As children develop into middle childhood important changes occur, it is a time for exploring and becoming more independent and for developing their identity and moving away from family. Changes occur within parent-child relationships and child peer relationships and these interactions between one another differ in many ways. Children's actions towards adults start to lead into more arguments about decisions and important issues, ethics, and beliefs, while the actions of adults consist of more naturalness and power Influences. The types of relationships they form with peers are more balanced and teach them unique skills that impact on their development. (Ladd, 2006). Children begin to spend more time with peers than family and even though …show more content…
Middle childhood is a time when children move into wider social contexts that strongly influence their development, Erickson, (1999, cited in Eccles, 1999). Friends and culture start to have greater influences on children than family during middle childhood as children are trying to seek independence and autonomy, establish social connections and fit in within social groups, Blume, (2006, cited in Galatea-Garrett et al, 2011). It is these interactions that lead to friendships and social support which play an important role in social development. Family and peers can both be influential on children and on their development, in positive or negative ways, and these influences can affect social competence, social-cognitive processes, emotional regulation and social risk factors at home and school. This essay seeks to investigate whether children learn most from peers or parents and who has more influence on them. It will also discuss the significance of peers and family and attempt to demonstrate what influence they have on child development in middle childhood while looking further at three aspects of children's developmental areas of attachment, identity and emotion and what impact these have on …show more content…
First, I would like to discuss the ways in which a child's friend, peers, and culture can influence their development. Looking particularly at how these can impact upon a child's identity. During middle childhood, friendships and peer relations see lots of significant changes within relationships and are very important as children begin to spend more time with each other, learn what their culture deems important, form stronger lasting bonds and try to find a place to socially fit in. Barker & Wright (1955, cited in Hartup, 1984) revealed that time spent with peers rose from ten percent at the age of two, to forty percent between the ages of seven and eleven, so it can be concluded that children spend many hours together. However, they are other reasons too why peers may spend so much time together. It may have been that they spent more hours with their peers than parents, due to many children being raised by daycare providers and schools, or simply because parents have had little time for them. Therefore, in these circumstances, it is not unusual for peer pressure to outweigh parental influence. (Sharma, 1996). Peer and parents do exert some influence on children, and the influence of peers appears to override the parents' influence and become more dominant Harris
Around the age of 11 to 14, children are typically seen as no good preteens who do not need to be fed any more fuel to their anti authority behavior. Children within this age group are typically found on a confusing path of finding their own identity. From the time they were born, they had their parents, or guardian to be around the corner to help with any confusing moment. Around ages 11 to 14, children are seeking to become young adults, and they feel as if they have to do it on their own. With literature, educators and parents can still guide the children to the right path of being coming a proper young adult.
Middle Childhood is a distinct period of development where a child develops physically, cognitively and social-emotionally. Between the school years of 3 and 7, children begin to gain an understanding of themselves in comparison to others, learn large amounts of information, manage their behaviour and also develop self-concepts and self-esteem. (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010.)
“Emotional regulation can lead to more fulfilling social experiences. Children of the same age argue on about the same socio-cognitive and moral level, face the same transitions and life events. These similarities are expected to improve their understanding of their peers’ situation, perhaps to some extent independent of inter-individual differences due to level of development, personality, or upbringing. The second reason follows from the fact that peers form a group. Being together with a group of likeminded peers should intensify some of the emotions children experience.” (Salisch, 2001) The group they formed was a good social experience for them. Without the group I think the boys would not have gone on to do great things if they had not had the
The most apparent social and environmental factors are manifested in where children are raised and the style of parenting they are subjected to as explained by the Attachment Theory. Although there are various definitions of attachment, they all communicate its critical role in human development. Emotional well-being is a critical part of psychological development and parents and caregivers should act as stress buffers for their children rather than sources of stress (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2011). The direct implication is that parents bear the greatest responsibility in terms of how children develop psychologically and are accountable to a significant extent of their future lives. Hence, this program is informed by the knowledge that an individual’s behavior, emotional intelligence, academic achievements, social relationships and life outcomes are influenced by the relationships they had with their parents. An effective way to ensure that children grow up while developing positively psychologically is to encourage parents and caregivers to be involved as much as possible in their lives from an early stage. While children can also be encouraged to be close to their parents, the parents’ responses to their needs may not always be appropriate or positive. Therefore, it is more beneficial when efforts target
Middle childhood is the time where children start to fully develop their skills. They develop their comprehension skills, communication skills, and many more. In order to get a better look into the life of children during this stage, I decided to observe my niece’s friend, Ryan, who is almost at the end of her middle childhood stage. Ryan is an eleven year old girl who attends Bassett Elementary. I choose to observe Ryan because, she is a very unique girl who does not always fit into what the average girl her age is like.
Children in middle childhood are growing psychosocially at a quick rate. During middle childhood they become industrious, develop a self-concept, and learn how to be friends, amongst other things.
