Essay on Child Development: Social, Emotional, Psychological Aspects

This essay delves into the intricate interplay of social, emotional, and psychological factors that shape child development from birth to age five. It examines how children develop self-identity, interact with others, and express their feelings. The essay explores key concepts like temperament, emotional regulation, and the development of social skills, referencing theories by Erikson and Marcia. It also highlights the crucial roles of parents and educators in fostering a healthy environment for children's emotional, psychological, and social growth, emphasizing the importance of independent decision-making and positive reinforcement. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of mental and psychological well-being for children's overall development and learning capabilities.

Running Head: Child Development
Social, Emotional, and Psychological Aspects of Development in children
Essay
System04104
9/7/2019

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Social, Psychological, and Emotional Aspects of Child Development
There are various factors related to social, psychological, and emotional factors that
determine the growth and development of children during early childhood (birth to 5 years
age). These factors help the children to understand and express their feelings to other people
and develop a meaningful relationship with people during 0 to 5 years of age. The emotional
and psychological factors helps the children to understand the feelings and emotions of others
and they can also expressed their own feelings to other people. The social and emotional
development in children includes variety of skills and constructs various actions in children
such as emotions, friendship, joint attention, self-awareness etc. The present essay analyses
the social, emotional, and psychological aspects of development in children aged birth to five
years. The essay also take the help of various theories that shows that how infant and young
children develop their self-identity. The present work also includes the contribution of
educators in children’s social, psychological, and emotional wellbeing.
Social and emotional development in children generally occurs over time and it affect
or influence the ability of children to interact with people and social surroundings (Emerson
& Einfeld, 2010). It has been seen that young children normally play with their own toys and
if children faces any issue then they interact with people to convey their issues in their own
language. However, sometimes it is very challenging for people and even for parents to
understand the emotions and psychological state of children. The understanding of their
social, emotional, and psychological states is really important for the overall development of
children (Brownell, 2013). The young children generally try to show their emotions through
weeping, crying, angry acts, and not talking with people. These emotions in the children only
survive for a short period but show the emotional and social development of children. The
start of learning and development start in children when they infant and interact with people
with smile and crying (Denham, Bassett, & Zinsser, 2012). Social and emotional
development in children generally includes many complex behaviour that are responsible for
social and emotional development in children. The first area of growth in young children is
their temperament through which children respond or acts to different situations. For
example, a one year baby reacts differently to a stranger than his/her father and mother. This
shows the development of emotional bond in the young children that helps the children to
establish meaningful relationship with people (Julian & McCall, 2016). The ability of

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children to along with other people or getting familiar with stranger people shows their social
development or social competence (Brown, 2015). However, the last is emotional regulations
through which children control their emotions and reactions in a particular situation or
environment. Children understand their own emotions and they also learn that how they can
control their emotions (Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, & Thomson, 2010). Generally, babies start
to develop their relationship starting from the birth with their own people like mother, father,
siblings, etc. The infant right from the birth interact with the mother during breast-feeding
and shows their emotions with smile when they play in the lap of their mother. However, it
can be said that the process of learning start from the birth but they communicate or transfer
the knowledge after few years, when they able to interact with the people. This will help the
children to develop their social skills and knowledge and also help them to enhance their
emotional and psychological awareness about the society and people (Shutts, Kinzler, &
DeJesus, 2013). The ability of sharing knowledge, interacting with people, and establish
relationship generally take few years in children. However, the development of social and
psychological skills in small children generally starts after 2 or 3 years of age.
It has been seen that the young children always showing a variety of emotional
activities like temper tantrums, angry, crying, and love which are directly relate to the
emotional development of children. It has been seen that toddlers often show a massive and
rapid mood swing and their emotions are occurring for very short times but they are quite
intense in nature (Chaplin & Aldao, 2013). Especially the modern children while watching
television or using mobile phone, they show their emotions in more mature way. However,
children in early stage of their childhood facing difficulties in showing their emotions and it
have been observed that they show very possessive behaviour. However, in early stage of
childhood (0-5 years), children spend most of their time with their parents, toys, friends, and
in kid schools. They learn lots of thing during this age such as playing, interacting, learning,
and enjoying with other kids. They also understand the feelings and emotions of their parents
and loving ones like their friends and family members (Palmer, Anand, Graff, Murphy, Qu,
Völgyi, & Tylavsky, 2013). However, these skill development in children prepare the
children for school readiness and prepare them to understand the physique of other people,
they understand that how they can interact with people, and transitioning easily from one
activity to another activity in very easy way. However, when children develop and grow in
the social environmental factors like friends and their family members, they also learn how
they can solve problems related to society and their family. For example, when father display

