ch10

• Self-understanding


  The nature of the child's self-understanding, understanding of others, and self-esteem during the elementary school years
• Self-efficacy


  The belief that one can master a situation and produce favorable outcomes
• Self-regulation


  Deliberate efforts to manage one's behavior, emotions, and thoughts, leading to increased social competence and achievement
• Development of self-understanding


  1. Self-description becomes more complex

  2. Includes psychological characteristics and traits

  3. Includes social aspects and social comparison
• Children younger than 7 make virtually no reference to information about other children's performances in self-evaluations, but many children older than 7 do
• Perspective taking


  Envisioning another person's perspective and understanding their thoughts and feelings
• Perspective taking


  Underlies children's prosocial actions and develops in the early elementary school years
• Lack of perspective taking skills


  Children and adolescents are more likely to have difficulty in peer relations, engage in aggressive and oppositional behavior, and be reluctant to give to others
• Self-esteem


  Global evaluations of the self; self-worth or self-image
• Self-concept


  Domain-specific evaluations of the self
• High self-esteem and positive self-concept


  Important characteristics of children's well-being
• Foundations of self-esteem and self-concept

  Emerge from the quality of parent-child interaction
• Self-esteem does not always match reality - it can be accurate or inaccurate
• Low self-esteem


  Linked to overweight and obesity, anxiety and depression, suicide, and delinquency
• High self-esteem has adaptive consequences for social relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and avoidance of antisocial behavior
• Correlation does not equal causation - low self-esteem could cause low academic achievement or vice versa
• Children with high self-esteem are prone to both prosocial and antisocial actions
• Inflated praise, although well-intended, may cause children with low self-esteem to avoid important learning experiences
• Strategies to increase children's self-esteem

  • Identify causes of low self-esteem
  • Provide emotional support and social approval
  • Help children achieve
  • Help children cope
• Self-efficacy


  The belief that "I can" master a situation and produce favorable outcomes
• Self-efficacy influences students' choice of activities, effort, and persistence
• Self-regulation


  Linked to better grades, higher likelihood of graduating high school and attending college, lower risk of externalizing problems, depressive symptoms, obesity, smoking, drug use, and better ability to handle later-life demands
• Increased capacity for self-regulation is linked to developmental advances in the brain's prefrontal cortex
• Industry versus inferiority


  Erikson's stage of middle and late childhood where children become interested in how things are made and how they work, but parents who view their efforts negatively can cause a sense of inferiority
• When children are encouraged in their efforts to make, build, and work—whether building a model airplane, constructing a tree house, fixing a bicycle, solving an addition problem, or cooking—their sense of industry increases
• Parents who view their children's efforts to make things as "mischief" or "making a mess" can cause children to develop a sense of inferiority
• Industry versus Inferiority (Erikson's 4th stage)

  • Children become interested in how things are made and how they work
  • Sense of industry increases when children are encouraged in their efforts to make, build, and work
• Preschoolers become more adept at talking about their own and others' emotions
• In middle and late childhood, children further develop their understanding and self-regulation of emotion
• Developmental changes in emotions during middle and late childhood

  • Improved emotional understanding
  • Increased understanding that more than one emotion can be experienced in a particular situation
  • Increased tendency to be aware of the events leading to emotional reactions
  • Ability to suppress or conceal negative emotional reactions
  • Use of self-initiated strategies for redirecting feelings
  • Capacity for genuine empathy
• Mental time travel


  Anticipating and recalling the cognitive and emotional aspects of events
• An increasing number of social-emotional educational programs have been developed to improve many aspects of children's and adolescents' lives
• Two social-emotional education programs

  • Second Step
  • Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
• Aspects of social-emotional learning in Second Step

  • Pre-K: self-regulation and executive function skills
  • K-grade 5: making friends, self-regulation of emotion, and solving problems
  • Grades 6-8: communication skills, coping with stress, and decision making
• Five core social and emotional learning domains in CASEL

  • Self-awareness
  • Self-management
  • Social awareness
  • Relationship skills
  • Responsible decision making
• As children get older, they are able to more accurately appraise a stressful situation to determine how much control they have over it
• Older children generate more coping alternatives for stressful conditions and use more cognitive coping strategies
• By 10 years of age, most children are able to use cognitive strategies to cope with stress
• In families that have not been supportive and are characterized by turmoil or trauma, children may be so overwhelmed by stress that they do not use such strategies
• Dose-response effects


  The more severe the disaster/trauma (dose), the worse the adaptation and adjustment (response) following the disaster/trauma