Kathleen Stassen Berger

Part IV Chapter Thirteen

The School Years: Psychosocial Development

The Peer Group Families and Children The Nature of the Child

Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield Tattoon, M.A.

The School Years: Psychosocial Development In middle childhood, children break free from the closely supervised and limited arena of younger years. They venture forth in the neighborhood, experiencing friendships and other social complexities it is a time for interplay between expanding freedom and guiding forces,they experience coping strategies and inner strengths.
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The Peer Group

getting along with peers is crucial during middle childhood difficulties with peers can cause serous problems, and being well-liked is protective there is developmental progression in peer relationships
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The Peer Group

social comparison
the tendency to assess ones abilities, achievements, social status, and other attributes by measuring them against those of other people, especially ones peers

The Peer Group

Culture of Children
the particular habits, styles, and values that reflect the set of rules and rituals that characterize children as distinct from adult society

deviancy training
the process whereby children are taught by their peers to avoid restrictions imposed by adults
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The Peer Group

Childrens Moral Codes
Age 7 to 11 are:
years of eager, lively searching on the part of childrenas they try to understand things, to figure them out, but also to weigh the rights and wrongsthis is the time for growth of the moral imagination, fueled constantly by the willingness, the eagerness of children to put themselves in the shoes of others (Cole, 1997)

The Peer Group

Childrens Moral Codes
school-age children are more likely to behave prosocially than are younger children (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998) social efficacy
people come to believe that they can affect their circumstances; this belief then leads to action that changes the social context
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The Peer Group

Stages of Moral Reasoning
Kohlbergs described three levels of moral reasoning:
preconventional moral reasoning
rewards and punishments

conventional moral reasoning

social rules

postconventional moral reasoning

moral principles

The Peer Group

What Children Value
moral specifics vary between and within nations and within one ethnic group in one region children seek respect from each other childrens moral precepts are not necessarily the ones that adults endorse

The Peer Group

What Children Value
Three common values among 6 to 11 year-olds are:
protect friends dont tell adults what is happening dont be too different from your peers

which explains both apparent boredom and overt defiance

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The Peer Group

Social Acceptance
aggressive-rejected
rejected by peers because of antagonistic, confrontational behavior

withdrawn-rejected
rejected by peers because of timid, withdrawn, and anxious behavior

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The Peer Group

Social Awareness
social cognition
the ability to understand social interactions, including the cause and consequences of human behavior

effortful control
the ability to regulate ones emotions and actions through effort, not simply through natural inclination

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The Peer Group

Friendship
school-age children value personal friendships friendship lead to psychosocial growth peer acceptance (popularity) and close friendship (mutual loyalty) both affect social interaction and emotional health among 5th graders
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The Peer Group

Friendship
becomes more intense and intimate as children grow older studies found that children had about the same number of friends no matter what their home background those from violent homes had fewer closer friends and were lonelier
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The Peer Group

Friendship
becomes more intense and intimate as children grow older older children tend to choose best friends whose interests, values, and background are similar to their own older children tend to choose best friends whose interests, values, and backgrounds are similar to their own

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The Peer Group

Bullies and Victims
isolated attacks, occasional insults, and unexpected social slights occur in childhood defining terms
bullying
repeated, systematic efforts to inflict harm through physical, verbal, or social attack on a weaker person

bully-victim
someone who attacks others, and who is attacked as wellalso called provocative victims because they do things that elicit bullying, such as taking a bullys pencil
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The Peer Group

Can bulling be stopped?
most children find ways to halt ongoing victimization by:
ignoring retaliating defusing avoiding

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The Peer Group

Can bulling be stopped?
Olweus used an ecological-systems approach:
sent pamphlets to parents showed videos to students trained school staff increased supervision during recess classroom discussion on how to stop bullying befriend lonely children

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Families and Children

genes affect temperament as well as ability peers are vital and schools and cultures influence what, and how much, children learn

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Families and Children

parental practices make a difference in how children develop or do they? some developmental researchers have expressed doubts, suggesting that genes, peers, and communities are so powerful that there may be little room left

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Families and Children

Shared and Nonshared Environment
shared environment
household influences that are the same for two people, such as children reared together

nonshared environment
when siblings have different friends and different teachers

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Families and Children

Family Function and Dysfunction
family structure
the legal and genetic relationship (nuclear, extended, step) among relatives in the same home

family function
the way a family works to meet the needs of its memberschildren need families to provide basic material necessities, encourage learning, develop self-respect, nurture friendships, and foster harmony and stability
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Families and Children

Family Function and Dysfunction
school-age children thrive if their families function for them in five ways:
provide basic necessities encourage learning develop self-respect nurture peer relationships ensure harmony and stability

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Families and Children

Diverse Structures
household
defined by the U.S. Census as all the people who live together in the same home

structure
nuclear family: a family that consists of a father, a mother, and their biological children under the age of18 single-parent family: a family that consists of only one parent and his or her biological children under age18 extended family: a family of three or more generations living in one household
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Families and Children

Connecting Structure and Function
family structure and family function are intertwined blended family:
a family that consists of two adults and the children of the prior relationships of one or both parents and/or the new partnership
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Families and Children

Family Trouble
low income and high conflict financial stress and family fighting often co-occur because they feed on each other

Family Income
correlates with both function and structure family-stress model holds that the crucial question to ask about any risk factor is how does: low income divorce unemployment increase the stress on families
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Families and Children

Harmony and Stability
ideally parents should form an alliance, learning to cooperate and protect the children
in any family the childs well-being can decline if family members fight, or are physically or verbally abusive to each other

no structure inevitably either harms children or guarantees good family function

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The Nature of the Child

Psychoanalytic Theory
stresses that school-age children are eager to learn about their expanding social universe latency
Freuds terms for middle childhood, during which childrens emotional drives and psychosocial needs are quiet (latent). Freud thought that sexual conflicts from earlier stages are only temporarily submerged, to burst forth again at puberty

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The Nature of the Child

Psychoanalytic Theory
Industry versus inferiority
the fourth of Eriksons eight psychosexual developmental crises, during which children attempt to master many skills, developing a sense of themselves as either industrious or inferior, competent or incompetent

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The Nature of the Child

Self-Concept
social comparison, effortful control, loyalty, and appreciation of peers and parents typically capture the nature of school-age children self-criticism and self-consciousness tend to rise from ages 6 to12, as selfesteem dips for children who live with unusual stresses
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The Nature of the Child

Self-Concept
if children are already stressed they tend to have lower academic achievement cultural differences make self-esteem more complex many cultures expect children to be modest
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The Nature of the Child

Coping and Overcoming
the school-age childs expanding social world and developing cognition can bring disturbing problems

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The Nature of the Child

Resilience and Stress
resilience: the capacity to develop optimally by adapting positively to significant adversity
resilience is dynamic, not a stable trait resilience is a positive adaptation to stress adversity must be significant
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The Nature of the Child

Social Support and Religious Faith
a strong bond with a loving and firm parent can see a child through many difficulties parenting practices can buffer stress and adversity the social world of school-age children allows for new possibilities for social support

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The Nature of the Child

Social Support and Religious Faith
a self-righting characteristic that seems evident in all humans and naturally deals with problems well-equipped, well-intentioned school-age children must connect to at least one other person
an example of self-righting is a childs use of religionwhich provides social support via an adult from the same community

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The Nature of the Child

Social Support and Religious Faith
faith can be psychologically protective parents can provide religious guidance many children believe that prayer is communication, expecting prayer will make them fell betterwhen they are sad or angry religious beliefs become increasingly useful as school-age children cope with problems

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