Childhood Emotional Development

Paper Summary:

This paper examines traditional schools of thought on childhood emotional development, recent research and probable future directions. The paper explains that one of the most important motivators for positive emotional childhood development is the social environment. The paper then points out that children who enjoy healthy positive social relationships tend to develop more proficiently on an academic and sporting scale; they are also more likely to have greater self-esteem and self-worth than those who endure relationship problems. The paper also looks at how the personality of adolescents is a very important part of childhood emotional development. The paper suggests that the development of children in modern times has been associated with sweeping global changes, perhaps most notably the Internet.

Outline:
Introduction
Vygotsky
Freud
Erikson
Ainsworth
The Social Environment: An Important Part of Emotional Development
Older Children and Adolescence
Current Childhood Development Concerns
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"It is for this reason that children are taught at school from an early age the importance of practicing good social skills and engaging in pro-social behaviors. The importance of a positive social environment for children has been recognized by research which suggests that social development problems cause greater problems over time, leading to adult mental health problems (ibid, p. 98). However, approaches to implementing social skills in children have varied over the decades. Thinking in the 1970s revolved primarily around three schools of thought. The psychoanalytical school of thought maintained that through interpretation of unconscious thoughts, children develop a latent awareness related to appropriate social behaviors. The humanistic approach suggested that children benefit most from empathy and accepting environmental conditions, and that these preconditions were sufficient for future emotional development. The third approach, the behavior modification approach, proposed that appropriate behaviors be treated with reinforcement, increasing the chance that healthy behaviors would appear as the child developed (ibid)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1969). Object Relations, Dependency, and Attachment: A Theoretical Review of the Infant-Mother Relationship. Child Development, 40: 969-1025.
• Freud, S. (1920).Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. New York: Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co.
• Greenfield, P. & Yan, Z. (2006). Children, Adolescents, and the Internet: A New Field of Inquiry in Developmental Psychology. Developmental Psychology, 42, 3: 391-4.
• Kozulin, A. (Ed.) (2003). Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural Context. U.S.A.: Cambridge University Press.
• Marcia, J. E., (1966). Development and validation of ego identity status, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3: 551-58.

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