Supporting Social Play: Helping Children Learn Social Skills from Play (thegeniusofplay.org)? ?(246) The Power of Play – YouTube? PreschoolPlay.docxCHAPTER10EMOTIONALANDSOCI

Preschool is an exciting time for children and their parents. It is also an important time in a child’s development. This week, you will continue to support Paul and Amy and provide them with information about the social and emotional development that occurs during preschool.

To prepare for this discussion,

· Read Chapter 10: Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood

· Read the Milestones Table for Early Childhood starting on page 401 of the text

· Read  Supporting Social Play: Helping Children Learn Social Skills from Play Links to an external site.

· Watch the video  The Power of Play Links to an external site.  

For this discussion, use the case study below:

Case Study Paul and Amy blinked, and Charlie is already three! They just can’t believe how quickly she is growing and how much she is learning. Soon, Charlie will be moving into the three-year-old classroom at the UAGC Child Development Center. Since Charlie is an only child, Paul and Amy are excited to attend an open house to hear all about how Charlie’s teacher plans to help Charlie grow her social and emotional skills.

In your initial post, assume the role of Charlie’s teacher and address the following:

· Discuss two social-emotional milestones you think are important to foster in preschoolers.

· Explain how using play-based learning experiences helps to naturally foster peer relationships with preschoolers.

· Share two pieces of advice you would give to Paul and Amy about the benefits of peer relations during the preschool years.

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CHAPTER 10 EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

My Family

Kyan Swa Lin, 9 years, MyanmarParental warmth, involvement, and playfulness are linked to children’s emotional and social competence. And as this image makes clear, gender typing is well underway during the preschool years. Chapter 10 considers these and other facets of early childhood emotional and social development.

Reprinted with permission from The International Museum of Children’s Art, Oslo, Norway

WHAT’S AHEAD IN CHAPTER 10

10.1 Self-Understanding

Foundations of Self-Concept • Emergence of Self-Esteem

■ Cultural Influences: Cultural Variations in Personal Storytelling: Implications for Early Self-Concept

10.2 Emotional Development

Understanding Emotion • Emotional Self-Regulation • Self-Conscious Emotions • Empathy and Sympathy

10.3 Peer Relations

Advances in Peer Sociability • First Friendships • Peer Relations and School Readiness • Social Problem Solving • Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations

10.4 Foundations of Morality and Aggression

The Psychoanalytic Perspective • Social Learning Theory • The Cognitive-Developmental Perspective • Development of Aggression

■ Cultural Influences: Ethnic Differences in the Consequences of Physical Punishment

10.5 Gender Typing

Gender-Stereotyped Beliefs and Behaviors • Biological Influences on Gender Typing • Environmental Influences on Gender Typing • Gender Identity • Reducing Gender Stereotyping in Young Children

■ Biology and Environment: Transgender Children

10.6 Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development

Styles of Child Rearing • What Makes Authoritative Child Rearing Effective? • Cultural Variations • Child Maltreatment

As the children in Leslie’s classroom moved through the preschool years, their personalities took on clearer definition. By age 3, they voiced firm likes and dislikes as well as new ideas about themselves. “Stop bothering me,” Sammy said to Mark, who had reached for Sammy’s beanbag as Sammy aimed it toward the mouth of a large clown face. “See, I’m great at this game,” Sammy announced with confidence, an attitude that kept him trying, even though he missed most of the throws.

The children’s conversations also revealed early notions about morality. Often they combined statements about right and wrong with forceful attempts to defend their own desires. “You’re ‘posed to share,” stated Mark, grabbing the beanbag out of Sammy’s hand.

“I was here first! Gimme it back,” demanded Sammy, pushing Mark. The two boys struggled until Leslie intervened, provided an extra set of beanbags, and showed them how they could both play.

As the interaction between Sammy and Mark reveals, preschoolers quickly become complex social beings. Young children argue, grab, and push, but cooperative exchanges are far more frequent. Between ages 2 and 6, first friendships form, in which children converse, act out complementary roles, and learn that their own desires for companionship and toys are best met when they consider others’ needs and interests.

The children’s developing understanding of their social world was especially apparent in their growing attention to the dividing line between male and female. While Priti and Karen cared for a sick baby doll in the housekeeping area, Sammy, Vance, and Mark transformed the block corner into a busy intersection. “Green light, go!” shouted police officer Sammy as Vance and Mark pushed large wooden cars and trucks across the floor. Already, the children preferred peers of their own gender, and their play themes mirrored their culture’s gender stereotypes.

