Child Development and Attachment Insights

Middle Childhood Socioemotional Development

• Children develop emotional competencies, including awareness of their own and others' emotions, empathy, and coping abilities.
• Emotional competence develops within the context of relationships and culture.
• Expectations for emotional competence may differ for girls and boys.
• Emotional communication within relationships is important for adjustment.
• Psychotherapy with children helps them achieve greater emotional competency.

Emotional Awareness of Self and Others

• The first step in emotion regulation is recognizing one's own emotional state and naming it.
• Emotional self-awareness correlates with cognitive abilities.
• Lower emotional awareness predicts internalizing problems like depression and anxiety.
• Children's ability to recognize and name emotions in others improves with age.
• Recognition of happiness and sadness is easier for children than other emotions.

Emotions and Externalizing Symptoms

• Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are emotional deficits in children.
• CU traits are associated with difficulties in regulating emotions and understanding others' emotions.
• Externalizing behaviors involve acting out emotions through antisocial behavior, hostility, and aggression.
• Children with externalizing problems may have low emotional knowledge or understanding of others' emotions.

Emotions and Internalizing Symptoms

• Internalizing behaviors (anxiety and depression) are acted in, not out.
• The behavioral inhibition system leads to feelings of anxiety and fear.
• Children who are more sensitive to cues of threat are more prone to internalizing problems.
• Offspring of adults with internalizing disorders tend to be more behaviorally inhibited.

Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood

• Supportive parental reactions encourage emotional regulation.
• Warm, responsive parents validate children's emotions, help them make sense of their reactions, and accept emotions as part of life.
• Non-supportive parental reactions might limit a child's ability to regulate emotions.
• Emotional regulation means adaptively managing emotions.

Attachment and Caregiving

• Attachment is a secure base for a child to explore the world.
• Secure attachment to parents correlates to better academic and social outcomes in middle childhood.
• Children in middle childhood gain autonomy but still need support from caregivers.
• Friendships are a context for children to practice caregiving.
• Prosocial behavior and assertiveness determine friendship quality.

Friendship During Middle Childhood

• Children actively choose their friends based on factors like gender, race, and personality.
• Similarity in traits and interests are strong factors determining friendship choices.
• Children develop more complex understanding of friendships over time, from mutual activities to shared intimacy and moral commitments.
• Feelings of kindness, acceptance, and empathy are important in friendships.

Moral Cognition or Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg's stages describe how moral reasoning develops in children and adults.
• Preconventional morality is focused on self-interest and avoiding punishment (Stages 1-2).
• Conventional morality is focused on pleasing others and obeying rules (stages 3-4).
• Postconventional morality involves abstract reasoning and ethical principles (Stages 5-6).

Moral Self-Concepts

• Moral self-concepts develop in middle childhood, forming the basis for identity.
• Moral self-concepts link moral values to perceptions of self.
• Shame and guilt are associated with failing to live up to moral values in children.

Summary of Social and Emotional Development During Middle Childhood

• Emotional awareness and regulation increase in proficiency throughout childhood.
• Attachment to parents and social emotional growth are intertwined.
• Children's self-concepts, especially in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, become significant during this stage.