chapter 9: middle childhood (6 – 12 years). middle childhood (6 – 12 years) chapter objectives...

Chapter 9:Middle Childhood

(6 – 12 Years)

Middle Childhood (6 – 12 Years)

• Chapter Objectives– To clarify the role of friendship in helping

children to learn to take the point of view of others, be sensitive to the norms and pressures of the peer group, and experience closeness in relationships, and to clarify the negative consequences that result from social rejection and loneliness

– To describe the development of concrete operational thought, including conservation, classification skills, combinatorial skills, and the child’s ability to understand and monitor his or her own knowledge and understanding


• Chapter Objectives (cont.)– To explore skill learning, including the

presentation of a model for the process of acquisition of complex skills such as reading and the examination of societal factors that provide the context within which skill learning occurs

– To analyze the development of self-evaluation skills, including self-efficacy, and ways that social expectations of parents, teachers, and peers contribute to a child’s self-evaluation


• Chapter Objectives (cont.)– To describe a new level of complexity in play

as children become involved in team sports and athletic competition

– To explain the psychosocial crisis of industry versus inferiority, the central process through which the crisis is resolved, education; the prime adaptive ego quality of competence, and the core pathology of inertia

– To explore the impact of exposure to violence on development during middle childhood


• Friendship: Family Influences on Social Competence– Early family experiences contribute to a child’s

sociability and social competence, the process of becoming ready for friendship may begin in infancy

– Children who have secure attachments are more popular and engage more freely in social interactions

– A parent’s discipline techniques, the way she speaks to the child, and her parenting values are all linked to a child’s social competence and popularity


• Friendship: Three Contributions of Friendship to Social Development– Perspective Taking and Cognitive Flexibility –

• As children interact with peers who see the world differently than they do, they begin to understand the limits of their own points of view

• Peers diminish one another’s self-centered or egocentric outlook

– Social Norms and Peer-group Pressure• The peer groups evolve norms for acceptance and

rejection


• Friendship: Three Contributions of Friendship to Social Development (cont.)– Close Friends

• Close friends occur at a more intimate level of disclosure, trust, and supportiveness. “Best Friends” occur during these years

• The stability of close friendships is quite variable• Close friendships are influenced by attractiveness,

intelligence, classroom social status, and satisfaction with and commitment to the best friend


• Friendship: Loneliness– With the increased emphasis on friendship

and peer acceptance comes the risk of peer rejection and feelings of loneliness


• Friendship: Loneliness (cont.)–Four social characteristics combine to

increase a child’s experiences of loneliness• Peer rejection • Children who have trouble forming close

friendships that provide emotional closeness and companionship

• Among the children who are unpopular or rejected by peers, those who are withdrawn, victimized, or bullied report higher levels of loneliness than other unpopular children


• Friendship: Loneliness (cont.)–Four social characteristics combine to

increase a child’s experiences of loneliness (cont.)• Children who tend to blame themselves for their

lack of social acceptance feel more lonely and are possibly less likely to believe that they can do anything to improve their situation


• Friendship: Peer Rejection– Aggressive-rejected children, often referred to

as gullies, are more likely than nonaggressive children to attribute hostile intentions to others

– Withdrawn children tend to be inhibited, anxious and interpersonally reserved with a negative self-concept and these children tend to interpret negative peer reactions as resulting from their own personal failings


• Friendship: Peer Rejection (cont.)– Aggressive-withdrawn children tend to be the

least well-liked of all three types of rejected children. They exhibit anxiety, poor self-control, and social withdrawal in addition to aggressive behavior


• Concrete Operations– Piaget suggested that at about age 6 or 7 a

qualitatively new form of thinking develops– The word operation refers to an action that is

performed on an object or a set of objects– Piaget argued that such transformations are

built on some physical relationship that the younger child can perform but cannot articulate


Figure 9.1 Three Concepts that Contribute to Conservation


• Concrete Operations– Metacognition: a range of processes and

strategies used to assess and monitor knowledge

– Metacognition includes the ability to review various strategies for approaching a problem in order to choose the one that is most likely to result in a solution

– Metacognition develops in parallel with other cognitive capacities


• Skill Learning: Features of Skilled Learning– The development of skill depends on a

combination of sensory, motor, perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, emotional, and social processes

– Skills are attained through the simultaneous integration of many levels of the component behaviors

– Limits of the human system place constraints on an individual’s capacity to perform skilled behavior

