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Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood Psychology homework help

chapter 8 Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood
During the preschool years, children make great strides in understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, and they build on these skills as they form first friendships—special relationships marked by attachment and common interests.

chapter outline
· Erikson’s Theory: Initiative versus Guilt

· Self-Understanding

· Foundations of Self-Concept

· Emergence of Self-Esteem

· ■ CULTURAL INFLUENCES Cultural Variations in Personal Storytelling: Implications for Early Self-Concept

· Emotional Development

· Understanding Emotion

· Emotional Self-Regulation

· Self-Conscious Emotions

· Empathy and Sympathy

· Peer Relations

· Advances in Peer Sociability

· First Friendships

· Peer Relations and School Readiness

· Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations

· Foundations of Morality

· The Psychoanalytic Perspective

· Social Learning Theory

· The Cognitive-Developmental Perspective

· The Other Side of Morality: Development of Aggression

· ■ CULTURAL INFLUENCES Ethnic Differences in the Consequences of Physical Punishment

· 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

· ■ SOCIAL ISSUES: EDUCATION Young Children Learn About Gender Through Mother–Child Conversations

· 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 adults’ 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 Erik Erikson’s theory, which provides an overview of personality change in the preschool years. Then we consider children’s concepts of themselves, their insights into their social and moral worlds, their gender typing, and their increasing ability to manage their emotional and social behaviors. Finally, we ask, What is effective child rearing? And we discuss the complex conditions that support good parenting or lead it to break down.

image1 Erikson’s Theory: Initiative versus Guilt
Erikson ( 1950 ) described early childhood as a period of “vigorous unfolding.” Once children have a sense of autonomy, they become less contrary than they were as toddlers. Their energies are freed for tackling the psychological conflict of the preschool years: initiative versus guilt . As the word initiative suggests, young children have a new sense of purposefulness. They are eager to tackle new tasks, join in activities with peers, and discover what they can do with the help of adults. They also make strides in conscience development.

Erikson regarded play as a means through which young children learn about themselves and their social world. Play permits preschoolers to try new skills with little risk of criticism and failure. It also creates a small social organization of children who must cooperate to achieve common goals. Around the world, children act out family scenes and highly visible occupations—police officer, doctor, and nurse in Western societies, rabbit hunter and potter among the Hopi Indians, hut builder and spear maker among the Baka of West Africa (Göncü, Patt, & Kouba, 2004 ).

Recall that Erikson’s theory builds on Freud’s psychosexual stages (see Chapter 1 , page 16 ). In Freud’s Oedipus and Electra conflicts, to avoid punishment and maintain parents’ affection, children form a superego, or conscience, by identifying with the same-sex parent. As a result, they adopt the moral and gender-role standards of their society. For Erikson, the negative outcome of early childhood is an overly strict superego that causes children to feel too much guilt because they have been threatened, criticized, and punished excessively by adults. When this happens, preschoolers’ exuberant play and bold efforts to master new tasks break down.

A Guatemalan 3-year-old pretends to shell corn. By acting out family scenes and highly visible occupations, young children around the world develop a sense of initiative, gaining insight into what they can do and become in their culture.

Although Freud’s ideas are no longer accepted as satisfactory explanations of conscience development, Erikson’s image of initiative captures the diverse changes in young children’s emotional and social lives. Early childhood is, indeed, a time when children develop a confident self-image, more effective control over their emotions, new social skills, the foundations of morality, and a clear sense of themselves as boy or girl.

image2 Self-Understanding
The development of language enables young children to talk about their own subjective experience of being. In Chapter 7 , we noted that young children acquire a vocabulary for talking about their inner mental lives and gain in understanding of mental states. As self-awareness strengthens, preschoolers 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.

Foundations of Self-Concept
Ask a 3- to 5-year-old to tell you about himself, and you are likely to hear something like this: “I’m Tommy. See, I got this new red T-shirt. I’m 4 years old. I can wash my hair all by myself. I have a new Tinkertoy set, and I made this big, big tower.” Preschoolers’ self-concepts consist largely of observable characteristics, such as their name, physical appearance, possessions, and everyday behaviors (Harter, 2006 ; Watson, 1990 ).

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 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 ). But preschoolers do not yet say, “I’m helpful” or “I’m shy.” Direct references to personality traits must wait for greater cognitive maturity.

A warm, sensitive parent–child relationship seems to foster a more 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 that reflect agreeableness and positive affect (Goodvin et al., 2008 ). Also recall from Chapter 7 that securely attached preschoolers participate in more elaborative parent–child conversations about personally experienced events, which help them understand themselves (see page 240 ).

Cultural Influences Cultural Variations in Personal Storytelling: Implications for Early Self-Concept
Preschoolers of many cultural backgrounds participate in personal storytelling with their parents. Striking cultural differences exist in parents’ selection and interpretation of events in these narratives, affecting the way children view themselves.

In one study, researchers spent thousands of hours 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 (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 preschooler’s 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 used as opportunities to educate: Parents conveyed stories 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 and a moral lesson (“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, Fung, & Koven, 2007 ). 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 for improvement in the story’s conclusion. Although Irish-American parents disciplined their children, they rarely dwelt on misdeeds in storytelling. Rather, they cast the child’s shortcomings in a positive light, perhaps to promote self-esteem.

A Chinese mother speaks gently to her child about proper behavior. Chinese parents often tell preschoolers stories that point out the negative impact on others of the child’s misdeeds. The Chinese child’s self-concept, in turn, emphasizes social obligations.

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 responsible behavior. Hence, the Chinese child’s self-image emphasizes obligations to others, whereas the American child’s is more autonomous.

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 above 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. Around age 4, children first become certain that a video image of themselves replayed a few minutes after it was filmed is still “me” (Povinelli, 2001 ). Similarly, when researchers asked 3- to 5-year-olds to imagine a future event (walking next to a waterfall) and to envision a future personal state by choosing from three items (a raincoat, money, a blanket) the one they would need to bring with them, performance—along with future-state justifications (“I’m gonna get wet”)—increased sharply from age 3 to 4 (Atance & Meltzoff, 2005 ).

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. TAKE A MOMENT … 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 how well you perform at 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.

By age 4, preschoolers have several self-judgments—for example, about learning things in school, making friends, getting along with parents, and treating others kindly (Marsh, Ellis, & Craven, 2002 ). But because they have difficulty distinguishing between their desired and their actual competence, they usually rate their own ability as extremely high and underestimate task difficulty, as when Sammy asserted, despite his many misses, that he was great at beanbag throwing (Harter, 2003 , 2006 ).

After creating a “camera” and “flash,” this pre-schooler pretends to take pictures. Her high self-esteem contributes greatly to her initiative in mastering many new skills.

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 a challenge 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 (see Chapter 7 , page 234 ), and pointing out effort and improvement in children’s behavior.

image3 Emotional Development
Gains in representation, language, and self-concept support emotional development in early childhood. Between ages 2 and 6, children make strides in emotional abilities that, collectively, researchers refer to as emotional competence (Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore, 2001 ; Saarni et al., 2006 ). 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.

Understanding Emotion
Early in the preschool years, children refer to causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of emotion, and over time their understanding becomes more accurate and complex (Stein & Levine, 1999 ). By age 4 to 5, children correctly judge the causes of many basic emotions (“He’s happy because he’s swinging very high”; “He’s sad because he misses his mother”). Preschoolers’ explanations tend to emphasize external factors over internal states, a balance that changes with age (Levine, 1995 ). After age 4, children appreciate that both desires and beliefs motivate behavior ( Chapter 7 ). Then their grasp of how internal factors can trigger emotion expands.

Preschoolers can also predict what a playmate expressing a certain emotion might do next. Four-year-olds know that an angry child might hit someone and that a happy child is more likely to share (Russell, 1990 ). And they realize that thinking and feeling are interconnected—that a person reminded of a previous sad experience is likely to feel sad (Lagattuta, Wellman, & Flavell, 1997 ). Furthermore, they come up with effective ways to relieve others’ negative feelings, such as hugging to reduce sadness (Fabes et al., 1988 ).

At the same time, preschoolers have difficulty interpreting situations that offer conflicting cues about how a person is feeling. When asked what might be happening in 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, preschoolers focus on the most obvious aspect of an emotional situation to the neglect of other relevant information.

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 ). In one study, mothers who explained feelings and who negotiated and compromised during conflicts with their 2½-year-olds had children who, at age 3, were advanced in emotional understanding and used similar strategies to resolve disagreements (Laible & Thompson, 2002 ). Furthermore, 3- to 5-year-olds who are securely attached to their mothers better understand emotion. Attachment security is related to warmer and more elaborative parent–child narratives, including discussions of feelings that highlight the emotional significance of events (Laible, 2004 ; Laible & Song, 2006 ; Raikes & Thompson, 2006 ).

As preschoolers learn about emotion from interacting with adults, they engage in more emotion talk with siblings and friends, especially during make-believe play (Hughes & Dunn, 1998 ). Make-believe, in turn, contributes to emotional understanding, especially when children play with siblings (Youngblade & Dunn, 1995 ). The intense nature of the sibling relationship, combined with frequent acting out of feelings, makes pretending an excellent context for learning about emotions.

Applying What We Know Helping Children Manage Common Fears of Early Childhood
Fear

Suggestion

Monsters, ghosts, and darkness

Reduce exposure to frightening stories in books and on TV until the child is better able to sort out appearance from reality. Make a thorough “search” of the child’s room for monsters, showing him that none are there. Leave a night-light burning, sit by the child’s bed until he falls asleep, and tuck in a favorite toy for protection.

Preschool or child care

If the child resists going to preschool but seems content once there, the fear is probably separation. Provide a sense of warmth and caring while gently encouraging independence. If the child fears being at preschool, find out what is frightening—the teacher, the children, or a crowded, noisy environment. Provide extra support by accompanying the child and gradually lessening the amount of time you are present.

Animals

Do not force the child to approach a dog, cat, or other animal that arouses fear. Let the child move at her own pace. Demonstrate how to hold and pet the animal, showing the child that when treated gently, the animal is friendly. If the child is larger than the animal, emphasize this: “You’re so big. That kitty is probably afraid of you!”

Intense fears

If a child’s fear is intense, persists for a long time, interferes with daily activities, and cannot be reduced in any of the ways just suggested, it has reached the level of a phobia. Sometimes phobias are linked to family problems, and counseling is needed to reduce them. At other times, phobias diminish without treatment as the child’s capacity for emotional self-regulation improves.

As early as 3 to 5 years of age, knowledge about emotions is related to children’s friendly, considerate behavior, willingness to make amends after harming another, and constructive responses to disputes with agemates (Dunn, Brown, & Maguire, 1995 ; Garner & Estep, 2001 ; Hughes & Ensor, 2010 ). Also, the more preschoolers refer to feelings when interacting with playmates, the better liked they are by their peers (Fabes et al., 2001 ). Children seem to recognize that acknowledging others’ emotions and explaining their own enhance the quality of relationships.

Emotional Self-Regulation
Language also contributes to preschoolers’ improved emotional self-regulation (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010 ). By age 3 to 4, children verbalize a variety of strategies for adjusting their emotional arousal to a more comfortable level. For example, they know they can blunt emotions by restricting sensory input (covering their eyes or ears to block out an unpleasant sight or sound), talking to themselves (“Mommy said she’ll be back soon”), or changing their goals (deciding that they don’t want to play anyway after being excluded from a game) (Thompson & Goodvin, 2007 ). As children use these strategies, emotional outbursts decline. Effortful control—in particular, inhibiting impulses and shifting attention—also continues to be vital in managing emotion during early childhood. Three-year-olds who can distract themselves when frustrated tend to become cooperative school-age children with few problem behaviors (Gilliom et al., 2002 ).

Warm, patient parents who use verbal guidance, including suggesting and explaining strategies and prompting children to generate their own, strengthen children’s capacity to handle stress (Colman et al., 2006 ; Morris et al., 2011 ). In contrast, when parents rarely express positive emotion, dismiss children’s feelings as unimportant, and have difficulty controlling their own anger, children have continuing problems in managing emotion (Hill et al., 2006 ; Katz & Windecker-Nelson, 2004 ; Thompson & Meyer, 2007 ).

As with infants and toddlers, preschoolers who experience negative emotion intensely find it harder to shift attention away from disturbing events and inhibit their feelings. 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 (Chang et al., 2003 ; Eisenberg et al., 2005 ; Raikes et al., 2007 ). Because these emotionally reactive children become increasingly difficult to rear, they are often targets of ineffective parenting, which compounds their poor self-regulation.

Adult–child conversations that prepare children for difficult experiences also foster emotional self-regulation (Thompson & Goodman, 2010 ). Parents who discuss what to expect and ways to handle anxiety offer strategies that children can apply. Nevertheless, preschoolers’ vivid imaginations and incomplete grasp of the distinction between appearance and reality make fears common in early childhood. See Applying What We Know above for ways adults can help young children manage fears.

Self-Conscious Emotions
One morning in Leslie’s classroom, a group of children crowded around for a bread-baking activity. Leslie asked them to wait patiently while she got a baking pan. But Sammy reached over to feel the dough, and the bowl tumbled off the table. When Leslie returned, Sammy looked at her, then covered his eyes with his hands and said, “I did something bad.” He felt ashamed and guilty.

As their self-concepts develop, preschoolers become increasingly sensitive to praise and blame or to the possibility of such feedback. They more often experience self-conscious emotions—feelings that involve injury to or enhancement of their sense of self (see Chapter 6 ). By age 3, self-conscious emotions are clearly linked to self-evaluation (Lewis, 1995 ; Thompson, Meyer, & McGinley, 2006 ). But because preschoolers are still developing standards of excellence and conduct, they depend on the messages of parents, teachers, and others who matter to them to know when to feel proud, ashamed, or guilty, often viewing adult expectations as obligatory rules (“Dad said you’re ’posed to take turns”) (Thompson, Meyer, & McGinley, 2006 ).

When parents repeatedly comment on the worth of the child and her performance (“That’s a bad job! I thought you were a good girl!”), children experience self-conscious emotions intensely—more shame after failure, more pride after success. In contrast, parents who focus on how to improve performance (“You did it this way; now try doing it that way”) induce moderate, more adaptive levels of shame and pride and greater persistence on difficult tasks (Kelley, Brownell, & Campbell, 2000 ; Lewis, 1998 ).

Among Western children, intense shame is associated with feelings of personal inadequacy (“I’m stupid”; “I’m a terrible person”) and with maladjustment—withdrawal and depression as well as intense anger and aggression toward those who participated in the shame-evoking situation (Lindsay-Hartz, de Rivera, & Mascolo, 1995 ; Mills, 2005 ). In contrast, guilt—when it occurs in appropriate circumstances and is neither excessive nor accompanied by shame—is related to good adjustment. Guilt helps children resist harmful impulses, and it motivates a misbehaving child to repair the damage and behave more considerately (Mascolo & Fischer, 2007 ; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007 ). But overwhelming guilt—involving such high emotional distress that the child cannot make amends—is linked to depressive symptoms as early as age 3 (Luby et al., 2009 ).

Finally, the consequences of shame for children’s adjustment may vary across cultures. As illustrated in the Cultural Influences box on page 267 and on page 189 in Chapter 6 , people in Asian collectivist societies, who define themselves in relation to their social group, view shame as an adaptive reminder of an interdependent self and of the importance of others’ judgments (Bedford, 2004 ).

