Tag: emotional development

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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Overview

Social and Emotional Development

A Brief Overview1

The social environment that parents provide for their children plays a very important role in the development of a child’s social and emotional skills during the early and middle childhood years.

Young children vary tremendously in their ability to deal with stressful situations. Some children seem to cope very well with stressful situations. Other children are very sensitive to stressful situations and may have trouble when reacting to them. These children may need additional support to deal with stress. The reasons some children deal well with stress and others do not are varied. Some different factors involved include genetics, a child’s earlier experiences and support received from parents, and the type of environment in which the child grows up.

It is important to learn to recognize signs of atypical development in the social and emotional domains, because these are areas where intervention can be effective to improve the social and emotional lives, and mental health of children.

Parents have a tremendous impact on the social and emotional development and overall well-being of their child. Raising parents’ awareness on this topic is very important, in light of recent findings2 pointing out how the roots of some mental health conditions, including sociopathy may be traced back to the early childhood years.

Dorothy Law Nolte’s beautiful poem summarizes the role of early experiences in children’s social and emotional development.

1. see References
2. see References
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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Attachment

Attachment

As we saw in Module 1, Typical development, attachment is what allows a child to form healthy relationships, first with their primary caregivers, and later with others. When children form attachment bonds, they learn love, significance, safety, and security. Developing these feelings allow children to explore the world with confidence, and foster their growth and learning. Exploring the world nurtures a child’s cognitive development.

A child’s need to feel safe and loved by their primary caregivers is “hard-wired.” Love and safety ensure that children will develop secure and strong attachments to those who take care of them. When a child’s need for love and safety is ignored, children experience neglect. When a child is physically, emotionally, sexually and/or verbally abused, they may not trust their primary caregivers and feel unsafe around them. Neglected and abused children are likely to develop insecure attachment to those close to them. Children who experienced insecure attachment tend to struggle with forming healthy and loving relationships with significant others later on as adults.

The emotional and psychological well-being of a child is largely depend on the early relationships they form. This is why it is so important to support these relationships and avoid any disruptions. Disruptions in children’s early relationships have been linked to Reactive Attachment Disorder or Non-Organic Failure to Thrive (see full Glossary).

Not only are babies hard-wired to receive love and affection, they come equipped to send signals to their primary caregivers indicating this need for love and affection. Sometimes, however, these signals are weak and/or inconsistent and parents find them difficult to read. Therefore, they may not effectively respond to their babies’ needs. These difficulties in engaging with their babies, or lack of “attunement”2 may result in insecure attachment between parents and their child.

Ainsworth then listed the following conclusions about children and the different ways they attach to caregivers:

  • Insecurely attached-anxious/ambivalent: these children are less likely to be securely attached to their mothers and are less likely to trust her. Therefore it may be difficult for them to separate from their mother and explore their surroundings. They may show distress if their mother leaves and be less likely to accept her reassurance when she comes back. They are more likely to be wary of strangers.
  • Insecurely attached-anxious/avoidant: these children are also less likely to be securely attached to their mothers. They may leave their mothers’ side to explore their environment and treat their mothers and strangers in almost the same way. They are generally less likely to be distressed if their mother is away and are more likely to avoid her when she comes back.

Other researchers have done similar studies involving children and caregivers from different cultures and have come to very similar findings and conclusions!”

Vignette

Lacey’s teacher noticed that Lacey had difficulty feeling other children’s pain. When the teacher met Lacey’s parents they were emotionally detached. While waiting, Lacey’s brother cried. The parents ignored him and did not acknowledge Lacey. Lacey grew up in a home that was not emotionally responsive to her needs. By ignoring the baby they taught her that it is ok not to respond to the needs of others. Because her feelings were not acknowledged she did not learn to relate to others.

1. see References
2. see References
3. Considering Empathy by Bellous, J. (N.d.) Available at: http://www.mcmaster.ca/mjtm/3-1a.htm)
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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Emotional Skills

Emotional Skills

Children with atypical emotional development1 have difficulties when they deal with feelings and emotions. Understanding and sharing feelings and emotions is very hard for these children. Just as with social skills, difficulties with emotional development are usually indicators of serious developmental difficulties.  Children with atypical emotional development do not “grow out” of their difficulties. They may be at risk of injuring themselves or others. Children with special needs in this area require immediate attention and should be referred to the appropriate specialists as early as possible, rather than waiting for children “outgrow” these difficulties.