This chapter is devoted to the many facets of early childhood emotional and social development. We begin with children’s concepts of themselves and their changing understanding and expression of emotion. Then we consider their expanding insights into their social and moral worlds, their susceptibility to gender typing, and their increasing ability to manage their emotional and social behaviors. Finally, we discuss the ingredients of effective child rearing, including the complex conditions that support it and those that lead it to break down, contributing to the serious and widespread problems of child abuse and neglect. ■

10.1 SELF-UNDERSTANDING

10.1 Describe the development of self-concept and self-esteem in early childhood.

In Chapter 9, we noted that preschoolers acquire a vocabulary for talking about their inner mental lives and refine their understanding of mental states. As self-awareness strengthens, children focus more intently on qualities that make the self unique. They begin to develop a self-concept, the set of attributes, abilities, attitudes, and values that an individual believes defines who he or she is. This mental representation of the self has profound implications for children’s emotional and social lives, influencing, as Erik Erikson expressed it, their sense of initiative: eagerness to tackle new tasks, capacity to join in activities with peers, and willingness to discover what they can do with the help of adults.

10.1.1 Foundations of Self-Concept

Ask 3- to 5-year-olds to tell you about themselves, and you are likely to hear descriptions like this: “I’m Dana. I’m 4 years old. I can wash my hair all by myself. I have a new Lego set, and I made this big, big tower.” Preschoolers’ self-concepts largely consist of observable characteristics, such as their name, physical appearance, possessions, and everyday behaviors (Harter, 2012).

By age 3½, children also describe themselves in terms of typical emotions and attitudes (“I’m happy when I play with my friends”; “I don’t like scary TV programs”; “I usually do what Mommy says”), suggesting a beginning understanding of their unique psychological characteristics (Eder & Mangelsdorf, 1997). And by age 5, children’s degree of agreement with a battery of such statements coincides with maternal reports of their personality traits, indicating that older preschoolers have a sense of their own timidity, agreeableness, and positive or negative affect (Brown et al., 2008). As further support for this emerging grasp of personality, when given a trait label (“nice,” “mean”), 4-year-olds can appropriately link it to behavioral descriptions of others. For example, they know that a child who would pull a dog’s tail is mean, and they can predict that a nice child would share toys with a playmate (Chen, Corriveau, & Harris, 2016). But most preschoolers do not yet spontaneously say, “I’m nice” or “I’m shy.” Direct references to personality traits must wait for greater cognitive maturity.

When asked to tell about themselves, preschoolers typically mention observable characteristics—physical appearance, possessions, and everyday behaviors, such as “I can button my jacket.” They also have an emerging grasp of their unique psychological characteristics—for this 4-year-old, determination!

© LAURA DWIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

A warm, sensitive parent–child relationship fosters a positive, coherent early self-concept. In one study, 4-year-olds with a secure attachment to their mothers were more likely than their insecurely attached agemates to describe themselves in favorable terms at age 5—with statements reflecting agreeableness and positive affect (Goodvin et al., 2008). Also, recall from Chapter 9 that securely attached preschoolers participate in more elaborative parent–child conversations about personally experienced events, which help them understand themselves (see page 327 in Chapter 9). When, in past-event conversations, a child discovers that she finds swimming, getting together with friends, and going to the zoo fun, she can begin to connect these specific experiences into a general understanding of “what I enjoy” (Fivush, 2011). The result is a clearer image of herself.

Elaborative reminiscing that focuses on young children’s internal states—their thoughts, feelings, and subjective experiences—plays an especially important role in early self-concept development. Although preschoolers rarely refer to personality traits, they are more likely to mention traits (“I’m smart,” “I’m really strong!”) and typical emotions (“My brother makes me feel cranky”) if their parents talk to them about causes and consequences of internal states (“Tell mommy why you were crying”) (Wang, Doan, & Song, 2010). Also, when parents reminisce with preschoolers about times they successfully resolved upsetting feelings, 4- and 5-year-olds describe their emotional tendencies more favorably (“I’m not scared, not me!”) (Goodvin & Romdall, 2013). By emphasizing the personal meaning of past events, conversations about internal states facilitate development of self-knowledge.

As early as age 2, parents use narratives of past events to impart rules, standards for behavior, and evaluative information about the child: “You added the milk when we made the mashed potatoes. That’s a very important job!” (Nelson, 2003). As the Cultural Influences box on the following page reveals, these self-evaluative narratives are a major means through which caregivers imbue the young child’s self-concept with cultural values.

