Summarise:
Erkison's Theory of Psychosocial Development:
- How people grow and develop as individuals;
- 8 stages 'crises' of psychosocial development;
- Trust/Mistrust (Infancy);
- Autonomy/Shame (Toddlerhood);
- Initiative/Guilt (Pre-school);
- Industry/Inferiority (Primary Years);
- Identity/Role Confusion (Adolescence);
- Intimacy/Isolation (Young Adulthood);
- Generativity/Stagnation (Middle Years);
- Integrity/Despair (Retirement Years).
- Each crisis does not need to be fully positively resolved before the next begins;
- People advance when they have developed more of the positive than the negative tendency;
- Stages without positive resolution can be revisieted and resolved later;
- Qualitatively different concerns about the self;
- Positive outcomes of Erikson's theory include recognition of:
- Lifelong development;
- Dynamic syntheses of nature, nurture, and the individual's motivation;
- Optimistic view of development
- Criticisms include:
- Largely anecdotal research;
- Identity rarely fully formed by the end of adolescence;
- Gender differences not accounted for;
- Underestimated cultural influence.
Characteristics of children's attachment security:
- Securely Attached:
- Will use attachment figure(s) as safe haven and as base of exploration;
- Will protest when attachment figure separates;
- Will greet the attachment figure with smiles and by moving towards them when reunited;
- Initial wariness of strangers;
- Need support at transitions;
- Need consistent primary caregiver while away from attachment figure, will often develop secure attachment to this primary caregiver;
- Maintain communication and consistency between home and care facility.
- Insecure-aviodant Attachment:
- May not notice if attachment figure leaves;
- Indifference to attachment figure's return, may avert gaze;
- Engage superficially with toys and environment;
- Discomfort around strangers without seeking comfort of caregiver;
- Seek to engage child with play;
- Build affectionate relationships.
- Insecure-Resistant Attachment:
- Clingyness to attachment figure and anxiety;
- Distress upon attachment figure's departure;
- Continued distress after attachment figure's return, anger;
- Fear of strangers;
- Provide consistent primary caregiver to develop secure attachment with;
- Provide extra time and support during handover transitions;
- Comfort objects may be of use;
- Patience, understanding, reasurance, consistency.
- Disorganised/Disoriented Attachment:
- Inconsistent responses to stressful events, apparent contentment followed by fear or anger responses;
- Unpredictable emotions;
- Cautious approaches to attachment figures;
- Failure to seek out caregiver when upset;
- Indiscriminately friendly between unknown adults and family members;
- Excessive concern for attachment figure / role reversal;
- Reckless exploration without regard for attachment figure as secure base;
- Provide consistent primary caregiver to develop secure attachment with;
- Work hard to establish positive, warm, trusting relationships;
- Pay close attention, closely monitor for signs of abuse;
- Seek help from support agencies if necessary.
Personal development characteristics of adolescents:
- Frequent fluctuations in mood;
- Careful regulations of emotion;
- Variation in conformation to cultural and gender roles;
- Seeking emotional intimacy with peers;
- Seeking comfort from peers in timmes of emotional distress;
- Privacy toward connecitons to parents/family;
- Can experience significant conflict in family settings;
- Can experiment with / rely on drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism;
- Particularly girls may excessively ruminate over small disapointments;
- Particularly boys may hide their emotions under false ones;
- Listen authentically;
- Help provide perspective on family conflicts;
- Be alert for students showing signs of depression/suicide and provide support including referring to counsellors.
Support strategies for classroom teachers to promote positive social emotional development:
- Show an interest in students' persuits and wellbeing;
- Teach social skills;
- Provide structure/scaffolding for students with high anxiety;
- Set reasonable limits for acceptable behaviour, establish rules and consequences and follow up;
- Give a sense of control/autonomy, provide reasonable choices;
- Communicate with parents/family regarding students' needs;
- Be alert for signs of depression/suicide:
- pervasive sadness, helplessness;
- sudden withdrawal from peers and caregivers;
- disregard for personal appearnace/hygeine;
- serious health problems;
- dramatic personality change;
- sudden elevation in mood;
- preoccupation with death/morbid themes;
- overt or veiled threats;
- actions that indicate putting one's affairs in order;
- serious problems at home, school or in the community;
- substance abuse;
- efforts to obtain suicidal means.
Summarise:
The four ways parents help children to develop emotional intelligence:
- Help children identify their emotions;
- Help children learn to find calm in times of distress;
- Help children learn to read other people's emotions;
- Help children learn to predict the actions/responses of others in given situations.
