Socio Emotional Development

According to Kid Sense (2020), child development refers to the sequence of physical,
language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of
adulthood. Child development is strongly influenced by genetic factors and events during
prenatal life. It is also influenced by environmental facts and the child’s learning capacity

Socio emotional development theory includes the child’s experience, expressions,

and management of emotions and ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships
with others. Erik Erikson, one of the theorists has explained about it. He has declared that
there are eight stages of socio emotional development. These eight stages describe the
growth and change throughout the life, focusing on social conflicts that arise during different
stages of development.

Children aged from 6-12 years old, go through this development. This is because
these stages will affect everyone throughout their whole life just like stated above. From
Erikson’s view, the stage which plays the biggest role in this age group is stage 4. This stage
reviews about industry versus inferiority. It is at this stage that this peer group will gain
greater significance and will become a major source of a child’s self-esteem (McLeod, 2007).

Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their abilities.
Children need to cope with the new social and academic demands. Success leads to a
sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority. Children who are
encouraged by parents and teachers, develop a feeling of competence and belief in their
skills. Those who receive no encouragement from parents or teachers will doubt their
abilities to be successful. (Very Well Mind, 2018)

Social interaction plays an important role during this time of a child’s life. A child's
social world expands considerably as they enter school and gain new friendships with peers.
Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their abilities.
During the earlier stages, a child’s interactions centred primarily on caregivers and family
members. As the school years begin, the reality of social influence increases dramatically.

Friends and classmates play a role in how children progress through this fourth
stage. Through proficiency at play and schoolwork, children are able to develop a sense
of competence and pride in their abilities. By feeling competent, children are able to also
form a strong self-concept. During social interactions with peers, some children may
discover that their abilities are better than their friends’. This can help to feel confident. In
other cases, kids may discover that they are not quite as capable as the other kids, which
can result in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.

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 During the industry versus inferiority stage, children become capable of
performing increasingly complex tasks. As a result, they strive to master new skills.
Children who are encouraged by parents and teachers develop a feeling of competence and
belief in their abilities. Those who receive no encouragement from parents or teachers will
doubt their ability to be successful and thus inferiority comes in. This can set the stage for
later problems in development.

At this stage, it is important for both parents and teachers to offer encouragement.
However, adults should be careful to not equate achievement with acceptance and love.
Unconditional support from adults can help all children through this stage, but particularly
those who may struggle with feelings of inferiority. Children who are overpraised, on the
other hand, might develop a sense of arrogance. Clearly, balance plays a major role at
this point in development. Parents can help kids develop a sense of realistic competence by
avoiding excessive praise. Even if children struggle in some areas of school, encouraging
kids in areas in which they excel can help foster feelings of competence and achievement.

Two basic concepts of child development is as follows. First one is nurturing and
developing relationships are the building blocks of a healthy child development.
Secure attachments develop when parents are dependable and sensitive to the child’s
needs which enables that child to depend on the parent for guidance. Next is human beings
are hardwired to connect. All babies are born with the ability to attach, but this “prewired”
instinct can only develop in close harmony with a loving and responsive caregiver. Babies
with unresponsive or depressed caregivers miss-out on the emotional and social cues of
attachment. As they grow older, they have more behavioural, social, and cognitive problems
compared to those whose caregivers are adapted and responsive to their needs.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (2018),
there are two of many basic principles of child development here. The first principle will be
interrelatedness. Development in one domain influences and is influenced by development
in other domains. For instance, language skills impact social relationships like crawling
increases development due to increased ability to explore. Besides, orderly sequence is
also a basic principle of child development. Development occurs in a relatively orderly
sequence with later abilities, skills, and knowledge building on those already acquired. For
instance, crawl, pull to stand, steps or walking.

Healthy Parents and Healthy Children (2019) mentioned that there are three main
factors of child development. Brain development, child’s development and the care they
receive from the parents and others. Relationships form through everyday interactions. For
healthy brain development, the child needs positive relationships with the parents, as well

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as other important people. Brain cell connections become healthier and stronger when the
child and the parents have positive interactions. This type of interactions strengthens the
brain cell connections that the child needs to learn new skills in all areas of development.
The child’s development is influenced by their temperament which is a person’s nature. It
is present from birth and shows up in the way they behave or react to situations or people.
Everyone has a temperament which is a part of our personality. Temperament affects how
the child thinks, behaves and responds to the world. That is what which makes the child
unique. For instance, if the parents like being with people but the child has a hard time
adapting to new situations, they give them time to warm up. The final factor will be the care
received from the parents. Parents influence the child’s development through the care they
provide by role modelling.

In this stage, teacher’s involvement is mainly focused. This is because this stage
mainly involves the school. Being a future teacher myself, this theory is extremely helpful for
me. There are a few challenges that a teacher needs to face in the classroom. Based on the
current situation, the main challenge that is being faced by all the teachers now is the online
classes. They find it hard to conduct online classes since not all pupils have the privilege.
This is because those pupils lack the devices and internet access to be able to participate in
online classes, and the schools do not have the capacity to teach online. This leaves many
pupils in a bad spot where they are unable to receive an education. Although internet service
providers like Maxis have been giving out free data packages, they are simply not capable of
supporting video calls on programs such as Zoom or Google Meet and therefore the
teachers have a hard time in delivering the lessons to the pupils. The pupils may start to feel
demotivated and lose the interest to study because they cannot be hearing the teacher’s
explanation clearly. Based on Erikson’s theory in Hamman & Hendricks (2005), teachers are
able to exert a positive influence on adolescence future. Therefore, teachers should always
support students who seem discouraged due to this issue. The teachers could provide
alternatives like recording and send the explanation via WhatsApp. The pupils can download
and use that for reference purposes and then send the worksheets via pictures or PDF so
that the pupils could print and paste. This is to make sure that although the call gets
disconnected, the pupils could at least listen to it via the video and complete their exercises
via the worksheets sent.

In conclusion, socio emotional development is a very important development in a

child’s life. I personally feel that Erikson’s theory is very well ingenious and really helps on
how a child will develop.

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REFERENCES

Healthy Parents Healthy Children. (2020). Healthy Parents Healthy Children; ...

https://www.healthyparentshealthychildren.ca/im-a-parent/overview-of-parenting/
factors-that-affect-child-development/

https://www.facebook.com/verywell. (2020). Industry vs. Inferiority Is Stage Four of

Psychosocial Development. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/industry-

versus-inferiority-2795736

Levy, T. (2015, July 3). Six core concepts for child development - Evergreen Psychotherapy

Center. Evergreen Psychotherapy Center.

https://www.evergreenpsychotherapycenter.com/six-core-concepts-for-child-
development/

Mcleod, S. (2007, February 5). Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development.

Simplypsychology.Org; Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-

Erikson.html

Social-Emotional Development Domain - Child Development (CA Dept of Education). (2019).

Ca.Gov. https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09socemodev.asp

The Jakarta Post. (2020). Challenges of home learning during a pandemic through the eyes

of a student. The Jakarta Post.

https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/04/11/challenges-of-home-learning-during-
a-pandemic-through-the-eyes-of-a-student.html

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