Some emotional indicators of atypical social behaviours include:

  • A child showing little or no affect since the very early stages

Some indicators that appear in the preschool years and onwards:

  • Showing low or no energy;
  • Changing moods very easily; e.g., from happy to mad or to sad for no apparent reason;
  • Being very difficult to comfort or calm when upset;
  • Being unable to calm him or herself down, or self-soothe;
  • Having difficulties with adapting to different situations, with little or no self-regulation;
  • Avoiding eye contact with caregivers, friends and strangers;
  • Acting scared or panicking when someone moves quickly;
  • Being overly clingy to others at all times;
  • Showing same level of affection to caregivers and strangers;
  • Lying most of the time;
  • Hurting others;
  • Hurting self;
  • Being withdrawn and/or seeming overly shy;
  • Crying or laughing often for no obvious reason;
  • Over eating or under eating on a daily basis;
  • Eating non-food items, like toys or pebbles;
  • Sleeping too much or very little;
  • Difficulties falling asleep.

Some indicators that appear from early school years and onwards:

  • Having intense temper tantrums almost on a daily basis;
  • Engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior, like frequently touching and rubbing private parts (theirs or others);
  • Continuing to wet the bed or having toileting accidents;
  • Having difficulty paying attention and concentrating;
  • Running away from home or school;
  • Being afraid of common objects or of participating in daily activities (e.g. going to the bathroom, using rulers, scissors, etc.).
1 see References
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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Influence of Development In Early Years

How Development in Early Years Influences Development in the Elementary Years

Atypical early child development in the social and/or emotional arenas1 is likely to be also present as the child grows older. If not effectively addressed, social and emotional difficulties will turn into more serious behaviors. Atypical behaviors may signal caregivers about issues that need immediate attention and that are not part of a phase the child will “come out of ” on his or her own.

  • Some of the concerns about atypical social and emotional behaviours evolving into serious issues in the middle/adolescent school years include: A child not growing emotionally at par with other children his age, or “stunted emotional growth”;
  • A child showing cruelty to others and/or to animals;
  • A child having extremely low self-esteem;
  • A child being dependent on others to feel good about self;
  • A child at higher risk for suicide attempts;
  • A child being  unsafe about personal and intimate relationships (i.e., promiscuity);
  • A child engaging in risky, unsafe and/or criminal behaviors, including drug and alcohol use; truancy, and/or dropping out of school.

Children who continue to display atypical social and emotional skills beyond the early childhood years may end up being diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder.

1 see References
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1.6 Cognitive Development: Overview

Cognitive Development

A Brief Overview1

In the Typical Cognitive Development section of this course, we described how cognitive development involves the development of thinking or evaluation and coping, or ‘adaptation’ skills. Thinking or evaluation skills, such as “thinking outside the box2 (see full Glossary),” are related to the development of intelligence (see full Glossary). Coping skills involve the ability to adapt to changes in one’s environment.  Cognitive skills also look at creativity, the ability to learn new things, retain (see full Glossary) what one has learned, and how one applies information to new situations. Cognitive development also includes pre-academic and academic skills that children need in order to succeed at school. Examples might include the ability to sit quietly for certain periods of time, the ability to listen and follow instructions and the ability to perform paper and pencil tasks.

Some children do not develop these skills at par with their peers. They may develop some of these skills much later than others —or not develop them at all. In other words, atypical cognitive development involves difficulties with both the quality and quantity of certain skills (see full Glossary):

Severe cognitive delays often effect all other areas of development. Below are some signs of cognitive delays that can be observed in all areas of development between the preschool and school age years, around ages 3 – 5 years old.

In the domain of cognitive development:

  1. Children may experience serious difficulties in learning basic concepts (e.g. colors and shapes);
  2. Children may experience serious difficulties in learning advanced concepts (e.g. counting, reading and writing);
  3. Children may experience serious difficulties in generalizing what they learn from one situation to the next;
  4. Children may experience serious difficulties in adapting to changes in their environment and to new situations.

In the domain of social/emotional development:

  1. Children may trust others too easily and readily enabling others to take advantage of them;
  2. Children may not read visual or language cues as they their attempt to socialize with others.

In the domain of motor development:

  1. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their fine motor skills;
  2. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their gross motor skills

In the domain of communication development:

  1. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their receptive language skills;
  2. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their expressive language skills;
  3. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their pragmatic skills;
  4. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their articulation skills.

In the domain of adaptive skills:

During the preschool years:

  1. Children may be delayed in becoming toilet trained, and in extreme cases, may never be toilet trained.

During the elementary school years:

  1. Children may experience difficulties bathing and cleaning themselves properly;
  2. Children may experience difficulties with dressing and undressing.

During the high school years:

  1. Male adolescents may experience difficulties with knowing how and when to shave;
  2. Female adolescents may experience difficulties knowing how to handle their menstrual cycle.

Severe cognitive delays have been linked to developmental disabilities (also known as mental retardation and developmental challenges). Developmental disabilities involve global delays and affect all areas of development, including motor, language, social and emotional, and self-help skills.

1. see References
2. Source: University of Wahington, available at: http://faculty.washington.edu/ezent/imdt.htm

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