Child Growth and Development Chapter 5: Birth and the Newborn

Child Growth and
Development
Chapter 14:
Psychosocial Development
in Middle Childhood
Prepared by
Debbie Laffranchini
From Papalia, Olds, and Feldman
The Developing
Self
•Self-Concept Development
•Self-Esteem
•Emotional Growth
•Prosocial Behavior
Self-Concept Development
• Judgments about self more
realistic and balanced.
• Self-description can focus
on more than one
dimension of self.
• Contributes to self-esteem,
global self-worth.
– Self concept = Self esteem
Self - Concept Circle
• The person I think I am.
• The person others think I am.
• The person others think I think I am.
As I See Myself
Other’s
Reactions
To Me
My Actions
As Others See Me
Self-Esteem
• Major determinant of self-esteem is child’s
capacity for productive work
• Erikson’s fourth stage of psychosocial
development: Industry versus inferiority
– Child learns skills valued in their society
– Virtue: competence
– If child feels inadequate (inferior) when
compared to peers, may retreat to protective
embrace of family
– If child becomes too industrious, may
neglect social relationships and become
workaholic
Emotional Growth
• As child grows, more aware of their own feelings and
feelings of others
– Better regulate their emotions and respond to others’ emotional
distress
– Understand difference between guilt and shame
• Guilt imposed by others
• Shame is intrinsic (internal) process
– Better understand conflicting emotions
• I love my brother but he gets on my nerves
– Understand culturally appropriate expression of emotions and
cultural expectations
• Emotional self-regulation involves voluntary effort to
control emotions, attention and behavior
– Children low in effortful control become angry or frustrated
– Children high in effortful control stile impulse to show negative
emotions at inappropriate times
• May be temperamentally based
• Low effortful control may predict later behavior problems
Prosocial Behavior
• School-age children more empathic and more
inclined to prosocial behavior
• Prosocial children:
– Act appropriately in social situations
– Relatively free of negative emotion
– Cope with problems constructively
• Parents acknowledge children’s feelings of distress
and help them deal with the source of distress
– Fosters empathy, prosocial development and social skills
• When parents respond with disapproval or
punishment, anger and fear become more intense
and impairs social adjustment or causes child to be
secretive and anxious about negative feelings
The Child in the
Family
•Family Atmosphere
•Family Structure
•Sibling Relationships
Family Atmosphere
• School-age children spend more
free time away from home
– Spend more time at school and on
studies and less time at family meals
than 20 years ago
• 65% of children have dinner with at least
one parent
– 25% of children don’t talk or play with
a parent at least once a day
Family Atmosphere
Parenting Issues: Coregulation and Discipline
•
•
•
Control of behavior gradually shifts from
parents to child
Parents manage less and discuss more
Affects discipline
–
More likely to use inductive techniques
•
•
•
–
Mothers who used guilt to discipline but were
highly affectionate produced child with more
behavior problems
•
•
Moral values “big strong boy shouldn’t…”
Appeal to self-esteem “helpful boy…”
Consequences “no wonder you…”
Inconsistent messages?
