satisfied, poorly motivated children. But Chinese parents report expressing affection and using induction and other reasoning-oriented discipline as much as American parents do. When Chinese parents engage in psychological or coercive control, their children display the same negative outcomes as Western children.

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

Consistency. Permitting children to act inappropriately on some occasions but scolding them on others confuses them, and the unacceptable act persists. 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. Explanations. Providing reasons for mild punishment helps children relate the misdeed to expectations for future behavior, resulting in far greater reduction in misbehavior than using punishment alone.

How does physical punishment differ between white and african american children?

Consistent with this interpretation, African-American and European-American parents report meting out physical punishment differently. In black families, such discipline is typically culturally approved, mild, delivered in a context of parental warmth, accompanied by verbal teaching, and aimed at helping children become responsible adults. White parents, in contrast, usually consider physical punishment to be wrong, so when they resort to it, they are often highly agitated and rejecting of the child. As a result, most black children may view spanking as a practice carried out with their best interests in mind, whereas white children may regard it as an act of aggression. Spanking increases problem behavior in white children, but it is unrelated to problem behavior in black children. Spanking was associated with a rise in behavior problems if parents were cold and rejecting, but not if they were warm and supportive.

Preschooler Self Concept

Consists of observable characteristics: name, physical appearance, possessions, and everyday behaviors. 3.5 yrs- Also in terms of typical emotions and attitudes (suggests a beginning understanding of unique psychological characteristics). 5 yrs- children agree with maternal reports of personality traits.

Constructive Play

Creating or constructing something, especially common between 3 and 6 years Example: Making a house out of toy blocks, drawing a picture, putting together a puzzle

How does culture influence play?

Cultural beliefs about the importance of play also affect early peer associations. Caregivers who view play as mere entertainment are less likely to provide props or to encourage pretend than those who value its cognitive and social benefits.

How does the Large Culture contribute to child maltreatment?

Cultural values, laws, and customs profoundly affect the chances that child maltreatment will occur when parents feel overburdened. Although the United States has laws to protect children from maltreatment, widespread support exists for use of physical force with children. Twenty-three European countries have outlawed corporal punishment, a measure that dampens both physical discipline and abuse. Furthermore, all industrialized nations except the United States prohibit corporal punishment in schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld the right of school officials to use corporal punishment. Fortunately, 31 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that ban it.

What type of gender stereotyped beliefs are present in early childhood?

During early childhood, gender-stereotyped beliefs strengthen—so much so that many children apply them as blanket rules rather than as flexible guidelines. When children were asked whether gender stereotypes could be violated, half or more of 3- and 4-year-olds answered "no" to clothing, hairstyle, and play with certain toys (Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes). Furthermore, most 3- to 6-year-olds are firm about not wanting to be friends with a child who violates a gender stereotype (a boy who wears nail polish, a girl who plays with trucks) or to attend a school where such violations are allowed.

When does conscience begin to take shape?

Early childhood. First, the child's morality is externally controlled by adults. Gradually, it becomes regulated by inner standards. Truly moral individuals do not do the right thing just to conform to others' expectations. Rather, they have developed compassionate concerns and principles of good conduct, which they follow in many situations.

How does child temperament influence the effects of physical punishment?

Early corporal punishment was a stronger predictor of later externalizing behavior among temperamentally difficult children. Physical punishment was most detrimental for children at high genetic risk for behavior problems.

How does a warm, sensitive parent-child relationship foster a more positive, coherent early self-concept?

Elaborative parent-child conversations about personally experienced events that focus on children's thoughts, feelings, and subjective experiences play an especially important role in early self-concept development. For example, when parents reminisce with preschoolers about times they successfully resolved upsetting feelings, 4- and 5-year-olds describe their emotional tendencies more favorably. By emphasizing the personal meaning of past events, conversations about internal states facilitate self-knowledge. As they talk about personally significant events and as their cognitive skills advance, preschoolers gradually come to view themselves as persisting over time—a change evident in their ability to anticipate their own future states and needs. By age 5, children understand that their future preferences are likely to differ from their current ones. Most realize that when they grow up, they will prefer reading newspapers to reading picture books and drinking coffee to drinking grape juice.

When is corporal punishment most likely to be used?

Elevated among less-educated, economically disadvantaged parents. And consistently, parents with conflict-ridden marriages and with mental health problems are more likely to be punitive and also to have hard-to-manage children.

