Social Development in Early Childhood

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Social Development in Early Childhood

• The Development of Children (5th ed.)
• Cole, Cole Lightfoot
• Chapter 10

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Social Development Two-Sided
Personality Development
Socialization
Acquire the standards, values, and knowledge of
society
Develop unique patterns of feeling, thinking, and
behaving
Integrated into the larger social community
Differentiated as distinctive individuals
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Overview of the Journey

• Acquiring a Social and Personal Identity
• Moral Development
• Developing Self-Regulation
• Aggression and Pro-social Behavior

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Identification

• Psychological process in which children try to
  look, act, feel, and be like significant people
  in their social environment
• Essential to the process of socialization
• Sex Role Identification
• Girls want to be like the parent they are closes
  to
• Boys want to be different than the parent they
  are closest to

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How do children learn to be who they are?

• Three theories
• Freud Psychodynamic view
• Bandura Social Learning view
• Kohlberg Cognitive view

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Psychodynamic View (Freud)

• Boys Identification through differentiation from
  mother and affiliation with father
• Oedipus complex Desire to take fathers place in
  mothers affection (resolution sexual identity)
• Girls Identification through affiliation only
• Womans psychological makeup never becomes as
  independent of its emotional component as does a
  mans

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Social-Learning View (Bandura)

• Identification through observation imitation
• Adults not only provide models for children to
  imitate, but also reward gender-appropriate
  behavior and punish cross-gender behavior
• Girls and boys are differently rewarded for
  engaging in gender-appropriate behavior

Parental encouragement is one reason boys assume
traditional masculine roles
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Cognitive View (Kohlberg)

• Identity formation as conceptual development
• I am a boy therefore I want to do boy things
  and doing boy things (and gaining approval for
  doing them) is rewarding.
• Identity is formed as a
• result of the childs
• actively structuring
• his/her experience

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Cognitive View (Kohlberg)

• Three stages
• Basic sex-role identity By 3 years old, children
  can label themselves as boy or girl
• Sex-role stability During early childhood, they
  begin to understand that gender roles are stable
  over time
• Sex-role constancy is completed when they
  understand that their gender remains the same no
  matter what the situation

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Ethnic Racial Identity

• Children are aware of their ethnic group and
  racial differences by the time they are 4 years
  old
• Young children of parents who were active in
  promoting (Native American) cultural awareness
  and social rights more often chose dolls
  representing their culture.

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Personal Identity how children describe
themselves

• Early childhood Focus on specific, concrete
  characteristics
• physical attributes I am a girl with brown
  hair,
• what they can do I can run fast,
• their possessions I have a cat,
• social relations I have a big brother,
• preferences My favorite color is red)
• tend to be unrealistically positive (I know all
  my ABCs)
• Adults assist in identity formation through the
  recall and interpretation of events, such as
  family stories or going through a family scrapbook

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Moral Development

• Learning about Right and Wrong
• Role of Internalization

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Learning about Right and Wrong

• Three levels of rules
• Moral rules Most general based on principles of
  justice and the welfare of others cannot be
  transgressed
• Social conventions Important for social
  coordination includes school rules, forms of
  address, attire and appearance, sex roles,
  etiquette
• Personal rules Children can make decisions based
  on personal preference are able to develop
  individual uniqueness

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Internalization

• External culturally-organized experiences ?
  internal psychological processes ? organize
  how people behave
• Id Present at birth is unconscious, impulsive,
  and concerned with the immediate satisfaction of
  bodily drives
• Ego The first phase of self-regulation serves
  as the intermediary between the demands of the id
  and the demands of the social world, which are
  often at odds with each other
• Superego Formation of the conscience occurs
  around age 5 results from childrens
  internalization of adult standards, rules and
  warnings

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• Conscience emerges once children have generalized
  and internalized standards for the way they
  behave
• Involves self-observation, self-guidance, and
  self-discipline
• Child develops a capacity for feelings of shame
  and guilt

In essence, children must have both the ability
and the desire to behave in socially acceptable
ways
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Self-regulation and Self Control

• Self-Control
• Regulating Thought and Action
• Regulating Emotions

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Self-Control

• Ability to inhibit initial impulses by stopping
  and thinking before acting
• Balancing personal desires and social standards
• Movement (Simon says)
• Emotions (deciding not to cry when they fall
  down)
• Choice (delayed gratification is being able to
  wait for the reward)

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Regulating Thoughts Leads to Making Healthy
Decisions

• The child selects and maintains a mental
  representation that directs her behavior
• I need to hold up the string and put the end
  through the hole in the bead.
• Monitors her own progress
• I got one on right now Ill try another.
• Modifies her problem-solving strategies
• This bead wont go on I need one with a bigger
  hole.