If family conflict is constructive, helps
children see need for rules and standards
Family Atmosphere
Effects of Parents’ Work
• 70% of US mothers with children work
• More satisfied mother is with employment status, more
effective parent she is
• Impact on family depends on:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Family’s SES
Kind of care child receives before and after school
Child’s age
Sex
Temperament
Personality
Whether mother works full- or part-time
Why mother is working
Whether she has a supportive partner
• 9% of school age children care for themselves
Family Atmosphere
Poverty and Parenting
• 17% of US children live in poverty
– 33% black children
– 29% Hispanic children
– Children living with single mothers 5 times more likely to be poor than
children living with married couples
• 42% compared to 9%
• Poor children more likely to have emotional or behavioral problems
• Parents in poverty more likely to be anxious, depressed, irritable,
less affectionate and less responsive to children, discipline
inconsistently, harshly and arbitrarily
• Patterns for parents and children not inevitable
• Effects of persistent poverty are complex: transitory poverty during
first four years of child’s life less damaging than later, chronic
poverty
– Most damaging to children are unstimulating home environment, unstable adult
relationships, psychiatric problems, violent or criminal behavior, lack of maternal
sensitivity
Family Structure
• 1970 87% of children lived with two married parents
• 2004 67% of children lived with two married parents
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–
–
–
10% of two-parent families are stepfamilies
4% are cohabiting families
Gay or lesbian families are increasingly more common
Grandparent-headed families increasingly more common
Family Structure
• Children (biological and adoptive) tend to do better in
families with two continuously married parents than
cohabiting, divorced, single-parent, stepfamilies or when
the child is born outside of marriage
– Outcome better for children growing up with two happily married parents
•
•
•
•
•
Children have higher standard of living
Parents more effective in parenting
More cooperative co-parenting
Closer relationships with both parents (especially fathers)
Fewer stressful events
– 20% children live in households with no father
– 13% of children have never seen their fathers
• Poor children, black children, Hispanic children most likely to have no father
in home
• Father’s frequent, positive involvement from infancy on
related to physical, cognitive and social development
Divorce
Topics for Discussion
You have probably known someone who has
gone through a divorce.
What were the positive outcomes of this?
What were the difficulties they had to go through?
Do you think they could have worked it out?
Would it have been better if they did?
“I’d Just As Soon Go”
By: George Strait
You say you want to talk it over
Want to try again
But there's no way of workin' out
This love that we're not in
We could talk and talk and accomplish nothin'
We've tried it all before
It's time somebody did some walkin'
And I can see the door
So I'd just as soon go
I'd just as soon say goodbye
There's no reason to prolong
What we should just let die
And I'd just as soon stop
I'd just as soon end the madness
Knowin' what I know
I'd just as soon go
It's not an easy thing to do
Leavin' seldom ever is
But stayin' just to see us through
Just ain't no way to live
It's hard for you to understand
But we're better off this way
I can't fake it one more night
Or take it one more day
So I'd just as soon go
I'd just as soon say goodbye
There's no reason to prolong
What we should just let die
And I'd just as soon stop
I'd just as soon end the madness
Knowin' what I know
I'd just as soon go
Knowin' what I know
I'd just as soon go
Family Structure
When Families Divorce
• US has one of highest divorce rates in world
– Divorces have tripled since 1960
– 1 million children involved in divorces each year
• Divorce is stressful for children
– Marital conflict, parental separation, departure of one parent
(usually father), don’t understand, standard of living likely to
drop, relationship with noncustodial parent suffers, remarriage,
feelings of loss
– Children exhibit more emotional and behavioral problems
• Anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior
– Adjustment depends on child’s age, gender, temperament,
psychosocial adjustment prior to divorce
• Younger child more anxious, may blame themselves, adapt quicker
• School-age child has loyalty conflicts, fear of abandonment, rejection
• Harder for boys to adjust, boys more susceptible to social and conduct
problems
Family Structure
When Families Divorce
• Custody, Visitation, Co-parenting
– Better outcome for child if custodial parent is warm, supportive,
authoritative, monitors child’s activities, has age-appropriate
expectations, parental conflict subsides, and nonresident parent
maintains close contact and involvement
– Most children live with mothers and child adjust better when
father pays child support
• May be barometer of tie between father and child and cooperation
between parents
• Frequency of contact not as important as quality of relationship and
level of parental conflict
• Cooperative parenting improves relationships, hard to do
• Children in joint custody are better adjusted, have higher selfesteem and better family relationships than sole custody and as well
adjusted as children in nondivorced families
• “For adults, divorce brings a world to
an end; for young children, whose lives
are focused in the family, it seems to
bring the world to an end.”
(Heatherington & Kelly, 2002)
Adjusting to Divorce
• The impact of divorce on children can
affect their self-concept, school
performance, peer relationships and
needs.
• Parents can help children adjust to divorce
by decreasing conflict, relationship with
parents, economic stability, and consistent
visitation.
