Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood

• Chapter 10 focuses on emotional and social development in middle childhood

Introduction

• School years lead to industriousness
• There is expanded social understanding
• Children size up strengths, weaknesses, and personality characteristics
• There is reliance on friends for understanding and emotional support
• Shifts occur in the parent-child relationship

Erikson's Theory: Industry vs. Inferiority

• Industry is a sense of competence at skills and tasks that combines:
  • Positive but realistic self-concept
  • Pride in accomplishment
  • Moral responsibility
  • Cooperative participation with agemates
• Inferiority is a pessimism and lack of confidence in one's ability to do well
• Others' negative responses can contribute to inferiority

Changes in Self-Concept

• There is emphasis on competencies
• Self-descriptions are qualified and trait-based
• There are gains in perspective taking
• Social comparisons occur
• Frequent reference is made to social groups
• Cultural variations exist in content of self-concept

Influences on Self-Esteem

• Culture, gender, and ethnicity have an effect
• Child-rearing practices are influential
• Attributions also play a part:
  • Mastery-oriented
  • Learned helplessness
• Process praise is more effective than person praise

Culture, Gender, and Ethnicity and Self-Esteem

• Media has an influence
• Gender stereotypes are a factor where:
  • Girls are less confident about appearance and athletic abilities
  • Girls are higher in language arts and friendship self-esteem
  • Boys are higher in math and science self-esteem
• African-American children have slightly higher self-esteem than European-American children
• Self-esteem is supported by neighborhoods and schools where a child's SES and ethnicity are well-represented

Role of Parenting in Self-Esteem

• Authoritative child-rearing style is best
• Styles linked to poor self-esteem:
  • Controlling, disapproving parenting
  • Indulgent parenting
• Excessive praise and self-focus can overly inflate a child's self-esteem
• It is best to encourage striving for worthwhile goals; achievement fosters self-esteem and vice versa

Achievement-Related Attributions

• Mastery-oriented individuals attribute success to ability and failure to controllable factors, seeking information to increase ability through effort
• Those with learned helplessness attribute success to external factors and believe ability cannot be changed by effort, avoiding negative evaluations

Influences on Learned-Helplessness Attributions

• Person praise emphasizes a child's traits and teaches children that abilities are fixed
• Parents believing a child is incapable
• Other factors contribute:
  • Unsupportive teachers
  • Gender stereotypes
  • Cultural values

Fostering a Mastery-Oriented Approach

• Process praise emphasizes behavior and effort, suggesting competence develops through effort
• Attribution retraining encourages exerting more effort and using more effective strategies
• Focus on mastering a task for its own sake and individual improvement, not comparison to others

Emotional Development

• Self-conscious emotions of pride and guilt are governed by personal responsibility
• Emotional understanding includes:
  • Explaining emotion using internal states
  • Appreciating mixed emotions
  • Increased empathy
• Emotional self-regulation is motivated by increased social interactions, with preference for verbal expression over acting out
• Emotional self-efficacy develops

Coping Strategies

• Problem-centered coping appraises the situation as changeable, identifies the difficulty, and decides what to do
• Emotion-centered coping is used when problem-centered coping does not work and is internal, private, and aimed at controlling distress

Changes in Moral Understanding

• Moral rules become more flexible:
  • Lying is not always bad, and truthfulness not always good
  • Considerations of intentions and context
• Better understanding of varied reasons for deception due to gains in recursive perspective-taking
• Links are made between moral imperatives and social conventions, with violations of purposeful social conventions regarded as closer to moral transgressions

Understanding Individual Rights

• There are challenges to adult authority within personal domain
• Notions of personal choice views denials as wrong
• Approval of limits on personal choice typically favors kindness and fairness

Understanding Diversity and Inequality

• In-group favoritism emerges first, followed by out-group prejudice
• By early school years:
  • Association of power and privilege with white people
  • Acquisition of negative attitudes toward minorities
• With age:
  • Overt prejudice declines
  • Focuses on inner traits
• Implicit prejudice may persist

Factors Contributing to Prejudice

• A fixed view of personality traits can contribute
• Overly high self-esteem can contribute
• Social world in which people are sorted into groups can contribute

Reducing Prejudice

• Diverse children working toward a common goal
• Long-term intergroup contact and collaboration in:
  • Neighborhoods
  • Schools
  • Communities
• Fostering belief in the changeability of human traits
• Volunteering

Peer Groups

• Organized on basis of proximity and similarity
• Peer culture includes:
  • Vocabulary, dress code, gathering place
• Can involve relational aggression and exclusion

Friendships in Middle Childhood

• Personal qualities and trust become important
• More selective in choosing friends that are similar to self
• Fairly stable and can last several years
• Multiple contexts support endurance of friendships
• Type of friends affects development and behavior

Peer Acceptance

• Social preferences, classmates peers "like most" or "like least"
• Powerful predictor of psychological adjustment
• Only moderate correspondence between social preferences and perceived popularity
• Early influences combine children's characteristics with parenting practices
• Well-adjusted children are popular-prosocial, while most neglected children show adjustment issues

Categories of Peer Acceptance

• Popular: Many positive votes and can be:
  • Prosocial
  • Antisocial
• Rejected: Many negative votes and can be:
  • Aggressive
  • Withdrawn
• Controversial: Mix of votes, both liked and disliked
• Neglected: Seldom mentioned, positively or negatively
• Average: Average number of votes; approximately one-third of typical classroom

