Transcript PSYC 2314 Lifespan Development

PSYC 2314
Lifespan Development
Chapter 13
The School Years:
Psychosocial Development
Theories of School-Age Development
• Freud
– Latency stage
• Erikson’s
– Industry vs. inferiority
• Learning/Cognitive/Sociocultural
– Acquisition of new skills, of self understanding
or of social awareness.
Theories of School-Age Development
• Epigenetic
– School-age child’s independence is the result of
the species’ need to free parental efforts so that
they may be focused on younger children and
to accustom school-age children to their peers
and the adults in the community.
Understanding Others
• Social Cognition: understanding of other
people and groups
• Children’s theory of mind evolves into a
complex, multifaceted view of others.
• Younger schoolchildren focus on observable
behavior to explain others’ behavior. Older
schoolchildren understand the motivation
and origins of behavior.
Self-Understanding
• Social Comparison
– Tendency to assess one’s abilities,
achievements, social status, etc. by measuring
them against others, esp. peers.
– Self-criticism rises and self-esteem dips.
Peer Group
• Peer Group
– A group of individuals of roughly the same age
and social status who play, work, or learn
together.
• Society of Children
– Children develop their own subculture, which
has its own vocabulary, dress codes, and rules
of behaviors.
Friendship
• Personal friendship is more important to
school-age children than is acceptance by
the peer group.
• Middle schoolers tend to choose best
friends whose backgrounds, interests, and
values are similar to their own.
The Rejected Child
• Children who are actively rejected—who
are unpopular most of the time—can be
classified as either:
– Aggressive-rejected
– Withdrawn-rejected
Bullying
• Repeated, systematic attempts to harm a
child through physical, verbal, or social
attack.
– Gender differences
– Victims
Consequences of Bullying
• Bullied children are anxious, depressed and
underachieving during the months and years
of torment. Even years later, they still have
damaged self-esteem and painful memories.
• Bullies usu. have friends who abet, fear, and
admire them. They become more hostile.
Their parents do nothing to stop them.
Intervention
• Change the social climate within schools
– Provide educational materials
– Evoke sympathy for victims
– Train teachers for intervention
Family Support
• Families that function well nurture
schoolchildren in five essential ways:
–
–
–
–
–
Meeting basic needs
Encouraging learning
Developing self-esteem
Nurturing peer friendships
Providing an environment of harmony and
stability
Family Styles
• Open style
– Values contributions from every family
member.
• Closed-style
– One parent, usu. the father, sets strict
guidelines, limits, and rules.
Divorce
• Although divorce does, in fact, eventually benefit
many children, the disruption and discord
surrounding the divorce always adversely affect
the children for at least a year or two.
• Divorce may not harm children if the family
income remains stable, if fights between the
parents are few, and if caregiving by both parents
is as good or better than it was before the divorce.
Joint Custody
• Although “joint custody” is theoretically the best
decision following a divorce, in practice this often
is not the case.
– Custodial fathers sometimes do as well as mothers,
partly because they have more income, more authority
over sons, and usu. choose to maintain active
parenthood.
– Children whose fathers have custody have close
relationships with their mothers more often than vice
versa.
Variable Factors Impacting Stress
• Number of stresses the child is experiencing
concurrently
• The degree to which these stresses affect the
overall patterns of the child’s daily life
• How many protective barriers and coping
patterns are in place
Coping with Stress
• Child’s Competencies
• Social Support