Effects of Divorce by Age
Age
2-5
Theme
Abandonment
Symptoms
Sleep
disturbances
What to do
Explain custodial
parent will return.
5-9
Displaced,
Grief
School
difficulties
Discuss fears,
Contact with
non-custodial
parent.
9-12
Acting out
Spying, fight
with parents.
Patience, love
13+
Relationship
failure
Independence,
promiscuous
Communication,
encourage
relationships.
Family Structure
When Families Divorce
• Long-Term Effects
– Most children adjust reasonably well
– Modestly lower levels of cognitive, social, emotional well-being
– In adolescence, increased antisocial behavior, difficulty with
authority figures (common for all adolescents)
– 25% of children have serious social, emotional, or psychological
problems in adulthood compared with 10% of nondivorced children
– Lower SES, lower educational levels
– Lower psychological well-being
– Great chance of having child outside of marriage
– Marriages for 2 more generations poorer quality and more likely to
end in divorce
– Anxiety may surface in adulthood as they form intimate relationships
Topics for Discussion
What are some of the challenges a single
parent faces?
What are some ways to deal with those
challenges?
Single Parenting
• Single parents must overcome the loss of an
efficient economic unit, where the labor is
divided between two adult.
• A large majority of single parents do not receive
child support, and if they do, it is often
insufficient.
• Child care becomes a problem when there are
young children in the home.
• Time is a scarce commodity. Balancing the
responsibilities of the mother, father,
homemaker and breadwinner is difficult.
Family Structure
Living in a One-Parent Family
• One-parent families result from divorce, separation, unwed
parent, death
• Single-parent families tripled since 1970
• 25% of US children live with one parent
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–
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11% of these households are cohabiting households
50% black children live with single parent
26% Hispanic children live with single parent
19% white children live with single parent
• More likely to live with mother
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–
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Do well overall
Lag socially and educationally
Exposed to more stressors
Tend to be economically disadvantaged
• 37% with mothers; 16% with fathers
Family Structure
Living in a Cohabiting Family
• Parents tend to be more disadvantaged
–
–
–
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Less income
Less education
Poorer relationships
More mental health problems
• Children have worse emotional, behavioral, and
academic outcomes
• 25% cohabiting parents no longer together 1
year later
• 31% cohabiting parents break up after 5 years
Topics for Discussion
What are some of the challenges a
blended family faces?
What are some ways to deal with these
challenges?
Family Structure
Living in a Stepfamily
• Most divorced parents eventually remarry
• Many unwed mothers marry men not the father of their
children
• 15% of children live in blended families
• Stress for child
– Loyalty
– Forming ties
– Noncustodial mothers keep in touch more than noncustodial
fathers and offer more social support
– Boys benefit more from stepfather
• Mothers use gentler discipline when with partner,
married or not, better relationships with children
– Supervision greater in stable single-mother families
Blended Family
Case Scenarios
• The new parent has brought two new children into a
family, where there are already three children. How
should physical space be divided?
• How should the new family handle discipline? Which
parent would discipline which child? Is the other
parent given the authority necessary to discipline?
• Who will decide upon issues such as household
chores and responsibilities? How is the work divided?
• By what names will the new parent be called?
