Middle Childhood Development

Middle Childhood Development

- Around 6-11

- Elementary years - spend most times in elementary classroom, learn to sit still at desk all day, physical education (engaged in organized sports), social connections

Cognitive Development

- Concrete Operational

- Rational Thinking

- Metacognition

- Hypothetical Reasoning

Concrete Operational

- Operation: the ability to perform mental mathematical operations

- We can't do irrational numbers, but we can learn times tables, addition and substraction

- We start to do math operations in our head without having to count on our fingers

- Recognise different patterns in numbers

Rational Thinking

- If then statements

- Following things that are logical

Metacognition

- Think about our thinking

- A type of identity starts to develop

Hypothetical reasoning

- This is out of range for middle childhood and will start in adolescence (adolescence will be more creative)

- Have a hard time thinking about all of the possibilities in middle childhood

Numeracy

- Number Recognition

- Pattern Identification

- Seriation

- Place Values

- Math Operations

- Discalculia

Number Recognition

- At this stage, a child can see a dice and immediately be able to see what number is on it without counting

- Recognising quantities

- Reading a clock is a type of number recognition - comes later in middle childhood (grade 3-4)

Seriation

- Greater than and less than, rank from bigger to smaller, heavy to small

- Understanding rank order

Place values

- 100s, 10s and 1s

- By the end of middle childhood, may get to 1000s

Discalculia

- Learning disability

- Dyslexia: when numbers flip around - discalia is different

- Trying to think about numbers and putting them in space and time, hard time thinking about time (could be hard time understanding time and could be hard time reading clocks) and maps

- Not about flipping numbers around on a page

Problem Solving

- Planning steps

- Marble run

- River boat problem

- Tower of hanoi

-> Can do this in middle childhood

- Pendelum problem

-> This still tricks us in middle childhood because they require deductive reasonng

- Mastermind

-> This still tricks us in middle childhood

Marble run

- Have to build a series of shoots and pipes to get marbles to go the way you want

- Put marbles in a treasure chest and behind one door with a lock. Then put the marble run behind another door with the key.

- They ask kids to figure out what they have to do to play marble run.

- 3 year olds can't get the key and bring to the other room with the locked door- by middle childhood they can do this

- Can do this in middle childhood"

River Boat Problem

- Goat and wolf and cabbage- You want to get all of them across the river, can't leave goat with lettuce, can't leave wolf with the goat, you can only take just you and one other person at a time"

- Bring goat over, then wolf and take goat back, then bring lettuce over, then bring goat over

- Can do this in middle childhood

Memory

- Attention

-> Can listen to teachers for about 20 minutes at a time, but this may change because of social factors

- Multitasking and Media

- ADHD

ADHD

- Combination of ADD and ADHD may emerge

- Diagnoses usually occur for boys around age 8 - comes for girls later

- Happens because this is when they are supposed to be sitting still and quiet, so their symptoms become obvious

Language Development

- Metalinguistic Awareness

- Code-Switching

Metalinguistic Awareness

When we start to be able to think about language

Code-switching

- Show metalinguistic through code switching - ex. formal language vs friend language, bilingual language, change dialect or accent given a different context

- Depends on which code kids are versed in

Literacy

- Oral Comprehension

-> Ex. listening to stories

-> Kids that struggle may have auditory deficit disorder or ADHD

- Vocabulary

-> Kids from different Socioeconomic Status can catch up if given lots of vocabulary from teachers

- Decoding

- Contextual cues:

-> Contextual cues from books - can you understand what a word could be based on other words in a story

- Dyslexia

Dyslexia

- The flipping of graphemes (letters, numbers or punctuations)

Reading wars

Reading literacy: debate if we should teach reading wars with decoding or comprehension

Decoding

- Phonics

- Letter sound correspondence

- Common combinations

- Ph, ch, qu

- Rules-based

- Long and short vowels

- Silent e, k, g

- Sound it out

- Learning that every grapheme has sounds

- Learn patterns in language, rhyming words, learning to sound it out

- English is not a very phonic language - it has lots of exceptions

- Phonetic exceptions:

