Personal, Social and Emotional Development of Children - Dissertation Example

Personal, Social and Emotional Development of Children Introduction Children always have something to learn everyday and this makes them to develop both socially and emotionally. As children grow they come to realize that they are different from any other person and thus get connected to the people around them. Woodward (2000) describes that in order for children to develop some sense about who they really are and of others, it is important for them to get the right experiences and support from the people around them for example their mother. This support enables them to grow socially through respecting others, gaining social skills needed and having a positive attitude towards learning what they are told. Emotional support is also necessary for children to realize their importance. This study shows the development of children both socially and emotionally and the attachment that children have with others and their family. The study also shows why it is important for a child to grow socially and the role that adults have to support this development. According to Bartsch and Wellman (1995) social and emotional development in children is one significant subject to be addressed. This is because the development moulds the child’s future both socially and emotionally. It also instils educational skills and ensures long time success. Social development helps children to settle well in schools this is because every child is said to be a competent learner thus is capable of copying ideas and being self assured. Therefore, if development is enhanced in the school environment, children will be in a position to cooperate and work properly with other students. Confidence is also gained in the process of sharing ideas which helps them later to grow independently. Children brought up in poor environment where they are not provided with emotional or social development may risk having poor relationship with their friends and family. The children may also not be in a position of achieving well in their studies as it will not be easier sharing out their problems. The child may also find it difficult in developing physical and mental health. The other way of developing a mental health is by use of photographs of for example animals which make children have an imagination of what they see and will later try to remember through the picture or image. Fiser and Aslin (26-22) shows that it is also necessary to encourage children to express themselves in terms of feelings for example fear, joy etc. this enables them to know how to control themselves in demanding situations. There are eight stages that need to be looked at in order to ensure that children grow physically, emotionally and socially. One of the lessons that children have to undergo is to learn the basic trust and the basic mistrust. This is also known as hope or the time where infancy occurs. It ranges from the age of one and two years. If a child is well nurtured and loved then they will be capable of building trust for others, feeling secure and optimism. On the other hand, if a child in not well nurtured then they feel more insecure and thus lack emotional development. The other step involves how children are able to learn autonomy and shame. This learning is experienced in the early stages of development which occurs at the age of 18 months. A child who is offered good care emerges well from this stage of development. This is because such children are more assured of themselves, their properties and are independent. Children at this stage are not stubborn, not negative for example saying no to everything and they also have self will of playing with others or sharing experiences. The third stage involves the learning initiative. Children are able to develop psychologically through for example playing with peers at the age of three to four years. Through playing, a child is capable of imagining scenarios and trying to imitate, children also learn how to cooperate with their peers for example where each child has a role to play in the game then this will help the children be responsible. These children can also be leaders of their play groups or at one moment the followers thus developing leadership skills and teamwork. Lack of socialising with peers makes a child inactive, fearful and most of the time they want to be with the adults. Such children take time to develop emotionally and socially as they lack play skills and imaginations which develops the brain. The child’s is also able to develop industrious behaviours which occur at the age of attending school (Meltzoff and Kuhl 1999). This behaviour enables the child to learn how to cope with formal procedures for example during class hours. The child can easily relate well with peers and work according to the rules and regulations. Coping with the formal skills enables a child to also manage to play during school breaks and not what they had been used at home where they played freely. Formal skills enables children to learn about social studies, how to read and also arithmetic where they are given homework thus making them being responsible. This development improves industriousness and helps a child to become self disciplined thus improving social and emotional development. For adults to be capable of improving healthy social and emotional development, it is important for them to consider the stages involved in a child’s development. Parents have to be aware that every child develops at their own pace and therefore making a child learn more than they can handle will make a child’s development slow. Social and emotional development improves due to presence of certain factors such as the parent’s genes and other for example physical health, mental and the condition of the brain. Other factors that facilitate development include environmental exposure and social life that children are exposed to at their early stages. The above factors may be both beneficial or may damage a child’s development. Brain development at the early years builds up better methods of understanding throughout ones life. One method used in brain development includes making children adapt to life changes both physical and environmental changes. The other method includes providing a healthier environment in terms of the food consumed and healthy treatment offered (Hoffman 2000). Children should also be taught how to cope with others. There are issues in life that tend to influence development in children. These include the physical health of a child, a child’s behaviour for example adopted from the parents and the other one involves the resources available that a child can access with ease. Other influences include the relationship between the child and their parents which include whether the parents abuses the child or treats them properly. Self esteem is also relevant in development and how a parent is able to care for their child for example sparing some time to share issues and fun moments with the child helps them to build trust and develop emotionally (Cassidy et al. 221-98). Parents should therefore make a schedule where they are able to sit and talk to their children about the issues around the environment. Parents should also act as good role models to their children as most of them imitate