Early Childhood Emotional and

Social Development
By: Tatum, Emma, Danissa, Kailey, Owen, Bailee, and Anna
Erikson’s Theory
● Erikson’s theory is a comprehensive
psychoanalytical theory that
identifies a series of eight stages that
a healthy developing individual
should pass through from infancy
through adulthood.
● Each stage is characterized by a
psychosocial crisis of two conflicting
sources.
Video 1

Video 2
Erikson’s Theory
Initiative vs Guilt

● A simple way of looking at initiative vs guilt is that the kid is thinking, “Am I good,
or am I bad?
● Children typically just want to feel like they have a purpose and that they can be
productive at whatever they are doing.
● Kami will only play if she can have the headband on.
Emotional Development
● Between the ages 2 and 6, children make strides in the emotional abilities.
● Preschoolers first gain emotional understanding, becoming better able to talk
about feelings and respond appropriately to others.
● Second, they become better at emotional self- regulation- in particular, at coping
with intense negative emotion.
● Lastely, preschoolers more often experience self-conscious emotions and empathy.
● They also gain representation, language, and self concept support emotional
development in early childhood.
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejz_VPPJp5Q
Self-Understanding
● Infants and toddlers acquire body self- awareness
- need loving & consistent relationship to develop positive sense of self
- attention to child’s responses to stimuli , shows how child responds to their
environment
● Psychological self-awareness emerges in EC &
- language development enables children to talk about their experience of being
-preschoolers have vocab that focuses more on qualities that make them unique
● Self-concept: set of attributes, abilities, etc that they believe define who he/she is
- influences preferences for many aspects
Self-Understanding
● By 3 ½ yrs, children describe themselves in terms of emotions
- “I’m happy when I play with friends”
● Self-esteem: judgements we make about our worth and feelings associated w/
those judgements
- this affects emotional experiences, future behavior, and long-term psychological
adjustment
● Personal storytelling is an implication of early self-concept
- cultural differences in parents’ selection of events in narratives, affects the way
children view themselves
Self-Understanding Observation
Understanding Emotion
● Preschoolers are good at inferring how others are feeling based on their behavior
at ages 4 to 5.
- ex: can tell the difference between a child who jumps up and down or claps their
hands is happy vs. a child who is withdrawn and quiet is sad.
● Parents play a role in understanding emotion.
● Children develop empathic concern in secure parent-child attachment
relationships.
● Preschoolers vocabulary for expressing emotion expands rapidly and they use it to
reflect on their behavior, as well as others.
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
Understanding Emotion
Excerpts from conversations where 2-6 year olds commented on emotional experiences:

Two-year-old:

(After father shouted at child, she became angry, shouting back.) “I’m mad at you, Daddy. I’m going away. Good bye.”

Two-year-old:

(Commenting on another child who refuses to nap and cries.) “Mom, Annie cry. Annie sad.”

Six-year-old:

(In response to mother’s comment, “It’s hard to hear the baby crying.”) “Well, it’s not as hard for me as it is for you.”
(When mother asked why) “Well, you like Johnny better than I do! I like him a little, and you like him a lot, so I think it’s
harder for you to hear him cry.”

Six-year-old:

(Trying to comfort a small boy in church whose mother had gone up to communion.) “Aw, that’s alright. She will be back.
Don’t worry.”
Peer Relations
Peer Relations: peer sociability, friendship, and social problem solving in early
childhood, along with cultural and parental influences on early peer relations.

● As children become more self-aware and better at communicating, their skill at

interacting with peers improves rapidly.
● Peers provide children with learning experiences they can get in no other way.
● Peers lead to friendships and special relationships marked by attachment and
common interests.
Advances in Peer Sociability
● In peer sociability within 2-5 year olds, there is a dramatic rise with age in joint,
interactive play.
● Social development proceeds in a three-step sequence.
○ Nonsocial activity
○ Parallel play
○ Associative and Cooperative Play
● Longitudinal evidence indicates that these play forms emerge in order but that
later-appearing ones do not replace earlier ones in a developmental sequence.
Peer Relations and School Readiness
● When evaluating readiness for school, children’s capacity
for friendly, cooperative interaction is just as important as
their academic skills.
● Social maturity in early childhood contributes to later
academic performance.
● Positive peer interactions among young children occur
most often in unstructured situations.
● Responsive teacher-child interaction is also very
important.
 Social Problem Solving
Social Problem Solving: generating and applying
strategies that prevent or resolve disagreements,
resulting in outcomes that are both acceptable to others
and beneficial to the self.

● To engage in social problem solving, children must

bring together diverse social understandings.
● Ages 2-4 is when children greatly improve on their
social problem solving skills.
● Ages 5-7 tend to rely on persuasion and compromise,
and are able to solve problems without adult
intervention.
Interview/Observation
Heston, Age 6, Kindergarten

1. Were you nervous to start Kindergarten?

a. “Yeah, I was really scared because I didn’t know anyone there.”
2. Do you like your teacher?
a. “Yeah she is really nice and lets us have snacks and play.”
3. How did you make new friends at school?
a. “One boy came up and asked if I wanted to play so I said yes and now we’re friends.”
4. What do you do if you get in a fight with your friend?
a. “Sometimes my friends take my toys and I just tell them to give them back but if they don’t then I
tell my teacher.”
5. What would you do if you hurt your friends feelings?
a. “I would tell them sorry and that if they want I will play with them to make them feel better.”
Gender Typing
Gender typing: any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one sex or the
other in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes

● Around age 2 children use boy, girl, lady, and man appropriately
● Preschoolers start to associate toys, clothing, and more with one sex or the other
● evolutionary perspective: the adult life of male ancestors was oriented toward
competing for mates, our female ancestors toward rearing children.
● 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
 Gender Typing
● gender identity: an image of oneself as relatively masculine or feminine in
characteristics
● a substantial minority (especially females) have a gender identity called androgyny,
scoring high on both masculine and feminine personality characteristics
● gender constancy—a full understanding of the biologically based permanence of their
gender, including the realization that sex remains the same over time, even if clothing,
hairstyle, and play activities change
Observation
Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development
Child rearing: promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and
intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood

● There are four types of child rearing styles:

○ Authoritative
○ Authoritarian
○ Permissive
○ Uninvolved
Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development
Cultural Variations:

● Chinese: controlling, more directive in teaching and scheduling

their children’s time
● Hispanic: firm insistence on respect for parental authority paired
with high parental warmth
● African American: strict, “no-nonsense” discipline use physical
punishment sparingly and combine it with warmth and
reasoning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIZ8PkLMMUo
Child Rearing Observation
This is Clara.

Age: 3

Activities: Farm animal balance game, Old Maid card game

Child Rearing Style Identified: Authoritative

Exceptional Case
“The ABCs of life: how social-emotional development in early childhood is key to
success later”

● Parents who foster positive, nurturing relationships with their baby, toddler or
preschooler will help the healthy development of their child’s social-emotional
skills that will serve the child later in life.
● “Helping children learn skills that allow them to express how they feel, have
empathy for others and work through conflict will serve them for their entire
lifetime.”
● Helping young children develop emotional intelligence will have a positive impact
on them today and as they grow.
https://www.eacourier.com/news/the-abcs-of-life-how-social-emotional-development-in-early/article_46a95c70-af17-11e9-b608-9b3c03
1c4dfc.html
Activity
Kahoot- https://create.kahoot.it/details/1f115292-7e32-4f69-8f9e-888b782dcf80