Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
Chapter 11
Emotional and Social Development
Emotional and social development begins at birth, when children experience their
environment and those within it. An important emotional bond that children should have with
their primary caregivers is attachment. This relationship lays the foundation for all other intimate
relationships that the child develops throughout life. Children begin to show emotions around the
age of two months and increasingly learn how to express their emotions through maturation and
experience. Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety signal a cognitive advance as well as a social
advance in young children. As children grow and gain experience, they learn to express their
emotions more appropriately and understand the emotional expressions of others.
Children who are emotionally competent are likely to be socially competent. Being able
to maintain good social relationships with other people is an important skill for young children to
develop. Children are influenced by their parents, peers, and the culture which surrounds them.
Temperament or foundation of personality can affect the way the child responds to various
situations. Knowing this information can assist the adults in understanding why a child may be
having difficulty interacting with others or accepting change.
What are the Major Theoretical Perspectives on Emotional and Social Development?
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
What are Emotions and What is Emotional Competence?
• Young children’s emotions are categorized into primary emotions and secondary
emotions.
o Primary emotions are anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and fear.
▪ First emotions to appear and begin around the age of two months.
▪ There are two aspects of the fear emotion. They signal a cognitive advance
o Secondary emotions are embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy, and pride.
• Children begin to express their emotions early in a basic form, such as smiling, laughing,
or crying. Through maturity and experience, they expand their social and cognitive
abilities and expression of emotion increases.
• Supporting the development of emotional competence is important and the following are
some strategies to use:
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
What is Social Competence?
• Social competence means being able to maintain good social relationships with other
people while also being able to achieve one’s goals in and through those relationships.
• There are many important influences on the social competence of children.
o Parents
▪ Mothers influence on social competence is evident during preschool and
early elementary years and can be both positive and negative.
▪ Mothers who direct more than the normal amount of anger has a
preschooler who has reduced emotional competence.
▪ Mothers who are warm and express positive emotions have a positive
o Peers: Children learn academically and socially from their peers.
• Diversity and social competence: there are some factors that might affect children’s
ability to display the necessary level of social competence.
o There is a difference between the individualistic culture of the United States and
the collectivist cultures of many other countries.
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
• One of the main ways to support the development of social competence in young children
is by making friendship a focus of the curriculum.
o In sociodramatic play children take on roles and use objects as they act out
dramatic scenarios.
• Bullying is defined as aggressive behavior aimed at hurting, intimidating, or controlling
others through physical, verbal, or emotional abuse, real or threatened.
What is Attachment and Why is it Important?
• Attachment refers to the type of emotional bond that young children have with their
primary caregivers.
o Babies with secure attachment feel safe, secure, and free from stress when close
to their primary caregiver.
• The usual way of assessing attachment is by a procedure called the strange situation. This
is found in the textbook and helps classify the child into one of the attachment categories.
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
• Temperament is the foundation of personality, the usual or average emotional and
behavioral response a child gives to various situations.
o Children with easy temperaments are flexible, predictable, and generally display a
positive mood.
o Children with difficult temperaments have lots of energy and intensity, irregular
moods that are usually negative, and they have a hard time adjusting to making
transitions, new people or new situations.
o Children with the slow-to-warm up temperament are generally thought of as shy.
• The following factors can be associated with insecure attachment:
o Biological vulnerability
o Limited exploratory competence
o Adoption
o Child abuse
• Children’s attachment categorization seems to be relatively stable from infancy through
the preschool years. Research is inconsistent for longer periods of time.
• Teacher’s play a role in supporting secure attachment. Teachers need to be sensitive and
positively responsive to the young children in their care.
What are Other Important Issues in Emotional and Social Development?
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
• Gender roles refer to the different ways that males and females are expected to think,
feel, and behave.
o Expectations vary depending on culture, ethnicity, religious, and socioeconomic
status of particular groups of people.
• Families are diverse in culture, ethnicity, language, religion, socioeconomic status, and
many other characteristics.
• Children with special needs need to develop emotional and social competence, make
friends, play with the other children, and become an integral part of the classroom
activities.
• Resilience is a child’s ability to overcome obstacles and fulfill their potential.
o Social competence is being able to maintain good social relationships, while also
being able to achieve one’s goals.
o Behavioral competence is demonstrating by exhibited socially accepted
behaviors.
o Protective factors are characterized into three groups:
Gordon Biddle, Early Childhood Education: Becoming a Professional Instructor Resource
▪ Environment and institutions outside the family: religious and educational
institutions that support the family, enhance the child’s self-esteem, and
convey positive values.
• Bullying is intentionally causing physical or emotional and social harm to one’s peers.