The link between emotional intelligence and academic achievement:
- EQ strongly linked to academic performance;
- High EQ helps youth manage complexities and pressures that would otherwise derail them;
- Students with higher EQs are less likely to have isses with school attendance or drop out of high school;
- Students who persist with further education show significantly higher EQs;
- Students who persist in educational contexts are more likely to result in:
- Higher socio-economic status;
- Lower levels of criminality and incarceration.
The link between emotional intelligence and behaviour:
- Higher EQ appears to equate to:
- Greater interpersonal competency;
- Greater adaptability;
- Better stress management;
- Less aggressive behaviour;
- Increased social acceptedness;
- Increased cooperation;
- Increased leadership skills;
- Less disruptive & destructive behaviours;
- Lower use of alcohol and other drugs;
- Lower anxiety levels;
- Greater overall health;
- Greater overall contentedness/success in life persuits;
- Helps teens make more complex, sophisticated, pro-social decisions.
- Self Concept:
- Ideas/beliefs about the self;
- 'Who am I as a person?'
- Self Esteem:
- How much we love ourselves;
- 'How good am I as a person?';
- How valuable am I as an individual.
- Self Efficacy:
- How good we feel we are at certain endeavours, how effective;
- 'How effective am I? How good am I at ... ?'
- Enables students to:
- understand themselves;
- understand themselves in relation to others;
- envision various future versions fo themselves;
- set goals for the future and work towards them;
- find a comfortable niche/place in the world where they feel capable, cared for and connected;
- Children tend to behave in ways that mirror their self-perceptions:
- Thus these self-percetions are compounded by children's actions;
- This can lead to positive or negative outcomes depending on the beliefs that the child is operating out of.
- Past behaviours and performances;
- Influence of adults within the child's life ascribing to them certain characteristics which the child accepts as truth;
- Nurture and affection from caregivers;
- Parents accepting children as they are - celebrating abilities and taking inabilities in their stride;
- Educator high yet achievable expectations and support to reach goals;
- Peer group acceptance;
- Comparisons with peers;
- Positive group/club social experiences & achievements;
- Biology.
Outline the three levels and six stages of Kohlberg's moral reasoning:
- Preconventional:
- Children have not yet internalised conventions of right and wrong;
- Preschool, most primary, some early secondary, few later years students;
- Level 1 - Decisions based on self-interest without regard for others, punishment aviodance and obedience;
- Level 2 - Decisions based on exchange of favor / recognition of the needs of others gaining assertion that their own needs may be met,
- Conventional:
- Acceptance of society's notions of right and wrong;
- Few older primary, some lower secondary, many later years students;
- Level 3 - Decisions based on pleasing others, especially authority figures;
- Level 4 - Look to society's rules on law and order to define right and wrong, inflexible.
- Postconventional:
- Own sense of personal morality, of which society's standards may play a somewhat flexible part;
- Rarely seen before university, extremely rare even in adult populations (?);
- Stage 5 - Social contracts, agreements within groups to maintain order and protect rights, recognise flexibility in rules/laws to suit needs of the people that they serve;
- Stage 6 - Adherance to abstract universal principles, strong inner conscience, willing to disobey laws that contradict their ethical principles.
What are some of the limitations of Kohlberg's work?
- Included both moral issues and social conventions, while children view these issues separately;
- Overlooked helping and showing compassion;
- emphasised cognition over emotional influence;
- Emphasised introspective processes failing to take into consideration influence of parents and significant adults in the moral reasoning of children;
- Overlooked situational factors such as "white lies";
- About how children think morally, not about if they will act morally (though the two are intertwined).
How does Kohlberg's thinking differ from that of Piaget?
- Piaget defined two broad stages in moral development:
- Heternormous - rules as permanent and requiring strict obedience, authority outside themselves, define good/bad actions according to percieved consequences;
- Autonomous moral thinking - ability to see self and others as moral actors and see moral decisiona as embeded in social environments.
- Advanced moral reasoning required reflective capacities regarding the consequences and experiences for the self and others which are only available if the child has developed these advanced (abstract) cognitive abilities;
- Cognitive development does not however guarantee moral development, moral reasoning may still take place at a preconventional level;
How can teachers support their students' moral development?
- Clarification of acceptable, non-acceptable and conditionally acceptable behaviours;
- Including discussions of WHY in disciplinary actions or when introducing rules;
- Encourage children to make amends for misdeeds;
- Engaging students in discussions on moral issues, relates to social context &/or subject matter;
- Addressing moral questions/issues from various viewpoints;
- Challenging reasoning with slightly more advanced reasoning, using Kohlberg's stages to identify levels to operate from;
- Community service - working towards moral causes and projects of community benefit;
- 'Fostering a climate of tolerance' RESPECT for differences.