Empathy and Sympathy
Another emotional capacity that becomes more common in early childhood is empathy, which serves as an important motivator of prosocial , or altruistic, behavior —actions that benefit another person without any expected reward for the self (Spinrad & Eisenberg, 2009 ). Compared with toddlers, preschoolers rely more on words to communicate empathic feelings, a change that indicates a more reflective level of empathy. When a 4-year-old received a Christmas gift that she hadn’t included on her list for Santa, she assumed it belonged to another little girl and pleaded with her parents, “We’ve got to give it back—Santa’s made a big mistake. I think the girl’s crying ‘cause she didn’t get her present!”

As children’s language skills and capacity to take the perspective of others improve, empathy also increases, motivating prosocial, or altruistic, behavior.

Yet in some children, empathizing—feeling with an upset adult or peer and responding emotionally in a similar way—does not yield acts of kindness and helpfulness but, instead, escalates into personal distress. In trying to reduce these feelings, the child focuses on his own anxiety rather than the person in need. As a result, empathy does not lead to sympathy —feelings of concern or sorrow for another’s plight.

Temperament plays a role in whether empathy occurs and whether it prompts sympathetic, prosocial behavior or self-focused personal distress. Children who are sociable, assertive, and good at regulating emotion are more likely to empathize with others’ distress, display sympathetic concern, and engage in prosocial behavior, helping, sharing, and comforting others in distress (Bengtsson, 2005 ; Eisenberg et al., 1998 ; Valiente et al., 2004 ). In contrast, when poor emotion regulators are faced with someone in need, they react with facial and physiological indicators of distress—frowning, lip biting, a rise in heart rate, and a sharp increase in EEG brain-wave activity in the right cerebral hemisphere (which houses negative emotion)—indications that they are overwhelmed by their feelings (Jones, Field, & Davalos, 2000 ; Pickens, Field, & Nawrocki, 2001 ).

As with other aspects of emotional development, parenting affects empathy and sympathy. When parents are warm, encourage emotional expressiveness, and show sensitive, empathic concern for their preschoolers’ feelings, children are likely to react in a concerned way to the distress of others—relationships that persist into adolescence and early adulthood (Koestner, Franz, & Weinberger, 1990 ; Michalik et al., 2007 ; Strayer & Roberts, 2004 ). Besides modeling sympathy, parents can help shy children manage excessive anxiety and aggressive children regulate intense anger. They can also teach children the importance of kindness and can intervene when they display inappropriate emotion—strategies that predict high levels of sympathetic responding (Eisenberg, 2003 ).

In contrast, punitive parenting disrupts empathy at an early age (Valiente et al., 2004 ). In one study, physically abused preschoolers at a child-care center rarely expressed concern at a peer’s unhappiness but, rather, reacted with fear, anger, and physical attacks (Klimes-Dougan & Kistner, 1990 ). The children’s behavior resembled their parents’ insensitive responses to others’ suffering.

image4 Peer Relations
As children become increasingly self-aware and better at communicating and understanding others’ thoughts and feelings, their skill at interacting with peers improves rapidly. Peers provide young children with learning experiences they can get in no other way. Because peers interact on an equal footing, children must keep a conversation going, cooperate, and set goals in play. With peers, children form friendships—special relationships marked by attachment and common interests. Let’s look at how peer interaction changes over the preschool years.

Advances in Peer Sociability
Mildred Parten ( 1932 ), one of the first to study peer sociability among 2- to 5-year-olds, noticed a dramatic rise with age in joint, interactive play. She concluded that social development proceeds in a three-step sequence. It begins with nonsocial activity —unoccupied, onlooker behavior and solitary play. Then it shifts to parallel play , in which a child plays near other children with similar materials but does not try to influence their behavior. At the highest level are two forms of true social interaction. In associative play , children engage in separate activities but exchange toys and comment on one another’s behavior. Finally, in cooperative play , a more advanced type of interaction, children orient toward a common goal, such as acting out a make-believe theme.

Follow-Up Research on Peer Sociability.
Longitudinal evidence indicates that these play forms emerge in the order suggested by Parten but that later-appearing ones do not replace earlier ones in a developmental sequence (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006 ). Rather, all types coexist in early childhood.

TAKE A MOMENT … Watch children move from one type of play to another in a play group or preschool classroom, and you will see that they often transition from onlooker to parallel to cooperative play and back again (Robinson et al., 2003 ). Preschoolers seem to use parallel play as a way station—a respite from the demands of complex social interaction and a crossroad to new activities. And although nonsocial activity declines with age, it is still the most frequent form among 3- to 4-year-olds and accounts for a third of kindergartners’ free-play time. Also, both solitary and parallel play remain fairly stable from 3 to 6 years, accounting for as much of the child’s play as cooperative interaction (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983 ).

We now understand that the type, not the amount, of solitary and parallel play changes in early childhood. In studies of preschoolers’ play in Taiwan and the United States, researchers rated the cognitive maturity of nonsocial, parallel, and cooperative play, using the categories shown in Table 8.1 on page 262 . Within each play type, older children displayed more cognitively mature behavior than younger children (Pan, 1994 ; Rubin, Watson, & Jambor, 1978 ).

Often parents wonder whether a preschooler who spends much time playing alone is developing normally. But only certain types of nonsocial activity—aimless wandering, hovering near peers, and functional play involving repetitive motor action—are cause for concern. Children who watch peers without playing are usually temperamentally inhibited—high in social fearfulness (Coplan et al., 2004 ; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006 ). And preschoolers who engage in solitary, repetitive behavior (banging blocks, making a doll jump up and down) tend to be immature, impulsive children who find it difficult to regulate anger and aggression (Coplan et al., 2001 ). In the classroom, both reticent and impulsive children tend to experience peer ostracism (Coplan & Arbeau, 2008 ).

These 4-year-olds (left) engage in parallel play. Cooperative play (right) develops later than parallel play, but preschool children continue to move back and forth between the two types of sociability, using parallel play as a respite from the complex demands of cooperation.

TABLE 8.1 Developmental Sequence of Cognitive Play Categories
PLAY CATEGORY

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLES

Functional play

Simple, repetitive motor movements with or without objects, especially common during the first two years

Running around a room, rolling a car back and forth, kneading clay with no intent to make something

Constructive play

Creating or constructing something, especially common between 3 and 6 years

Making a house out of toy blocks, drawing a picture, putting together a puzzle

Make-believe play

Acting out everyday and imaginary roles, especially common between 2 and 6 years

Playing house, school, or police officer; acting out storybook or television characters

Source: Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983.

But most preschoolers with low rates of peer interaction simply like to play alone, and their solitary activities are positive and constructive. Children who prefer solitary play with art materials, puzzles, and building toys are typically well-adjusted youngsters who, when they do play with peers, show socially skilled behavior (Coplan & Armer, 2007 ). Still, a few preschoolers who engage in such age-appropriate solitary play—again, more often boys—are rebuffed by peers. Perhaps because quiet play is inconsistent with the “masculine” gender role, boys who engage in it are at risk for negative reactions from both parents and peers and, eventually, for adjustment problems (Coplan et al., 2001 , 2004 ).

Cultural Variations.
Peer sociability in collectivist societies, which stress group harmony, takes different forms than in individualistic cultures (Chen & French, 2008 ). For example, children in India generally play in large groups, which require high levels of cooperation. Much of their behavior is imitative, occurs in unison, and involves close physical contact. In a game called Bhatto Bhatto, children act out a script about a trip to the market, touching one another’s elbows and hands as they pretend to cut and share a tasty vegetable (Roopnarine et al., 1994 ).

Agta village children in the Philippines play a tug-of-war game. Large-group, highly cooperative play is typical of peer sociability in collectivist societies.

As another example, Chinese preschoolers—unlike American preschoolers, who tend to reject reticent classmates—are typically willing to include a quiet, reserved child in play (Chen et al., 2006 ). In Chapter 6 , we saw that until recently collectivist values, which discourage self-assertion, led to positive evaluations of shyness in China (see pages 194 – 195 ). Apparently, this benevolent attitude persists in the play behaviors of Chinese young children.

Cultural beliefs about the importance of play also affect early peer associations. Caregivers who view play as mere entertainment are less likely to provide props or to encourage pretend than those who value its cognitive and social benefits (Farver & Wimbarti, 1995 ). Preschoolers of Korean-American parents, who emphasize task persistence as vital for learning, spend less time than Caucasian-American children in joint make-believe and more time unoccupied and in parallel play (Farver, Kim, & Lee, 1995 ).

Recall the description of children’s daily lives in a Mayan village culture on page 236 in Chapter 7 . Mayan parents do not promote children’s play—yet Mayan children are socially competent (Gaskins, 2000 ). Perhaps Western-style sociodramatic play, with its elaborate materials and wide-ranging themes, is particularly important for social development in societies where the worlds of children and adults are distinct. It may be less crucial in village cultures where children participate in adult activities from an early age.

First Friendships
As preschoolers interact, first friendships form that serve as important contexts for emotional and social development. To adults, friendship is a mutual relationship involving companionship, sharing, understanding of thoughts and feelings, and caring for and comforting each other in times of need. In addition, mature friendships endure over time and survive occasional conflicts.

Preschoolers understand something about the uniqueness of friendship. They say that a friend is someone “who likes you,” with whom you spend a lot of time playing, and with whom you share toys. But friendship does not yet have a long-term, enduring quality based on mutual trust (Damon, 1988a ; Hartup, 2006 ). “Mark’s my best friend,” Sammy would declare on days when the boys got along well. But when a dispute arose, he would reverse himself: “Mark, you’re not my friend!”

Nevertheless, interactions between young friends are unique. Preschoolers give far more reinforcement—greetings, praise, and compliance—to children they identify as friends, and they also receive more from them. Friends are more cooperative and emotionally expressive—talking, laughing, and looking at each other more often than nonfriends do (Hartup, 2006 ; Vaughn et al., 2001 ). Furthermore, children who begin kindergarten with friends in their class or readily make new friends adjust to school more favorably (Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999 ; Ladd & Price, 1987 ). Perhaps the company of friends serves as a secure base from which to develop new relationships, enhancing children’s feelings of comfort in the new classroom.

Peer Relations and School Readiness
The ease with which kindergartners make new friends and are accepted by their classmates predicts cooperative participation in classroom activities and self-directed completion of learning tasks—behaviors linked to gains in achievement (Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999 ; Ladd, Buhs, & Seid, 2000 ). The capacity to form friendships enables kindergartners to integrate themselves into classroom environments in ways that foster both academic and social competence. In a longitudinal follow-up of a large sample of 4-year-olds, children of average intelligence but with above-average social skills fared better in academic achievement in first grade than children of equal mental ability who were socially below average (Konold & Pianta, 2005 ).

Because social maturity in early childhood contributes to later academic performance, a growing number of experts propose that kindergarten readiness be assessed in terms of not just academic skills but also social skills (Ladd, Herald, & Kochel, 2006 ; Thompson & Raikes, 2007 ). Preschool programs, too, should attend to these vital social prerequisites. Warm, responsive teacher–child interaction is vital, especially for shy, impulsive, and emotionally negative children, who are at risk for social difficulties. In studies involving several thousand 4-year-olds in public preschools in six states, teacher sensitivity and emotional support were strong predictors of children’s social competence, both during preschool and after kindergarten entry (Curby et al., 2009 ; Mashburn et al., 2008 ).

Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations
Children first acquire skills for interacting with peers within the family. Parents influence children’s peer sociability both directly, through attempts to influence children’s peer relations, and indirectly, through their child-rearing practices and play behaviors (Ladd & Pettit, 2002 ; Rubin et al., 2005 ).

Direct Parental Influences.
Preschoolers whose parents frequently arrange informal peer play activities tend to have larger peer networks and to be more socially skilled (Ladd, LeSieur, & Profilet, 1993 ). In providing play opportunities, parents show children how to initiate peer contacts. And parents’ skillful suggestions for managing conflict, discouraging teasing, and entering a play group are associated with preschoolers’ social competence and peer acceptance (Mize & Pettit, 2010 ; Parke et al., 2004b ).

Parents’ play with children, especially same-sex children, contributes to social competence. By playing with his father as he would with a peer, this child acquires social skills that facilitate peer interaction.

Indirect Parental Influences.
Many parenting behaviors not directly aimed at promoting peer sociability nevertheless influence it. For example, secure attachments to parents are linked to more responsive, harmonious peer interaction, larger peer networks, and warmer, more supportive friendships during the preschool and school years (Laible, 2007 ; Lucas-Thompson & Clarke-Stewart, 2007 ; Wood, Emmerson, & Cowan, 2004 ). The sensitive, emotionally expressive communication that contributes to attachment security may be responsible.

Parent–child play seems particularly effective for promoting peer interaction skills. During play, parents interact with their child on a “level playing field,” much as peers do. And perhaps because parents play more with children of their own sex, mothers’ play is more strongly linked to daughters’ competence, fathers’ play to sons’ competence (Lindsey & Mize, 2000 ; Pettit et al., 1998 ).

As we have seen, some preschoolers already have great difficulty with peer relations. In Leslie’s classroom, Robbie was one of them. Wherever he happened to be, comments like “Robbie ruined our block tower” and “Robbie hit me for no reason” could be heard. As we take up moral development in the next section, you will learn more about how parenting contributed to Robbie’s peer problems.

ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW Among children who spend much time playing alone, what factors distinguish those who are likely to have adjustment difficulties from those who are well-adjusted and socially skilled?

CONNECT How does emotional self-regulation affect the development of empathy and sympathy? Why are these emotional capacities vital for positive peer relations?

APPLY Three-year-old Ben lives in the country, with no other preschoolers nearby. His parents wonder whether it is worth driving Ben into town once a week to participate in a peer play group. What advice would you give Ben’s parents, and why?

REFLECT What did your parents do, directly and indirectly, that might have influenced your earliest peer relationships?

image5 Foundations of Morality
Children’s conversations and behavior provide many examples of their developing moral sense. By age 2, they use words to evaluate behavior as “good” or “bad” and react with distress to aggressive or potentially harmful behaviors (Kochanska, Casey, & Fukumoto, 1995 ). And we have seen that children of this age share toys, help others, and cooperate in games—early indicators of considerate, responsible prosocial attitudes.

Adults everywhere take note of this budding capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Some cultures have special terms for it. The Utku Indians of Hudson Bay say the child develops ihuma (reason). The Fijians believe that vakayalo (sense) appears. In response, parents hold children more responsible for their behavior (Dunn, 2005 ). By the end of early childhood, children can state many moral rules: “Don’t take someone’s things without asking!” “Tell the truth!” In addition, they argue over matters of justice: “You sat there last time, so it’s my turn.” “It’s not fair. He got more!”

All theories of moral development recognize that conscience begins to take shape in early childhood. And most agree that at first, the child’s morality is externally controlled by adults. Gradually, it becomes regulated by inner standards. Truly moral individuals do not do the right thing just to conform to others’ expectations. Rather, they have developed compassionate concerns and principles of good conduct, which they follow in many situations.

