Social Development in Early Childhood | Social Development during Early Childhood

 

Social Development in Early Childhood 

 

In Social Development in Early Childhood, the stage of early childhood is from 2 to 6 years. Psychologists call it pre-school age or also called pregang age.

At this age, children learn to interact with people and children outside the home.

In this stage, they try to make adjustments with other children and increase their social contacts by playing different types of games. 

Educational psychologists have described this stage as an important stage because in this stage the basic social attitudes and patterns of social behavior develop in children.

 

Waldrop & Halverson (1974) conducted a study in which they studied the socialization patterns of young children. They found in this study that children who were more socially active and friendly at the age of 24, They were found to be more active and affectionate than other children at the age of 7 years. This means that sociality at age 24 was predictive of sociality at age 7.

It has become clear from psychological studies that in early childhood, two types of behavior are generated in children on the basis of experiences arising out of social contact – social behavior and unsocial behavior.

 

Social Development in Early Childhood are of the following types

 

(1) Imitation

 

Imitation is a major social behavior and children tend to imitate the behavior of those persons who are recognized by the social group, that is, whose behavior is maximum according to the norms of the society. With this kind of behavior, children develop such social traits in their personality, which helps them a lot in social prosecution in the class.

(2) Rivalry

 

There are two ways in which rivalry has an effect on socialization in children of 2 to 6 years. When a child considers another child as his rival, he pays more attention to the social rules or norms to outdo himself and tries to learn and experience more and more from them. does.

As a result, the socialization of such children is rapid. The second effect is that this child starts fighting with the other child considering it as his rival. This slows down the pace of his socialization. The greater the first effect of rivalry, the greater the academic achievements of the children in the class.

(3) Desire for social approval

 

When children have more desire to get acceptance and approval from adults and their peers, then they try to fulfill the expectations made by the society and at the same time develop developmental tasks. ) tries hard to complete. The effect of this trend is that their socialization becomes intense.

(4) Sympathy

 

The behavior of showing sympathy in children does not arise until they see another child or person showing sympathy by another person after seeing them in pain.

Children sympathize with other children by helping them, wiping their tears and picking them up when they fall on the ground. 

Psychologists are of the opinion that the more the children are able to establish social contact in the game, the more are the chances of developing sympathetic behavior in them.

(5) Empathy

 

Empathy refers to putting yourself in the place of others and getting the experiences that happen at that place.

Empathic behavior develops in children by the age of 54. For empathy to arise, two things are necessary – first, the child should have the ability to understand the meaning of the facial expression of others and simultaneously understand the meaning of others' speech.

(6) Cooperation

 

At the age of 4, children start supporting each other in sports.

According to the study of Bryan and Walbeck ,when adults present a model of cooperative behavior in front of children, and if the child shows cooperative behavior, if the adult reinforces it, then the feeling of cooperation increases becomes more intense. 

According to Skinner (1978), leadership quality develops rapidly in such children due to more praise from teachers and peers in the class.

(7) Attachment behavior

 

The foundation of attachment behavior is laid in childhood itself when children establish a warm relationship with their mother. In this early childhood, children transfer previously established attachment behavior and now show attachment behavior by establishing such warm relationships with people outside the home.

(8) Friendship

 

The feeling of friendship develops very fast in children of 2 to 6 years. They do some work or play together with other children or sometimes do some work only for other children as help. In both these circumstances, the behavior of friendship develops a lot in them.

At the age of 2 to 6 years, that is, in early childhood, not only social behavior but also some antisocial behavior develops in children, on which it is mandatory for teachers and parents to pay attention. By paying proper attention to such behaviours, children can be motivated towards social adjustment.

 

Following are the major unsocial behavior of Social Development in Early Childhood :

 

(1) Negativism

 

When children do not do or show a lot of resistance in doing the behavior told by the elders, then this type of tendency is called inhibition. Inhibition starts at 2 years of age and reaches its highest peak in 3rd to 6th year. In such a situation, the children not only disobey the orders of the elders, but at the same time there is an explosion of anger in them.

(2) Aggressiveness

 

Aggression is such an action in which the child Hostility directed towards another person or thing. Children express their aggression by physically attacking other children or verbally narrating. It has often been seen that children show more aggression towards children younger and weaker than themselves.

(3) Dominant behavior

 

Dominant behavior is said to be such behavior in which a child shows dominance over another child. Such children, who have more effective behavior, if properly trained, then the quality of leadership develops rapidly in them. But most of the children are not given this type of training. As a result, they are rejected by the social group for showing excessive ascendancy.

(4) Egocentrism

 

Egocentrism is found more in children of early childhood because the child spends more time thinking about himself and his belongings, such as sports material, clothes to wear etc. But, in some children, the sense of ego starts decreasing again very soon. Its reduction depends on two things. Firstly, to what extent the boys have understood that they will become unpopular due to ego and secondly, how much they are worried about becoming popular.

(5) Prejudice

 

The foundation of prejudice is laid in children at the age of 2 to 6 years. At this time children feel that some people treat them differently and their appearances are also different from them and this difference is a sign of inferiority in them. Thinking like this creates a prejudice or prejudice in them. Children of this age are not able to express their prejudice with the help of discrimination.

(6) Sex antagonism

 

Sex antagonism refers to showing active hostility towards children of the opposite sex. Up to the age of 4, boys and girls play together and there is no sex antagonism. But, after that, on behalf of the society, boys are forced to play different games and do any other work separately from girls, due to which they gradually develop a sense of anti-sex.

The same process happens with girls as well. It has become clear that along with social behavior, some unsocial behavior also develops in children in early childhood. 

 

Educational psychologists are of the opinion that both social behavior and antisocial behavior generated in this stage.

It lays the foundation for pro-social behavior and anti-social behavior in adolescence and adulthood. Therefore, parents should properly lay the foundation of social behavior in children and control and change antisocial behavior in such a way that their effect is not bad on the development of personality.