CHAPTER 8 - SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

Baumrind's parenting styles

Baumrind argues that parents should be neither punitive nor aloof. Rather, they should envelop rules for their children and be affectionate with them. She has described four types of parenting style. Authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful, and Indulgent parenting. These four classifications of parenting involve combination of acceptance and responsiveness on the one hand and demand and control on the other.

Emotion-coaching and emotion dismissing parents

Depending on how they talk with their children about emotion, parents can be described as taking an emotion-coaching or an emotion-dismissing approach. The distinction between these approaches is most evident in the way the parent deals with the child's negative emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, and so on). Emotion-Coaching Parents monitor their children's emotions, view their children's negative emotions as opportunities for teaching, assist them in labeling emotions, and coach them in how to deal effectively with emotions. In contrast, Emotion-Dismissing Parents, view their role as to deny, ignore, or change negative emotions. Emotion-Coaching parents interact with their children in a less rejecting manner, use more scaffolding and praise, and are more nurturant than are emotion-dismissing parents. Moreover, the children of emotion-coaching parents are better at soothing themselves when they get upset, more effective in regulating their negative affect, focus their attention better, and have fewer behavior problems than the children of emotion-dismissing parents.

Moral development

Development that involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other people

Regulation of emotion and peer relations

Emotion regulation especially plays a key role in children's ability to manage the demands and conflicts they face in interacting with others. Many researchers consider the growth of emotion regulation in children as fundamental to becoming socially competent. Emotional regulation can be conceptualized as an important component of self-regulation or of executive function. Recall that executive function is increasingly thought to be a key concept in describing the young child's higher-level cognitive functioning. Specifically, the ability to modulate one's emotions is an important skill that benefits children in their relationships with peers.

Authoritative parenting

Encourages children to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing towards child. An authoritative parent might put his arm around the child in a comforting way and say, "You know you should not have don't that. Let's talk about how you can handle the situation better next time." Authoritative parents show pleasure and support in response to children's constructive behavior. They also expect write, independent, and age-appropriate behavior from their children Children whose parents are authoritative are often cheerful, self-controlled and self reliant, and achievement-oriented; they tend to maintain friendly relations with peer, cooperate with adults, and cope well with stress. As was was just indicated, authoritative parents do exercise some direction and control over their children. The children of authoritative parents who engage in behavioral or psychological control without being coercive or punitive often show positive developmental outcomes. Most effective parenting style in predicting which children and adolescents would be less likely to be overweight or obese later in their development

Erikson's Initiative vs. Guilt stage

Erikson's psychosocial stage associated with early childhood is initiative versus guilt. By now, children have become convinced that they are persons in their own right; during early childhood, they begin to discover what kind of person they will become. They identify intensely with their parents, who most of the time appear to them to be powerful and beautiful, although often unreasonable, disagreeable, and sometimes even dangerous. During early childhood, children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make things happen. They have a surplus of energy that permits them to forget failures quickly and to approach new areas that seem desirable - even if dangerous - with undiminished zest and often an increased sense of direction. On their own initiative, then, children at this stage exuberantly move out into a wider social world.

Piaget's view on moral reasoning

Interested in how children think about moral issues was stimulated by Piaget, who extensively observed and interviewed children between and ages of 4 and 12. Piaget watched children play marbles to learn how they applied and though about the game's rule. He also asked children about ethical issues-theft, lies, punishment, and distinct stages in how they think about mortality. From about 4 to 7 of age - children display heteronomous morality, the first stage of moral development in Piaget's theory. Children think of justice and rules as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people From 7 to 10 years of age - Children are in a transition showing some features of the first stage of moral reasoning and some stages of the second stage, autonomous mortality At about 10 years of age and older - Children show autonomous mortality. They become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and in judging an action they consider the actor's intentions as well as consequences