Each major theory emphasizes a different aspect of morality. Psychoanalytic theory stresses the emotional side of conscience development—in particular, identification and guilt as motivators of good conduct. Social Learning theory focuses on how moral behavior is learned through reinforcement and modeling. Finally, the cognitive-developmental perspective emphasizes thinking—children’s ability to reason about justice and fairness.

The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Recall that according to Freud, young children form a superego, or conscience, by identifying with the same-sex parent, whose moral standards they adopt. Children obey the superego to avoid guilt, a painful emotion that arises each time they are tempted to misbehave. Moral development, Freud believed, is largely complete by 5 to 6 years of age.

Today, most researchers disagree with Freud’s view of conscience development. In his theory (see page 256 ), fear of punishment and loss of parental love motivate conscience formation and moral behavior. Yet children whose parents frequently use threats, commands, or physical force tend to violate standards often and feel little guilt, whereas parental warmth and responsiveness predict greater guilt following transgressions (Kochanska et al., 2002 , 2005 , 2008 ). And if a parent withdraws love after misbehavior—for example, refuses to speak to or states a dislike for the child—children often respond with high levels of self-blame, thinking “I’m no good,” or “Nobody loves me.” Eventually, to protect themselves from overwhelming guilt, these children may deny the emotion and, as a result, also develop a weak conscience (Kochanska, 1991 ; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1990 ).

Inductive Discipline.
In contrast, conscience formation is promoted by a type of discipline called induction , in which an adult helps the child notice feelings by pointing out the effects of the child’s misbehavior on others. For example, a parent might say, “She’s crying because you won’t give back her doll” (Hoffman, 2000 ). When generally warm parents provide explanations that match the child’s capacity to understand, while firmly insisting that the child listen and comply, induction is effective as early as age 2. Preschoolers whose parents use it are more likely to refrain from wrongdoing, confess and repair damage after misdeeds, and display prosocial behavior (Kerr et al., 2004 ; Volling, Mahoney, & Rauer, 2009 ; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, & King, 1979 ).

A teacher uses inductive discipline to explain to a child the impact of her transgression on others, pointing out classmates’ feelings. Induction encourages empathy, sympathy, and commitment to moral standards.

The success of induction may lie in its power to motivate children’s active commitment to moral standards. Induction gives children information about how to behave that they can use in future situations. By emphasizing the impact of the child’s actions on others, it encourages empathy and sympathy (Krevans & Gibbs, 1996 ). And giving children reasons for changing their behavior encourages them to adopt moral standards because they make sense.

In contrast, discipline that relies too heavily on threats of punishment or withdrawal of love makes children so anxious and frightened that they cannot think clearly enough to figure out what they should do. As a result, these practices do not get children to internalize moral rules (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006 ).

The Child’s Contribution.
Although good discipline is crucial, children’s characteristics also affect the success of parenting techniques. Twin studies suggest a modest genetic contribution to empathy (Knafo et al., 2009 ). More empathic children require less power assertion and are more responsive to induction.

Temperament is also influential. Mild, patient tactics—requests, suggestions, and explanations—are sufficient to prompt guilt reactions in anxious, fearful preschoolers (Kochanska et al., 2002 ). But with fearless, impulsive children, gentle discipline has little impact. Power assertion also works poorly. It undermines the child’s capacity for effortful control, which strongly predicts good conduct, empathy, sympathy, and prosocial behavior (Kochanska & Aksan, 2006 ; Kochanska & Knaack, 2003 ). Parents of impulsive children can foster conscience development by ensuring a secure attachment relationship and combining firm correction with induction (Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007 ). When children are so low in anxiety that parental disapproval causes them little discomfort, a close parent–child bond motivates them to listen to parents as a means of preserving an affectionate, supportive relationship.

The Role of Guilt.
Although little support exists for Freudian ideas about conscience development, Freud was correct that guilt is an important motivator of moral action. Inducing empathy-based guilt (expressions of personal responsibility and regret, such as “I’m sorry I hurt him”) by explaining that the child is harming someone and has disappointed the parent is a means of influencing children without using coercion. Empathy-based guilt reactions are associated with stopping harmful actions, repairing damage caused by misdeeds, and engaging in future prosocial behavior (Baumeister, 1998 ; Eisenberg, Eggum, & Edwards, 2010 ). At the same time, parents must help children deal with guilt feelings constructively—by guiding them to make up for immoral behavior rather than minimizing or excusing it.

But contrary to what Freud believed, guilt is not the only force that compels us to act morally. Nor is moral development complete by the end of early childhood. Rather, it is a gradual process, extending into adulthood.

Social learning theory
According to social learning theory, morality does not have a unique course of development. Rather, moral behavior is acquired just like any other set of responses: through reinforcement and modeling.

Importance of Modeling.
Operant conditioning—reinforcement for good behavior with approval, affection, and other rewards—is not enough for children to acquire moral responses. For a behavior to be reinforced, it must first occur spontaneously. Yet many prosocial acts, such as sharing, helping, or comforting an unhappy playmate, occur so rarely at first that reinforcement cannot explain their rapid development in early childhood. Rather, social learning theorists believe that children learn to behave morally largely through modeling—observing and imitating people who demonstrate appropriate behavior (Bandura, 1977 ; Grusec, 1988 ). Once children acquire a moral response, reinforcement in the form of praise increases its frequency (Mills & Grusec, 1989 ).

Many studies show that having helpful or generous models increases young children’s prosocial responses. And certain characteristics of models affect children’s willingness to imitate:

· ● Warmth and responsiveness. Preschoolers are more likely to copy the prosocial actions of a warm, responsive adult than those of a cold, distant adult (Yarrow, Scott, & Waxler, 1973 ). Warmth seems to make children more attentive and receptive to the model and is itself an example of a prosocial response.

· ● Competence and power. Children admire and therefore tend to imitate competent, powerful models—especially older peers and adults (Bandura, 1977 ).

· ● Consistency between assertions and behavior. When models say one thing and do another—for example, announce that “it’s important to help others” but rarely engage in helpful acts—children generally choose the most lenient standard of behavior that adults demonstrate (Mischel & Liebert, 1966 ).

Models are most influential in the early years. In one study, toddlers’ eager, willing imitation of their mothers’ behavior predicted moral conduct (not cheating in a game) and guilt following transgressions at age 3 (Forman, Aksan, & Kochanska, 2004 ). At the end of early childhood, children who have had consistent exposure to caring adults have internalized prosocial rules and follow them whether or not a model is present (Mussen & Eisenberg-Berg, 1977 ).

Effects of Punishment.
Many parents know that yelling at, slapping, and spanking children for misbehavior are ineffective disciplinary tactics. A sharp reprimand or physical force to restrain or move a child is justified when immediate obedience is necessary—for example, when a 3-year-old is about to run into the street. In fact, parents are most likely to use forceful methods under these conditions. But to foster long-term goals, such as acting kindly toward others, they tend to rely on warmth and reasoning (Kuczynski, 1984 ). And in response to very serious transgressions, such as lying and stealing, they often combine power assertion with reasoning (Grusec, 2006 ; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994 ).

Frequent punishment, however, promotes only immediate compliance, not lasting changes in behavior. For example, Robbie’s parents often punished by hitting, criticizing, and shouting at him. But as soon as they were out of sight, Robbie usually engaged in the unacceptable behavior again. The more harsh threats, angry physical control, and physical punishment children experience, the more likely they are to develop serious, lasting mental health problems. These include weak internalization of moral rules; depression, aggression, antisocial behavior, and poor academic performance in childhood and adolescence; and depression, alcohol abuse, criminality, and partner and child abuse in adulthood (Afifi et al., 2006 ; Bender et al., 2007 ; Gershoff, 2002a ; Kochanska, Aksan, & Nichols, 2003 ; Lynch et al., 2006 ).

· Repeated harsh punishment has wide-ranging, undesirable side effects:

· ● Parents often spank in response to children’s aggression (Holden, Coleman, & Schmidt, 1995 ). Yet the punishment itself models aggression!

· ● Harshly treated children develop a chronic sense of being personally threatened, which prompts a focus on their own distress rather than a sympathetic orientation to others’ needs.

· ● Children who are frequently punished learn to avoid the punishing adult, who, as a result, has little opportunity to teach desirable behaviors.

· ● By stopping children’s misbehavior temporarily, harsh punishment gives adults immediate relief. For this reason, a punitive adult is likely to punish with greater frequency over time, a course of action that can spiral into serious abuse.

· ● Children, adolescents, and adults whose parents used corporal punishment—the use of physical force to inflict pain but not injury—are more accepting of such discipline (Deater-Deckard et al., 2003 ; Vitrup & Holden, 2010 ). In this way, use of physical punishment may transfer to the next generation.

Although corporal punishment spans the SES spectrum, its frequency and harshness are elevated among less educated, economically disadvantaged parents (Lansford et al., 2004 , 2009 ). And consistently, parents with conflict-ridden marriages and with mental health problems (who are emotionally reactive, depressed, or aggressive) are more likely to be punitive and also to have hard-to-manage children, whose disobedience evokes more parental harshness (Berlin et al., 2009 ; Erath et al., 2006 ; Taylor et al., 2010 ). These parent–child similarities suggest that heredity contributes to the link between punitive discipline and children’s adjustment difficulties.

But heredity is not a complete explanation. Return to page 73 in Chapter 2 to review findings indicating that good parenting can shield children who are genetically at risk for aggression and antisocial activity from developing those behaviors. Furthermore, longitudinal studies reveal that parental harshness and corporal punishment predict child and adolescent emotional and behavior problems, even after child, parenting, and family characteristics that might otherwise account for the relationship were controlled (Berlin et al., 2009 ; Lansford et al., 2009 , 2011; Taylor et al., 2010 ).

FIGURE 8.1 Prevalence of corporal punishment by children’s age.
Estimates are based on the percentage of parents in a nationally representative U.S. sample of nearly 1,000 reporting one or more instances of spanking, slapping, pinching, shaking, or hitting with a hard object in the past year. Physical punishment increases sharply during early childhood and then declines, but it is high at all ages.

(From M. A. Straus & J. H. Stewart, 1999, “Corporal Punishment by American Parents: National Data on Prevalence, Chronicity, Severity, and Duration, in Relation to Child and Family Characteristics,” Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 2, p. 59. Adapted with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media and Murray A. Straus.)

In view of these findings, the widespread use of corporal punishment by American parents is cause for concern. Surveys of nationally representative samples of U.S. families reveal that although corporal punishment increases from infancy to age 5 and then declines, it is high at all ages (see Figure 8.1 ) (Gershoff et al., 2012 ; Straus & Stewart, 1999 ). Repeated use of physical punishment is more common with toddlers and preschoolers. And more than one-fourth of physically punishing parents report having used a hard object, such as a brush or a belt (Gershoff, 2002b ).

A prevailing American belief is that corporal punishment, if implemented by caring parents, is harmless, perhaps even beneficial. But as the Cultural Influences box on the following page reveals, this assumption is valid only under conditions of limited use in certain social contexts.

Alternatives to Harsh Punishment.
Alternatives to criticism, slaps, and spankings can reduce the side effects of punishment. A technique called time out involves removing children from the immediate setting—for example, by sending them to their rooms—until they are ready to act appropriately. When a child is out of control, a few minutes in time out can be enough to change behavior while also giving angry parents time to cool off (Morawska & Sanders, 2011 ). Another approach is withdrawal of privileges, such as watching a favorite TV program. Like time out, removing privileges allows parents to avoid using harsh techniques that can easily intensify into violence.

Cultural Influences Ethnic Differences in the Consequences of Physical Punishment
In an African-American community, six elders, who had volunteered to serve as mentors for parents facing child-rearing challenges, met to discuss parenting issues at a social service agency. Their attitudes toward discipline were strikingly different from those of the white social workers who had brought them together. Each elder argued that successful child rearing required appropriate physical tactics. At the same time, they voiced strong disapproval of screaming or cursing at children, calling such out-of-control parental behavior “abusive.” Ruth, the oldest and most respected member of the group, characterized good parenting as a complex combination of warmth, teaching, talking nicely, and disciplining physically. She related how an older neighbor advised her to handle her own children when she was a young parent:

· She said to me says, don’t scream… you talk to them real nice and sweet and when they do something ugly… she say you get a nice little switch and you won’t have any trouble with them and from that day that’s the way I raised ’em. (Mosby et al., 1999 , pp. 511–512)

In several studies, corporal punishment predicted externalizing problems similarly among white, black, Hispanic, and Asian children (Gershoff et al., 2012 ; Pardini, Fite, & Burke, 2008 ). But other investigations point to ethnic variations.

In one, researchers followed several hundred families for 12 years, collecting information from mothers on disciplinary strategies in early and middle childhood and from both mothers and their children on youth problem behaviors in adolescence (Lansford et al., 2004 ). Even after many child and family characteristics were controlled, the findings were striking: In Caucasian-American families, physical punishment was positively associated with adolescent aggression and antisocial behavior. In African-American families, by contrast, the more mothers had disciplined physically in childhood, the less their teenagers displayed angry, acting-out behavior and got in trouble at school and with the police.

According to the researchers, African-American and Caucasian-American parents tend to mete out physical punishment differently. In black families, such discipline is typically culturally approved and often mild, delivered in a context of parental warmth, and aimed at helping children become responsible adults. White parents, in contrast, consider physical punishment to be wrong, so when they resort to it, they are usually highly agitated and rejecting of the child (Dodge, McLoyd, & Lansford, 2006 ). As a result, many black children may view spanking as a practice carried out with their best interests in mind, whereas white children may regard it as an “act of personal aggression” (Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997 , p. 768).

In support of this view, when several thousand ethnically diverse children were followed from the preschool through the early school years, spanking was associated with a rise in behavior problems if parents were cold and rejecting, but not if they were warm and supportive (McLoyd & Smith, 2002 ). And in another study, spanking predicted depressive symptoms only among African-American children whose mothers disapproved of the practice and, as a result, tended to use it when they were highly angry and frustrated (McLoyd et al., 2007 ).

In African-American families, discipline often includes mild physical punishment. Because the practice is culturally approved and delivered in a context of parental warmth, children may view it as an effort to encourage maturity, not as an act of aggression.

These findings are not an endorsement of physical punishment. Other forms of discipline, including time out, withdrawal of privileges, and the positive strategies listed on page 268 , are far more effective. But it is noteworthy that the meaning and impact of physical discipline vary sharply with its intensity level, context of warmth and support, and cultural approval.

· When parents do decide to use punishment, they can increase its effectiveness in three ways:

· ● Consistency. Permitting children to act inappropriately on some occasions but scolding them on others confuses them, and the unacceptable act persists (Acker & O’Leary, 1996 ).

· ● A warm parent–child relationship. Children of involved, caring parents find the interruption in parental affection that accompanies punishment especially unpleasant. They want to regain parental warmth and approval as quickly as possible.

· ● Explanations. Providing reasons for mild punishment helps children relate the misdeed to expectations for future behavior. This approach leads to a far greater reduction in misbehavior than using punishment alone (Larzelere et al., 1996 ).

Applying What We Know Positive Parenting
Strategy

Explanation

Use transgressions as opportunities to teach.

When a child engages in harmful or unsafe behavior, intervene firmly, and then use induction, which motivates children to make amends and behave prosocially.

Reduce opportunities for misbehavior.

On a long car trip, bring back-seat activities that relieve children’s restlessness. At the supermarket, converse with children and let them help with shopping. As a result, children learn to occupy themselves constructively when options are limited.