Empathy in preschool years

Empathy, another emotional capacity, serves as a motivator of prosocial, or altruistic, behavior—actions that benefit another person without any expected reward for the self. Yet for some children, empathizing—feeling with an upset adult or peer and responding emotionally in a similar way—does not yield acts of kindness and helpfulness but, instead, escalates into personal distress. In trying to reduce these negative feelings, the child focuses on his own anxiety rather than on the person in need. As a result, empathy does not lead to sympathy—feelings of concern or sorrow for another's plight.

How did Erikson view play?

Erikson regarded play as a means through which young children learn about themselves and their social world. Play creates a small social organization of children who try out culturally meaningful roles and skills and who cooperate to achieve common goals. Around the world, children act out family scenes and highly visible occupations—police officer, doctor, and nurse in Western societies, hut builder and spear maker among the Baka of West Africa

What are the effects of frequent punishment?

Frequent punishment promotes immediate compliance but not lasting changes in behavior. The more harsh threats, angry physical control, and physical punishment children experience, the more likely they are to develop serious, lasting problems. These include weak internalization of moral rules; depression, aggression, antisocial behavior, and poor academic performance in childhood and adolescence; and depression, alcohol abuse, criminality, physical health problems, and family violence in adulthood.

What role does guilt play in moral action?

Freud was correct that guilt motivates moral action. Inducing empathy-based guilt—expressions of personal responsibility and regret, such as "I'm sorry I hurt him"—by explaining that the child is harming someone and has disappointed the parent is particularly effective. Empathy-based guilt reactions are associated with stopping harmful actions, repairing damage caused by misdeeds, and engaging in future prosocial behavior. But contrary to what Freud believed, guilt is not the only force that compels us to act morally.

Gender Typing

Gender typing refers to any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one sex or the other in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes. Social learning theory, with its emphasis on modeling and reinforcement, and cognitive-developmental theory, with its focus on children as active thinkers about their social world, offer contemporary explanations of children's gender typing. As we will see, neither is adequate by itself. Gender schema theory, a third perspective that combines elements of both, has gained favor.

What is the prevailing American belief about corporal punishment?

If implemented by caring parents, is harmless, perhaps even beneficial. (not necessarily true...)

Initiative versus guilt

In Erikson's theory, the psychological conflict of early childhood, which is resolved positively through play experiences that foster a healthy sense of initiative and through development of a superego, or conscience, that is not overly strict and guilt-ridden. As the word initiative suggests, young children have a new sense of purposefulness. They are eager to tackle new tasks, join in activities with peers, and discover what they can do with the help of adults. They also make strides in conscience development.

How is Hispanic, API, and Caribbean parenting different?

In Hispanic families, Asian Pacific Island families, and Caribbean families of African or East Indian origin, firm insistence on respect for parental authority is paired with high parental warmth—a combination suited to promoting cognitive and social competence and family loyalty. Hispanic fathers typically spend much time with their children and are warm and sensitive

Diana Baumrind (1971)

In a landmark series of studies, Diana Baumrind (1971) gathered information on child rearing by watching parents interact with their preschoolers. Her findings, and those of others who have extended her work, reveal three features that consistently differentiate an effective style from less effective ones: (1) acceptance and involvement, (2) control, and (3) autonomy granting.

Inductive Discipline

In contrast, conscience formation is promoted by a type of discipline called induction, in which an adult helps make the child aware of feelings by pointing out the effects of the child's misbehavior on others. For example, a parent might say, "She's crying because you won't give back her doll". Preschoolers with warm parents who use induction are more likely to refrain from wrongdoing, confess and repair damage after misdeeds, and display prosocial behavior. The success of induction may lie in its power to motivate children's active commitment to moral standards. By emphasizing the impact of the child's actions on others, it encourages empathy and sympathetic concern. And giving children reasons for changing their behavior encourages them to adopt moral standards because those standards make sense.

How is African-American parenting different?

In low-SES African-American families, parents tend to expect immediate obedience, regarding strictness as fostering self-control and vigilance in risky surroundings. African-American parents who use controlling strategies tend to have cognitively and socially competent children. And among African-American youths, controlling parenting protects against delinquency and disruptive behaviors at school. Most African-American parents who use strict, "no-nonsense" discipline combine it with warmth and reasoning.

