Chapter 15: Emotional and Social

Development From Four to Six

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Emotional Development

Four Years• Four year olds are intent on asserting

independence, stubborn, self-centered, impatient, defiant and boastful. Four-year-olds can also be unusually loving and affectionate. They feel the need to seek parental approval. They like their independence so at this age they can wash and dress themselves. They are very proud of their accomplishments, abilities, creations and possessions.

Emotional Patterns

• More often than not they will deny responsibility for their actions and mistakes and let their imaginations go by telling creative stories. Their opinion become very important as well, some four-year-old goes through a "bratty" stage. At this point they have trouble separating fantasy from fact and are sensitive when people laugh at their mistakes.

Emotional Patterns

Five Years• Five-year-olds enter a quieter period of emotional development. They are

generally rather practical, sympathetic and serious. Because their attention span is longer they are able to complete tasks much easier and are becoming increasingly more realistic. They ask meaningful question and obey rules with less questions. They are easier to handle because they like having adult supervision, accept instruction and ask permission. Any criticism from adults is hard for them to take because of their patient, generous demeanor.

Emotional Patterns

Six Years• Like four-year-olds, six-year-olds are

stubborn and quarrelsome. They resent any form of direction and in their mind they "know everything". They are the center of their own universe and are very content there. Their moods change rapidly and often clash with other emotions. Six is a difficult age for children as most of them are starting school full-time. They are faced with developing a status outside of the home. This a time where they want to feel grown up, but usually feel small and dependent. They crave praise and approval, and are easily hurt when put under criticism.

Emotional Patterns

Anger• Anger is a more distinct

emotion than any other, and children often don’t know how to control their expression of it. At age four children engage in physical fights, and their anger lasts longer. At age five children aim to hurt each other's feelings rather than physically harm them. At age six children use teasing, insulting and making fun of others.

Specific Emotions

• The frequency of anger declines during age's four to six. However, the effects of anger are longer lasting. Tolerance and frustration generally increase as they get older. Sources of earlier frustration eliminate as a child's motor skills improve. Children also gain a better understanding of people's property and rights, which makes it easier for them to work in groups. Children learn to accept personalities of people and the most common cause of anger at age's four to six is disagreements with other children. The amount of anger shown varies on the child.

Specific Emotions

Fear• Children from four to six

have well developed imaginations, and many of their fears are imaginary (Ghosts, vampires, kidnappers, robbers). Children that are sensitive or insecure are more prone to fears. This is the age group that children are most likely to be afraid of the dark, which corresponds with the fear of being left alone or abandoned.

Specific Emotions

• Many of this age group fear school because they don’t like being without their parents security, are afraid of bullies, stern teachers or "hard" work. Taking your child to class rather than dropping them off at the front of the school helps with this.

Specific Emotions

• Special fears arise frequently at this age. Social acceptance is very important, and the thought of losing it makes kids anxious. Ridicule is another special fear that children acquire, but they don’t want to show their fears because they don’t want to be ridiculed (many act aggressively, pretend indifference, or try to distract him/herself). It is important not to tell children that their fears don’t exist because they are very real to them and they won't go away on their own. Children have to deal with and overcome them or the fears may lead to emotional problems later on in their lives.

Jealousy and Siblings• Sibling rivalry is common at

this age and parents often, without meaning to, make it worse by showing favoritism, or comparing children. Jealousy takes form in tattling, criticizing and even lying. Some children use boasting while others pretend that there is no rivalry. Sibling rivalry and jealousy may result in tensional outlets such as nail biting, bed-wetting and tantrums.

Specific Emotions

Children and Stress• Since stress among adults is a well-

recognized problem many usually don’t see that children lead stressful lives as well. Many worry about popularity, grades, sibling overshadowing them and other things that are easily overlooked by adults. Stress may lead to physical symptoms like stomachaches, headaches, moodiness and trouble eating or sleeping. Hugs help, so does listening carefully, showing acceptance, using a relaxed manner, and building their self-confidence.

Specific Emotions

Supporters Non-Supporters• Helps a child gain a realistic estimate

of his/her own ability in relation to others.

• Puts the idea of success depends on the ability to outdo others.

• Promotes higher standards. • Leads to hostile relationships with others.