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an act of threatening the mother of children, a 2 to 3 year old child shows his/her emotions ,
and try to protect his/her mom from father. It shows the emotional attachment of children
with mother and their reaction after facing such type of situation (Goldstein, 2012).
The early childhood is a significant period during the young children developed
mentally and physically. From the moment a child born, they starting to identify and exposed
the information, which is around them. This information helps the children to learn about
who they are (Stack, Serbin, Enns, Ruttle, & Barrieau, 2010). A child generally touches the
things, feel, kick, or grab the things to identify the object or understand the people, making
relationship and enjoy the influence of their action on the world. However, after two years,
the children develop a sense of self and try to recognise themselves in figure, photographs or
from the perspective of others. During the age of 2-4 years, the young children are able to
find information about their self, such as recognising their gender that child is girl or boy.
They also try to identify the physical characteristics like tall or small, beautiful or ugly, good
or bad, or male or female (Hammack, 2015). Children generally able to identify their own
attributes from 3 to 5 years age such as comparing their heights with their parents or siblings,
comparing their body parts with other people, etc. They also shows their emotions towards
the family members such as showing intentions to help mother in the kitchen and contributing
in the work of father like shoe polishing etc. These factors generally develop in children in
the early stage of their age and help in the overall development of children. The social
development of children is generally starting from their own family members within their
home (Wilson & Prior, 2011).
According to the Erik Erikson theory, development in children generally occurs in
stages and it is generally influenced by interaction with their own environmental factors and
people who are around them (Karkouti, 2014). This theory divide the development stages in
children in five stages and shows that these are the primary requirement in developing self-
identity in young children. According to the Erikson theory, every stage of development has
been considered as the crisis and the development of children based on how the young
children resolve the crisis situation. However, to develop self-identity of children, it is crucial
to parents and pre-school teacher play a crucial role in developing emotional, psychological,
and social development in children. The first step is to provide opportunities to young
children to complete their task independently. For example, the parents can leave a 2 to 3
years old child to take their food by their own hand (Syed & McLean, 2017). It can help the

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child to develop and understand their capabilities in doing their work. The second stage
suggests that children should take their decision by their self and should make their own
decisions. The freedom of design their own activities also helps the children to grow
independently and understand their work like taking meal on time, learning practice etc.
However, praising or positive feedback from teacher and parents also helps the young
children to understand the meaning of success (Svetina, 2014). These activities and
involvement of family members and children helps the children to develop their mental
strength and identify their own strengths and identity. This is really beneficial for children
when they understand the situation by their own understanding and thought process and it can
easily be done if parent allows the children to resolve the ‘crisis’ situation by their own
decision makings and acts. In such circumstances, the role of educators and parents is so
crucial to educate the children to grow in healthy environment that will help the children to
adopt the social and emotional changes. It is really important for parents and educators to
leave the children to make their own decisions and prepare themselves in such a manner that
enables them to face these crisis situations (Syed & McLean, 2017). The role of parents is so
crucial as they can help the children in emotional and physical development as well. The
parents can care about the dieting plan, solving the issues of children, and help them to
resolve their issues. However, the pre-school teachers can also play a crucial role in
emotional and psychological development of children by hands on activities. The small
children generally laugh, smile, and giggle to express their emotions and feelings and during
free plays, they involve in all these emotional reflections. A pre-school educator can identify
these emotions and can help the children by using words to express feelings and emotions
(Halberstadt, Dunsmore, Bryant Jr, Parker, Beale, & Thompson, 2013).
The emotional, psychological, and social heath of children matters for overall
development and learning of children. Many researchers found that children that are mentally
and psychologically healthy are tend to be happier and shows greater interest to learn new
things (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010). It also helps them to actively participate and perform in
their school days. Therefore, it is necessary for children to identify their self-identity and
aware about their skills and capabilities. Another famous theory that is given by James
Marcia reduces the bottlenecks of Erikson’s concept of identity crisis and identity confusion.
The Marcia theory refined the Erikson’s theory of self-identity (Marcia & Josselson, 2013).
The Mercia theory is divided in four stages. The first stage if called ‘Foreclosure’ in which
generally it has been seen that parents make their commitment without knowing the

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alternatives. It means parents show their ideas and belied on children and children accepted
their opinion without any question. It helps the children to know thing exactly. However, it
kills the enthusiasm of young children and reduces the chance of innovative and creative
thinking of young children. The next stage is ‘identity diffusion’, which means that children
generally isolated from the society and they neither explore nor make commitments (Kroger,
2015). The third stage of this theory is ‘Moratorium’ that explains that children’s
commitment during the crisis situation neither absent neither fully defined. This is a situation
of half commitment and it shows the active exploration of alternatives by the children to
create self-identity and learning things from the environments. The fourth stage is ‘identity
achievement’ which means where a child understand the crisis situation, and made
commitments after identity explorations. The role of parents is very important when they
guide and control the activities of children. The parents should monitor the activities of
children (Oberle, Schonert-Reichl & Thomson, 2010).
In conclusion, social, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of children determine
the overall growth and development of young children. The role of parents and pre-school
educators is very important as they can easily identify the changes in young children and help
them in their growth and overall wellbeing by giving them freedom to face the crisis situation
by themselves and make their own decision-makings. The parents can care about the dieting
plan, solving the issues of children, and help them to resolve their issues. The pre-school
teachers and educators identify the emotional and psychological changes in the young
children and provide them a healthy environment that can help the children to grow and
develop both physically and mentally.

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