-> Would, could, shood

-> Wood, cood, shood

-> Rough, tough, cough, enough

-> Ruff, tuff, cauff, enuff

-> woman, women

-> wohooan, whiimen

-> nation, action, option

-> Nay-shun, ack-shun, opp-shun

-> Ex. ghoti - gh: f

Comprehension

- Whole language

- Contextual cues

- Pictures

- Rhymes

- Memorization

- Limited vocabulary

- Memorization is limited, but when you come across a new word, you don't have the skill to break it down

- Rapidly memorize the words and start to recognize the shape of he word

- Not a good way to learn how to read

- Tend to have more spelling errors (because don't pay attention to order of letters), pronunciation problems or use combo method

Grammar Equity

- Language evolves

- Standard vs regional

- AAVE

- Prescriptive grammar

- Descriptive grammar

Standard vs Regional Grammar

- Regionalisms- one form of regionalism is not better than others

- Ex. sneakers, runners, etc

- Ex. cutlery, silverware, utensils

- Ex. pop, soda

- Because of colonialism, we have tried to show there is a superior form of english- standard English"

AAVE

- African American Vernacular English

- Way they conjugate verbs is different

- Ex. beginned, clinged, creeped, forecasted, catched

- Regional diff of English

- Tends to have less exceptions than standard English

Prescriptive Grammar

When someone tells you that you aren't using proper english- tell someone else how they should speak

Descriptive Grammar

- Doesn't tell you what's proper English, but listens to how one demographic groups uses English and describes it

- Culturally inclusive, less oppressive to minorities, helpful for those who would have to code switch at school

Social Norms in Conversation

- Distance from Speakers

-> There are culturally specific differences when it comes to distance

-> Different cultures have rules of distance

- Turn Taking

-> Some cultures where we're supposed to pause before we respond (East Asia), whereas in some cultures it's rude when we don't respond right away (Latin America), and some cultures cut someone off when they're speaking, show passion (Latin America)

- Eye Contact

-> In Canada, we appreciate some eye contact, but no staring

- Volley-ing

-> if you're with friends, we tend to feel confident doing it

Shyness and language

- Frequency

-> They speak less often

-> Put their hands up in class less often, share ideas less often, less likely to speak

- Utterance length

-> Use one-word responses and brief sentences

-> They struggle with volleying and they constantly try to end conversations

- Word stems

-> They tend to use less diverse vocabulary

-> The word selection they use is not sophisticated

-> They tend to have narrow vocabulary

-> Teachers assume that shy kids don't have good language skills when really they do, they are just too shy to show them off

- Volume and tone

-> The volume they use is much lower

-> They don't feel confident to raise their voices

Autism and Language

Non-literal speech:

- People with autism struggle with non-literal speech

- If you're using a metaphor, they may not understand what you mean, eg: they may not understand what you mean when you say that something blew your mind

Social memes:

- They may not understand why memes are funny

- They need someone to point out what is happening

Turn Taking:

- Struggle with turn-taking

- Cut people off when it's not appropriate or pause when it's not appropriate

Eye Contact:

- Struggle with eye contact, uncomfortable

Conversational Distance:

- You may look at a different distance when talking to someone

- Could be a comfort thing

Late Bilinguals

Exposed to the second language for the first time in middle childhood or beyond; age 6, 7 or older, grade 4 or grade 7

Short-term

- Initial Struggle: you can get fluency in your second language, but there is struggle in the short-term

- The struggle is normative

Late Bilinguals Long-Term benefits:

- Linguistic Processing

-> Can process language stimuli faster

- Linguistic Reasoning

-> Can be done faster

- Larger Vocabulary

- Neural Health

-> Improved neurological health for the rest of their lifespan

-> They are less likely to develop dementia (if they do get it, it tends to be later in life)