their adults in all the activities that they see them perform. Child behaviour is very significant in letting parents know what the child really want. A child may either use emotions such as crying when they want to breastfeed or smiling once they are excited. Since children aged five years and below find it hard to communicate through words, it is the parent’s role to understand their emotional responses. Learning how to communicate will be made easier if the children are able to cope well with their peers and play. A child who is not emotionally developed has various kinds of behaviours such as they have tantrums, tend to cling to their parents thus refusing to play with their peers. Such children may also have problems in following directions, eating and completing their duties. In the process of understanding children behaviours, it is necessary to try and find out the cause of the matter. Some of these problems may be caused by the unmet needs for example if a child had not been provided with certain needs while developing then they could possibly try to find other ways of satisfying themselves. In order for parents to deal with such behaviours they ought to provide all the needs that are significant in development in terms of actions and support. Parents should also learn to be patient with their children as every child grows at their own pace. Trying to false a child to stop the behaviour would not be advisable as it could build up to a major issue. Emotion and child’s behaviours all relates to temperament and development stage that every child has to pass through to become an adult. Temperament is found in each type of child which means that it is possible to find that some children are more active than others or others may easily adapt to situations unlike others who take time to adapt especially in the first days of attending school. Gopnik (244-237) describes that children who can easily develop routines for example time for eating and sleeping have always responded well in other activities. These types of children are capable of role taking and thus able to know their desires, attitude towards things and develop emotions. At the age of four, children can easily tell what their partners are thinking for example can tell the thoughts of their friends and parents. This way the child is able to develop personal and emotional needs. Studies have shown that most psychological behaviours are from interactions between peers and adults. Psychological understanding has been shown that it not only helps children to develop socially but it also makes them know the differences between them and adults. In the school environment, children who posses a better psychological understanding tend to be more socially competent unlike other. Perspective taking skills have also been important in the development of social skills. In active children are said to posses few perspective skills and the reason for their in activity may be due to certain issues. One of the problem may be directed to peer rejection where other children may refuse to play with one child then that child lacks the opportunity to socially interact with other children thus reduced development. Family perspectives are regarded as the entity and at the same time the producer of developmental outcomes of all the members involved and therefore results to as a social context or an environment that facilitates the frequency with which a person enters into other social environments (Pearl 2000). As an environmental factor, family involves both the genetically shared components and those that are not shared but are essential in the development of an individual. Studies have shown that the relationship linking the most sensitive periods in individual development for example from birth to five years and family development for example at birth may cause major changes in how the family relates with one another or the structure of the family for example according to the roles performed. These effects tend to affect the development of that child both socially and emotionally. The family is therefore a forceful background where a child can either be transformed by the influences or can transform others and bring major outcomes. This can be described in the Schneewind model which describes the psychological state of the family that brings about major influences in the lives of children. By this the researcher attempted to show the extrafamilial environment which a child is brought up in and the intrafamilial environment. Several variables were considered which affected the family’s ece-contest. These included the social organization, social inequality and the spatial environment. The family system was also said to comprise of different climate which included the emotional climate, stimulating and the authoritarian climate. Other constructions are made to abstract the underlying termed as the variables which utilise factor analysis and relates these to measured outcomes. The data supporting the causal model linked extrafamilial were measured through the socio-economic status in both urban and rural environment and job experience and intrafamilial variables which can also be regarded as the family climate or can be referred as the traits that are found in one of the parent. This significant family climate factor is measured using a higher rate of mutual control. This can be in terms of intellectual well being or the cultural orientation of that particular family. It also includes the active-recreational orientation and independence which is regarded as a significant intervening factor to be considered to achieve better development outcomes. Other models which demonstrated development of a child showed that low socio economic, the eco-system and strict job conditions of one parent can be linked with an authoritarian parenting style. This kind of parenting style tends to produce children with inferiority feelings and the children may also suffer from weakly internalized locus of control. Social skills can also be promoted through the facilitation of psychological understanding. This is enhanced by ensuring that children are able to differentiate between thoughts, feelings and perspectives. Dunn (518-507) describes that this can be incorporated by empathy for them to focus more in future and to build up perspective taking skills. Social skills in the school environment can also be increased by encouraging children to participate more in class discussions or teamwork responsibilities. This enables children to access more opportunities and builds up critical thinking. A child is able to imagine a situation and build it in mind therefore developing social interactions. In the process of promoting development of emotions in children, a number of factors have been discovered to be the main facilitators. These include parental skills, time, wealth and consumption. Most psychologists have discovered that social capital which include the parental status and the quality at which a child is raised also cause significant changes in children development. This is because children born from well of parents always access all the needs they want for example healthy foods, good care and support. Family economic resources therefore are said to facilitate the social and emotional development of children and especially