Development Through the Lifespan 2nd edition Laura E. Berk

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Development Through the Lifespan 2nd edition
Laura E. Berk

• Chapter 10

Emotional and Social Development in Middle
Childhood
PowerPoint Presentations Produced by
Joe Rizzo - Professor of Behavioral Sciences Rick
Lizotte - Curriculum Developer Felix Rizvanov -
Instructional Designer
Northern Essex Community College
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Chapter 10Emotional and Social Development in
Middle Childhood

• Development Through the Lifespan
• 2nd edition Berk

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ERIKSON'S STAGES
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ERIKSON'S THEORY

• Basic conflict of middle childhoodIndustry
  versus Inferiority
• Freud's latency stage, in which sexual instincts
  are dormant
• Marked by the beginning of formal schooling

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SELF-DEVELOPMENT

• Changes in Self-Concept
• More refined self-concept
• Social comparisons are made.
• Cognitive development affects the structure of
  the self.
• Well-organized self emerges. (Margaret Mead)
• Children are better at reading others.
• Peer influence increases.

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Development of Self-Esteem

• Hierarchically Structured
• Contexts of evaluation
• Classrooms, playgrounds, and peer groups
• Age 6 to 7, three self-esteemsacademic, social,
  and physical
• Physical appearance is primary through
  adolescence.

Figure 10.1
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Development of Self-Esteem(cont.)

• Changes in Level of Self-Esteem
• Drops in first years of elementary school.
• More realistic self-appraisal
• From fourth to sixth grade, self-esteem rises.

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Influences on Self-Esteem

• Children with high social self-esteem are better
  liked by peers.
• Academic self-esteem predicts school achievement.
• Culture
• Japanese/Taiwanese children place more emphasis
  on social comparison.
• Child-Rearing Practices
• Authoritative child-rearing style leads to
  self-esteem.
• Warm, positive parenting
• Firm but appropriate expectations

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Making Achievement-Related Attributions

• Attributions
• Common explanations of behavior
• Mastery-oriented attributions
• Success credited to ability
• Failure to factors that can be changed
• Learned helplessness
• Success credited to luck and failure to low
  ability.
• Belief that ability is not changeable
• Giving up on difficult tasks

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Influences on Achievement

• Related Attributions
• Learned-helpless have parents with high
  standards.
• Positive teachers evoke more work.
• Girls more than boys blame ability for failure.
• New Australian and indigenous children believe
  prejudice will lead to failure.

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Supporting Children's Self-Esteem

• Attribution retraining for learned-helpless
• Exert more effort
• Focus more on mastery than grades
• Teach metacognition and self-regulation

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EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• Self-Conscious Emotions
• Pride and guilt integrate with personal
  responsibility.
• Pride motivates children to take on challenges.
• Guilt prompts making amends, striving for
  self-improvement.

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Emotional Understanding

• Explain emotion by making reference to internal
  states.
• By age 8, realize they can experience more than
  one emotion at a time
• Take more information into account in detecting
  emotions of others.
• Understanding is supported by cognitive
  development and social experiences.

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Emotional Self-Regulation

• By age 10, strategies for managing emotions
• Emotionally well-regulated children are
• Upbeat in mood
• Empathic and pro-social
• Liked by their peers.

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UNDERSTANDING OTHERS

• Perspective taking
• Imagining what other people may be thinking and
  feeling
• Selman's Model of Perspective Taking
• Asked youngsters to respond to social dilemmas in
  which the characters have differing information
  and opinions about an event

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UNDERSTANDING OTHERS
Table 10.1
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Perspective Taking and Social Skills

• Varies greatly among children of the same age.
• Children with poor social skills have difficulty
  imagining others thoughts and feelings.
• Interventions
• Provide practice in perspective taking
• Helpful in reducing antisocial behavior
• Increases empathy and prosocial responding

