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Prepared by Katherine E. L. Norris, Ed.D.
West Chester University of Pennsylvania
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any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network,
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Chapter 9
Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood
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The Social and Emotional Self
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Parenting
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Friends and Play
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The Self, Self-Regulation, and Emotions
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Developing Ideas and Gender
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Moral Development
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The Self
◦ The characteristics, emotions, and beliefs people have
about themselves, including an understanding that people
are unique individuals.
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I-self
◦ The conscious awareness that you exist as a separate
and unique person and that you can affect others.
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Me-Self
◦ What you know about yourself and how you describe
yourself.
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Self-Regulation
◦ The ability to control our own thoughts, behaviors, and
emotions and change them to meet the demands of the
situation.
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Emotions
◦ By age 2 children are spontaneously talking about their
feelings and the feelings of other people.
 Positive emotion bias
 The tendency of children to report more positive than negative
emotions.
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Gender Segregation
◦ The tendency of children to associate with others of their
same sex.
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Gender Constancy
◦ The understanding that gender remains the same despite
superficial changes in appearance or behavior.
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Three Stages of Gender Understanding
◦ Gender Identity
◦ Gender Stability
◦ Gender constancy
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Conscience
◦ Ideas children have about right and wrong.
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Morality
◦ Knowing the difference between right and wrong.
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Moral Reasoning
◦ The ways in which people think about right and wrong.
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Perspective Taking
◦ The ability to understand the perspectives and needs of
others.
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Convention
◦ A rule or practice that members of a social group agree to
abide by in their behaviors, choices, and decisions.
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Preconventional Level
◦ Level of moral reasoning where children do not yet
understand that rules are social conventions; children
accept the rules of powerful others.
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Dimensions of Parenting
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Parenting Styles
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Discipline: What’s a Parent to do?
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Parental Warmth
◦ The degree in which parents are accepting, responsive,
and compassionate with their children.
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Parental Control
◦ The degree to which parents set limits, enforce rules, and
maintain discipline with children.
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Authoritative Parents
◦ Parents who are warm and exert firm control.
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Authoritarian Parents
◦ Parents who exert firm control but are rejecting or
unresponsive to their children.
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Permissive Parents
◦ Parents who are warm, but have little control over their
children.
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Rejecting/Neglecting Parents
◦ Parents who don’t set limits and are unresponsive to their
children’s needs.
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Discipline
◦ Techniques used to teach children appropriate behavior.
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Punishment
◦ Techniques used to eliminate or reduce undesirable
behavior.
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A Caution About Punishment
◦ People often over emphasize punishment.
◦ Parents often end up yelling, spanking, or hitting.
◦ Hitting and spanking can cause children to fear parents.
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Positive Discipline
◦ Emphasis on discipline should be teaching.
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Gender Segregation
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Types of Play
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Cultural Differences in Play
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Gender Segregation
◦ The tendency of children to associate with others of the
same sex.
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Gender Cultures
◦ Different spheres of influence based on the differences
that exist between male and female playgroups and
affiliations.
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When you were a child, how did your peers
respond when they saw you playing with someone
of the opposite sex?
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Did their reactions have an encouraging or a
discouraging effect on your choice of opposite-sex
playmates?
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Play
◦ A pleasurable activity that is activity engaged in on a
voluntary basis, it intrinsically motivated, and contains
some nonliteral elements.
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Sociodramatic Play
◦ Play that involves acting out different social roles or
characters.
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The culture in which children live has a
tremendous influence on how much they play,
where they play, and the main themes in their
play.
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