Which children are targeted for which types of abuse?

Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are at greatest risk for neglect, physical abuse, and emotional abuse. Sexual abuse is perpetrated more often against school-age and early adolescent children. But each type occurs at every age

Repeated harsh punishment has wide-ranging undesirable side effects:

It models aggression. It induces a chronic sense of being personally threatened, which prompts children to focus on their own distress rather than respond sympathetically to others. It causes children to avoid the punitive parent, who, as a result, has little opportunity to teach desirable behaviors. By stopping children's misbehavior temporarily, it offers immediate relief to adults, who may then punish more often—a course of action that can spiral into serious abuse. Children, adolescents, and adults whose parents used corporal punishment—physical force that inflicts pain but not injury—are more accepting of it. In this way, use of physical punishment may transfer to the next generation. But even after controlling for child, parenting, and family characteristics that might otherwise account for the relationship, the link between physical punishment and later child and adolescent aggression remains.

Emotional Self-Regulation in preschool years

Language, along with preschoolers' growing emotion understanding, contributes to gains in emotional self-regulation. For example, they know they can restrict sensory input (cover their eyes or ears to block out a scary sight or sound), talk to themselves ("Mommy said she'll be back soon"), change their goals (decide that they don't want to play anyway after being excluded from a game), or repair the situation ("share" to resolve a conflict with a peer). The effectiveness of preschoolers' recommended strategies improves with age. As children use these strategies, emotional outbursts decline. Gains in executive function—in particular, inhibition and flexible shifting of attention—contribute greatly to managing emotion in early childhood. Three-year-olds who can distract themselves when upset and focus on how to handle their feelings tend to become cooperative school-age children with few problem behaviors.

How can adults reduce gender stereotyping in young children?

Limit traditional gender roles in adult behavior. Giving multiple alternatives in toys. Shield children from language and media with stereotyped presentations. Pointing out exceptions to stereotypes. By middle childhood, children who hold flexible beliefs about what boys and girls can do are more likely to notice instances of gender discrimination.

What types of maltreatment are most common?

Neglect accounts for about 80 percent of reported cases, physical abuse for 18 percent, emotional abuse for 9 percent, and sexual abuse for 9 percent

Mildred Parten (1932)

One of the first to study peer sociability among 2- to 5-year-olds, noticed a dramatic rise with age in joint, interactive play. She concluded that social development proceeds in a three-step sequence. It begins with nonsocial activity—unoccupied, onlooker behavior and solitary play. Then it shifts to parallel play, in which a child plays near other children with similar materials but does not try to influence their behavior. At the highest level are two forms of true social interaction. In associative play, children engage in separate activities but exchange toys and comment on one another's behavior. Finally, in cooperative play, a more advanced type of interaction, children orient toward a common goal, such as acting out a make-believe theme.

How can the family influence aggression?

Parental power assertion, critical remarks, physical punishment, and inconsistency are linked to aggression from early childhood through adolescence in many cultures, with most of these practices predicting both physical and relational forms. Anger and punitiveness create a conflict-ridden family atmosphere and an "out-of-control" child. The pattern begins with forceful discipline, which occurs more often with stressful life experiences (such as economic hardship or an unhappy marriage), parental mental health problems, or a difficult child. Typically, the parent threatens, criticizes, and punishes, and the child angrily resists until the parent "gives in," so the behaviors repeat and escalate. These cycles generate anxiety and irritability among other family members, including siblings, who join in the hostile interactions. Destructive sibling conflict, in turn, spreads to peer relationships, contributing to poor impulse control and antisocial behavior. Boys are more likely than girls to be targets of harsh, inconsistent discipline because they are more active and impulsive. When children who are extreme in these characteristics are exposed to emotionally negative, inept parenting, their capacity for emotional self-regulation, empathic responding, and guilt after transgressions is seriously disrupted. Consequently, they lash out when disappointed, frustrated, or faced with a sad or fearful victim. Children subjected to these family processes acquire a distorted view of the social world, often seeing hostile intent where it does not exist and, as a result, making many unprovoked attacks. And some, who conclude that aggression "works" to access rewards and control others, callously use it to advance their own goals and are unconcerned about causing suffering in others—an aggressive style associated with later, more severe conduct problems, violent behavior, and delinquency.

Who commits the most abusive incidents?