Linguistic Threshold & Cross Linguistic Transfer

- Cross Linguistic transfer can only take place when we reach a certain threshold

- Need to learn the different components

- Once linguistic threshold is reached, then you can transfer

- Less likely to do language mixing

Social Development

- Industriousness vs. Inferiority

- Classroom influences

- Supportive and Organized

- Hostile and Chaotic

Industriousness vs. Inferiority

Industriousness:

- Kids who are told that they are doing a good job develop industriousness

- Feel good about themselves

- Have self-efficacy

Inferiority:

- Kids are yelled at all the time

- Always sit in the reflection corner

- Don't believe in themselves

- See themselves as a "bad" and "problem" kid

Classroom influences

Classrooms greatly influence how we thrive or don't thrive

Hostile and Chaotic

- If you have a rude teacher, you're not going to be engaged in school

- Negatively affects the social development of kids

Supportive and Organised

- If you have a kind teacher, you will be engaged in school

- Positively affects the social development of kids

Parenting Styles

- When we're in middle school, we understand that our parents have different parenting styles

Dimensions:

- Warmth and support: parents high on this dimension are caring and lovey-dovey

- Discipline and structure: parents high on this dimension have curfew and boundaries

- Autonomy and Freedom: parents high on this dimension have wants us to try everything on our own

- Parents differ on those three dimensions

Stability:

- Parenting styles can change overtime

- Changes based on child; parents may parent different kids differently

- Two kids in the same family may be treated differently

Parenting Styles

- Authoritative

- Authoritarian

- Permissive

- Neglectful

Authoritarian parenting is the most adaptive

Authoritative Parenting

- High Warmth and Support

- Moderate-High structure

- Sets boundaries but also shows love and support

- Democratic (called democratic because they are relationship-focused)

- They do not spoil their kids

- There are rules and expectations but parents will explain it to them

- Talk it out feelings kind of parent

- Lighthouse parent because they show you the way

- Flexible

-> Tennis ball parent (firm but they have some flexibility)

- Relationship-Centered

- Parents help promote communication skills

- Make decisions collectively as a family

- Everyone has a voice in the family

- Have kids with good communication, conflict skills and social skills

Authoritarian Parenting

- Strict Authority

- High in Structure

- High expectations

- Low Warmth

- Low Freedom

- Low support for autonomy

- Not democratic

- Strict

- Not relationship-focused

- Low Communication

-> Don't teach communication to their kids

- Rules Centered

- Teach their child how to obey

- Children don't get to negotiate

- Kids tend to end up shy and hesitant

- Military helicopter

- Type of parent who gets their kids tracking devices

Permissive Parenting

- High Warmth

- High Freedom

-> Allow high degree of autonomy

- Low Discipline

- No rules, all love

- "Child-centered"

-> Based solely on what the child wants

- Kids are always loved unconditionally

- Child could do no wrong according to the parent

- There is no structure

- Kids may grow up to be spoiled

- Kids can't take no for an answer

- Kids may not know how to compromise since they're not being taught important relationship skills

Neglectful Parenting

- Low Support

- Low Discipline

- Low in Parenting

- High Freedom

- Don't give kids any love

- "Parent-centered"

-> Parents do what they want

-> Parents are focused on themselves

- Kids are essentially raising themselves

- Kids grow up with a high degree of neglect

- Kids are at the highest risk for delinquency

Teacher-Child Relationship

- Teacher-student relationship is very attachment-like, influences relationship with our teacher

- In elementary, we mostly have one teacher for all subjects in Canada

- If big things don't happen (eg, abuse), attachment tends to be stable

Teacher-Child Relationship: Close

- Overall, we tend to find that students who have a secure attachment with their parents have a close relationship with their teachers

- They enjoy going to school

Teacher-Child Relationship: Conflicted

- Avoidant attachment child tend to have a conflicted teacher child relationship

- Very antagonistic

- Tend to point out teacher's problems

- May have heated arguments in class

- Don't feel happy in school

- Feel angry and frustrated in school

- Hate going to school

Teacher-Child Relationship: Dependent

- Anxious attachment to parents

- Possessive of their teacher

- Want to sit close to their teacher

- Feel jealous when teachers pay attention to other students

- Try to make friends with their teacher since they have a hard time making friends with their classmates

