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decorative star graphic  The Play Years
Psychosocial Development
- Antisocial & Prosocial Behavior -

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Ψ  Antisocial Behavior: hitting, insulting, lying about, or taking from another person intending to harm someone else

Ψ  Prosocial Behavior: sharing, cooperating, sympathizing, performed to benefit other people

Ψ  Aggression is a form of antisocial behavior that is of particular concern. Aggression types:

  • instrumental aggression — aggressive behavior whose purpose is to obtain or retain an object desired by another
  • reactive aggression — aggressive behavior that is an angry retaliation for some intentional or accidental act by another
  • relational aggression — aggressive behavior that takes the form of insults or social rejection
  • bullying aggression — aggressive behavior in the form of an unprovoked physical or verbal attack on another person

Learning Social Skills through Play

Ψ  During childhood play is the most productive and adaptive activity children can undertake.

•  Rough and Tumble Play - wrestling, chasing, hitting —mimics aggression but actually occurs purely in fun, no intent to harm. This type of play is universal and usually occurs among children with higher social experience.
•  Sociodramatic Play - pretend play in which children act out various roles and themes in stories of their own creation. Provides children a chance to:

•  explore & rehearse the social roles they see being enacted around them
 •  test their own ability to explain and convince others of their ideas
  •  regulate their emotions through imagination
   •  examine personal concerns in a non threatening manner

Ψ  Girls engage in sociodramatic play more than boys.

  anchor point  Parenting Styles  anchor point

Diana Baumrind a researcher on parenting patterns found that parents differed on four important dimensions.

        1. warmth or nurturance
          2. communication
             2. maturity
                4. discipline

     On the basis of these dimensions, Baumrind found 3 basic styles of parenting, they are:

Authoritarian parenting: warmth = low, discipline = strict, often physical, expectations of maturity = high, Communication = parent to child - high & child to parent - low
 
     A very restrictive pattern of parenting in which adults impose many rules, expect strict obedience, rarely if ever explain to the child why it is necessary to comply with all these regulations, and often rely on punitive, forceful tactics (that is, power assertion or love withdrawal) to gain compliance. Authoritarian parents are not sensitive to a child’s conflicting viewpoints, expecting instead for the child to accept their word as law and to respect their authority.
 
Permissive parenting: warmth = high, discipline = rare, expectations of maturity = low, Communication = parent to child - low & child to parent - high
 
    An accepting but lax pattern of parenting in which adults take relatively few demands, permit their children to freely express their feelings & impulses, do not closely monitor their children’s activities, & rarely exert firm control over their behavior.
 
Authoritative parenting: warmth = high, discipline = moderate, with much talk, expectations of maturity = moderate, Communication = parent to child - high & child to parent - high
 
     A controlling but flexible style in which involved parents make many reasonable demands of their children. They are careful to provide rationales for complying with the limits they set, and ensure that their children follow those guidelines. However, they are much more accepting of and responsive to their children’s points of view than authoritarian parents are and often seek their children’s participation in family decision making. So authoritative parents exercise control in a rational, democratic (rather than a domineering) way that recognizes and respects their children’s perspectives.

Punishment - an integral part of parenting style.

Ψ  Varies between families & cultures
  • Japanese mothers use reasoning, empathy, and expressions of disappointment more than North American mothers
  • U.S. mothers are more likely to encourage emotional expressions including anger

Ψ  Physical punishment?

•  popular - seems to work sometimes
•  spanking - boomerang effect - sometimes more aggressive effect results


Human Growth & Development
Robert C. Gates
 
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