Biology and Environment: Bullies and Their Victims

• Bullies:
  • Most are boys
  • Use physical, verbal, and relational aggression
  • Socially powerful, admired by peers
• Victims:
  • Passive when active behavior is expected
  • Lack defenders
  • Have an inhibited temperament
  • Physically frail
  • Overly protective, controlling parents
• Interventions:
  • Help victimized children form friendships
  • Community codes against traditional and cyberbullying
  • Teaching child bystanders to intervene

Helping Rejected Children

• Coach positive social skills
• Promote perspective taking and social problem solving
• Alter peers' negative opinions
• Intervene in negative parenting practices

Gender Typing

• Gender stereotypes extended to include personality traits and school subjects
• More flexible view of what males and females can do
• Gender identity (third to sixth grade):
  • Boys' "masculine" identification strengthens
  • Girls become more androgynous
  • Explore more options
  • Aware of society's greater regard for masculine traits

Gender Identity

• Self-evaluations affect adjustment:
  • Gender typicality
  • Gender contentedness
  • Felt pressure to conform to gender roles
• Gender-atypical children's self-worth declines
  • Interventions needed to support parental and peer acceptance

Family Relationships

• Parent-child relationships:
  • Easier child rearing when established authoritative style
  • Coregulation: gradually shift control to child
• Sibling relationships:
  • Rivalry: parental comparisons contribute
  • Companionship, assistance, and emotional support
  • Parental encouragement of warm sibling ties is vital

Only Children

• Higher in self-esteem, achievement motivation, and educational attainment
• Closer relationships with parents, may exert more pressure to achieve
• Less well accepted in peer group
• Lack of practice in conflict resolution

Parental Divorce

• Immediate consequences:
  • Family conflict
  • Drop in income in mother-headed households
  • Maternal stress, inconsistent discipline, and loss of routines
  • Child reactions vary with age, sex, and temperament
• Long-term consequences:
  • Improved adjustment after two years
  • Declines in academic achievement, self-esteem, and social competence
  • Emotional and behavioral problems
  • Problems with intimate relationships

Helping Children Adjust to Divorce

• Shield child from conflict
• Provide continuity and familiarity in daily life
• Use authoritative parenting style
• Promote regular contact with father (or noncustodial parent)
• Explain the divorce and respond to child's feelings

Helping Children Adjust to Divorce

• Parent-training programs
• Divorce mediation increases:
  • Out-of-court settlements
  • Cooperation and involvement of both parents
• Joint custody grants parents equal say
  • Requires and promotes effective coparenting
• Child support

Blended Families

• 60% of divorced parents remarry
• Most common is mother-stepfather where:
  • Boys tend to adjust quickly
  • Girls often adapt less favorably
  • Older children and adolescents display more acting-out behavior
• Father-stepmother:
  • Often leads to reduced noncustodial father-child contact
  • Children in father custody often react negatively
  • Girls and stepmothers slower to adapt

Maternal Employment and Dual-Earner Families

• Benefits:
  • Higher self-esteem
  • Fewer gender-stereotyped beliefs
  • Higher achievement
  • Greater father involvement
• Drawbacks:
  • Heavy employment demands associated with ineffective parenting

Child Care for School-Age

• Self-care children regularly look after themselves, which increases with age and SES
• Implications depend on age and how time is spent
• After-school programs that benefit school performance and adjustment include:
  • Well-trained, supportive staff
  • Generous adult-child ratios
  • Skill-building and enrichment activities

School-Age Fears and Anxieties

• Common fears:
  • Academic failure
  • Peer rejection
  • Personal harm
  • Threats to parents' health
  • Frightening media events
• School refusal:
  • Maternal separation (ages 5-7)
  • Particular aspects of school (ages 11-13)
• Harsh living conditions promote severe anxieties

Cultural Influences: Impact of Ethnic and Political Violence on Children

• Results in Post-traumatic stress symptoms
• Greatest risk factors for maladjustment include:
  • Separation from parents
  • Chronic danger, war, social crises
  • Extended exposure to violence
• Protections against lasting problems:
  • Parental affection, reassurance, modeling
  • Education and recreation programs, school-based interventions

Child Sexual Abuse

• Characteristics of victims: More often girls; most cases reported in middle childhood
• Characteristics of abusers: Usually male; a parent or known by a parent; often deny their own responsibility, blaming victim; internet and mobile phones used to commit abuse
• Contextual factors : Poverty; marital instability and weakening family ties
• Consequences: Anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, adult mistrust, anger and hostility
• Sleep disturbances, loss of appetite Promiscuity, choice of abusive partners as adults Trauma-focused therapy Prevention through education

Fostering Resilience

• Personal characteristics, such as an easy temperament and mastery-orientation in new situations
• Warm parental relationship
• Supportive adult outside family
• Community resources like good schools, social services, and youth organizations

Social Issues: Health: Children's Eyewitness Testimony

• Stressors that can compromise child's accuracy include:
  • Emotional trauma (speaking against relative, facing abuser)
  • Unfamiliar courtroom situation and questioning
  • Fear of punishment
• Questioning must be unbiased and age-appropriate
• Preparation: practice interviews and role play
• Alternatives to minimize emotional trauma:
  • Testifying over closed-circuit TV
  • Impartial expert witnesses