Chapter 9: Social Emotional Development in Early Childhood
Chapter 9: Social Emotional Development in Early Childhood
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
- Describe how preschoolers view themselves.
- Summarize Erikson’s stage of initiative versus guilt.
- Discuss the progression of social emotional development during early childhood.
- Explain how children develop their understanding of gender.
- Compare and contrast different styles of parenting.
- Define characteristics of high quality child care.
- Discuss the role of siblings and peers.
- Describe the types of play.
- Summarize the influence on social and emotional competence.
- Identify the effects of stress on three- to five-year olds.
Introduction
In early childhood, children’s understanding of themselves and their role in the world expands greatly.
Social and Emotional Milestones
That expanding understanding of themselves and others develops with age. Here is a table of social and emotional milestones that children typically experience during early childhood.
Table 9.1 – Social and Emotional Milestones1
|
Typical Age |
What Most Children Do by This Age |
|
3 years |
|
|
4 years |
|
|
5 years |
|
Many things influence how children develop those milestones as how they view themselves and how they interact with those around them changes. Let’s look more at these.
Interactionism and Views of Self
Early childhood is a time of forming an initial sense of self. A self-concept or idea of who we are, what we are capable of doing, and how we think and feel is a social process that involves taking into consideration how others view us. So, in order to develop a sense of self, you must have interaction with others. Interactionist theorists, Cooley and Mead offer two interesting explanations of how a sense of self develops.
Cooley
Charles Horton Cooley (1964) suggests that our self-concept comes from looking at how others respond to us. This process, known as the looking-glass self involves looking at how others seem to view us and interpreting this as we make judgments about whether we are good or bad, strong or weak, beautiful or ugly, and so on. Of course, we do not always interpret their responses accurately so our self-concept is not simply a mirror reflection of the views of others. After forming an initial self-concept, we may use it as a mental filter screening out those responses that do not seem to fit our ideas of who we are. Some compliments may be negated, for example. The process of the looking-glass self is pronounced when we are preschoolers, or perhaps when we are in a new school or job or are taking on a new role in our personal lives and are trying to gauge our own performances. When we feel more sure of who we are, we focus less on how we appear to others.2
Figure 9.1 – A child looking at herself wearing glasses in a mirror.3
Mead
Herbert Mead (1967) offers an explanation of how we develop a social sense of self by being able to see ourselves through the eyes of others. There are two parts of the self: the “I” wh