Authoritarian parenting

Is a restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to follow their directions and respect their work and effort. The authoritarian parent places firm limits and controls on the child and allows little verbal exchange. Ex. An authoritarian parent might say, "You will do it my way or else." Authoritarian parents might spank the child frequently, enforce rules rigidly but not explain them, and show rage toward the child. Children of authoritarian parents are often unhappy, fearful, and anxious about comparing themselves with others, fail to initiate activity, and have weak communication skills. Authoritarian parenting is linked to a higher level of externalizing problems (acting out, high levels of aggression, for example). Also, as well as pressuring the child to ear, were linked to increased risk that children would be overweight

indulgent parenting

Is a style in which parents are highly involved with their children but place a few demands or control on them. Such parents let their children do what they want. As a result, the children never learn to control their own behavior and always expect to get their way. Some parents deliberately rear their children in this way because they believe the combination of warm involvement and few restraints will produce a creative, confident child. However, children whose parents are indulgent rarely learn respect for others and have difficulty controlling their behavior. They might be domineering, egocentric, and noncompliant, and have difficulties in peer relations.

Neglectful parenting

Is a style in which the parent is uninvolved in the child's life. Children whose parents are neglectful develop the sense that other aspects of the parent's lives are more important than they are. These children tend to be socially incompetent. Many have poor self-control and don't handle independence well. They frequently have low self-esteem, are immature, and may be alienated from the family. In adolescence, they may show patterns of truancy and delinquency. Neglectful parenting was associated with a higher level of externalizing problems

Parenting

Parent-child relationships introduce children to the mutual obligations of close relationships Parent's obligations include engaging in positive caregiving and guiding children to become competent human beings Children's obligations include responding appropriately to parents' initiatives and maintaining a positive relationship with parents An important parenting strategy involves proactively averting potential misbehavior by children before it takes place. ---> With younger children, being proactive means using diversion, such as distracting their attention or moving them to alternative activities. ---> With older children, being proactive may involve talking with them about values that the parents deem important Conversations related to moral development can benefit children, regardless of whether they occur as part of a discipline encounter or outside the encounter in the everyday stream of parent-child interaction. Researchers have found that parents' talk about emotions is associated with toddler's sharing and helping. Good parenting takes time and effort ---> It's not just the quantity of time parents spend with children that is important for children's development-the quality of the parenting is clearly important.

Birth Order

So far, our discussion suggests that birth order might be a strong predictor of behavior. However, an increasing number of family researchers stress that when all of the factors that influence behaviors are considered, birth order by itself shows limited accuracy in predicting behavior.

Television - Effects on pro-social behavior

Television can have a positive influence on children's development by presenting motivating educational programs, providing information about the world beyond their immediate environment, and displaying models of prosocial behavior. For example, researchers have found that when children watch positive social interchanges on the TV show Sesame Street, they subsequently are likely to imitate these positive social behaviors.

Television - Effects on aggression

The extent to which children are exposed to violence and aggression on television raises special concerns. For example, Saturday morning cartoon shows average more than 25 violent acts per hour. One study revealed that spending increased time viewing TV violence, video game violence, and music video violence was independently associated with a higher level of physical aggression in children. In addition to television violence, there is increased concern about children who play violent video games, especially those that are highly realistic. Research reviews have concluded that playing violent video games is linked to aggression in both males and females.

Sibling relationships

What do parents do when they encounter siblings having a verbal or physical confrontation? One study revealed that they do one of three things: (1) Intervene and try to help their children resolve the conflict (2) Admonish or threaten them (3) Do nothing at all Of interest is that in families with two siblings 2 to 5 years of age, the most frequent parental reaction is to do nothing at all. However, conflict is only one of the many dimensions of sibling relations. Sibling relations also include helping, sharing, teaching, and playing, and siblings can act as emotional supports and communication partners as well as rivals for parental attention. Three Important Characteristics of Sibling Relationships: (1) Emotional quality of the relationship - Intense positive and negative emotions are often expressed by siblings toward each other. Many children and adolescents have mixed feelings toward their siblings. (2) Familiarity and intimacy of the relationship - Siblings typically know each other very well, and this intimacy suggests that they can either provide support or tease and undermine each other, depending on the situation. (3) Variation in sibling relationships - We just discussed that many siblings have mixed feelings about each other, but some children and adolescents mainly describe their siblings in warm, affectionate ways, whereas others primarily talk about how irritating and mean a sibling is.