– Skilled behavior requires the use of strategies


• Skill Learning: Reading– Reading provides access to new information,

new uses of language, and new forms of thinking


• Skill Learning: Reading (cont.)– Parents influence their child’s reading ability

• The value they place on literacy• The emphasis they place on academic

achievement• The reading materials they make available at

home• The time they spend reading with their children• The way they read with their children• The opportunities they provide for verbal

interaction in the home


• Skill Learning: The Social and Cultural Context of Skill Development– Progress in skill development is influenced by

parental and school expectations regarding levels of performance in a specific culture

– Societies differ in their level of literacy– The purpose of literacy varies from one

culture to the next– The mark of a literate person varies by

context


• Self-Evaluation– Children strive to match their achievements to

internalized goals and external standards– The process of self-evaluation is further

complicated because the peer group joins the adult world as a source of social comparison, criticism, and approval

– Self-Evaluation takes place in two contexts• Internal frame of reference• External frame of reference


Figure 9.2 Four Components of Self-Efficacy


• Case Study: Becca– Thought Questions

• How would you describe Becca’s level of academic self-efficacy?

• How are the four factors of enactive attainments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physical states contributing to her self-efficacy?

• What would you say is missing from Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy that is illustrated in the case of Becca?

• What are some gender issues that may underlie this case? In what ways is Becca’s situation made possible because of gender stereotypes?


• Case Study: Becca (cont.)– Thought Questions (cont.)

• How might teachers intervene to reverse this decline?

• What might be the likely outcome for Becca if this pattern of disengagement continues?


• Self-Evaluation: Social Expectations– Appraisals and expectations of others

become incorporated into one’s own self-evaluation

– Teacher’s Expectations: Self-fulfilling prophecy refers to the idea that false or inaccurate beliefs can produce a personal reality that corresponds with them

– Parent’s Expectations: Parent’s expectations about children’s capabilities also influence children’s perceptions of their abilities


• Self-Evaluation: Social Expectations (cont.)– Illusions of Incompetence: some children who

perform well on tests on academic achievement (90th percentile or above) perceive themselves as below average in academic ability


• Team Play– Team play is a new dimension of childhood

friendship during the middle childhood years– Interdependence is a condition in which

systems depend on each other, or all the elements in a system rely on one another for their continued growth

– Division of labor is the splitting of activities needed to accomplish a task between participants

– Competition is a context between rivals


• The Psychosocial Crisis: Industry versus Inferiority– Industry: an eagerness to acquire skills and

perform meaningful work• Cognitive Component• Behavioral Component• Affective Component

– Inferiority: feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy come from two sources: the self and the social environment• Organ inferiority• Learned helplessness


• The Central Process: Education– Every culture must devise ways of passing on

the wisdom and skills of past generations to its young

– Education is different from schooling


• The Prime Adaptive Ego Quality and the Core Pathology– Competence: the exercise of skill and

intelligence in the completion of tasks; the sense that one is capable of exercising mastery over one’s environment• An outcome measure• Personality type• Motivational system• Composite of knowledge, skills, and abilities• Belief in one’s effectiveness

– Inertia: a paralysis of thought and action that prevents productive work


Figure 9.4 Students’ Use of Computers at School


• Applied Topic: Violence in the Lives of Children: Consequences of Exposure to Violence– Large numbers of children and youth are

victims of violent crimes, with homicide the third leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 14 and the second leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults ages 15 to 24 in the United States

– The number of children who are themselves aggressive and violent

– The disruption it produces in children’s cognitive functioning and mental health


• Applied Topic: Violence in the Lives of Children: Prevention Strategies– Prevent prenatal and perinatal conditions that

cause neurological damage and increase the biological vulnerability for violent behaviors

– Develop effective techniques for educating parents and teachers about socialization practices that help develop self-control, empathy, and perspective-taking

– Develop effective techniques for teaching children alternative, non-aggress strategies to handle and respond to insults, threats, and frustration


• Applied Topic: Violence in the Lives of Children: Prevention Strategies (cont.)– Devise educational experiences that help

children reframe cognitions and beliefs that lead them to interpret the behaviors of others as threatening

– Reduce exposure to violence at home, in the neighborhood, and on television

– Decrease children’s access to guns


• Applied Topic: Violence in the Lives of Children: Prevention Strategies (cont.)– Increase the sense of social control and

cohesion in neighborhoods so that mutual trust is higher, people help one another more, and people are more willing too take steps to intervene when children are acting destructively

chapter 9: middle childhood (6 – 12 years). middle childhood (6 – 12 years) chapter objectives...

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