Parents commit more than 80 percent of abusive incidents. Other relatives account for about 5 percent, and the remainder are perpetrated by parents' unmarried partners, child-care providers, and other adults.

How can parents affect preschoolers' emotional regulation?

Parents who are in tune with their own emotional experiences tend to be supportive of their preschoolers, offering suggestions and explanations of emotion-regulation strategies that strengthen children's capacity to handle stress. In contrast, when parents rarely express positive emotion, dismiss children's feelings as unimportant, and fail to control their own anger, children's emotion regulation and psychological adjustment suffer.

Why are peer relationships important?

Peers provide young children with learning experiences they can get in no other way. Because peers interact on an equal footing, children must keep a conversation going, cooperate, and set goals in play. With peers, children form friendships—special relationships marked by attachment and common interests.

What kind of gender associations do preschoolers make?

Preschoolers associate toys, clothing, tools, household items, games, occupations, colors (pink and blue), and behaviors (physical and relational aggression) with one sex or the other. And their actions reflect their beliefs, not only in play preferences but also in personality traits. As we have seen, boys tend to be more active, impulsive, assertive, and physically aggressive. Girls tend to be more fearful, dependent, emotionally sensitive, compliant, advanced in effortful control, and skilled at inflicting relational aggression.

How do preschoolers distinguish moral imperatives?

Preschoolers distinguish moral imperatives, which protect people's rights and welfare, from two other types of rules and expectations: social conventions, customs determined solely by consensus, such as table manners and politeness rituals (saying "please" and "thank you"); and matters of personal choice, such as choice of friends, hairstyle, and leisure activities, which do not violate rights and are up to the individual.

What roles do first friendships play in emotional and social development?

Preschoolers understand that a friend is someone "who likes you," with whom you spend a lot of time playing, and with whom you share toys. But friendship does not yet have a long-term, enduring quality based on mutual trust. Nevertheless, preschool friendships can be remarkably stable across early childhood, as long as peers remain in the same social group. As early as the preschool years, children with a mutual friendship are better adjusted and more socially competent. Furthermore, children entering kindergarten who have friends in their class or who readily make new friends adjust to school more favorably. Perhaps the company of friends serves as a secure base from which to develop new relationships.

How do parent child relationships affect empathy?

Preschoolers' empathic concern strengthens in the context of a secure parent-child attachment relationship. When parents respond to their preschoolers' feelings with empathy and sympathy, children react with concern to others' distress—a response that persists into adolescence and early adulthood. Besides modeling empathy and sympathy, parents can teach children the importance of kindness and can intervene when they display inappropriate emotion—strategies that predict high levels of sympathetic responding.

How does preschooler high self-esteem affect their initiative?

Preschoolers' high self-esteem contributes greatly to their initiative. But some children, whose parents criticize their worth and performance, give up easily when faced with challenges and express shame and despondency after failing . Adults can avoid promoting these self-defeating reactions by adjusting their expectations to children's capacities, scaffolding children's attempts at difficult tasks, and pointing out effort and improvement in children's behavior.

Which different theories of development emphasize different aspects of morality?

Psychoanalytic theory stresses the emotional side of conscience development—in particular, identification and guilt as motivators of good conduct. Social learning theory focuses on how moral behavior is learned through reinforcement and modeling. Finally, the cognitive-developmental perspective emphasizes thinking—children's ability to reason about justice and fairness.

Freud's Psychoanalytic Perspective of Moral Development

Recall that according to Freud, young children form a superego, or conscience, by adopting the same-sex parent's moral standards. 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. Today, most researchers disagree with Freud's view of conscience development. In his theory, fear of punishment and loss of parental love motivate conscience formation and moral behavior. Yet children whose parents frequently use threats, commands, or physical force tend to violate standards often and feel little guilt. And if a parent withdraws love after misbehavior—for example, refuses to speak to or states a dislike for the child—children often respond with high levels of self-blame, thinking "I'm no good." Eventually, to protect themselves from overwhelming guilt, these children may deny the emotion and, as a result, also develop a weak conscience.

What other things are preschooler's emotional understanding related to?

Related to friendly, considerate behavior, constructive responses to disputes with agemates, and perspective-taking ability. Also, preschoolers who refer to feelings when interacting with playmates are better liked by their peers.

How does media violence impact aggression?