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Regulating Ones Own Emotions

• Babies Suck on their fingers or pacifier
• or rock themselves to self-calm
• Ages 2-6 Avoids or reduces emotion
• by closing their eyes, turning away, or putting
  their hands over their ears
• Uses language (self talk) to reassure and
  encourage themselves (Im a big girl big girls
  can do it)
• Use active engagement to focus their attention
  on something else to control their interest in a
  forbidden toy
• Preschool children who display characteristics of
  socio-emotional competence are better liked by
  both their peers and teachers

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Aggression and Pro-social Behavior

• Development and Causes of Aggression
• Controlling Aggression
• Understanding Others Emotions
• Developing Pro-social Behavior

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Development of Aggression

• Aggression Committing acts intended to hurt
  another
• Instrumental aggression Directed at obtaining
  something (hitting
• another child toobtain a toy)
• Hostile aggression Intentionally hurting
  another person as a means of establishing
  dominance (bullying)

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Development of Aggression

• Changes in aggression
• Between ages of 1 2 Rapid increase in
  instrumental aggression due to new sense of self
• Age 2 Begin to notice ownership rights
• boys become physically aggressive
• girls display relationship aggression
• Ages 3-6 Physical tussles over possessions
  decrease, while verbal aggression increases and
  hostile aggression (bullying) makes its appearance

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Causes of Aggression

• 1. Aggressors are rewarded
• Victim gave in or retreated, resulting in
  victory
• Adults provided positive reinforcement by paying
  more attention, laughing, signaling approval, or
  simply by stopping coercing the child

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Causes of Aggression

• 2. Children imitate the behavior of older role
  models
• Physical punishments, particularly with anger,
  may teach children to behave aggressively
• Research Aggressive behavior of children who had
  observed adult aggression was substantially
  higher than that of children who had watched
  non-aggressive interactions made little
  difference whether the adult models were live or
  filmed

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Individual Differences

• Research findings
• Environment Poverty associated with increased
  aggression (parents are likely to use harsh and
  inconsistent discipline, perhaps due to increased
  stress)
• Cognition Aggressive children more often
  misinterpret social interactions in negative ways
  that foster aggressive responses

http//meero.worldvision.org/news_article.php?news
ID339
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4 Ways to Teach Children How to Control
Aggression

• Model self-control
• Punish the child
• Reward non-aggressive behaviors
• Talk it over to so child cognitively understands

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1. Adults Model Self-control

• Help children learn self control by giving them
  ways to vent negative feelings in a safe way
  before they explode violently
• Children will practice selecting and using
  socially acceptable and non-acceptable ways of
  venting anger and frustration
• Adults and older children who show self-control
  of emotions will give children a positive role
  model

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2. Children are punished

• Children become more likely to suppress
  aggressive behavior when the child identifies
  strongly with the person administering the
  punishment, and it is employed consistently
• When used inconsistently punishment is likely to
  provoke children to further aggression
• Attempts to control childrens behavior by means
  of physical punishment, or by threats to apply
  raw power, also increase aggressiveness

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3. Children are rewarded for non-aggressive
behavior

• Since young children sometimes become aggressive
  in order to gain attention, one strategy is to
  ignore it and to pay attention to children only
  when they are engaged in cooperative behavior
• For example, an adult may step in between the
  children involved and pay attention only to the
  victim (comfort the child, give the child
  something interesting to do)
• Side benefit Other children may have observed
  that it is appropriate to be sympathetic to the
  victim of aggression

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4. Children Express Cognitive Understanding

• Short, individual discussion with the aggressor
  focusing on
• Aggression hurts another person and make that
  person unhappy
• Aggression does not solve problems and only
  causes resentment in the other child
• Children can often resolve conflicts by sharing
  and taking turns
• In essence, helping children to become aware of
  the feelings of others (empathy) decreases
  aggression

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Table Talk

• Review the 4 ways of controlling aggression to be
  sure you understand each method
• Discuss as a group
• What ways did you learn to control aggression?
• What were some of the positive outcomes?
• What were some of the negative outcomes?
• As a teacher, what would you do to help children
  control aggression?

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Pro-Social Behavior Deciding to act in ways
that builds trust and healthy
relationshipsThis requires empathy and
self-control
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EmpathyUnderstanding Others Emotions

• 6-7 months Babies can read their mothers
  faces as a guide to how they should feel about a
  situation
• 2 years old Know that other people feel bad when
  you hit them and that giving them something nice
  makes them feel good
• 3 years old Usually interpret other childrens
  emotions correctly
• 5-6 years old Agreed with adult assessment of
  others emotional states and of the events likely
  to have caused them more than 80 of the time

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• Empathy the sharing of another persons
  emotions and feelings is foundational includes
  sharing, helping, caregiving, showing compassion,
  altruism
• Four stages
• Neonates Babies as young as 2 days become
  stressed and cry at the sound of another
  infants cries
• Second Year Seek to comfort others, although
  some of their attempt to help may be
  inappropriate
• Early Infancy Empathize with people they have
  never met
• Ages 6-9 Interest in social/political issues
  (poverty, oppression, illness)

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Developing Pro-social Behavior

• Strategies
• Reward Not very effective (4-year-olds most
  likely to act pro-socially were those who
  received no recognition for their pro-social
  acts)
• Explicit modeling Increased pro-social behavior
  as long as 2 weeks later
• Induction (adults give explanations of what needs
  to be done/why) 12-year-old children displayed
  higher levels of empathy and pro-social behavior

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Table Talk

• Discuss with a partner
• Why are pro-social skills important to the
  family?
• Why are pro-social skills important to the
  community?
• How can teachers teach pro-social skills to
  children?