As they talk about personally significant events and as their cognitive skills advance, preschoolers gradually come to view themselves as persisting over time—a change evident in their ability to anticipate their own future states and needs, which increases sharply from age 3 to 4 (Atance & Meltzoff, 2005; Povinelli, 2001). By age 5, children better understand that their future preferences are likely to differ from their current ones. Most agree that when they grow up, they will prefer reading newspapers to reading picture books and drinking coffee to drinking grape juice (Bélanger et al., 2014). By the end of the preschool years, children can set aside their current state of mind and take a future perspective.

Cultural InfluencesCultural Variations in Personal Storytelling: Implications for Early Self-Concept

Preschoolers of many cultural backgrounds participate in personal storytelling with their parents. The way parents select and interpret events in these narratives differs strikingly by culture, affecting the way children view themselves.

In one study, researchers spent hundreds of hours over a two-year period studying the storytelling practices of six middle-SES Irish-American families in Chicago and six middle-SES Chinese families in Taiwan. From extensive videotapes of adults’ conversations with the children from age 2½ to 4, the investigators identified personal stories and coded them for content, quality of their endings, and evaluation of the child (Miller, Fung, & Mintz, 1996; Miller et al., 1997; 2012).

Parents in both cultures discussed pleasurable holidays and family excursions in similar ways and with similar frequency. But five times more often than the Irish-American parents, the Chinese parents told long stories about their preschoolers’ previous misdeeds—using impolite language, writing on the wall, or playing in an overly rowdy way. These narratives, often sparked by a current misdeed, were conveyed with warmth and caring, stressed the impact of misbehavior on others (“You made Mama lose face”), and often ended with direct teaching of proper behavior (“Saying dirty words is not good”). By contrast, in the few instances in which Irish-American stories referred to transgressions, parents downplayed their seriousness, attributing them to the child’s spunk and assertiveness.

Early narratives about the child launch preschoolers’ self-concepts on culturally distinct paths (Miller, 2014). Influenced by Confucian traditions of strict discipline and social obligations, Chinese parents integrated these values into their stories, affirming the importance of not disgracing the family and explicitly conveying expectations in the story’s conclusion. By contrast, although Irish-American parents disciplined their children, they rarely dwelt on misdeeds in storytelling. In the few instances in which Irish-American stories referred to transgressions, parents interpreted these acts positively, perhaps to promote self-esteem (Miller, 2014; Miller et al., 1997; 2012).

Whereas most Americans believe that favorable self-esteem is crucial for healthy development, Chinese adults generally see it as unimportant or even negative—as impeding the child’s willingness to listen and be corrected (Miller et al., 2002). Consistent with this view, the Chinese parents did little to cultivate their child’s individuality. Instead, they used storytelling to guide the child toward socially responsible behavior. Hence, by the end of the preschool years, the Chinese child’s self-image emphasizes a sense of belonging and obligations to others (“I belong to the Lee family”; “I like to help my mom wash dishes”), whereas the American child’s is more autonomous, consisting largely of personal descriptions (“I do lots of puzzles”; “I like hockey”) (Wang, 2004; Wang, Doan, & Song, 2010).

A Chinese mother speaks gently to her child about proper behavior. Chinese parents often use story-telling to point out how their child’s misdeeds affect others. The Chinese child’s self-concept, in turn, emphasizes social obligations.

© RONNIE KAUFMAN/GETTY IMAGES

10.1.2 Emergence of Self-Esteem

Another aspect of self-concept emerges in early childhood: self-esteem, the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments. Make a list of your own self-judgments. Notice that, besides a global appraisal of your worth as a person, you have a variety of separate self-evaluations concerning different activities. These evaluations are among the most important aspects of self-development because they affect our emotional experiences, future behavior, and long-term psychological adjustment.

This preschooler confidently prepares to slide down the pole of a playground jungle gym. Her high self-esteem contributes greatly to her initiative in mastering new skills.

© LAURA DWIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

By age 4, preschoolers have several self-judgments—for example, about learning things well in school, making friends, getting along with parents, and treating others kindly (Marsh, Ellis, & Craven, 2002). But young children lack the cognitive maturity necessary to develop a global sense of self-esteem. They are not yet able to integrate the judgments of other people, and they cannot combine information about their competencies in different domains. Thus, their self-appraisals are fragmented. Also, because they have difficulty distinguishing between their desired and their actual competence, they usually rate their own ability as extremely high and often underestimate task difficulty, as Sammy did when he asserted, despite his many misses, that he was great at beanbag throwing (Harter, 2012).