Provide reasons for rules.

When children appreciate that rules are rational, not arbitrary, they are more likely to strive to follow the rules.

Arrange for children to participate in family routines and duties.

By joining with adults in preparing a meal, washing dishes, or raking leaves, children develop a sense of responsible participation in family and community life and acquire many practical skills.

When children are obstinate, try compromising and problem solving.

When a child refuses to obey, express understanding of the child’s feelings (“I know it’s not fun to clean up”), suggest a compromise (“You put those away, I’ll take care of these”), and help the child think of ways to avoid the problem in the future. Responding firmly but kindly and respectfully increases the likelihood of willing cooperation.

Encourage mature behavior.

Express confidence in children’s capacity to learn and appreciation for effort and cooperation: “You gave that your best!” “Thanks for helping!” Adult encouragement fosters pride and satisfaction in succeeding, thereby inspiring children to improve further.

Sources: Berk, 2001; Grusec, 2006.

Positive Relationships, Positive Parenting.
The most effective forms of discipline encourage good conduct—by building a mutually respectful bond with the child, letting the child know ahead of time how to act, and praising mature behavior. When sensitivity, cooperation, and shared positive emotion are evident in joint activities between parents and preschoolers, children show firmer conscience development—expressing empathy after transgressions, playing fairly in games, and considering others’ welfare (Kochanska et al., 2005 , 2008 ). Parent–child closeness leads children to heed parental demands because the child feels a sense of commitment to the relationship.

With parental encouragement, these sisters follow their route on a map during a long car trip. This positive parenting strategy keeps them constructively involved and reduces the likelihood of misbehavior.

See Applying What We Know above for ways to parent positively. Parents who use these strategies focus on long-term social and life skills—cooperation, problem solving, and consideration for others. As a result, they greatly reduce the need for punishment.

The Cognitive-Developmental Perspective
The psychoanalytic and behaviorist approaches to morality focus on how children acquire ready-made standards of good conduct from adults. In contrast, the cognitive-developmental perspective regards children as active thinkers about social rules. As early as the preschool years, children make moral judgments, deciding what is right or wrong on the basis of concepts they construct about justice and fairness (Gibbs, 2010a ; Turiel, 2006 ).

Young children have some well-developed ideas about morality. As long as researchers emphasize people’s intentions, 3-year-olds say that a person with bad intentions—someone who deliberately frightens, embarrasses, or otherwise hurts another—is more deserving of punishment than a well-intentioned person (Helwig, Zelazo, & Wilson, 2001 ; Jones & Thompson, 2001 ). Around age 4, children know that a person who expresses an insincere intention—saying, “I’ll come over and help you rake leaves,” while not intending to do so—is lying (Maas, 2008 ). And 4-year-olds approve of telling the truth and disapprove of lying, even when a lie remains undetected (Bussey, 1992 ).

Furthermore, preschoolers distinguish moral imperatives , which protect people’s rights and welfare, from two other types of rules and expectations: social conventions , customs determined solely by consensus, such as table manners and politeness rituals (saying “hello,” “please,” “thank you”); and matters of personal choice , such as friends, hairstyle, and leisure activities, which do not violate rights and are up to the individual (Killen, Margie, & Sinno, 2006 ; Nucci, 1996 ; Smetana, 2006 ). Interviews with 3- and 4-year-olds reveal that they judge moral violations (stealing an apple) as more wrong than violations of social conventions (eating ice cream with your fingers). And preschoolers’concern with personal choice, conveyed through statements like “I’m gonna wear this shirt,” serves as the springboard for moral concepts of individual rights, which will expand greatly in middle childhood and adolescence (Nucci, 2005 ).

Within the moral domain, however, preschool and young school-age children tend to reason rigidly, making judgments based on salient features and consequences while neglecting other important information. For example, they are more likely than older children to claim that stealing and lying are always wrong, even when a person has a morally sound reason for doing so (Lourenco, 2003 ). Their explanations for why hitting others is wrong, even in the absence of rules against hitting, are simplistic and centered on physical harm: “When you get hit, it hurts, and you start to cry” (Nucci, 2008 ). And their focus on outcomes means that they fail to realize that a promise is still a promise, even if it is unfulfilled (Maas, 2008 ; Maas & Abbeduto, 2001 ).

Still, preschoolers’ ability to distinguish moral imperatives from social conventions is impressive. How do they do so? According to cognitive-developmental theorists, they actively make sense of their experiences (Turiel, 2006 ). They observe that after a moral offense, peers respond with strong negative emotion, describe their own injury or loss, tell another child to stop, or retaliate. And an adult who intervenes is likely to call attention to the victim’s rights and feelings. In contrast, violations of social convention elicit less intense peer reactions. And in these situations, adults usually demand obedience without explanation or point to the importance of keeping order.

Cognition and language support preschoolers’ moral understanding, but social experiences are vital. Disputes with siblings and peers over rights, possessions, and property allow preschoolers to negotiate, compromise, and work out their first ideas about justice and fairness. Children also learn from warm, sensitive parental communication and from observing the way adults handle rule violations to protect the welfare of others (Turiel & Killen, 2010 ). Children who are advanced in moral thinking tend to have parents who adapt their communications about fighting, honesty, and ownership to what their children can understand, tell stories with moral implications, encourage prosocial behavior, and gently stimulate the child to think further, without being hostile or critical (Janssens & Deković, 1997 ; Walker & Taylor, 1991a ).

Preschoolers who verbally and physically assault others, often with little or no provocation, are already delayed in moral reasoning (Helwig & Turiel, 2004 ; Sanderson & Siegal, 1988 ). Without special help, such children show long-term disruptions in moral development, deficits in self-control, and ultimately an antisocial lifestyle.

The Other Side of Morality: Development of Aggression
Beginning in late infancy, all children display aggression at times. As interactions with siblings and peers increase, so do aggressive outbursts. By the second year, aggressive acts with two distinct purposes emerge. Initially, the most common is proactive (or instrumental) aggression , in which children act to fulfill a need or desire—obtain an object, privilege, space, or social reward, such as adult or peer attention—and unemotionally attack a person to achieve their goal. The other type, reactive (or hostile) aggression , is an angry, defensive response to provocation or a blocked goal and is meant to hurt another person(Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006 ; Little et al., 2003 ).

Proactive and reactive aggression come in three forms, which are the focus of most research:

· ● Physical aggression harms others through physical injury—pushing, hitting, kicking, or punching others or destroying another’s property.

· ● Verbal aggression harms others through threats of physical aggression, name-calling, or hostile teasing.

· ● Relational aggression damages another’s peer relationships through social exclusion, malicious gossip, or friendship manipulation.

Although verbal aggression is always direct, physical and relational aggression can be either direct or indirect. For example, hitting injures a person directly, whereas destroying property inflicts physical harm indirectly. Similarly, saying, “Do what I say, or I won’t be your friend,” conveys relational aggression directly, while spreading rumors, refusing to talk to a peer, or manipulating friendships by saying behind someone’s back, “Don’t play with her; she’s a nerd,” do so indirectly.

In early childhood, verbal aggression gradually replaces physical aggression (Alink et al., 2006 ; Tremblay et al., 1999 ). And proactive aggression declines as preschoolers’ improved capacity to delay gratification enables them to avoid grabbing others’ possessions. But reactive aggression in verbal and relational forms tends to rise over early and middle childhood (Côté et al., 2007 ; Tremblay, 2000 ). Older children are better able to recognize malicious intentions and, as a result, more often respond in hostile ways.

By age 17 months, boys are more physically aggressive than girls—a difference found throughout childhood in many cultures (Baillargeon et al., 2007 ; Card et al., 2008 ). The sex difference is due in part to biology—in particular, to male sex hormones (androgens) and temperamental traits (activity level, irritability, impulsivity) on which boys exceed girls. Gender-role conformity is also important. As soon as preschoolers are aware of gender stereotypes—that males and females are expected to behave differently—physical aggression drops off more sharply for girls than for boys (Fagot & Leinbach, 1989 ).

These preschoolers display proactive aggression, pushing and grabbing as they argue over a game. As children learn to compromise and share, and as their capacity to delay gratification improves, proactive aggression declines.

Although girls have a reputation for being both more verbally and relationally aggressive than boys, the sex difference is small (Crick et al., 2004 , 2006 ; Crick, Ostrov, & Werner, 2006 ). Beginning in the preschool years, girls concentrate most of their aggressive acts in the relational category. Boys inflict harm in more variable ways and, therefore, display overall rates of aggression that are much higher than girls’.

At the same time, girls more often use indirect relational tactics that—in disrupting intimate bonds especially important to girls—can be particularly mean. Whereas physical attacks are usually brief, acts of indirect relational aggression may extend for hours, weeks, or even months (Nelson, Robinson, & Hart, 2005 ; Underwood, 2003 ). In one instance, a 6-year-old girl formed a “pretty-girls club” and—for nearly an entire school year—convinced its members to exclude several classmates by saying they were “ugly and smelly.”

An occasional aggressive exchange between preschoolers is normal. But children who are emotionally negative, impulsive, and disobedient are prone to early, high rates of physical or relational aggression (or both) that often persist, placing them at risk for internalizing and externalizing difficulties, social skills deficits, and antisocial activity in middle childhood and adolescence (Campbell et al., 2006 ; Côté et al., 2007 ; Vaillancourt et al., 2003 ). These negative outcomes, however, depend on child-rearing conditions.

The Family as Training Ground for Aggressive Behavior.
“I can’t control him, he’s impossible,” Robbie’s mother, Nadine, complained to Leslie one day. When Leslie asked if Robbie might be troubled by something happening at home, she discovered that his parents fought constantly and resorted to harsh, inconsistent discipline. The same child-rearing practices that undermine moral internalization—love withdrawal, power assertion, critical remarks, physical punishment, and inconsistent discipline—are linked to aggression from early childhood through adolescence in diverse cultures, with most of these practices predicting both physical and relational forms (Bradford et al., 2003 ; Casas et al., 2006 ; Côté et al., 2007 ; Gershoff et al., 2010 ; Kuppens et al., 2009 ; Nelson et al., 2006a ).

In families like Robbie’s, anger and punitiveness quickly create a conflict-ridden family atmosphere and an “out-of-control” child. The pattern begins with forceful discipline, which occurs more often with stressful life experiences, a parent with an unstable personality, or a difficult child (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006 ). Typically, the parent threatens, criticizes, and punishes, and the child angrily resists until the parent “gives in.” As these cycles become more frequent, they generate anxiety and irritability among other family members, who soon join in the hostile interactions. Compared with siblings in typical families, preschool siblings who have critical, punitive parents are more aggressive toward one another. Destructive sibling conflict, in turn, quickly spreads to peer relationships, contributing to poor impulse control and antisocial behavior by the early school years (Garcia et al., 2000 ; Ostrov, Crick, & Stauffacher, 2006 ).

Boys are more likely than girls to be targets of harsh, inconsistent discipline because they are more active and impulsive and therefore harder to control. When children who are extreme in these characteristics are exposed to emotionally negative, inept parenting, their capacity for emotional self-regulation, empathic responding, and guilt after transgressions is disrupted (Eisenberg, Eggum, & Edwards, 2010 ). Consequently, they lash out when disappointed, frustrated, or faced with a sad or fearful victim.

Children subjected to these family processes acquire a distorted view of the social world, often seeing hostile intent where it does not exist and, as a result, making many unprovoked attacks (Lochman & Dodge, 1998 ; Orbio de Castro et al., 2002 ). And some, who conclude that aggression “works” to access rewards and control others, callously use it to advance their own goals and are unconcerned about causing suffering in others—an aggressive style associated with later more severe conduct problems, violent behavior, and delinquency (Marsee & Frick, 2010 ).

Highly aggressive children tend to be rejected by peers, to fail in school, and (by adolescence) to seek out deviant peer groups that lead them toward violent delinquency and adult criminality. We will consider this life-course path of antisocial activity in Chapter 12 .

Violent Media and Aggression.
In the United States, 57 percent of TV programs between 6 A.M. and 11 P.M. contain violent scenes, often portraying repeated aggressive acts that go unpunished. Victims of TV violence are rarely shown experiencing serious harm, and few programs condemn violence or depict other ways of solving problems (Center for Communication and Social Policy, 1998). Verbally and relationally aggressive acts are particularly frequent in reality TV shows (Coyne, Robinson, & Nelson, 2010 ). And violent content is 9 percent above average in children’s programming, with cartoons being the most violent.

LOOK AND LISTEN
Watch a half-hour of Saturday morning cartoons and a prime-time movie on TV, and tally the number of violent acts, including those that go unpunished. How often did violence occur in each type of program? What do young viewers learn about the consequences of violence?

Reviewers of thousands of studies have concluded that TV violence increases the likelihood of hostile thoughts and emotions and of verbally, physically, and relationally aggressive behavior (Comstock & Scharrer, 2006 ; Ostrov, Gentile, & Crick, 2006 ). And a growing number of studies confirm that playing violent video games has similar effects (Anderson et al., 2008 ; Hofferth, 2010 ). Although young people of all ages are susceptible, preschool and young school-age children are especially likely to imitate TV violence because they believe that much TV fiction is real and accept what they see uncritically.

Violent programming not only creates short-term difficulties in parent and peer relations but also has lasting negative consequences. In several longitudinal studies, time spent watching TV in childhood and adolescence predicted aggressive behavior in adulthood, after other factors linked to TV viewing (such as prior child and parent aggression, IQ, parent education, family income, and neighborhood crime) were controlled (see Figure 8.2 ) (Graber et al., 2006 ; Huesmann, 1986 ; Huesmann et al., 2003 ; Johnson et al., 2002 ). Aggressive children and adolescents have a greater appetite for violent TV and computer games. And boys devote more time to violent media than girls, in part because of male-oriented themes of conquest and adventure. But even in nonaggressive children, violent TV sparks hostile thoughts and behavior; its impact is simply less intense (Bushman & Huesmann, 2001 ).

Watching TV violence increases the likelihood of hostile thoughts and emotions and aggressive behavior. Playing violent video games has similar effects.

FIGURE 8.2 Relationship of television viewing in childhood and early adolescence to aggressive acts in adolescence and early adulthood.
Interviews with more than 700 parents and youths revealed that the more TV watched in childhood and early adolescence, the greater the annual number of aggressive acts committed by the young person, as reported in follow-up interviews at ages 16 and 22.

(Adapted from Johnson et al., 2002.)

The ease with which television and video games can manipulate children’s attitudes and behavior has led to strong public pressure to improve media content. In the United States, the First Amendment right to free speech has hampered efforts to regulate TV broadcasting. Instead, all programs must be rated for violent and sexual content, and all new TV sets are required to contain the V-chip, which allows parents to block undesired material. In general, parents bear most responsibility for regulating their children’s exposure to media violence and other inappropriate content. As with the V-chip for TV, parents can control children’s Internet access by using filters or programs that monitor website visits. Yet surveys of U.S. parents indicate that 20 to 30 percent of preschoolers and about half of school-age children experience no limits on TV or computer use at home. Some children begin visiting websites without parental supervision as early as age 4 (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010 ; Rideout & Hamel, 2006 ; Varnhagen, 2007 ). Applying What We Know on page 272 lists strategies parents can use to protect their children from undesirable TV and computer fare.