Family Structure
Living with Gay or Lesbian Parents
• 9 million US children have at least one gay or
lesbian parent
– Some gays and lesbians raise children born from
previous heterosexual relationship
– Some conceive by artificial means, use surrogates,
or adopt
• No consistent differences between
homosexual and heterosexual parents in
emotional health or parenting skills
– When present, favor gay/lesbian parents
• Children no more confused about
gender but may be teased and may
hide parents’ sexual orientation
Family Structure
Adoptive Families
• 1.4 million US children live with at least one
adoptive parent
– 60% of adoptions are by stepparents or relatives
(usually grandparents)
– Adoptions usually through public or private
agencies
• Confidential
• No contact between birth parents and adoptive parents
– Independent adoptions are agreements between
birth and adoptive parents
• Often open adoptions with information shared and
contact maintained
– Open adoptions not correlated with child adjustment or parent
satisfaction with adoption
• Challenges: integrating child into family,
adolescence (especially boys), interracial
rules, older children (particularly foreign)
Family Structure
Living with Grandparents
• 5% of US children live with grandparents
– 40% no parent present
– Blacks more likely
– Grandparents often on fixed income or dire financial
straits
– Many are widowed or divorced
– Without legalizing through foster or custody, no legal
status
• “Parents by default”
– Often result of teenage pregnancy, substance abuse,
illness, divorce, or early death
• Do it out of love for the children
– But still may feel cheated out of traditional role
– May lack stamina for parenting
• Working grandparents entitled to federal Family
and Medical Leave Act
Sibling Relationships
• Number of siblings, spacing, birth
order, gender determine roles and
relationships
• Siblings are motivated to resolve
conflict
– Same sex quarrel the most, boys more than
girls
• Siblings influence gender development
– Firstborns more influenced by parents,
secondborns more influenced by sibling’s
attitudes, personality, and activities
• When parent-child relationship has
conflict, sibling conflict is more likely
The Child in the
Nourishment
Peer Group
• Positive and Negative
Effects of Peer Relations
• Gender Differences in
Peer-Group Relationships
• Popularity
• Friendship
• Aggression and Bullying
Positive & Negative Effects of
Peer Relations
• Children benefit from doing things with
peers
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Develop skills for sociability and intimacy
Gain sense of belonging
Motivated to achieve
Get sense of identity
Learn leadership and communication skills,
roles, and rules
– Compare to others their age and gauge
their abilities more realistically
– Gain clearer sense of self-efficacy
Positive & Negative Effects of
Peer Relations
• Peer groups reinforce
prejudice
– “Outsiders”
– Especially racial or ethnic
groups
– Biases toward children like
themselves
– Prejudice and discrimination
do real damage
• Peer group can foster
antisocial tendencies
– Shoplift, drugs
Gender Differences in
Peer-Group Relationships
• Boys:
– Groups of boys play in large groups with well-defined
leadership hierarchies
– More competitive and rough-and-tumble play
– Less emotional support from friends
• Girls:
– More intimate conversations with prosocial
interactions and shared confidences
– Seek social connections and more sensitive to others’
distress
– More likely to worry about relationships, express
emotions, and seek emotional support
Popularity
• Becomes more important in middle childhood
• Children who don’t get along with peers more likely to develop
psychological problems, drop out of school, become delinquent
• Popularity measured two ways:
1.
Sociometric popularity measured by asking children which peers
they like most and least
•
2.
Five peer status groups identified: popular, rejected, neglected,
controversial, average
Perceived popularity measured by asking children which children are
best liked by peers
•
High status, may be dominant, arrogant, aggressive, physically attractive,
athletic, and to a lesser extent may have academic ability
• Unpopular children tend to be aggressive, hyperactive, inattentive,
withdrawn, silly, immature, anxious, uncertain, insensitive to others’
feelings and not adapt well
• Popular children tend to come from authoritative families
Friendship
• Children look for friends who are like them
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Same age
Same sex
Same ethnicity
Same interests
• Strongest friendships involve equal commitment and mutual
give-and-take
• Unpopular children can make friends, but have fewer friends
and tend to have younger friends
• Friends help children to learn to communicate and cooperate
• Quarrels help children learn to resolve conflicts
• Peer rejection has long-term effects
• Selman’s Stages of Friendship
Aggression and Bullying
• Aggression declines and changes in form
– As child grows less egocentric and more empathic,
more cooperative, better able to communicate
• Instrumental aggression is less common
• Hostile aggression proportionately increases
• School-age boys who are physically aggressive
may become juvenile
delinquents in adolescence
Aggression and Bullying
Gender Differences
• Boys are more physically aggressive
• Relational or social aggression is more
typical of girls
– Some research indicates both boys and girls use
relational aggression
• Consequences more serious for girls
– More preoccupied with relationships
• Boys are more aggressive when a group is
forming
– Compete for dominance
• Girls seek status through manipulative
means involving indirect or relational
aggression
– Perceived to be most popular in class
Aggression and Bullying
Types of Aggression and Social Information Processing
• Instrumental, proactive aggressors
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View force and coercion as effective ways to get what they want
Act deliberately, not out of anger
Expect to be rewarded and when they are, belief is reinforced
Stops when not rewarded
• Hostile, reactive aggressors
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Hostile attribution bias, see other children as trying to hurt them
Strike out in retaliation or self-defense
Rejected children and children exposed to harsh parenting
Can be stopped through teaching recognition of feeling angry and
teaching conflict resolution
Aggression and Bullying
Does Media Violence Stimulate Aggression?