children between 14 to 36 months of age. These resources have been said to influence development in both positive and negative ways. In carrying out the research, various variables were utilised such as the demographic characteristics of parents which cause lagged effects. The theories related to child development show that there is a linking factor between nurturing a child and nature. It has been discovered that family influences cause either flexibility or plasticity in the life of a child. According to Phillips et al. (78-53) child development both socially and emotionally has been seen as if it follows a particular system which involves the probabilistic epigenetic course. This process involves genetic characteristics where the biological influences and the social context are the major causing factors that bring about a child’s behaviour. The bronfenbrenner model of child development involves the ecological way of nurturing a child. This is because the study collects aspects of sociology and psychology. It was also discovered that mutual shaping is the combination of the environment that one is brought up in where several things should be considered such as family and the economic status. There were four identified systems that helped in shaping the way that individuals develop. Some of these include the micro-system. This involves the interpersonal interactions where a child is able to interact freely with the peers and adults. In the early stages a child tends to be more close to the family but later it is seen to interact with other people who include dyadic or the triadic. The micro-system becomes more visible when a child’s develops more socially for example when a child starts attending school then they get to see more peers unlike when at home. This involvement with more people makes the micro-system to increase and thus enhance development. The other system includes the meso-system category that is used in shaping individual development. These systems include those used in the interrelationships among different methods of settings for instance in the home environment, the day centre and also in the school environment. The connection between these kinds of settings increases child influences thus resulting to development. A child’s initiatives tend to link their influences both at home and in school (Schulz and Gopnik 176-162). The exo-system is the third system used in child’s development and involves the quality of the settings. The eco system includes those influences that do not affect a child directly but have some influences on the child’s social and emotional development. Such settings include the parent’s occupation, school boards, planning commissions etc. The final system used includes the macro-system which involves interrelating social forces which are included in the formulation of the macro environment. The macro- system offers the ideological model which is used by the meso-system and the eco system in shaping an individual. These systems are flexible in nature as they depend on the evolution of the environment and revolution which include during wars, changes in technology and the economic stability. The other model used in shaping an individual includes the Belsky process model. This involves how parents support contributes to a child’s development. Belsky discovered that parental competent contributes more to the nurturing of a child in terms of their behaviour and attitudes. He also proposed that there have to be a parent- child relationship for a child develops in the right manner. Children who are neglected and abused find it hard to fit in the environment as there is lack of parental forces which are built from within or can be referred to as one’s personality and later expressed towards the child instilling individuality. This factors increases relationships thus helping a child to adapt to social networks and emotional support. In determining parenting, Belsky came up with certain studies which showed that parenting involves the characteristics possessed by the parent, the child’s behaviours towards those characteristics and the systems available that influences development socially. Sobel (58-36) shows that the three aspects however do not influence an individual equally. It was also discovered that developmental history and individual personality were also used in indirectly influencing child’s development. In all the factors that involved parental functioning, personality and the psychological well being of the parent was found to have major effects on the lives of children. The effect caused by the contextual subsystems of social development is more as compared to the effect of a child’s characteristic basing on the functioning of a parent. However, this model does not show the results seen in the development of a child once the parent is involved but he just stated that the child will be competent. The model does not also show the influence caused by the family resources. There are characteristics that involved in the environment that a child is brought up in and which have major influences in development (Steyvers et al 489-453). One includes the fact that for a child to develop optimally, they have to be provided with the basic needs which will also include better healthy services and safety measures. The other environmental characteristic shows that development is facilitated by adult involvement and supports that should be more frequent and should not be comprised of many adults with varying characters. Development can also be facilitated by providing a positive emotional environment which makes the child learn how to gain trust with other people and themselves (Badenes et al. 283-271). There should also be involvement of an optimal point which reflects satisfaction of all the needs of a child. The sensory input of a child should be known to give time for a child to understand, receive information and respond according to their needs. Children who easily respond to the received information either do it emotionally, through physical signs and verbally to those who can talk. These responses build consistency and simplicity thus enabling a child to have valued behaviours in future. Children are able to develop more in environment that have restrictive orders or rules. This helps a child to practice self control and also be responsible in the tasks involved. Children should also be provided with a variety of cultures which should be easy to learn and understand. Conclusion These experiences enable a child to differentiate themselves with others according to their cultures for example a white child is able to respect children whose skin colour seems darker than theirs. It is necessary to provide children with more play materials as children manage to coordinate more and develop some sensory behaviour. The environment in which these children play in should enable children to share more experiences. Children should have more contact with adults and especially those who are able to provide children with motivational systems which later develop a child emotionally and socially. Parents who are able to program a child’s experiences are in a position of analysing the past and the current level of development in social, emotional and cognitive environment. 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