Applying What We Know Regulating TV and Computer Use
Strategy

Description

Limit TV viewing and computer use.

Parents should provide clear rules limiting children’s TV and computer use and stick to them. The TV or computer should not be used as a babysitter for young children. Placing a TV or a computer in a child’s bedroom substantially increases use and makes the child’s activity hard to monitor.

Avoid using TV or computer time as a reward.

When TV or computer access is used as a reward or withheld as a punishment, children become increasingly attracted to it.

When possible, watch TV with children.

By raising questions about realism in TV depictions, expressing disapproval of on-screen behavior, and encouraging discussion, adults help children understand and evaluate TV content.

Link TV content to everyday learning experiences.

Parents can extend TV learning in ways that encourage children to engage actively with their surroundings. For example, a program on animals might spark a trip to the zoo, a visit to the library for a book about animals, or new ways of observing and caring for the family pet.

Model good TV and computer practices.

Parents’ media behavior—avoiding excessive TV and computer use and limiting exposure to harmful content—influences their children’s media behavior.

Helping Children and Parents Control Aggression.
Treatment for aggressive children is best begun early, before their antisocial behavior becomes well-practiced and difficult to change. Breaking the cycle of hostilities between family members and promoting effective ways of relating to others are crucial.

Leslie suggested that Robbie’s parents enroll in a parent training program aimed at improving the parenting of children with conduct problems. In one approach, called Incredible Years, parents complete 18 weekly group sessions facilitated by two professionals, who teach positive parenting techniques for promoting preschool and school-age children’s academic, emotional, and social skills and for managing disruptive behaviors (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2010b ). A complementary six-day training program for teachers, aimed at improving classroom management strategies and strengthening children’s social skills, is also available. And a 22-week program intervenes directly with children, teaching appropriate classroom behavior, self-control, and social skills.

Evaluations in which families with aggressive children were randomly assigned to either Incredible Years or control groups reveal that the program is highly effective at improving parenting and reducing child behavior problems. Combining parent training with teacher and/or child intervention strengthens child outcomes (Webster-Stratton & Herman, 2010 ). And effects of parent training endure. In one long-term follow-up, 75 percent of young children with serious conduct problems whose parents participated in Incredible Years were well-adjusted as teenagers (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2010a ; Webster-Stratton, Rinaldi, & Reid, 2011 ).

Other interventions focus on modifying aggressive children’s distorted social perspectives, by encouraging them to attend to nonhostile social cues, seek additional information before acting, and take the perspective of others, which promotes empathy and sympathetic concern for others. Another approach is to teach effective conflict-resolution skills. At preschool, Robbie participated in a social problem-solving intervention. Over several months, he met with Leslie and a small group of classmates to act out common conflicts using puppets, discuss alternatives for settling disputes, and practice successful strategies. Children who receive such training show gains in social competence still present several months later (Bierman & Powers, 2009 ; Shure & Aberson, 2005 ).

Finally, Robbie’s parents sought counseling for their marital problems. When parents receive help in coping with stressors in their own lives, interventions aimed at reducing children’s aggression are even more effective (Kazdin & Whitley, 2003 ).

ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW What experiences help children differentiate moral imperatives, social conventions, and matters of personal choice?

CONNECT What must parents do to foster conscience development in fearless, impulsive children? How does this illustrate the concept of goodness of fit (see page 194 in Chapter 6 )?

APPLY Alice and Wayne want their two children to become morally mature, caring individuals. List some parenting practices they should use and some they should avoid.

REFLECT Which types of punishment for a misbehaving preschooler do you endorse, and which types do you reject? Why?

image6 Gender Typing
Gender typing refers to any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one sex or the other in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes (Liben & Bigler, 2002 ). In Leslie’s classroom, girls spent more time in the housekeeping, art, and reading corners, while boys gathered more often in spaces devoted to blocks, woodworking, and active play. Already, the children had acquired many gender-linked beliefs and preferences and tended to play with peers of their own sex.

The same theories that provide accounts of morality have been used to explain children’s gender typing: social learning theory, with its emphasis on modeling and reinforcement, and cognitive-developmental theory, with its focus on children as active thinkers about their social world. As we will see, neither is adequate by itself. Gender schema theory, a third perspective that combines elements of both, has gained favor. In the following sections, we consider the early development of gender typing.

Gender-Stereotyped Beliefs and Behavior
Even before children can label their own sex consistently, they have begun to acquire common associations with gender—men as rough and sharp, women as soft and round. In one study, 18-month-olds linked such items as fir trees and hammers with males, although they had not yet learned comparable feminine associations (Eichstedt et al., 2002 ). Recall from Chapter 6 that around age 2, children use such words as boy, girl, lady, and man appropriately. As soon as gender categories are established, children sort out what they mean in terms of activities and behavior.

Preschoolers associate toys, articles of clothing, tools, household items, games, occupations, colors (blue and pink), and behaviors (physical and relational aggression) with one sex or the other (Banse et al., 2010 ; Giles & Heyman, 2005 ; Poulin-Dubois et al., 2002 ). And their actions reflect their beliefs, not only in play preferences but in personality traits as well. As we have seen, boys tend to be more active, impulsive, assertive, and physically aggressive. Girls tend to be more fearful, dependent, emotionally sensitive, compliant, advanced in effortful control, and skilled at understanding self-conscious emotions and at inflicting indirect relational aggression (Bosacki & Moore, 2004 ; Else-Quest et al., 2006 ; Underwood, 2003 ).

During early childhood, gender-stereotyped beliefs strengthen—so much so that many children apply them as blanket rules rather than as flexible guidelines. When children were asked whether gender stereotypes could be violated, half or more of 3- and 4-year-olds answered “no” to clothing, hairstyle, and play with certain toys (Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes) (Blakemore, 2003 ). Furthermore, most 3- to 6-year-olds are firm about not wanting to be friends with a child who violates a gender stereotype (a boy who wears nail polish, a girl who plays with trucks) or to attend a school where such violations are allowed (Ruble et al., 2007 ).

Early in the preschool years, gender typing is well under way. Girls tend to play with girls and are drawn to toys and activities that emphasize nurturance and cooperation.

The rigidity of preschoolers’ gender stereotypes helps us understand some commonly observed everyday behaviors. When Leslie showed her class a picture of a Scottish bagpiper wearing a kilt, the children insisted, “Men don’t wear skirts!” During free play, they often exclaimed that girls can’t be police officers and boys don’t take care of babies. These one-sided judgments are a joint product of gender stereotyping in the environment and young children’s cognitive limitations (Trautner et al., 2005 ). Most preschoolers do not yet realize that characteristics associated with being male or female—activities, toys, occupations, hairstyle, and clothing—do not determine a person’s sex.

Biological Influences on Gender Typing
The sex differences just described appear in many cultures around the world (Munroe & Romney, 2006 ; Whiting & Edwards, 1988 ). Certain ones—male activity level and physical aggression, female emotional sensitivity, and preference for same-sex playmates—are widespread among mammalian species (de Waal, 1993 , 2001 ). According to an evolutionary perspective, the adult life of our male ancestors was largely oriented toward competing for mates, that of our female ancestors toward rearing children. Therefore, males became genetically primed for dominance and females for intimacy, responsiveness, and cooperativeness. Evolutionary theorists claim that family and cultural forces can influence the intensity of biologically based sex differences. But experience cannot eradicate aspects of gender typing that served adaptive functions in human history (Konner, 2010 ; Maccoby, 2002 ).

Experiments with animals reveal that prenatally administered androgens increase active play and aggression and suppress maternal caregiving in both male and female mammals (Sato et al., 2004 ). Eleanor Maccoby ( 1998 ) argues that sex hormones also affect human play styles, leading to rough, noisy movements among boys and calm, gentle actions among girls. Then, as children interact with peers, they choose partners whose interests and behaviors are compatible with their own. Preschool girls increasingly seek out other girls and like to play in pairs because they share a preference for quieter activities involving cooperative roles. Boys come to prefer larger-group play with other boys, who share a desire to run, climb, play-fight, compete, and build up and knock down (Fabes, Martin, & Hanish, 2003 ). At age 4, children spend three times as much time with same-sex as with other-sex playmates. By age 6, this ratio has climbed to 11 to 1 (Martin & Fabes, 2001 ).

Even stronger support for the role of biology in human gender typing comes from research on girls exposed prenatally to high levels of androgens, due either to normal variation in hormone levels or to a genetic defect. In both instances, these girls showed more “masculine” behavior—a preference for trucks and blocks over dolls, for active over quiet play, and for boys as playmates—even when parents encouraged them to engage in gender-typical play (Cohen-Bendahan, van de Beek, & Berenbaum, 2005 ; Pasterski et al., 2005 ).

Research on boys with low early androgen exposure, either because production by the testes is reduced or because body cells are androgen-insensitive, also yields consistent findings (Jürgensen et al., 2007 ). The greater the degree of impairment, the more these boys display “feminine” behaviors, including toy choices and preference for girl playmates.

Environmental Influences on Gender Typing
A wealth of evidence reveals that environmental forces—at home, at school, and in the community—build on genetic influences to promote vigorous gender typing in early childhood.

Parents.
Beginning at birth, parents have different expectations of sons than of daughters. Many parents prefer that their children play with “gender-appropriate” toys. And they tend to describe achievement, competition, and control of emotion as important for sons and warmth, “ladylike” behavior, and closely supervised activities as important for daughters (Brody, 1999 ; Turner & Gervai, 1995 ).

Actual parenting practices reflect these beliefs. Parents give their sons toys that stress action and competition (guns, cars, tools, footballs) and their daughters toys that emphasize nurturance, cooperation, and physical attractiveness (dolls, tea sets, jewelry) (Leaper, 1994 ; Leaper & Friedman, 2007 ). Parents also actively reinforce independence in boys and closeness and dependency in girls. For example, parents react more positively when a son plays with cars and trucks, demands attention, runs and climbs, or tries to take toys from others. When interacting with daughters, they more often direct play activities, provide help, encourage participation in household tasks, make supportive statements (approval, praise, and agreement), and refer to emotions (Clearfield & Nelson, 2006 ; Fagot & Hagan, 1991 ; Kuebli, Butler, & Fivush, 1995 ). Gender-typed play contexts amplify these communication differences. For example, when playing housekeeping, mothers engage in high rates of supportive emotion talk with girls (Leaper, 2000 ).

Of the two sexes, boys are more gender-typed. Fathers, especially, promote “masculine” behavior in their preschool sons through activities that stress action and competition.

As these findings suggest, language is a powerful indirect means for teaching children about gender stereotypes. Earlier we saw that most young children hold rigid beliefs about gender. Although their strict views are due in part to cognitive limitations, they also draw on relevant social experiences to construct these beliefs. Even parents who believe strongly in gender equality unconsciously use language that highlights gender distinctions and informs children about traditional gender roles (see the Social Issues: Education box on the following page).

LOOK AND LISTEN
Observe a parent discussing a picture book with a 3- to 6-year-old. How many times did the parent make generic statements about gender? How about the child? Did the parent accept or correct the child’s generic utterances?

Of the two sexes, boys are more gender-typed. Fathers, especially, are more insistent that boys conform to gender roles. They place more pressure to achieve on sons than on daughters and are less tolerant of “cross-gender” behavior in sons—more concerned when a boy acts like a “sissy” than when a girl acts like a “tomboy” (Sandnabba & Ahlberg, 1999 ; Wood, Desmarais, & Gugula, 2002 ). Parents who hold nonstereotyped values and consciously avoid behaving in these ways have children who are less gender-typed (Brody, 1997 ; Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002 ).

Teachers.
Teachers often act in ways that extend gender-role learning. Several times, Leslie caught herself emphasizing gender distinctions when she called out, “Will the girls line up on one side and the boys on the other?” or pleaded, “Boys, I wish you’d quiet down like the girls!”

Social Issues: Education young Children learn About gender through Mother–Child Conversations
In an investigation of the power of language to shape preschoolers’ beliefs about gender, mothers were asked to converse with their 2- to 6-year-olds about picture books containing images both consistent and inconsistent with gender stereotypes (Gelman, Taylor, & Nguyen, 2004 ). Each picture was accompanied by the question, “Who can X?” where X was the activity on the page.

A detailed analysis of picture-book conversations revealed that mothers’ directly expressed gender attitudes were neutral, largely because they mostly posed questions to their children, such as, “Who’s driving that boat?” “Who can be a sailor? Boys and girls?” But by age 4, children often voiced stereotypes (“No, only boys can do that!”), and nearly one-third of the time, mothers affirmed them (“OK, only boys”). In other instances mothers either moved on or repeated the question. But rarely—just 2 percent of the time—did they explicitly counter a child’s stereotype, and usually only when the book itself included stereotype-inconsistent pictures.

Although the mothers were not asked to discuss gender, they called attention to it even when they did not need to do so. In English, many nouns referring to people convey age-related information (kid, baby, 2-year-old, preschooler, teenager, grownup, senior), whereas only a few encode gender (male, female, sister, brother, aunt, uncle). Yet when referring to persons, mothers called attention to gender more than half the time, even though the people shown in the books varied as much in age as in gender. Referring often to gender encourages young children to sort the social world into gender categories.

Furthermore, both mothers and children frequently expressed generic utterances—ones that were broad in scope, referring to many, or nearly all, males and females: “Boys can be sailors.” “Most girls don’t like trucks.” Even generics that were gender-neutral (“Lots of girls in this book”) or that denied a stereotype (“Boys can be ballet dancers”) prompted children to view individuals of the same gender as alike and to ignore exceptions.

Mothers’ and children’s use of generics increased with age (see Figure 8.3 ). At age 2, mothers introduced these generalizations nearly three times as often as children. But by age 6 children were producing generics more often than mothers. Generics were especially common in speech to and from boys, likely contributing to boys’ stronger gender typing.

While reading, this mother may unconsciously teach her child to see the world in gender-linked terms—by referring to gender unnecessarily or by making generic gender statements (“Most girls prefer X”; “Boys usually don’t like X”).

Even though these mothers over-whelmingly believed in gender equality, in conversing with their children, they provided a wealth of implicit cues that foster gender-stereotyping. Adults can combat children’s gender stereotyped beliefs by refraining from labeling gender unnecessarily (substituting friend for boy or girl), using references to individuals (“That person wants to be firefighter”) or qualifiers (“Some boys and some girls want to be firefighters”), countering children’s stereotypical claims, and discussing gender biases in language with children and asking them to avoid using gender labels and generics.

FIGURE 8.3 Mothers’ and children’s use of generic reference to gender during storybook conversations.
Mothers’ and children’s use of generics increased dramatically with age. At age 2, mothers produced more generics than children. By age 6, children produced more generics than mothers.

(From S. A. Gelman, M. G. Taylor, & S. P. Nguyen, “Mother–Child Conversations About Gender,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 69[1, Serial No. 275], p. 46. © 2004 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd)

Like parents, preschool teachers give girls more encouragement to participate in adult-structured activities. Girls frequently cluster around the teacher, following directions, whereas boys are attracted to play areas where teachers are minimally involved (Campbell, Shirley, & Candy, 2004 ; Powlishta, Serbin, & Moller, 1993 ). As a result, boys and girls practice different social behaviors. Compliance and bids for help occur more often in adult-structured contexts; assertiveness, leadership, and creative use of materials in unstructured pursuits.