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MORAL DEVELOPMENT

• Learning about Justice through Sharing
• Distributive justice
• Beliefs about how to divide resources fairly
• Damon studied ideas of distributive justice.
• 5 to 6 years Equality
• 6 to 7 years Merit
• Around age 8 Benevolence

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Changes in Moral Understanding

• As ideas of justice advance, linkage created
  between moral rules and social conventions.
• Diverse cultures use same criteria to distinguish
  moral and social conventions.
• Children identify a domain of personal matters.
• Fosters concepts of personal rights and freedom

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PEER RELATIONS

• Peers become an increasingly important context
  for development.
• Aggression declines in middle childhood,
  especially physical attacks.

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Peer Groups

• Peers generate
• Shared values and standards
• Social structure of leaders and followers
• Peer culture consists of vocabulary, dress code,
  and place to "hang out.
• Children who deviate are often rebuffed.

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Peer Groups (Cont.)

• Context to practice
• Cooperation, leadership and followership, loyalty
• Participation in Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H,
  church groups, and other associations promote
  gains in social and moral understanding.
• From third grade on, relational aggression rises
  among girls. Boys are more hostile toward
  "outgroup."

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Friendships

• Like each other's personal qualities and respond
  to one another's needs
• Trust is the defining feature. Violations of
  trust are a serious breach.
• Same age, sex, ethnicity, and SES
• Schools and neighborhoods can affect friendships.
• Learn emotional commitment

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Peer Acceptance

• Assessed by self-reports of likeability
• Four types of response
• Popular children
• Many positive votes
• Rejected children
• Actively disliked
• Controversial children
• Positive and negative votes
• Neglected children
• Seldom chosen

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Peer Acceptance (Cont.)

• Two-thirds fit one of these categories.
• Predicts psychological adjustment
• Rejected
• Unhappy, alienated, low self-esteem
• Poor school performance, dropping out, antisocial
  behavior, and delinquency

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Peer Acceptance (Cont.)

• Social behavior determines whether liked or
  rejected
• Popular are sensitive, friendly, and cooperative
• Rejected-aggressive are hostile, hyperactive,
  inattentive, and impulsive
• Rejected-withdrawn are passive and socially
  awkward, at risk for abuse by bullies
• Controversial are hostile and disruptive, but
  engage in positive, prosocial acts
• Neglected are well adjusted but shy

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Peer Acceptance (Cont.)

• Helping Rejected Children
• Coaching, modeling, and reinforcement of positive
  social skills
• Intensive academic tutoring improves both their
  school achievement and social acceptance.

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GENDER STEREOTYPING

• Gender-Stereotyped Beliefs
• Girls
• Reading, art, and music
• Boys
• Math, athletics, and mechanical skills
• Tolerance for girls' violations of gender roles,
  but not boys'

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Gender Identity and Behavior third to sixth
grade

• Boys identify more strongly with the masculine
  role.

• Girls' feminine identification declines.

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Cultural Influences on Gender Typing

• Girls are less likely to engage in "masculine"
  activities where gap between male and female
  roles is strong.
• Boys who care for a younger sibling become less
  stereotyped.

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FAMILY INFLUENCES

• Parent-Child Relationships
• Amount of time with parents drops.
• Reasoning improves.
• Coregulation
• Parents exercise general oversight, permitting
  children to be in charge moment-by-moment.
• Children press for more independence.
• But know they need parents' support

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Siblings

• Provide mutual support
• Rivalry due to parental comparisons
• Quarrel more when same sex and close in age
• Try to be different to reduce rivalry
• Oldest has IQ and achievement advantage
• Younger more popular

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Only Children

• Siblings are not essential for normal
  development.
• As well adjusted as other children
• Score higher in self-esteem and achievement
  motivation

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Divorce

• U.S. divorce rate highest in world
• One-half of American marriages end in divorce,
  and three-fourths involve children.
• Children in divorced families average 5 years in
  single-parent home.
• Two-thirds of divorced parents marry again.

