Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood ch 10

Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood

• This chapter describes psychological and social needs and behaviours of children in middle childhood.
• Social development will be explored, including Eric Erikson's theory, its concepts, issues, and research findings.
• Erikson's theory of Industry vs Inferiority focuses on children developing a sense of competence through useful skills.
• School plays a significant role in fostering this sense of competence.
• Inferiority can result from pessimism and a lack of confidence in one's ability to succeed.
• Family, teachers, and peers can affect a child's feelings of inferiority.

Changes in Self-Concept During Middle Childhood

• Children's self-concept becomes more balanced, shifting away from all-or-nothing descriptions.
• Social comparisons influence self-perception.
• Children develop a distinction between their ideal and real selves.
• Reference to social groups shapes self-concept.
• Cultural variations also impact children's self-image.

Influences on Self-Esteem

• Culture and child-rearing practices significantly influence self-esteem.
• Attributions, whether mastery-oriented or learned helplessness, also play a role.
• Mastery-oriented individuals attribute success to ability and effort.
• Learned helplessness leads individuals to attribute failure to external factors rather than personal effort.

Achievement-Related Attributions

• Mastery-oriented individuals attribute success to ability and effort, and failure to controllable factors that can be improved through hard work.
• Individuals with learned helplessness attribute success to external factors and failure to inability that cannot be changed with effort.

Influences on Achievement-Related Attributions

• Parental influences, teacher's feedback, gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity can shape achievement attributions.

Emotional Development in Middle Childhood

• Self-conscious emotions continue to develop.
• Children improve their emotional understanding.
• Children develop better emotional self-regulation.

Coping Strategies

• Problem-centered coping involves identifying and altering problematic situations.
• Emotion-centered coping aims at controlling distress when problem-centered coping is ineffective.

Selman's Stages of Perspective Taking

• Selman's theory outlines stages of perspective taking, from undifferentiated to societal.
• Each stage represents a different level of understanding others' perspectives.
• Development progresses from egocentric views to considering multiple perspectives and societal implications. Ages are associated with each level.

Development of Distributive Justice

• Children's understanding of fairness, or distributive justice, develops in stages.
• Strict equality, merit, and equity and benevolence are stages of understanding fairness. These stages have ages associated.

Changes in Moral Views

• Children's moral rules become more flexible.
• Children understand the connection between moral imperatives and social conventions.

Understanding Individual Rights

• Children begin to challenge adult authority in areas of personal choice.
• Children view denials of personal choices as unjust.
• Decisions often favor fairness and kindness.

Understanding Inequality

• By school age, children's understanding of power and privilege become evident in how they correlate these factors with various groups.
• Over time, prejudice decreases as they develop a clearer understanding of individual differences.

Peer Groups

• Peer groups form based on proximity and shared characteristics.
• Shared behaviours, vocabulary, dress code, and social dynamics (including relational aggression) define peer culture.

Friendship in Middle Childhood

• Personal qualities and trust become important factors in choosing friends in middle childhood.
• Friendships become more selective, and can last for several years.
• Friendships significantly influence development.

Bullies and Victims

• Bullies tend to be male and have high social status, physically or relationally aggressive.
• Victims are commonly passive, give in to demands, lack defenders, have inhibited temperaments, and can be physically frail and overly protected.

Gender Typing in Middle Childhood

• Children develop gender stereotypes.
• Gender identity evolves, usually by the 3rd/4th grade.
• Cultural and social factors strongly influence gender roles.

Gender Identity

• Self-evaluations impact how children navigate and adjust to gender roles.
• Children develop gender typicality with varying levels of contentedness.
• Children often face pressure to conform to gender roles.

Family Relationships

• Parental relationships involve coregulation and support
• Sibling relationships can be characterized by rivalry and companionship as well as assistance.

Only Children

• Only children may have high self-esteem, strong achievement motivation, and close bonds with parents.
• Peer acceptance can sometimes be a challenge.
• Practice in conflict resolution might be lacking.

Consequences of Parental Divorce

• Immediate consequences of divorce include stress, instability, and conflict, leading to a temporary drop in family income.
• The impact of divorce varies by age, sex, and temperament.
• Improved adaptation often occurs two years after the divorce.
• Boys and children with difficult temperaments may still face difficulties.

Helping Families Through Divorce

• Divorce mediation, joint custody, and child support can play crucial roles in helping families navigate this challenging period.

Blended Families

• In mother-stepfather blended families, older children and adolescents of both sexes might demonstrate more adjustment problems.
• Boys might adjust more quickly than girls in blended families involving a father-stepmother.

Maternal Employment and Child Development

• Maternal employment can lead to positive effects within family finances.
• Drawbacks include less time spent with children. The effects also depend on numerous factors.

Support for Working Parents

• Flexible work schedules, job-sharing, sick leave, involvement of the other parent, equal pay/opportunities and quality childcare are vital for supporting working parents.

Fears and Anxieties in Middle Childhood

• Some fears, like dark, thunder, lightning and supernatural beings, persist through middle childhood.
• Children develop new fears based on the expanding world.
• School phobia, particularly separation from home, can emerge in middle childhood.

Child Sexual Abuse

• Child sexual abuse is a significant concern in middle childhood.
• Victims are more often female.
• Abuse frequently occurs in early middle childhood.
• Abusers are often parents or known by parents.
• Impacts of child sexual abuse have negative effects emotionally, physically on behavior and long-term challenges.

Factors Related to Resilience

• Personal characteristics, warmth in parental relationships, supportive adults outside the family and community resources contribute to resilience.

Summary

• Students can now describe and understand psychological and social needs and behaviors in middle childhood children.