Furthermore, as early as kindergarten, teachers give more overall attention (both positive and negative) to boys than to girls—a difference evident in diverse countries, including China, England, and the United States. They tend to praise boys more for their academic knowledge, perhaps as a means of motivating them because boys’ school performance is behind that of girls. Teachers also use more disapproval and controlling discipline with boys (Chen & Rao, 2011 ; Davies, 2008 ; Swinson & Harrop, 2009 ). They seem to expect boys to misbehave more often—a belief based partly on boys’ actual behavior and partly on gender stereotypes.

Peers.
The more preschoolers play with same-sex partners, the more their behavior becomes gender-typed—in toy choices, activity level, aggression, and adult involvement (Martin & Fabes, 2001 ). By age 3, same-sex peers positively reinforce one another for gender-typed play by praising, imitating, or joining in. In contrast, when preschoolers engage in “cross-gender” activities—for example, when boys play with dolls or girls with cars and trucks—peers criticize them. Boys are especially intolerant of cross-gender play in other boys (Thorne, 1993 ). A boy who frequently crosses gender lines is likely to be ostracized by other boys, even when he does engage in “masculine” activities!

Children also develop different styles of social influence in gender-segregated peer groups. To get their way in large-group play, boys often rely on commands, threats, and physical force. Girls’ preference for playing in pairs leads to greater concern with a partner’s needs, evident in girls’ use of polite requests, persuasion, and acceptance. Girls soon find that these tactics succeed with other girls but not with boys, who ignore their courteous overtures (Leaper, 1994 ; Leaper, Tenenbaum, & Shaffer, 1999 ). Boys’ unresponsiveness gives girls another reason to stop interacting with them.

Over time, children come to believe in the “correctness” of gender-segregated play, which further strengthens gender segregation and gender-stereotyped activities (Martin et al., 1999 ). As boys and girls separate, in-group favoritism—more positive evaluations of members of one’s own gender—becomes another factor that sustains the separate social worlds of boys and girls, resulting in “two distinct subcultures” of knowledge, beliefs, interests, and behaviors (Maccoby, 2002 ).

Although gender segregation is pervasive, cultural variations exist in the extent of gender-typed communication within such groups. African-American and Hispanic girls from low-SES families tend to be more assertive and independent when interacting with one another and with boys than are Caucasian-American girls (Goodwin, 1998 ). Similarly, in a comparison of Chinese and U.S. preschoolers’ play, Chinese girls used more direct commands and criticism when interacting with same-and other-sex peers (Kyratzis & Guo, 2001 ). In cultures where interdependence is highly valued, perhaps children do not feel a need to work as hard at maintaining same-sex peer relations through traditional interaction.

The Broader Social Environment.
Finally, although children’s everyday environments have changed to some degree, they continue to present many examples of gender-typed behavior—in occupations, leisure activities, media portrayals, and achievements of men and women. As we will see next, children soon come to view not just their social surroundings but also themselves through a “gender-biased lens”—a perspective that can seriously restrict their interests and learning opportunities.

Gender Identity
As adults, each of us has a gender identity —an image of oneself as relatively masculine or feminine in characteristics. By middle childhood, researchers can measure gender identity by asking children to rate themselves on personality traits. A child or adult with a “masculine” identity scores high on traditionally masculine items (such as ambitious, competitive, and self-sufficient) and low on traditionally feminine items (such as affectionate, cheerful, and soft-spoken). Someone with a “feminine” identity does the reverse. And a substantial minority (especially females) have a gender identity called androgyny , scoring high on both masculine and feminine personality characteristics.

Gender identity is a good predictor of psychological adjustment. “Masculine” and androgynous children and adults have higher self-esteem than “feminine” individuals (Boldizar, 1991 ; DiDonato & Berenbaum, 2011 ; Harter, 2006 ). In line with their flexible self-definitions, androgynous individuals are more adaptable—able to show masculine independence or feminine sensitivity, depending on the situation (Huyck, 1996 ; Taylor & Hall, 1982 ). The existence of an androgynous identity demonstrates that children can acquire a mixture of positive qualities traditionally associated with each gender—an orientation that may best help them realize their potential.

Emergence of Gender Identity.
How do children develop a gender identity? According to social learning theory, behavior comes before self-perceptions. Preschoolers first acquire gender-typed responses through modeling and reinforcement and only later organize these behaviors into gender-linked ideas about themselves. In contrast, cognitive-developmental theory maintains that self-perceptions come before behavior. Over the preschool years, children acquire a cognitive appreciation of the permanence of their sex. They develop gender constancy —a full understanding of the biologically based permanence of their gender, including the realization that sex remains the same even if clothing, hairstyle, and play activities change. Then children use this knowledge to guide their behavior.

Children younger than age 6 who watch an adult dress a doll in “other-gender” clothing typically insist that the doll’s sex has also changed (Chauhan, Shastri, & Mohite, 2005 ; Fagot, 1985 ). Attainment of gender constancy is strongly related to ability to pass verbal appearance–reality tasks (see page 228 in Chapter 7 ) (Trautner, Gervai, & Nemeth, 2003 ). Indeed, gender constancy tasks can be considered a type of appearance–reality problem, in that children must distinguish what a person looks like from who he or she really is.

In many cultures, young children do not have access to basic biological knowledge about gender because they rarely see members of the other sex naked. But giving preschoolers information about genital differences does not result in gender constancy. Those who have such knowledge usually say changing a doll’s clothing will not change its sex, but when asked to justify their responses, they do not refer to sex as an innate, unchanging quality of people (Szkrybalo & Ruble, 1999 ). This suggests that cognitive immaturity, not social experience, is responsible for preschoolers’ difficulty grasping the permanence of sex.

Is cognitive-developmental theory correct that gender constancy is responsible for children’s gender-typed behavior? Evidence for this assumption is weak. “Gender-appropriate” behavior appears so early in the preschool years that its initial appearance must result from modeling and reinforcement, as social learning theory suggests. Although outcomes are not entirely consistent, some evidence suggests that gender constancy actually contributes to the emergence of more flexible gender-role attitudes during the school years (Ruble et al., 2007 ). But overall, the impact of gender constancy on gender typing is not great. As research in the following section reveals, gender-role adoption is more powerfully affected by children’s beliefs about how close the connection must be between their own gender and their behavior.

Gender Schema Theory.
Gender schema theory is an information-processing approach that combines social learning and cognitive-developmental features. It explains how environmental pressures and children’s cognitions work together to shape gender-role development (Martin & Halverson, 1987 ; Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002 ). At an early age, children pick up gender-typed preferences and behaviors from others. At the same time, they organize their experiences into gender schemas, or masculine and feminine categories, that they use to interpret their world. As soon as preschoolers can label their own gender, they select gender schemas consistent with it (“Only boys can be doctors” or “Cooking is a girl’s job”) and apply those categories to themselves. Their self-perceptions then become gender-typed and serve as additional schemas that children use to process information and guide their own behavior.

FIGURE 8.4 Cognitive pathways for gender-schematic and gender-aschematic children.
In gender-schematic children, the gender-salience filter immediately makes gender highly relevant: Billy sees a doll and thinks, “I’m a boy. Should boys play with dolls?” Drawing on his experiences, he answers “yes” or “no.” If he answers “yes” and the doll interests him, he plays with the doll. If he answers “no,” he avoids the “gender-inappropriate” toy. Gender-aschematic children rarely view the world in gender-linked terms: Billy simply asks, “Do I like this toy?” and responds on the basis of his interests.

(Reprinted by permission of Rebecca Bigler.)

We have seen that individual differences exist in the extent to which children endorse gender-typed views. Figure 8.4 shows different cognitive pathways for children who often apply gender schemas to their experiences and those who rarely do (Liben & Bigler, 2002 ). Consider Billy, who encounters a doll. If Billy is a gender-schematic child, his gender-salience filter immediately makes gender highly relevant. Drawing on his prior learning, he asks himself, “Should boys play with dolls?” If he answers “yes” and the toy interests him, he will explore it and learn more about it. If he answers “no,” he will avoid the “gender-inappropriate” toy. But if Billy is a gender-aschematic child—one who seldom views the world in gender-linked terms—he simply asks himself, “Do I like this toy?” and responds on the basis of his interests.

Gender-schematic thinking is so powerful that when children see others behaving in “gender-inconsistent” ways, they often cannot remember the information or distort it to make it “gender-consistent.” For example, when shown a picture of a male nurse, they may remember him as a doctor (Martin & Ruble, 2004 ). And because gender-schematic preschoolers typically conclude, “What I like, children of my own sex will also like,” they often use their own preferences to add to their gender biases (Liben & Bigler, 2002 ). For example, a girl who dislikes oysters may conclude that only boys like oysters even though she has never actually been given information promoting such a stereotype. At least partly for this reason, young children’s gender schemas contain both culturally standard and nonstandard ideas (Tennenbaum et al., 2010). Not until well into the school years do children’s gender schemas fully resemble those of adults.

Reducing Gender Stereotyping in Young Children
How can we help young children avoid rigid gender schemas that restrict their behavior and learning opportunities? No easy recipe exists. Biology clearly affects children’s gender typing, channeling boys toward active, competitive play and girls toward quieter, more intimate interaction. But most aspects of gender typing are not built into human nature (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006 ).

Because young children’s cognitive limitations lead them to assume that cultural practices determine gender, parents and teachers are wise to try to delay preschoolers’ exposure to gender-stereotyped messages. Adults can begin by limiting traditional gender roles in their own behavior and by providing children with nontraditional alternatives. For example, parents can take turns making dinner, bathing children, and driving the family car, and they can give their sons and daughters both trucks and dolls and both pink and blue clothing. Teachers can ensure that all children spend time in both adult-structured and unstructured activities. Adults can also avoid using language that conveys gender stereotypes and can shield children from media presentations that do so.

Once children notice the vast array of gender stereotypes in their society, parents and teachers can point out exceptions. For example, they can arrange for children to see men and women pursuing nontraditional careers and can explain that interests and skills, not sex, should determine a person’s occupation. Research shows that such reasoning is highly effective in reducing children’s tendency to view the world in a gender-biased fashion. By middle childhood, children who hold flexible beliefs about what boys and girls can do are more likely to notice instances of gender discrimination (Brown & Bigler, 2004 ). And as we will see next, a rational approach to child rearing promotes healthy, adaptable functioning in many other areas as well.

ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW Explain how the social environment and young children’s cognitive limitations jointly contribute to rigid gender stereotyping in early childhood.

CONNECT What other aspects of young children’s social understanding, in addition to gender-stereotyped beliefs, tend to be rigid and one-sided in early childhood?

APPLY List findings indicating that language and communication—between parents and children, between teachers and children, and between peers—powerfully affect children’s gender typing. What recommendations would you make to counteract these influences?

REFLECT Would you describe your own gender identity as “masculine,” “feminine,” or androgynous? What biological and social factors might have influenced your gender identity?

image7 Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development
In this and previous chapters, we have seen how parents can foster children’s competence—by building a parent–child relationship based on affection and cooperation, by serving as models and reinforcers of mature behavior, by using reasoning and inductive discipline, and by guiding and encouraging children’s mastery of new skills. Now let’s put these practices together into an overall view of effective parenting.

Styles of Child Rearing
Child-rearing styles are combinations of parenting behaviors that occur over a wide range of situations, creating an enduring child-rearing climate. In a landmark series of studies, Diana Baumrind ( 1971 ) gathered information on child rearing by watching parents interact with their preschoolers. Her findings, and those of others who have extended her work, reveal three features that consistently differentiate an effective style from less effective ones: (1) acceptance and involvement, (2) control, and (3) autonomy granting (Gray & Steinberg, 1999 ; Hart, Newell, & Olsen, 2003 ). Table 8.2 shows how child-rearing styles differ in these features.

Authoritative Child Rearing.
The authoritative child-rearing style —the most successful approach—involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting. Authoritative parents are warm, attentive, and sensitive to their child’s needs. They establish an enjoyable, emotionally fulfilling parent–child relationship that draws the child into close connection. At the same time, authoritative parents exercise firm, reasonable control. They insist on appropriate maturity, give reasons for their expectations, and use disciplinary encounters as “teaching moments” to promote the child’s self-regulation. Finally, authoritative parents engage in gradual, appropriate autonomy granting, allowing the child to make decisions in areas where he is ready to do so (Kuczynski & Lollis, 2002 ; Russell, Mize, & Bissaker, 2004 ).

TABLE 8.2 Features of Child-Rearing Styles
CHILD-REARING STYLE

ACCEPTANCE AND INVOLVEMENT

CONTROL

AUTONOMY GRANTING

Authoritative

Is warm, responsive, attentive, patient, and sensitive to the child’s needs

Makes reasonable demands for maturity and consistently enforces and explains them

Permits the child to make decisions in accord with readiness

Encourages the child to express thoughts, feelings, and desires

When parent and child disagree, engages in joint decision making when possible

Authoritarian

Is cold and rejecting and frequently degrades the child

Makes many demands coercively, using force and punishment

Often uses psychological control, withdrawing love and intruding on the child’s individuality

Makes decisions for the child

Rarely listens to the child’s point of view

Permissive

Is warm but overindulgent or inattentive

Makes few or no demands for maturity

Permits the child to make many decisions before the child is ready

Uninvolved

Is emotionally detached and withdrawn

Makes few or no demands for maturity

Is indifferent to the child’s decision making and point of view

Throughout childhood and adolescence, authoritative parenting is linked to many aspects of competence—an upbeat mood, self-control, task persistence, cooperativeness, high self-esteem, social and moral maturity, and favorable school performance (Amato & Fowler, 2002 ; Aunola, Stattin, & Nurmi, 2000 ; Gonzalez & Wolters, 2006 ; Mackey, Arnold, & Pratt, 2001 ; Milevsky et al., 2007 ; Steinberg, Darling, & Fletcher, 1995 ).

Authoritarian Child Rearing.
The authoritarian child-rearing style is low in acceptance and involvement, high in coercive control, and low in autonomy granting. Authoritarian parents appear cold and rejecting. To exert control, they yell, command, criticize, and threaten. “Do it because I said so!” is their attitude. They make decisions for their child and expect the child to accept their word unquestioningly. If the child resists, authoritarian parents resort to force and punishment.

Children of authoritarian parents are more likely to be anxious, unhappy, and low in self-esteem and self-reliance. When frustrated, they tend to react with hostility and, like their parents, resort to force when they do not get their way. Boys, especially, show high rates of anger and defiance. Although girls also engage in acting-out behavior, they are more likely to be dependent, lacking interest in exploration, and overwhelmed by challenging tasks (Hart, Newell, & Olsen, 2003 ; Kakihara et al., 2010 ; Thompson, Hollis, & Richards, 2003 ). Children and adolescents exposed to the authoritarian style typically do poorly in school, but because of their parents’ concern with control, they tend to achieve better and to commit fewer antisocial acts than peers with undemanding parents—that is, whose parents use one of the styles we will consider next (Steinberg, Blatt-Eisengart, & Cauffman, 2006 ).