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. Time spent watching TV in childhood and adolescence predicted aggressive behavior in adulthood. Aggressive children and adolescents have a greater appetite for violent media fare. And boys devote more time to violent media than girls, in part because of male-oriented themes of conquest and adventure. To help parents improve their preschoolers' "media diet," one group of researchers devised a year-long intervention in which they guided parents in replacing violent programs with age-appropriate educational and prosocial programs. Compared to a control group, children in intervention families displayed lower rates of externalizing behavior and improved social competence.

Functional Play

Simple, repetitive motor movements with or without objects, especially common during the first two years Example: Running around a room, rolling a car back and forth, kneading clay with no intent to make something

Sociodramatic Play and Rough and Tumble Play

Sociodramatic play—an advanced form of cooperative play—becomes especially common over the preschool years. When researchers observed free-play periods in preschools, they found that girls participated more in sociodramatic play, whereas boys participated more in friendly, vigorous interactions called rough-and-tumble play. Each type of play was associated with expressions of positive emotion and predicted children's emotional understanding and self-regulation one year later (Lindsey & Colwell, 2013). Both sociodramatic play and rough-and-tumble play require children to exercise self-control and to respond to peers' verbal and nonverbal emotional cues.

How does temperament affect empathy?

Temperament plays a role in whether empathy prompts sympathetic, prosocial behavior or self-focused distress. Children who are sociable, assertive, and good at regulating emotion are more likely to help, share, and comfort others in distress. But poor emotion regulators, who are often overwhelmed by their feelings, less often display sympathetic concern and prosocial behavior.

What does the Cognitive-Developmental Perspective have to say about the development of conscience?

The cognitive-developmental perspective regards children as active thinkers about social rules. As early as the preschool years, children make moral judgments, deciding what is right or wrong on the basis of concepts they construct about justice and fairness. Young children have some well-developed ideas about morality. As long as researchers emphasize people's intentions, 3-year-olds say that a person with bad intentions is more deserving of punishment than a well-intentioned person. They also protest when they see one person harming another. Around age 4, children know that a person who expresses an insincere intention—saying, "I'll come over and help you rake leaves," while not intending to do so—is lying. And 4-year-olds approve of telling the truth and disapprove of lying, even when a lie remains undetected.

How are peer relationships and school readiness related?

The ease with which kindergartners make new friends and are accepted by classmates predicts cooperative participation in classroom activities, task persistence, and academic performance into the early school grades. Because social maturity in early childhood contributes to academic performance, readiness for kindergarten must be assessed in terms of not only academic skills but also social skills. Young children's positive peer interactions occur most often in unstructured situations such as free play, making it important for preschools and kindergartens to provide space, time, materials, and adult scaffolding to support child-directed activities. Warm, responsive teacher-child interaction is also vital, especially for shy children and for impulsive, emotionally negative, and aggressive children, who are at high risk for social difficulties .Other indicators of program quality—small group sizes, generous teacher-child ratios, and developmentally appropriate daily activities —create classroom conditions that make positive teacher and peer relationships more likely.

What are the consequences of child maltreatment?

The family circumstances of maltreated children impair the development of emotional self-regulation, empathy and sympathy, self-concept, social skills, and academic motivation. Over time, these youngsters show serious adjustment problems—cognitive deficits including impaired executive function, deficits in processing emotional and social signals, peer difficulties, severe depression, aggressive behavior, substance abuse, and violent crime. Furthermore, the sense of abandonment conveyed by neglectful parenting and the humiliating, terrorizing behaviors of abusive adults result in low self-esteem, high anxiety, self-blame, and efforts to escape from extreme psychological pain—at times severe enough to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attempted suicide in adolescence. At school, maltreated children's noncompliance, poor motivation, and cognitive immaturity interfere with academic achievement, further undermining their chances for life success. Finally, chronic abuse is associated with central nervous system damage, including abnormal EEG brain-wave activity; fMRI-detected reduced size and impaired functioning of the cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, cerebellum, and hippocampus; and atypical production of the stress hormone cortisol—initially too high but, after months of abuse, often too low. Over time, the massive trauma of persistent abuse seems to blunt children's normal physiological response to stress. These effects increase the chances that cognitive and emotional problems will endure.

Androgyny

The gender identity held by individuals who score high on both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine personality characteristics.

How does the Community contribute to child maltreatment?