• Stimulates and adds zest to otherwise dull tasks.

• Defeat may provoke desire for revenge.

• Encourages speed and accomplishment

• Those who rarely win may lose interest and quit.

• Creates an interest in completing tasks.

• Points out children's faults.

• Stimulates effort. • Lowers status to those who lose.

Competition- Good or Bad?

Many people have different views on the topic of competition:

• Non supporters of competition believe that since there are more "losers" than "winners", competition can lower children's self-esteem (positive sense of self-worth). Competition can come from parents based on their own desires or experiences.

Competition- Good or Bad?

An example of that would be a father signing his son up for baseball and pressuring him to win just because he was a good player when he was the same age. This would be bad for the child if they were bad or mediocre at the sport.

• Competitiveness, often spurred by sibling rivalry, is likely to show up at home. Children react differently. "Winners" may think of themselves as superior while "losers" may develop harsh, unpleasant attitudes. Many find competition a stimulating challenge with no negative effects, but children are fragile and don’t always understand that.

Competition- Good or Bad?

• By the age of four many behavior patterns (Characteristics they will have as adults) are set. At any age positive and negative changes in personality can occur. The environment plays a key role on personality development since children tend to live up to, or down to, the ideas of other people. Guidance from adults is important and each child should be treated as an individual.

Personality and Behavior

Social Development

Four Years• At four years children start making

friendships with playmates and spend more time in cooperative play rather than playing alone. They develop more generous characteristics and demonstrate them by sharing toys and taking turns. Despite those developments they are still bossy and inconsiderate and fighting is common.

General Social Patterns

Social skill development is a major task. As children grow older and go new places he or she has to learn to get along his peers (other people of one's own age).

Five Years• At age five children are more

outgoing and talkative and play best in larger groups of five or six. Fighting is less frequent and they have more respect for others belongings. Social acceptance becomes an issue that is important to children because they don't want to be different.

General Social Patterns

Six Years• At six years social relations are

often characterized by friction, aggression, threats, and stubbornness. They feel that things should be "their way or the highway" and they become more possessive of things and don’t like sharing. They become jealous of other children and often more competitive.

General Social Patterns

• In preschool and early elementary children use their previous knowledge to work in social situations outside of their home. Four-year-olds have a strong sense of family and home and want to feel important. They are proud to do house chores, and they bicker with siblings to get attention. Five-year-olds are similar to four-year-olds and are proud of their parents, love helping, and play better with siblings. Six-year-olds are less in harmony with their family because they are more self-centered. Because of this arguing with parents is frequent. Throughout all the years family continues to be important to every child, but as they grow and go to school peers, teachers, and other non-family influences become important to them too.

Family Relationships

Moral Development

• Moral Development is the process of gradually learning to base one's behavior on personal beliefs of right or wrong.

• Toddlers begin to learn the rules parents have set, but can't understand the reasons behind the rules. At ages five to seven children begin to develop a conscience. Children begin to know the difference between truth and lies, and follow rules for fear of being punished, not for their own personal beliefs about right and wrong.

Moral Development

Most parents take responsibilities for the moral development of their children. It can be hard to teach them right for wrong.

Some guidelines are: • Consider the child's age and abilities• Remember that parents and caregivers teach best by showing

example • Understand that the process of learning to monitor one's behavior

is a lifelong task. • Don't withhold love in response to misbehavior.

Moral Development Guidelines

Emotional Development. Richard A. Fabes, Cynthia A. Frosch, and Amy Buchanan. Child Development. Ed. Neil J. Salkind.  New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. p132-137. Word Count: 3190.When you're drawing up your list of life's miracles, you might place near the top the first moment your baby smiles at you …Today, she looked right at me. And she smiled …Her toothless mouth opened, and she scrunched her  From Gale Virtual Reference Library.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&prodId=GPS&userGroupName=23mbss&resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&contentSegment=&docId=GALE|CX3401000106#132 Brisbane, Holly E.. The developing child: understanding children and

parenting ; teacher's manual. Teacher's wraparound ed., 5th ed. Mission Hills, Calif.: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Pub. Co., 1990. Print.

"Dealing With Feelings ." KidsHealth - the Web's most visited site about children's health. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/index.html

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