• Children spend about 4 hours screen time daily
• 60% of US TV programs portray violence
– Usually glamorized, glorified, or trivialized
– Music videos disproportionately feature violence against women
and blacks
– Motion picture, music, and video game industries aggressively
market violent, adult-rated products to children
• Children take violence for granted and less likely to intervene
• More time with screen is less time with friends who can balance the
negativity
– Long-term influence greater for school-age than earlier
ages
• AAP recommended media time: 1 – 2 hours daily
Aggression and Bullying
Bullies and Victims
• Aggression become bullying when it is deliberate,
persistent, against a particular target who typically is
weak, vulnerable, and defenseless
– Hitting, punching, kicking, taking personal belongings, name
calling, threatening, psychological (isolating and gossiping)
• Bullying occurs in 42% of middle schools and 21% high
schools at least once a week
– Associated with student suicide and suicidal thoughts and
behavior
• Most bullies are boys who tend to victimize other boys
Aggression and Bullying
Bullies and Victims
• Victims decrease over time as children learn how to
discourage bullying, leaving a smaller pool of
available victims
• Bullies and victims exhibit psychological problems
– Both tend to be disliked
– Both say they are victims
• Bullies are aggressive, impulsive, hostile,
domineering, antisocial, uncooperative
• Risk factors for victimization: don’t fit in, are
anxious, depressed, cautious, quiet, submissive, cry
easily, argumentative, provocative, have few
friends, may live in harsh punitive families
• Victims may: develop hyperactivity, become more
aggressive, become more depressed
Cyberbullying
• http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/new
s/special_reports/Cyberbullying
Mental Health
•Common Emotional
Disturbances
•Treatment Techniques
•Stress and Resilience
Mental Health
• 1 in 10 children and adolescents has a
diagnosed mental illness severe enough to
cause some impairment
– Half of all mental disorders begin by age 14
• 55.7% of children diagnosed with emotional,
behavioral, and developmental problems have
disruptive conduct disorders:
– Aggression, defiance, antisocial behavior
• 43.5% have anxiety or mood disorders
– Feeling sad, depressed, unloved, nervous, fearful,
lonely
Common Emotional
Disturbances
Disruptive Conduct Disorders
• Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
– Pattern of behavior until age 8 including temper tantrums, defiance,
argumentative, hostile, deliberately annoying behavior, disobedience
and hostility toward adult authority lasting at least 6 months and beyond
normal childhood behavior
– Child constantly fights, argues, loses temper, grabs things, blames
others, angry, resentful, has few friends, constantly in trouble at school,
tests limits of adult patience
• Conduct Disorder (CD)
– Some children with ODD also have CD
– Persistent, repetitive pattern beginning at early age
• Aggressive, antisocial, truant, setting fires, habitual lying, fighting, bullying,
theft, vandalism, assaults, drug and alcohol use
– 25 – 50% of highly antisocial children become antisocial adults
– Neurological deficits, genetics, hostile parenting, family conflict
Common Emotional
Disturbances
School Phobia and Other Anxiety Disorders
• School phobia: unrealistic fear of going to school
– Some have realistic reasons
• Sarcastic teacher
• Overly demanding work
• Bully
– Change the environment, not the child
– May be type of separation anxiety disorder (4% of children)
• Social phobia or social anxiety: extreme fear and/or
avoidance of social situations (5% of children)
– Runs in families, genetic component, triggered by traumatic
experiences, increases with age
Common Emotional
Disturbances
• Generalized anxiety disorder
– Not focused on any specific aspect of child’s life
– Worry about everything
• Grades, storms, earthquakes, hurting themselves, amount of gas in
