SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE AND LATE CHILDHOOD

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CHAPTER 14

• SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE AND LATE
  CHILDHOOD

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EMOTIONAL AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
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The Self

• The development of self-understanding Middle
  childhood sees a shift from the defining of
  external characteristics to internal
  characteristics. Children also employ social
  comparison distinguishing themselves from
  others.
• The role of perspective-taking in
  self-understanding The child begins to see
  through others perspective.

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Self-esteem and self concept

• What are self-esteem and self-concept? A child
  begins to weigh her self-worth and focuses on the
  self.
• Research on self-esteem The child increasingly
  compares himself with peers. Depression is
  common in this stage of development.
• Increasing childrens self-esteem
  Identification of the causes of low self-esteem,
  emotional support, achievement, and coping are
  all strategies to increase a childs self-esteem.
• Industry vs. inferiority Eriksons fourth stage
  this is an especially difficult time for
  children who are just below average in
  achievement.

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Emotional Development

• Developmental changes Able to understand
  emotions of pride and shame can experience more
  than one emotion in a given situation able to
  have a greater perspective on events leading to
  emotional reactions can suppress or conceal
  emotions more successfully uses self-initiated
  strategies to cope.
• Emotional intelligence ability to monitor ones
  own and others feelings and emotions, to
  discriminate among them Daniel Goleman.

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Coping with Stress

• Age changes older children can more accurately
  appraise a stressful situation
• Removing one stressor helps a child to cope
• Teaching children how to cope effectively has
  success in helping children govern their
  emotions. Coping with death children given
  high-quality care by surviving family members
  experience less separation distress.

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MORAL DEVELOPMENTKohlbergs Theory of Moral
Development Children internalize or begin to
control their values and feelings from within
they are making judgments at this age that impact
their moral development.
Continued
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• Level 1 Preconventional Reasoning Stage 1
  Heteronomous morality is tied to punishment
  simply obey adults. Stage 2 individualism,
  instrumental purpose pursuing their own
  interests but allowing others to do the same
  right is an equal exchange.
• Level 2 Conventional Reasoning Stage 3 mutual
  interpersonal expectations individuals value
  trust, caring, and loyalty seeking to be
  thought of as good. Stage 4 social systems
  morality based on social order, law, justice
  respect for the social order.
• Level 3 Postconventional reasoning highest
  level individual recognizes alternative moral
  courses Stage 5 social preserve a persons
  rights and values. Stage 6 universal ethical
  principles individual follows his or her
  conscience a more universal application of
  morality.

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Kohlbergs Critics

• Moral thought and moral behavior Many people
  propound one moral code while living another.
• Culture and moral development Kohlhbergs
  stages are devoid of considerations for cultural
  norms.
• Family process and moral development He
  believed that the family process was essentially
  unimportant, arguing that parent-child relations
  were power-oriented he put more stock in peer
  relations.
• Gender and care perspective Kohlberg is accused
  of understanding a persons willingness to care
  in terms of their connectedness to others.
• Prosocial behavior and altruism Positive
  aspects of moral behavior such as showing empathy
  or behaving altruistically.
• Altruism Helping someone else unselfishly
  children develop a belief that sharing is
  obligatory and gradually express more objective
  ideas about sharing.

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GENDER
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• Gender stereotypes Broad categories reflecting
  our impressions or beliefs about males and
  females. Generally considered to be pervasive.
• Gender similarities and differences Differences
  are average, overlap, and attributable to
  biological and sociocultural factors.
• Physical similarities and differences Females
  are more immune to infection because of higher
  levels of estrogen, have more elastic blood
  vessels. Males grow 10 percent higher and
  stronger. Brain shows emotional and physical
  expression more active in females.
• Socioemotional similarities and differences One
  researcher believes that boys and girls grow up
  in different worlds of talk (i.e., boys games
  have winners and losers and boast, whereas girls
  play in small groups and tend to develop friends)
  girls are more relationship-oriented.

Continued
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• Gender controversy Although many would see no
  differences, science tells us that indeed there
  are differences.
• Gender-role classification There are specific
  expectations for girls and boys this is changing
  to an androgynous world where there is an equal
  presence of female and male characteristics.
  Some argue that we should not teach androgyny,
  but rather gender-role transcendence, where an
  individuals competence should be conceptualized
  on a person basis and that gender needs to be
  considered in context, especially in countries
  where male or female role is completely
  predesigned (e.g. Muslim countries).

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• FAMILIES
• Parent-child issues As children grow more
  independent, there appear to be more issues that
  can cause tension. Some of them are bedtime
  irregularities, temper tantrums, sibling
  fighting, eating behaviors, and manners.
  Discipline becomes focused at this time.
• Stepfamilies
• Types of stepfamilies three types stepfather,
  stepmother, and complex. There are three types
  of relationships (1) neo-traditional following
  divorce the new family settles in as a
  non-divorced family (2) matriarchal custodial
  mother manages without stepfathers help and (3)
  romantic an unrealistic approach that usually
  is disappointing.
• Adjustment Children adjusting to stepfamilies
  have the same problems as children in divorced
  families early sexual activity, academic
  problems, and lower-self-esteem.
• Latchkey children These children left alone
  after school often become involved in negative
  sometimes criminal, activities. They tend to
  grow up too fast.

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• PEER RELATIONS
• Peer Statuses Children of middle childhood are
  often classified as types such as popular
  someones best friend, rarely rejected by peers
  neglected not usually someones best friend and
  generally disliked by peers controversial
  someones best friend but also disliked by peers.
• Bullying A prevalent problem, especially among
  children of this age group. Researchers have
  found that bullies display certain
  characteristics intrusive, demanding but
  unresponsive parents, prone to eventual criminal
  activity. Victims are often depressed and have
  lower self-esteem through adulthood.
• Social Cognition A complex set of scripts are
  engaged as children of this age navigate social
  situations. This has come to be known as social
  cognition an ability to socially interact
  effectively.
• Friends serve six functions companionship,
  stimulation, physical support, ego support,
  social comparison and intimacy/affection.

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• SCHOOLS
• Contemporary Approaches How children learn is
  a topic always under discussion the
  direct-instruction approach is teacher-centered
  and is characterized by a power-down executive
  strategy of instruction. The cognitive
  constructivist approach, Piagetian in origin,
  stresses a childs engagement of knowledge and
  understanding. The social constructivist
  approach, Vygotskyian in origin, stresses a
  collaboration with others to produce knowledge
  and understanding.
• The Transition to Elementary School there is a
  changing view of how children learn, especially
  in elementary school, and that view is centered
  on the developmental needs of children. As they
  transition from home to school, the need to
  attend to their developmental styles of learning
  is acute. Traditional schooling offers
  subject-centered topics to which the students
  attend, whereas constructivist schooling seeks to
  construct relationships among all topics to
  foster understanding.

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• Socioeconomic Status and Ethnicity
• The education of students from low-socioeconomic
  backgrounds A great many of our nations schools
  are under-funded and offer substandard education
  in substandard environments. This inequity
  results largely from how schools are funded.
  Students from these schools are more likely to
  drop out, less likely to find high-paying jobs in
  adulthood, and more likely to have social
  problems from divorce to criminality.
• Ethnicity Because 90 percent of the teachers in
  American schools are non-Latino White, a widening
  gap is forming as the minorities of
  African-American, Asian, and Latino students
  continues to grow at an exponential rate. This
  problem is exacerbated by large concentrations of
  minority students in urban areas where
  substandard schooling dominates. (See Santrock
  p. 463-64 for strategies to improve relations
  between ethnically diverse students).