In addition to unwarranted direct control, authoritarian parents engage in a more subtle type called psychological control —behaviors that intrude on and manipulate children’s verbal expression, individuality, and attachments to parents. In an attempt to decide virtually everything for the child, these parents frequently interrupt or put down the child’s ideas, decisions, and choice of friends. When they are dissatisfied, they withdraw love, making their affection or attention contingent on the child’s compliance. They also hold excessively high expectations that do not fit the child’s developing capacities. Children subjected to psychological control exhibit adjustment problems involving both anxious, withdrawn behavior and defiance and aggression—especially the relational form, which (like parental psychological control) damages relationships through manipulation and exclusion (Barber et al., 2005 ; Kuppens et al., 2009 ; Nelson et al., 2006 ; Silk et al., 2003 ).

Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood Psychology homework help

Permissive Child Rearing.
The permissive child-rearing style is warm and accepting but uninvolved. Permissive parents are either overindulgent or inattentive and, thus, engage in little control. Instead of gradually granting autonomy, they allow children to make many of their own decisions at an age when they are not yet capable of doing so. Their children can eat meals and go to bed whenever they wish and can watch as much television as they want. They do not have to learn good manners or do any household chores. Although some permissive parents truly believe in this approach, many others simply lack confidence in their ability to influence their child’s behavior (Oyserman et al., 2005 ).

Children of permissive parents tend to be impulsive, disobedient, and rebellious. Compared with children whose parents exert more control, they are also overly demanding and dependent on adults, and they show less persistence on tasks, poorer school achievement, and more antisocial behavior. The link between permissive parenting and dependent, nonachieving, rebellious behavior is especially strong for boys (Barber & Olsen, 1997 ; Baumrind, 1971 ; Steinberg, Blatt-Eisengart, & Cauffman, 2006 ).

Uninvolved Child Rearing.
The uninvolved child-rearing style combines low acceptance and involvement with little control and general indifference to issues of autonomy. Often these parents are emotionally detached and depressed and so overwhelmed by life stress that they have little time and energy for children. At its extreme, uninvolved parenting is a form of child maltreatment called neglect. Especially when it begins early, it disrupts virtually all aspects of development (see Chapter 6 , page 200 ). Even with less extreme parental disengagement, children and adolescents display many problems—poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement difficulties, depression, anger, and antisocial behavior (Aunola, Stattin, & Nurmi, 2000 ; Kurdek & Fine, 1994 ; Schroeder et al., 2010 ).

What Makes Authoritative Child Rearing Effective?
Like all correlational findings, the relationship between the authoritative style and children’s competence is open to interpretation. Perhaps parents of well-adjusted children are authoritative because their youngsters have especially cooperative dispositions. But although temperamentally fearless, impulsive children and emotionally negative, difficult children are more likely to evoke coercive, inconsistent discipline, extra warmth and firm control succeed in modifying these children’s maladaptive styles (Cipriano & Stifter, 2010 ; Kochanska, Philibert, & Barry, 2009 ; Pettit et al., 2007 ).

Longitudinal research indicates that authoritative child rearing promotes maturity and adjustment in children of diverse temperaments (Hart, Newell, & Olsen, 2003 ; Rubin, Burgess, & Coplan, 2002 ). And a variant of authoritativeness in which parents exert strong control over the child’s behavior—becoming directive but not coercive—yields just as favorable long-term outcomes as a more democratic approach (Baumrind, Larzelere, & Owens, 2010 ). Indeed, as the findings on temperament and parenting just mentioned illustrate, some children, because of their dispositions, require “heavier doses” of certain authoritative features.

· In sum, authoritative child rearing seems to create a positive emotional context for parental influence in the following ways:

· ● Warm, involved parents who are secure in the standards they hold for their children provide models of caring concern as well as confident, self-controlled behavior.

· ● Children are far more likely to comply with and internalize control that appears fair and reasonable, not arbitrary.

· ● By making demands and engaging in autonomy granting that match children’s ability to take responsibility for their own behavior, authoritative parents convey a sense of competence to their children, which fosters favorable self-esteem and cognitive and social maturity.

· ● Supportive aspects of the authoritative style, including parental acceptance, involvement, and rational control, are a powerful source of resilience, protecting children from the negative effects of family stress and poverty (Beyers et al., 2003 ).

LOOK AND LISTEN
Ask several parents to explain their style of child rearing, inquiring about acceptance and involvement, control, and autonomy granting. Look, especially, for variations in authoritativeness—more or less control over the child’s behavior—along with parents’ rationales.

Cultural Variations
Although authoritative parenting is broadly advantageous, parents of different ethnicities often have distinct child-rearing beliefs and practices that reflect cultural values. Let’s take some examples.

In Caribbean families of African origins, respect for parental authority is paired with high parental warmth—a combination that promotes competence and family loyalty.

Compared with Western parents, Chinese parents describe their parenting as more controlling. They are more directive in teaching and scheduling their children’s time, as a way of fostering self-control and high achievement. Chinese parents may appear less warm than Western parents because they withhold praise, which they believe results in self-satisfied, poorly motivated children (Chao, 1994 ; Chen et al., 2001 ). Chinese parents report expressing affection and using induction and other reasoning-oriented discipline as much as American parents do, but they more often shame a misbehaving child (see page 257 ), withdraw love, and use physical punishment (Cheah et al., 2009 ; Shwalb et al., 2004 ; Wu et al., 2002 ). When these practices become excessive, resulting in an authoritarian style high in psychological or coercive control, Chinese children display the same negative outcomes as Western children: poor academic achievement, anxiety, depression, and aggressive behavior (Chan, 2010 ; Nelson et al., 2006 ; Pong, Johnston, & Chen, 2010 ).

In Hispanic families, Asian Pacific Island families, and Caribbean families of African and East Indian origins, firm insistence on respect for parental authority is paired with high parental warmth—a combination suited to promoting cognitive and social competence and family loyalty (Halgunseth, Ispa, & Rudy, 2006 ; Roopnarine & Evans, 2007 ). Hispanic fathers often spend much time with their children and are warm and sensitive (Cabrera & Bradley, 2012 ). In Caribbean families that have immigrated to the United States, fathers’ authoritativeness—but not mothers—predicted preschoolers’ literacy and math skills, probably because Caribbean fathers take a larger role in guiding their children’s academic progress (Roopnarine et al., 2006 ).

Although wide variation exists, low-SES African-American parents tend to expect immediate obedience, regarding strictness as fostering self-control and a watchful attitude in risky surroundings. Consistent with these beliefs, African-American parents who use more controlling strategies tend to have more cognitively and socially competent children (Brody & Flor, 1998 ). Recall, also, that a history of physical punishment is associated with a reduction in antisocial behavior among African-American youths but with an increase among Caucasian Americans (see page 267 ). Most African-American parents who use strict, “no-nonsense” discipline use physical punishment sparingly and combine it with warmth and reasoning.

These cultural variations remind us that child-rearing styles must be viewed in their larger context. As we have seen, many factors contribute to good parenting: personal characteristics of child and parent, SES, access to extended family and community supports, cultural values and practices, and public policies.

As we turn to the topic of child maltreatment, our discussion will underscore, once again, that effective child rearing is sustained not just by the desire of mothers and fathers to be good parents. Almost all want to be. Unfortunately, when vital supports for parenting break down, children—as well as parents—can suffer terribly.

Child Maltreatment
Child maltreatment is as old as human history, but only recently has the problem been widely acknowledged and research aimed at understanding it. Perhaps public concern has increased because child maltreatment is especially common in large industrialized nations. In the most recently reported year, about 700,000 U.S. children (9 out of every 1,000) were identified as victims (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011b ). Most cases go unreported, so the true figures are much higher.

Child maltreatment takes the following forms:

· ● Physical abuse: Assaults, such as kicking, biting, shaking, punching, or stabbing, that inflict physical injury

· ● Sexual abuse: Fondling, intercourse, exhibitionism, commercial exploitation through prostitution or production of pornography, and other forms of exploitation

· ● Neglect: Failure to meet a child’s basic needs for food, clothing, medical attention, education, or supervision

· ● Emotional abuse: Acts that could cause serious mental or behavioral disorders, including social isolation, repeated unreasonable demands, ridicule, humiliation, intimidation, or terrorizing

Parents commit more than 80 percent of abusive incidents. Other relatives account for about 7 percent. The remainder are perpetrated by parents’ unmarried partners, school officials, camp counselors, and other adults. Mothers engage in neglect more often than fathers, whereas fathers engage in sexual abuse more often than mothers. Maternal and paternal rates of physical and emotional abuse are fairly similar. Infants and young preschoolers are at greatest risk for neglect; preschool and school-age children for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse (Trocomé & Wolfe, 2002 ; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011b ). Because most sexual abuse victims are identified in middle childhood, we will pay special attention to this form of maltreatment in Chapter 10 .

Each year, fourth to sixth graders across Los Angeles County enter a poster contest to celebrate National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This 2012 winner expresses a heartfelt appeal: “Don’t Let Our Children Live in Fear.”

(Gillian Lih Bautista, 6th Grade, St. Genevieve Elementary, Panorama City, CA. Courtesy ICAN Associates, Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, ican4kids.org .)

origins of Child Maltreatment.
Early findings suggested that child maltreatment was rooted in adult psychological disturbance (Kempe et al., 1962 ). But although child maltreatment is more common among disturbed parents, no single “abusive personality type” exists. Parents who were abused as children do not necessarily become abusers (Buchanan, 1996 ; Simons et al., 1991 ). And sometimes even “normal” parents harm their children!

For help in understanding child maltreatment, researchers turned to ecological systems theory (see Chapters 1 and 2 ). They discovered that many interacting variables—at the family, community, and cultural levels—contribute. The more risks present, the greater the likelihood of abuse or neglect (see Table 8.3 ).

The Family.
Within the family, children whose characteristics make them more challenging to rear are more likely to become targets of abuse. These include premature or very sick babies and children who are temperamentally difficult, are inattentive and overactive, or have other developmental problems. Child factors, however, only slightly increase the risk (Jaudes & Mackey-Bilaver, 2008 ; Sidebotham et al., 2003 ). Whether such children are maltreated largely depends on parents’ characteristics.

Maltreating parents are less skillful than other parents in handling discipline confrontations. They also suffer from biased thinking about their child. For example, they often attribute their baby’s crying or their child’s misdeeds to a stubborn or bad disposition, evaluate child transgressions as worse than they are, and feel powerless in parenting—perspectives that lead them to move quickly toward physical force (Bugental & Happaney, 2004 ; Crouch et al., 2008 ).

Once abuse begins, it quickly becomes part of a self-sustaining relationship. The small irritations to which abusive parents react—a fussy baby, a preschooler who will not mind immediately—soon become bigger ones. Then the harshness increases. By the preschool years, abusive and neglectful parents seldom interact with their children. When they do, the communication is almost always negative (Wolfe, 2005 ).

Most parents have enough self-control not to respond with abuse to their child’s misbehavior or developmental problems. Other factors combine with these conditions to prompt an extreme response. Abusive parents react to stressful situations with high emotional arousal. And low income, low education (less than a high school diploma), unemployment, alcohol and drug use, marital conflict, overcrowded living conditions, frequent moves, and extreme household disorganization are common in abusive homes (Wekerle et al., 2007 ; Wulczyn, 2009 ). These conditions increase the chances that parents will be too overwhelmed to meet basic child-rearing responsibilities or will vent their frustrations by lashing out at their children.

The Community.
The majority of abusive and neglectful parents are isolated from both formal and informal social supports. Because of their life histories, many have learned to mistrust and avoid others and are poorly skilled at establishing and maintaining positive relationships. Also, maltreating parents are more likely to live in unstable, rundown neighborhoods that provide few links between family and community, such as preschool programs, recreation centers, and religious institutions (Coulton et al., 2007 ; Guterman et al., 2009 ). They lack “lifelines” to others and have no one to turn to for help during stressful times.

The Larger Culture.
Cultural values, laws, and customs profoundly affect the chances that child maltreatment will occur when parents feel overburdened. Societies that view violence as an appropriate way to solve problems set the stage for child abuse.

TABLE 8.3 Factors Related to Child Maltreatment
FACTOR

DESCRIPTION

Parent characteristics

Psychological disturbance; alcohol and drug abuse; history of abuse as a child; belief in harsh physical discipline; desire to satisfy unmet emotional needs through the child; unreasonable expectations for child behavior; young age (most under 30); low educational level

Child characteristics

Premature or very sick baby; difficult temperament; inattentiveness and overactivity; other developmental problems

Family characteristics

Low income; poverty; homelessness; marital instability; social isolation; physical abuse of mother by husband or boyfriend; frequent moves; large families with closely spaced children; overcrowded living conditions; disorganized household; lack of steady employment; other signs of high life stress

Community

Characterized by violence and social isolation; few parks, child-care centers, preschool programs, recreation centers, or religious institutions to serve as family supports

Culture

Approval of physical force and violence as ways to solve problems

Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011b; Wekerle & Wolfe, 2003; Whipple, 2006.

Although the United States has laws to protect children from maltreatment, widespread support exists for use of physical force with children (refer back to page 266 ). Many countries—including Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, and Uruguay—have outlawed corporal punishment, a measure that dampens both physical discipline and abuse (Zolotor & Puzia, 2010 ). Furthermore, all industrialized nations except the United States and France now prohibit corporal punishment in schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld the right of school officials to use corporal punishment. Fortunately, 31 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that ban it.

Consequences of Child Maltreatment.
The family circumstances of maltreated children impair the development of emotional self-regulation, empathy and sympathy, self-concept, social skills, and academic motivation. Over time, these youngsters show serious adjustment problems—cognitive deficits (including impaired working memory and executive function), severe depression, aggressive behavior, peer difficulties, substance abuse, and violent crime—that persist into adulthood (Gould et al., 2010 ; Kaplow & Widom, 2007 ; Sanchez & Pollak, 2009 ).

How do these damaging consequences occur? Think back to our earlier discussion of hostile cycles of parent–child interaction. For abused children, these are especially severe. Also, a family characteristic strongly associated with child abuse is partner abuse (Graham-Bermann & Howell, 2011 ). Clearly, the home lives of abused children overflow with experiences that evoke profound distress and with opportunities to learn to use aggression to solve problems.

Furthermore, demeaning parental messages, in which children are ridiculed, humiliated, rejected, or terrorized, result in low self-esteem, high anxiety, self-blame, and efforts to escape from extreme psychological pain—at times severe enough to lead to attempted suicide in adolescence. At school, maltreated children present serious discipline problems (Wolfe, 2005 ). Their noncompliance, poor motivation, and cognitive immaturity interfere with academic achievement, further undermining their chances for life success.

Finally, repeated abuse is associated with central nervous system damage, including abnormal EEG brain-wave activity; fMRI-detected reduced size and impaired functioning of the cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, and cerebellum; and atypical production of the stress hormone cortisol—initially too high but, after months of abuse, often too low. Over time, the massive trauma of persistent abuse seems to blunt children’s normal physiological response to stress (Cicchetti, 2007 ; Hart & Rubia, 2012 ). These effects increase the chances that cognitive and emotional problems will endure.

Preventing Child Maltreatment.
Because child maltreatment is embedded in families, communities, and society as a whole, efforts to prevent it must be directed at each of these levels. Many approaches have been suggested, from teaching high-risk parents effective child-rearing strategies to developing broad social programs aimed at improving community services and economic conditions.