The majority of abusive and neglectful parents are isolated from both formal and informal social supports. Because of their life histories, many have learned to mistrust and avoid others and are poorly skilled at establishing and maintaining positive relationships. Also, maltreating parents are more likely to live in unstable, rundown neighborhoods that provide few links between family and community, such as parks, recreation centers, and religious institutions. They lack "lifelines" to others and have no one to turn to for help during stressful times.

How can parents support emotional understanding?

The more parents label and explain emotions and express warmth when conversing with preschoolers, the more "emotion words" children use and the better developed their emotion understanding. Discussions of negative experiences or disagreements are particularly helpful because they evoke more elaborative dialogues that include validation of children's feelings.

What are the characteristics of the best forms of discipline?

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. When sensitivity, cooperation, and shared positive emotion are evident in joint activities between parents and preschoolers, children show firmer conscience development—expressing empathy after transgressions, playing fairly in games, and considering others' welfare.

Self Concept

The set of attributes, abilities, attitudes, and values that an individual believes defines who he or she is. As self-awareness strengthens, preschoolers focus more intently on qualities that make the self unique.

How do children contribute to the development of morality?

There is a modest genetic contribution to empathy. More empathic children evoke less power assertion and are more responsive to induction. Temperament is also influential. Mild, patient tactics—requests, suggestions, and explanations—are sufficient to prompt guilt reactions in anxious, fearful preschoolers. But with fearless, impulsive children, gentle discipline has little impact. Power assertion also works poorly. It undermines children's effortful control, or capacity to regulate their emotional reactivity, which is linked to good conduct, empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior. Parents of impulsive children can foster conscience development by ensuring a warm, harmonious relationship and combining firm correction of misbehavior with induction. When children are so low in anxiety that parental disapproval causes them little discomfort, a close parent-child bond motivates them to listen to parents as a means of preserving an affectionate, supportive relationship.

Where do preschool gender stereotypes come from?

These rigid, one-sided judgments are a joint product of gender stereotyping in the environment and young children's cognitive limitations. Most preschoolers do not yet realize that characteristics associated with being male or female—activities, toys, occupations, hairstyle, and clothing—do not determine a person's sex.

What role do morally relevant social experiences play in gaining moral understanding?

They are vital. Disputes with siblings and peers over rights and property allow preschoolers to express emotions and perspectives, negotiate, compromise, and work out their first ideas about justice and fairness. Children also learn from warm, sensitive parental communication and from observing how adults respond to children's rule violations. Children who are advanced in moral thinking tend to have parents who adapt their discussions about fighting, honesty, and ownership to what their children can understand, tell stories with moral implications, point out injustices, encourage prosocial behavior, and gently stimulate the child to think further.

How is moral behavior acquired according to the social learning theory?

Through Modeling. Many studies show that having helpful or generous models increases young children's prosocial responses. Models are most influential in the early years. In one study, toddlers' eager, willing imitation of their mothers' behavior predicted moral conduct (not cheating in a game) and guilt following transgressions at age 3. At the end of early childhood, children who have had consistent exposure to caring adults tend to behave prosocially whether or not a model is present. They have internalized prosocial rules from repeated observations and encouragement by others.

How do preschoolers acquire moral and gender roles?

Through patient, reasonable adult guidance and play experiences with peers, preschoolers acquire both the moral and gender-role standards of their society.

How can children and parents control aggression?

Treatment for aggressive children is best begun early, before their behavior becomes well-practiced and difficult to change. Breaking the cycle of hostilities between family members and promoting effective ways of relating to others are crucial. Evaluations in which families with aggressive children were randomly assigned to either Incredible Years or control groups reveal that the program improves parenting and reduces child behavior problems. And the effects endure. In one long-term follow-up, 75 percent of young children with serious conduct problems whose parents participated in Incredible Years were well-adjusted as teenagers. Finally, relieving stressors that stem from economic disadvantage and neighborhood disorganization and providing families with social supports help prevent childhood aggression. When parents better cope with stressors in their own lives, interventions aimed at reducing children's aggression are more effective.

What are some positive parenting strategies and why do they work?