High self-esteem contributes greatly to preschoolers’ initiative during a period in which they must master many new skills. By age 3, children whose parents patiently encourage while offering information about how to succeed are enthusiastic and highly motivated. In contrast, children whose parents criticize their worth and performance give up easily when faced with challenges and express shame and despondency after failing (Kelley, Brownell, & Campbell, 2000). Adults can avoid promoting these self-defeating reactions by adjusting their expectations to children’s capacities, scaffolding children’s attempts at difficult tasks, and pointing out effort and improvement in children’s work or behavior.

10.2 EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

10.2 Identify changes in understanding and expressing emotion during early childhood, citing factors that influence those changes.

Gains in representation, language, and self-concept support emotional development in early childhood. Between ages 2 and 6, children make strides in the emotional abilities that, collectively, researchers refer to as emotional competence (Denham et al., 2011). First, preschoolers gain in emotional understanding, becoming better able to talk about feelings and to respond appropriately to others’ emotional signals. Second, they become better at emotional self-regulation—in particular, at coping with intense negative emotion. Finally, preschoolers more often experience self-conscious emotions and empathy, which contribute to their developing sense of morality.

Parenting strongly influences preschoolers’ emotional competence. Emotional competence, in turn, is vital for successful peer relationships and overall mental health.

10.2.1 Understanding Emotion

Preschoolers’ vocabulary for talking about emotion expands rapidly, and they use it skillfully to reflect on their own and others’ behavior. Here are some excerpts from conversations in which 2-year-olds and 6-year-olds commented on emotionally charged experiences:

Two-year-old: [After father shouted at child, she became angry, shouting back.] “I’m mad at you, Daddy. I’m going away. Good-bye.”

Two-year-old: [Commenting on another child who refused to nap and cried.] “Mom, Annie cry. Annie sad.”

Six-year-old: [In response to mother’s comment, “It’s hard to hear the baby crying.”] “Well, it’s not as hard for me as it is for you.” [When mother asked why] “Well, you like Johnny better than I do! I like him a little, and you like him a lot, so I think it’s harder for you to hear him cry.”

Six-year-old: [Trying to comfort a small boy in church whose mother had gone up to communion.] “Aw, that’s all right. She’ll be right back. Don’t be afraid. I’m here.” (Bretherton et al., 1986, pp. 536, 540, 541)

Cognitive Development and Emotional Understanding

As these examples show, young preschoolers refer to causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of emotion, and over time their understanding becomes more accurate and complex (Thompson, Winer, & Goodvin, 2011). By age 4 to 5, emotion labeling differentiates: Children use happy, sad, angry, afraid, and surprised accurately (Widen, 2013). Older preschoolers also correctly judge the causes of diverse basic emotions (“He’s surprised because his mom’s hair is pink,” “He’s sad because his goldfish died”). Their explanations tend to emphasize external factors over internal states, a balance that changes with age (Rieffe, Terwogt, & Cowan, 2005). In Chapter 9, we saw that after age 4, children appreciate that both desires and beliefs motivate behavior. Once these understandings are secure, children’s grasp of how internal factors can trigger emotion expands.

Three- to 5-year-olds are good at inferring how others are feeling based on their behavior. For example, they can tell that a child who jumps up and down and claps his hands is probably happy, and that a child who is tearful and withdrawn is sad (Widen & Russell, 2011). They also realize that thinking and feeling are interconnected—that focusing on negative thoughts (“I broke my arm, so now I have to wear this itchy cast that makes it hard to play”) is likely to make a person feel worse, but thinking positively (“Now I have a cool cast my friends can write their names on!”) can help a person feel better (Bamford & Lagattuta, 2012). And they are aware that being reminded of a past experience or anticipating a future experience can influence one’s current emotions, an understanding that strengthens with age (Lagattuta, 2014). Furthermore, preschoolers come up with effective ways to relieve others’ negative emotions, such as hugging to reduce sadness (Fabes et al., 1988). Overall, they have an impressive ability to interpret, predict, and change others’ feelings.

At the same time, preschoolers have difficulty interpreting situations that offer conflicting cues about how a person is feeling. When shown a picture of a happy-faced child with a broken bicycle, 4- and 5-year-olds tended to rely only on the emotional expression: “He’s happy because he likes to ride his bike.” Older children more often reconciled the two cues: “He’s happy because his father promised to help fix his broken bike” (Gnepp, 1983; Hoffner & Badzinski, 1989). As in their approach to Piagetian tasks, young children focus on the most obvious aspect of a complex emotional situation to the neglect of other relevant information.

Social Experience and Emotional Understanding

The more parents label emotions, explain them, and express warmth and enthusiasm when conversing with preschoolers, the more “emotion words” children use and the better developed their emotional understanding (Fivush & Haden, 2005; Laible & Song, 2006). Discussions focusing on negative experiences or involving disagreements are particularly helpful.