Middle childhood is defined a number of ways, but perhaps best defined as the ages 6 to 12 years of age or prepubescent to pubescence Middle childhood is a challenging time and a major challenge is social constructs, as this is the earliest time when children begin to move away from parental influences and establish more meaningful peer and other adult relationships. It signifies a new set of social contacts with adults and other children as well as a wider variety of settings than those that characterize early childhood. Children begin to see themselves as a part of a bigger whole. Peer influences can become more powerful than the adults in the children’s life and impact their sense of self. Grouping is established and teasing of others groups and children begins to take hold in establishing social ranking. This can be a critical time for children and a great time for a social work practitioner to implement interventions to assist vulnerable children. However, a child who has one or two adults or trustworthy peers to whom she may turn may learn that peers cannot necessarily be trusted to give her good feedback. (website) Providing a setting were children could expand their ideas, make like minded friends and have the mentoring of trustworthy adults can transition children into the next developmental phase. They begin to look at different perspectives and can see another point of view. The world opens up before them, while this is an exciting time; it is also perhaps the most turbulent.
Functional families help children in middle childhood become more productive in society and more self reliable. Children cannot obtain the basic needs without functional parents. Such needs are shelter, food, and clothing. At this age children are self dependent in that they can bathe, dress and most likely clean their own rooms. Parents in a functional family will show children love and comprehension, thus allowing the child to become self-critical as they develop cognitively. Last but not least parents of functional families encourage children in academic affairs and to nurture peer friendships, a very important element while transitioning into adolescence (Merchant, 2001). On the other hand children from dysfunctional families, tend to miss treat children and not really nurture as often. This could include single parent homes, drug addicted parents. The following factors have a profound impact on social development for middle childhood children; excessive conflicts within the home, overly authoritarian parents and coldness in the family (Merchant, 2001).
Early childhood reveals a distinctive opportunity for the foundation of a healthy development and a time of immense growth and of helplessness. In early childhood, children begin to learn what causes emotions and begin noticing others reactions to these feelings. They begin to learn to manage and control their feelings in self regulation. Emotional self regulation refers to the strategies used to adjust emotions to a contented level so goals can be accomplished. This requires voluntary, effortless management of emotions (Berk, 2007). Promoting young children’s social-emotional development is essential for three interconnected reasons: Positive social-emotional development provides a base for life-long learning; Social skills and emotional self-regulation are integrally related to later academic success in school, Prevention of future social and behavioral difficulties is more effective than later remediation (U.S Department of Health and Human Services). Research on early childhood has highlighted the strength of the first five years of a child’s life on thier social-emotional development. Neg...
Friendship plays a crucial role in children’s development (Estell, Jones, Pearl & Van Acker, 2009; Poulin & Chan, 2010) that includes, cognitive, emotional (Scharf, 2013), psychosocial (Betts & Stiller, 2014; McDougall & Hymel, 2007), well-being (Asbjørnslett, Engelsrud & Helseth, 2012), and health (Einberg, Svedberg, Enskär & Nygren, 2015). It is defined as an exchanged and voluntary relationship among two or more children who display attachment and liking towards one another, constantly showing closeness and engaged in shared activities, positive affect and sign of happiness (Hollingsworth & Buysse, 2009). Also, part of the categorization for friendship even for young children are endearment, companionship and mutual liking (Klima & Repetti,
In addition to playing difficult games, children start to become part of a social world. School is age graded, meaning that students are placed in grades based on their age. Children tend to only talk to those in their grade. Children in the same age tend to form their own social status. It is in this social aspect of middle childhood where popularity comes...
Childhood is the most precious time of a person’s life, full of new discoveries and observations about the world around them. Children learn to become independent and take care of themselves. Their curious eyes explore everything around them and they absorb knowledge from their parents and their teachers. They also learn to make friends and learn how to share with one another. As children get older, they learn how to bond with others in school and become more involved with sports and learning how to be in a group setting. Middle childhood is when children are between the ages of 6 to 12 years of age. They are learning the foundations of forming friendships, learning morals, and being active members at school and at home. During middle childhood, children go through physical, emotional, cognitive, and affective changes that help them define themselves as individuals and how parents can promote their child’s growth and development during this stage of life.
Influence plays a major role in their overall development. Promoting social and emotional skills and intervening in cases of difficulty very early in life will be effective for promoting positive experiences among children. Peers play important roles in children’s lives at much earlier points in development. Experiences in the beginning of life have implications for children’s acceptance by their classmates in nursery school and the later school years. When I was in the fourth grade a really wanted to be accepted by people around me. I would switch my friends a lot looking for people’s approval. For example, if I was friends with a girl on Tuesday but I heard someone say she was weird I would abandon the friendship in order to gain peer approval. Early friendships and positive relations with peer groups appear to protect children against later psychological
A significant part of development is the middle childhood. The middle childhood is largely centered on the development of a child’s inter-personal relationships, cognitive skills, personality and motivation. Children learn about their environment around the middle childhood. Integration is a task concerned with the primary developmental of child in the middle childhood. Physical development which happens during the middle childhood is not as dramatic as in early or late childhood. Growth might be usually slow ti late childhood life. Kids at this period usually relay on skills which they acquired in early childhood and these skills prepare them for the next stage of their cognitive development, the middle childhood. Skills like the hands-on
Booth-Laforce C, O. W.-K. (2006). Attachment, self-worth, and peer-group functioning in middle childhood. Attachment & Human Development, 8(4) , 309-325.