Use transgressions as opportunities to teach: When a child engages in harmful or unsafe behavior, intervene firmly, and then use induction, which motivates children to make amends and behave prosocially. Reduce opportunities for misbehavior: On a long car trip, bring back-seat activities that relieve children's restlessness. At the supermarket, converse with children and let them help with shopping. Children then learn to occupy themselves constructively when options are limited. Provide reasons for rules: When children appreciate that rules are rational, not arbitrary, they are more likely to strive to follow the rules. Arrange for children to participate in family routines and duties: By joining with adults in preparing a meal, clearing the table, or raking leaves, children develop a sense of responsible participation in family and community life and acquire many practical skills. When children are obstinate, try compromising and problem solving: When a child refuses to obey, express understanding of the child's feelings ("I know it's not fun to clean up"), suggest a compromise ("You put those away, I'll take care of these"), and help the child think of ways to avoid the problem in the future. Responding firmly but kindly and respectfully increases the likelihood of willing cooperation. Encourage mature behavior: Express confidence in children's capacity to learn and appreciation for effort and cooperation: "You gave that your best!" "Thanks for cleaning up on your own!" Adult encouragement fosters pride and satisfaction in succeeding, thereby inspiring children to improve further.

How does young child behavior reflect their moral sense?

We have seen that they show empathic concern for others in distress and will try to help. They also expect others to act fairly, by dividing resources equally among peers. As early as age 2, they use language to evaluate their own and others' actions: "I naughty. I wrote on the wall" or (after being hit by another child) "Connie not nice." And we have seen that children of this age share toys and cooperate in games—indicators of considerate, prosocial attitudes.

When should a sharp reprimand or physical force be used?

When immediate obedience is necessary- for example, when a 3-year-old is about to run into the street. In fact, parents are most likely to use forceful methods under these conditions. But to foster long-term goals, such as acting kindly toward others, they tend to rely on warmth and reasoning. And in response to serious transgressions, such as lying and stealing, they often combine power assertion with reasoning.

How do parents influence self conscious emotion?

When parents repeatedly comment on the worth of the child and her performance ("That's a bad job! I thought you were a good girl!"), children experience self-conscious emotions intensely—more shame after failure, more pride after success. In contrast, when parents focus on how to improve performance ("You did it this way; now try it that way"), they induce moderate, more adaptive levels of shame and pride and greater persistence on difficult tasks.

How does the Family contribute to child maltreatment?

Within the family, children whose characteristics make them more challenging to rear are more likely to become targets of abuse. These include premature or very sick babies and children who are temperamentally difficult, are inattentive and overactive, or have other developmental problems. Child factors, however, only slightly increase the risk of abuse. Whether such children are maltreated largely depends on parents' characteristics. Maltreating parents are less skillful than other parents in handling discipline confrontations. They also suffer from biased thinking about their child. They often attribute their baby's crying or child's misdeeds to a stubborn or bad disposition, evaluate transgressions as worse than they are, and feel powerless in parenting—perspectives that lead them to move quickly toward physical force. Most parents have enough self-control not to respond with abuse to their child's misbehavior or developmental problems. Other factors combine with these conditions to prompt an extreme response. Abusive parents react to stressful situations with high emotional arousal. And low income, low education (less than a high school diploma), unemployment, alcohol and drug use, marital conflict, overcrowded living conditions, frequent moves, and extreme household disorganization are common in abusive and neglectful homes. These conditions increase the chances that parents will be too overwhelmed to meet basic child-rearing responsibilities or will vent their frustrations by lashing out at their children.

What is the moral reasoning of children like?

Young children's moral reasoning tends to be rigid, emphasizing salient features and consequences while neglecting other important information. For example, they have difficulty distinguishing between accidental and intentional transgressions. And they are more likely than older children to claim that stealing and lying are always wrong, even when a person has a morally sound reason for engaging in these acts. Furthermore, their explanations for why hitting others is wrong are simplistic and centered on physical harm: "When you get hit, it hurts, and you start to cry".

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.

What types of nonsocial activity are cause for concern?

aimless wandering, hovering near peers, and functional play involving repetitive motor action Children who behave reticently, by watching peers without playing, are usually temperamentally inhibited—high in social fearfulness. And preschoolers who engage in solitary, repetitive behavior (banging blocks, making a doll jump up and down) tend to be immature, impulsive children who find it difficult to regulate anger and aggression. Both reticent and impulsive children tend to experience peer ostracism.

Gender Identity

an image of oneself as relatively masculine or feminine in characteristics

Child Rearing Styles

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

What factors contribute to good parenting?

personal characteristics of both child and parent, SES, access to extended family and community supports, cultural values and practices, and public policies.