the tank
– Self-conscious, self-doubting, excessively concerned with
meeting expectations of others
– Seek approval and need constant reassurance
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
– Far less common, obsessed by repetitive, intrusive thoughts,
images, impulses or behaviors
– Runs in families, more common in girls
• Vulnerability to anxiety begins as early as 6 years
– Girls more vulnerable to anxiety which often goes with depression,
which may be neurologically based plus environment
Common Emotional
Disturbances
Childhood Depression
• Goes beyond normal temporary sadness
• Occurs in 2% of elementary school children
• Symptoms
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Inability to have fun
Inability to concentrate
Fatigue
Extreme activity or apathy
Crying
Sleep problems
Weight change
Physical complaints
Feelings of worthlessness
Prolonged sense of friendlessness
Frequent thoughts of death or suicide
Common Emotional
Disturbances
Childhood Depression
• May be a signal of a recurring problem that can persist
into adulthood
• Specific causes unknown
– Tends to come from families who have high levels of:
• Parental depression, anxiety, substance abuse, antisocial behavior
– 2 specific genes related to depression
• One controls brain chemical serotonin and affects mood
• Another gene is associated with enlargement of a brain region that
involves negative emotions
Treatment Techniques
•
•
•
•
Individual psychotherapy
Family therapy
Behavior therapy (behavior modification)
Art therapy
– Children with limited verbal and conceptual skills or who have
suffered emotional trauma
• Play therapy
• Drug therapy
– CONTROVERSIAL
– Sufficient research on effectiveness and safety for children is
lacking
– Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) treat obsessivecompulsive, depressive, anxiety disorders, risks of suicidal
behavior, especially in early months of treatment
Stress and Resilience
Stresses of Modern Life
• Elkind’s “Hurried Child”**
– Children expected to do well in school, compete in sports, meet
parents’ emotional needs
– Tightly schedule pace of life is stressful
– Exposed to adult problems on television and in real life
Stress and Resilience
Stresses of Modern Life
• With added stress comes increased anxiety
• Presence of street gangs and violence in schools
– 94% of middle schools reported incidents of violent crime
• Rape, robbery, physical attacks with or without weapons
• Children more susceptible than adults to psychological
harm from a traumatic event such as war or terrorism
– Reactions vary with age
– Reactions vary with exposure
– Reactions vary with how directly affects child
• Response to traumatic event occurs in two stages:
– First: fright, disbelief, denial, grief, relief if loved ones unharmed
– Second: several days or weeks later, signs of anxiety, fear,
withdrawal, sleep disturbances, pessimism about future
– If symptoms last more than 1 month, child needs counseling
Talking to Children About
Terrorism and War
• Listen to children
– Create a time and place and don’t force
• Answer children’s questions
– Avoid stereotyping groups of people by race,
nationality, or religion
– Be honest and be prepared
– You may need to repeat information
• Provide support
– Don’t let them watch the events on TV
Stress and Resilience
Coping with Stress: The Resilient Child
• Those who weather circumstances that would devastate
others, bounce back from traumatic event
• Two primary protective factors for resiliency:
1. Family relationships
2. Cognitive functioning (high IQs)
• Other protective factors:
–
–
–
Child’s temperament and personality
Compensating experiences (school, sports, music)
Reduced risk (only one risk factor: exposed to psychiatric
disorder, parental discord, low social status, disturbed mother,
criminal father, experience in foster care or institution)
Great minds discuss ideas, average
minds discuss events; small minds
discuss people.
-Eleanor Roosevelt