In one study, mothers engaged in more detailed dialogues about causes of emotion and more often validated their preschoolers’ feelings when discussing negative (as opposed to positive) topics. And the more elaborative the discussions, the higher the children scored in emotional understanding (Laible, 2011). In another study, when mothers explained feelings, negotiated, and compromised during conflicts with their 2½-year-olds, their children, at age 3, were advanced in emotional understanding and used similar strategies to resolve disagreements (Laible & Thompson, 2002). Such dialogues seem to help children reflect on the causes and consequences of emotion while also modeling mature communication skills. Furthermore, preschoolers who are securely attached better understand emotion (Cooke et al., 2016). A secure attachment relationship allows for open parent–child communication about feelings along with sensitive responsiveness to the child’s range of emotional expressions. And as we have seen, attachment security is related to more elaborative parent–child narratives, including discussions that highlight the emotional significance of past events.

Warm, elaborative conversations in which parents label and explain emotions enhance preschoolers’ emotional understanding.

Michael Hevesy/Getty Images

Knowledge about emotion helps children in their efforts to get along with others. As early as 3, it is related to friendly, considerate behavior (such as sharing, helping), constructive responses to disputes with agemates, and perspective-taking ability (Hughes & Ensor, 2010; O’Brien et al., 2011; Sette, Spinrad, & Baumgartner, 2017). As children learn about emotion from interacting with adults, they engage in more emotion talk with siblings and friends (Hughes & Dunn, 1998). Referring to feelings and exchanging positive emotion when interacting with playmates, in turn, predicts better liking by peers (Fabes et al., 2001; Lindsey, 2017). Children seem to recognize that acknowledging others’ emotions and explaining their own enhance the quality of relationships.

10.2.2 Emotional Self-Regulation

Language, along with preschoolers’ growing understanding of emotion, contributes to gains in emotional self-regulation, or ability to manage the experience and expression of emotion (Blankson et al., 2013; Thompson, 2015). By age 3 to 4, children verbalize a variety of strategies for alleviating negative emotion that they tailor to specific situations (Davis et al., 2010; Dennis & Kelemen, 2009). For example, they know they can restrict sensory input (cover their eyes or ears to block out a scary sight or sound), talk to themselves (“Mommy said she’ll be back soon”), change their goals (decide that they don’t want to play anyway after being excluded from a game), or repair a relationship (“stop fighting and share” to resolve a conflict with a peer). The effectiveness of preschoolers’ suggested strategies improves with age.

By covering their ears to protect themselves from the noise of an imaginary explosion, these 4-year-olds reveal their awareness of a strategy for coping with scary sounds.

© LAURA DWIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

As children use these strategies, emotional outbursts decline. Gains in executive function—in particular, inhibition and flexible shifting of attention—contribute greatly to managing negative emotion. Preschoolers who can distract themselves when upset and focus on how to handle their feelings tend to become cooperative kindergartners with few problem behaviors, yielding benefits for academic as well as social competence. And their effective management of emotion predicts further gains in emotion understanding (Denham et al., 2012; von Salisch, Haenel, & Denham, 2015). Over time, emotional self-regulation and understanding of emotion seem to mutually support each other.

By age 3, skill at emotional self-regulation predicts children’s ability to portray an emotion they do not feel—for example, reacting cheerfully after receiving an undesirable gift (Kieras et al., 2005). These emotional “masks” are largely limited to the positive feelings of happiness and surprise. Children of all ages (and adults as well) find it harder to act sad, angry, or disgusted than pleased (Denham, 1998). To promote good social relations, most cultures teach children to communicate positive feelings and inhibit unpleasant ones.

Temperament affects the development of emotional self-regulation. Children who experience negative emotion intensely find it harder to inhibit feelings and shift attention away from disturbing events. They are more likely to be anxious and fearful, respond with irritation to others’ distress, react angrily or aggressively when frustrated, and get along poorly with teachers and peers (Eisenberg, Smith, & Spinrad, 2011; Raikes et al., 2007).

To avoid social difficulties, emotionally reactive children must develop effective emotion-regulation strategies. By watching parents manage their feelings, children learn strategies for regulating their own. Parents who are in tune with their own emotional experiences tend to be supportive and patient with their preschoolers, offering suggestions and explanations of emotion-regulation strategies that strengthen children’s capacity to handle stress (Meyer et al., 2014; Morris et al., 2011).

In contrast, when parents rarely express positive emotion, dismiss children’s feelings as unimportant, and fail to control their own anger, children’s emotion management and psychological adjustment suffer (Hill et al., 2006; Thompson & G

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