We have seen that providing social supports to families is effective in easing parental stress. This approach sharply reduces child maltreatment. Parents Anonymous, a U.S. organization with affiliate programs around the world, helps child-abusing parents learn constructive parenting practices, largely through social supports. Its local chapters offer self-help group meetings, daily phone calls, and regular home visits to relieve social isolation and teach child-rearing skills.

Early intervention aimed at strengthening both child and parent competencies can reduce child maltreatment. Healthy Families America, a program that began in Hawaii and has spread to 440 sites across the United States and Canada, identifies at-risk families during pregnancy or at birth. Each receives three years of home visitation, in which a trained worker helps parents manage crises, encourages effective child rearing, and puts parents in touch with community services (Healthy Families America, 2011 ). In an evaluation of its effectiveness, Healthy Families home visitation alone reduced only neglect, not abuse (Duggan et al., 2004 ). But adding a cognitive component dramatically increased its impact. When home visitors helped parents change negative appraisals of their children—by countering inaccurate interpretations (for example, that the baby is behaving with malicious intent) and by working on solving child-rearing problems—physical punishment and abuse dropped sharply after one year of intervention (Bugental et al., 2002 ).

Even with intensive treatment, some adults persist in their abusive acts. An estimated 1,500 U.S. children, most of them infants and preschoolers, die from maltreatment each year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011b ). When parents are unlikely to change their behavior, the drastic step of separating parent from child and legally terminating parental rights is the only justifiable course of action.

Child maltreatment is a sad note on which to end our discussion of a period of childhood that is so full of excitement, awakening, and discovery. But there is reason to be optimistic. Great strides have been made over the past several decades in understanding and preventing child maltreatment.

ASK YOURSELF
REVIEW Is the concept of authoritative parenting useful for understanding effective parenting across cultures? Explain.

CONNECT Which child-rearing style is most likely to be associated with inductive discipline, and why?

APPLY Chandra heard a news report about 10 severely neglected children, living in squalor in an inner-city tenement. She wondered, “Why would parents so mistreat their children?” How would you answer Chandra?

REFLECT How would you classify your parents’ child-rearing styles? What factors might have influenced their approach to parenting?

image8 SUMMARY
Erikson’s Theory: Initiative versus Guilt ( p. 256 )

What personality changes take place during Erikson’s stage of initiative versus guilt?

· ● Preschoolers develop a new sense of purposefulness as they grapple with Erikson’s psychological conflict of initiative versus guilt. A healthy sense of initiative depends on exploring the social world through play, cooperating with peers to achieve common goals, and forming a conscience through identification with the same-sex parent.

Self-Understanding ( p. 256 )

· Describe preschoolers’ self-concepts and the development of self-esteem.

· ● As preschoolers think more intently about themselves, they construct a self-concept consisting largely of observable characteristics and typical emotions and attitudes. A warm, sensitive parent–child relationship seems to foster a more positive, coherent early self-concept.

· ● During early childhood, high self-esteem contributes to a mastery-oriented approach to the environment. But even a little adult disapproval can undermine a young child’s self-esteem and enthusiasm for learning.

Emotional Development ( p. 258 )

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

· ● Preschoolers’ impressive understanding of the causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of basic emotions is supported by cognitive and language development, secure attachment, and conversations about feelings. By age 3 to 4, children are aware of various strategies for emotional self-regulation. Temperament and parental communication about coping strategies influence preschoolers’ capacity to handle stress and negative emotion.

· ● As their self-concepts develop, preschoolers more often experience self-conscious emotions. They depend on feedback from parents and other adults to know when to feel each of these emotions.

· ● Empathy also becomes more common. Temperament and parenting influence the extent to which empathy leads to sympathy and results in prosocial, or altruistic, behavior.

Peer Relations ( p. 261 )

· Describe peer sociability and friendship in early childhood, citing cultural and parental influences on early peer relations.

· ● During early childhood, peer interaction increases as children move from nonsocial activity to parallel play, then to associative and cooperative play. Nevertheless, both solitary and parallel play remain common.

· ● Sociodramatic play seems especially important in societies where child and adult worlds are distinct. In collectivist cultures, play generally occurs in large groups and is highly cooperative.

· ● Preschoolers understand something about the uniqueness of friendship, but their friendships do not yet have an enduring quality. Children’s social maturity contributes to later academic performance. Parents affect peer sociability both directly, through attempts to influence their child’s peer relations, and indirectly, through their child-rearing practices.

Foundations of Morality ( p. 264 )

What are the central features of psychoanalytic, social learning, and cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development?

· ● Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the emotional side of moral development, especially identification and guilt as motivators of good conduct. Contrary to Freud’s theory, conscience formation is promoted not by fear of punishment and loss of parental love but by induction, in which an adult points out the effects of the child’s misbehavior on others.

· ● Social learning theory focuses on how moral behavior is learned through reinforcement and modeling. Effective adult models of pro-social responses are warm and powerful, and they practice what they preach.

· ● Alternatives to harsh punishment such as time out and withdrawal of privileges can help parents avoid undesirable side effects of punishment. Parents can increase the effectiveness of punishment by being consistent, maintaining a warm parent–child relationship, and offering explanations.

· ● The cognitive-developmental perspective views children as active thinkers about social rules. By age 4, children consider intentions in making moral judgments and distinguish truthfulness from lying. Preschoolers also distinguish moral imperatives from social conventions and matters of personal choice. However, they tend to reason rigidly about morality, focusing on outcomes and on physical harm.

· Describe the development of aggression in early childhood, including family and media influences and effective approaches to reducing aggressive behavior.

· ● During early childhood, proactive aggression declines while reactive aggression increases. Proactive and reactive aggression come in three forms: physical aggression (more common in boys), verbal aggression, and relational aggression.

· ● Ineffective discipline and a conflict-ridden family atmosphere promote children’s aggression, as does media violence. Effective approaches to reducing aggressive behavior include training parents in effective child-rearing practices, teaching children conflict-resolution skills, helping parents cope with stressors in their own lives, and shielding children from violent media.

Gender Typing ( p. 273 )

Discuss genetic and environmental influences on preschoolers’ gender-stereotyped beliefs and behavior.

· ● Gender typing is well under way in the pre-school years. Preschoolers acquire a wide range of gender-stereotyped beliefs, often applying them rigidly.

· ● Prenatal sex hormones contribute to boys’ higher activity level and rougher play and to children’s preference for same-sex playmates. But parents, teachers, peers, and the broader social environment also encourage many gender-typed responses.

· Describe and evaluate theories that explain the emergence of gender identity.

· ● Although most people have a traditional gender identity, some are androgynous, combining both masculine and feminine characteristics. Masculine and androgynous identities are linked to better psychological adjustment.

· ● According to social learning theory, pre-schoolers first acquire gender-typed responses through modeling and reinforcement and then organize these behaviors into gender-linked ideas about themselves. Cognitive-developmental theory maintains that children must master gender constancybefore they develop gender-typed behavior, though evidence for this assumption is weak.

· ● Gender schema theory combines features of social learning and cognitive-developmental perspectives. As children acquire gender-typed preferences and behaviors, they form masculine and feminine categories, or gender schemas, that they apply to themselves and their world.

Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development ( p. 278 )

· Describe the impact of child-rearing styles on children’s development, and note cultural variations in child rearing.

· ● Three features distinguish major child-rearing styles: (1) acceptance and involvement, (2) control, and (3) autonomy granting. In contrast to the authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved styles, the authoritative style promotes cognitive, emotional, and social competence. Warmth, explanations, and reasonable demands for mature behavior account for the effectiveness of this style. Psychological control, associated with authoritarian parenting, contributes to adjustment problems.

· ● Certain ethnic groups, including Chinese, Hispanic, Asian Pacific Island, and African-American, combine parental warmth with high levels of control. But when control becomes harsh and excessive, it impairs academic and social competence.

· Discuss the multiple origins of child maltreatment, its consequences for development, and effective prevention.

· ● Maltreating parents use ineffective discipline, hold a negatively biased view of their child, and feel powerless in parenting. Unmanageable parental stress and social isolation greatly increase the likelihood of abuse and neglect. Societal approval of physical force as a means of solving problems promotes child abuse.

· ● Maltreated children are impaired in emotional self-regulation, empathy and sympathy, self-concept, social skills, and academic motivation. The trauma of repeated abuse is associated with central nervous system damage and serious, lasting adjustment problems. Successful prevention requires efforts at the family, community, and societal levels.

Important Terms and Concepts
androgyny ( p. 276 )

associative play ( p. 261 )

authoritarian child-rearing style ( p. 279 )

authoritative child-rearing style ( p. 278 )

child-rearing styles ( p. 278 )

cooperative play ( p. 261 )

gender constancy ( p. 276 )

gender identity ( p. 276 )

gender schema theory ( p. 277 )

gender typing ( p. 273 )

induction ( p. 264 )

initiative versus guilt ( p. 256 )

matters of personal choice ( p. 269 )

moral imperatives ( p. 269 )

nonsocial activity ( p. 261 )

parallel play ( p. 261 )

permissive child-rearing style ( p. 279 )

physical aggression ( p. 269 )

proactive aggression ( p. 269 )

prosocial, or altruistic, behavior ( p. 260 )

psychological control ( p. 279 )

reactive aggression ( p. 269 )

relational aggression ( p. 269 )

self-concept ( p. 256 )

self-esteem ( p. 257 )

social conventions ( p. 269 )

sympathy ( p. 260 )

time out ( p. 266 )

uninvolved child-rearing style ( p. 280 )

verbal aggression ( p. 269 )

image9 milestones Development in Early Childhood

2 years

· PHYSICAL

· ■ Throughout early childhood, height and weight increase more slowly than in toddlerhood. ( 216 )

· ■ Balance improves; walks more rhythmically; hurried walk changes to run. ( 223 )

· ■ Jumps, hops, throws, and catches with rigid upper body. ( 223 )

· ■ Puts on and removes simple items of clothing. ( 223 )

· ■ Uses spoon effectively. ( 223 )

· ■ First drawings are gestural scribbles. ( 224 )

COGNITIVE

· ■ Make-believe becomes less dependent on realistic objects, less self-centered, and more complex; sociodramatic play increases. ( 226 – 227 )

· ■ Understands the symbolic function of photos and realistic-looking pictures. ( 228 )

· ■ Takes the perspective of others in simplified, familiar situations and in face-to-face communication. ( 230 )

· ■ Recognition memory is well-developed. ( 237 )

· ■ Shows awareness of the distinction between inner mental and outer physical events. ( 239 )

· ■ Begins to count. ( 242 )

LANGUAGE

· ■ Vocabulary increases rapidly. ( 248 )

· ■ Uses a coalition of cues—perceptual and, increasingly, social and linguistic—to figure out word meanings. ( 249 )

· ■ Speaks in simple sentences that follow basic word order of native language, gradually adding grammatical markers. ( 249 )

· ■ Displays effective conversational skills. ( 250 )

EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL

· ■ Understands causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of basic emotions. ( 258 )

· ■ Begins to develop self-concept and self-esteem. ( 256 – 258 )

· ■ Shows early signs of developing moral sense—verbal evaluations of own and others’ actions and distress at harmful behaviors. ( 264 )

· ■ May display proactive (instrumental) aggression. ( 269 )

· ■ Gender-stereotyped beliefs and behavior increase. ( 273 )

3–4 years PHYSICAL

PHYSICAL

· ■ Running, jumping, hopping, throwing, and catching become better coordinated. ( 223 )

· ■ Pedals and steers tricycle. ( 223 )

· ■ Galloping and one-foot skipping appear. ( 223 )

· ■ Fastens and unfastens large buttons. ( 223 )

· ■ Uses scissors. ( 223 )

· ■ Uses fork effectively. ( 223 )

· ■ Draws first picture of a person, using tadpole image. ( 224 )

COGNITIVE

· ■ Understands the symbolic function of drawings and of models of real-world spaces. ( 224 , 227 – 228 )

· ■ Distinguishes appearance from reality. ( 228 )

· ■ Grasps conservation, reasons about transformations, reverses thinking, and understands cause–effect sequences in familiar contexts. ( 230 )

· ■ Sorts familiar objects into hierarchically organized categories. ( 231 )

· ■ Uses private speech to guide behavior during challenging tasks. ( 234 )

· ■ Improves in sustained attention. ( 236 – 237 )

· ■ Uses scripts to recall familiar events. ( 238 )

· ■ Understands that both beliefs and desires determine behavior. ( 239 )

· ■ Knows the meaning of numbers up to 10, counts correctly, and grasps cardinality. ( 243 )

LANGUAGE

· ■ Aware of some meaningful features of written language. ( 242 )

· ■ Coins new words based on known words; extends language meanings through metaphor. ( 248 )

· ■ Masters increasingly complex grammatical structures, occasionally overextending grammatical rules to exceptions. ( 249 – 250 )

· ■ Adjusts speech to fit the age, sex, and social status of listeners. ( 250 )

EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL

· ■ Describes self in terms of observable characteristics and typical emotions and attitudes. ( 256 )

· ■ Has several self-esteems, such as learning things in school, making friends, getting along with parents, and treating others kindly. ( 257 )

· ■ Emotional self-regulation improves. ( 259 )

· ■ Experiences self-conscious emotions more often. ( 260 )

· ■ Relies more on language to express empathy. ( 260 )

· ■ Engages in associative and cooperative play with peers, in addition to parallel play. ( 261 )

· ■ Forms first friendships, based on pleasurable play and sharing of toys. ( 262 )

· ■ Distinguishes truthfulness from lying. ( 269 )

· ■ Distinguishes moral imperatives from social conventions and matters of personal choice. ( 269 )

· ■ Proactive aggression declines, while reactive aggression (verbal and relational) increases. ( 269 )

· ■ Preference for same-sex playmates strengthens. ( 274 )

5–6 years

PHYSICAL

· ■ Starts to lose primary teeth. ( 217 )

· ■ Increases running speed, gallops more smoothly, and engages in true skipping. ( 223 )

· ■ Displays mature, flexible throwing and catching patterns. ( 223 )

· ■ Uses knife to cut soft foods. ( 223 )

· ■ Ties shoes. ( 223 , 224 )

· ■ Draws more complex pictures. ( 224 )

· ■ Copies some numbers and simple words; prints name. ( 223 , 225 )

COGNITIVE

· ■ Magical beliefs decline. ( 230 )

· ■ Improves in ability to distinguish appearance from reality. ( 228 )

· ■ Improves in sustained attention and planning. ( 237 )

· ■ Recognition, recall, scripted memory, and autobiographical memory improve. ( 237 – 238 )

· ■ Understanding of false belief strengthens. ( 239 )

LANGUAGE

· ■ Understands that letters and sounds are linked in systematic ways. ( 242 )

· ■ Uses invented spellings. ( 242 )

· ■ By age 6, vocabulary reaches about 10,000 words. ( 248 )

· ■ Uses most grammatical constructions competently. ( 250 )

EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL

· ■ Improves in emotional understanding (ability to interpret, predict, and influence others’ emotional reactions). ( 258 )

· ■ Has acquired many morally relevant rules and behaviors. ( 265 )

· ■ Gender-stereotyped beliefs and behavior and preference for same-sex playmates continue to strengthen. ( 274 )

· ■ Understands gender constancy. ( 276 – 277 )

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate the page or pages on which each milestone is discussed.

 

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