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Immediate Consequences

• Family conflict rises.
• Mother-headed homes experience drop in income
• Divorced mothers often move for economic reasons.
• Children's Age
• Younger blame themselves
• Older understand better
• With high family conflict, older children have
  adjustment difficulties.
• More mature behavior in some older children

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Immediate Consequences (cont.)

• Children's Temperament and Sex
• Problems magnified for temperamental children
• Girls internalize reactions
• More demanding, attention-getting behavior
• Boys have more adjustment problems in
  mother-custody.
• Both sexes show declines in school achievement.

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Long-Term Consequences

• Improved adjustment 2 years after divorce
• Boys and the temperamental have lasting problems.
• Girls have rise in sexual activity and child
  bearing at adolescence.
• Adjustment determines how well custodial parent
  handles stress.
• Stressed intact family worse than low-conflict,
  single-parent household.

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Other Issues

• Divorce mediation
• Meetings between divorcing adults and trained
  professionals to help settle disputes
• Joint custody
• Both parents share in the child's upbringing.
• Child support
• Noncustodial parents payment toward support of
  child

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Remarriage

• Blended (reconstituted) family
• Remarriage of divorced parent that includes
  parent, child, and new steprelatives

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Remarriage (cont.)

• Father/Stepmother Families
• More confusion for children
• Noncustodial fathers
• Remarriage often leads to reduced contact with
  previous families.
• Girls have a harder time getting along with
  stepmother.

• Mother/Stepfather Families
• Boys adjust quickly.
• Older and adolescent youngsters find it harder to
  adjust.
• Stepfather can disrupt close ties of girls with
  mother.

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Working Parents

• Single and married mothers work in equal
  proportions.
• 70 percent with school-age children are
  employed.
• Maternal Employment and Child Development
• Children of mothers who enjoy work and are
  committed to parenting show positive adjustment.
• Girls profit from image of female competence.
• Employed mothers who value parenting are more
  likely to be authoritative parents.
• Working long hours is associated with less
  favorable outcomes.

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Support for Employed Mothers and Fathers

• Husband shares household responsibilities
• Work and government policies that help
• Part-time employment
• Liberal paid maternity and paternity leaves

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Child Care for School-Age Children

• Self-care children
• 2.4 million 5- to 13-year-olds in U.S.
• Those with authoritative parents appear
  responsible and well adjusted.
• Those left to themselves bend to peer pressure.
• Maturity is necessary in self-care.
• Boys show better adjustment if quality after-care
  is available.

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COMMON DEVELOPMENTAL PROBLEMS

• Fears and Anxieties
• Media events may trouble children.
• 20 percent develop intense anxiety.
• School phobia
• Severe apprehension often accompanied by physical
  complaints
• Most cases appear at age 11 to 13.

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Sexual Abuse

• Characteristics of victims
• More often girls
• Highest in middle childhood
• Characteristics of abusers
• Male
• Parent or someone well-known
• No impulse control
• Psychological disorders
• Alcohol or drug abuse
• Pick out weak, emotionally deprived, and
  isolated.
• Linked to poverty and marital instability

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Consequences of Sexual Abuse

• Depression, low self-esteem, mistrust of adults,
  and feelings of anger and hostility
• Younger children may have sleep difficulties,
  loss of appetite, and generalized fearfulness.
• Adolescents may run away and show suicidal
  reactions, substance abuse, and delinquency.
• Abused girls often enter into unhealthy
  relationships and many become promiscuous.

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Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Abuse

• Reactions of family members can increase
  distress.
• Long-term therapy is necessary.
• Prevention is best.
• Prosecuting abusers
• Children's testimony taken more seriously
• Sex education programs

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Fostering Resilience in Middle Childhood

• Three factors protect against maladjustment
• Child's personal characteristics (easy
  temperament and a mastery-oriented approach)
• Warm, well-organized family life
• Adults outside immediate family who offer support