- Emotionally vulnerable

- Likes school only when it goes their way

Peers and Friends

- Much more important at this age

- Start to develop differences between peer and friends

- Gradually more influence

- Friends don't need to be chronically the same age as you, but need to be in the same life stage as you, as long as either don't have power over each other

- Peers are people who have the same status as you

-> Eg: classmates

- Friends are people whom you associate with, have mutual affection, desire to affiliate with, think positively about each other and look forward to seeing each other the next time you see them

Friendship Development: Age 5

Declare that you are friends based on similarities

- Eg: both names start with the same letters so you must be friends, same favourite colour

- Not that deep

Friendship Development: Age 8

- Want similarities that are deeper

- Want to be friends with someone who has the same interests, favourites and hobbies as you, not just similar names

- Starting to recognise personality factors that matter to you

Friendship development: Age 10

- Cooperation, social skills

- You don't wanna hang out with someone who just likes video games, you wanna be friends with someone who also doesn't lose a video game

- More selective

- Like to be around people who have social confidence

- People who don't have social confidence get left behind

Girls

- Focus on "best friends"

- Dyadic play

- Tend to be in smaller groups

- Hierarchical

-> Have a rigid hierarchy

- Jealousy

-> Girls are more likely to be jealous if someone moves up the hierarchy

- Intimate disclosure

-> Just want to talk all the time

-> Have verbal exchanges

->Enjoy video calls

-> More eye contact

- Differ from boys quite a lot

Boys

- Large groups

- Less likely to be in triads

- Groups are less rigid and exclusive

- Likely to do more outdoor stuff

- If someone new shows up, it is less likely to revoke jealousy

- Less intimacy, trust and disclosure

- More cooperation, altruism

-> Boys are more likely to reach out and invite someone

- Adaptive in middle childhood

- Don't like eye contact

- Later this may change

-> Boys become more rigid later on

-> Sport and fraternities

Mixed Gender

- Not common in middle childhood but it exists

Friends with the same and other gender

- Linked to positively social skills

- Liked by everyone

- Shows you're doing okay

Friends with only other gender

- Linked to lower social skills

- Rejected by same-gender peers

- Gender non-conformity

- Higher risk for anxiety, depression and loneliness

- Worried about getting bullied as they move into adolescence

Outcomes of Friendship

Security and social support

- Stress management

Social problem-solving skills:

- Having a friend teaches us problem-solving skills

- Conflict resolution

- Friend conflict is essential for development, friends with no problems aren't likely to be close

- Peer status

-> Having friends in school increases status (how the school and overall classroom views you)

School Achievement:

- Motivation and confidence

- Kids who have friends do better in school since they are more motivated to go to school since they are surrounded by support

Frenemies

Conflicted, unsupportive friendships

- Sometimes friends are negative

- Insecurely attached

-> Anxious and insecure attachment

- Possessive and controlling of their friends

- Controlling parents

-> When a child grows up with a helicopter parent, it makes them think that it's okay to boss their friends around

- Stress and self-esteem

-> may have poorer self-esteem

- Don't have the emotional regulation skills that they need

- Less school engagement

- More disruptive at school

Physical Aggressive

- Over control, over dominance

- Physical damage

- Intimidation

- Verbal threats

- We see that some kids are atypically aggressive

- Most of us are not physically aggressive at this time

- Kids that are more physically aggressive than average do this to take control over things

- Lack of coping and social skills

- Makes them feel more dominant

Predictors of Aggression

- Tend to be kids with strict and authoritarian parents

- Tend to have a high level of activity and low mood

- Poor communication skills

- Don't have perspective-taking empathy skills

- Poor coping strategy

Outcomes of Aggression

- More likely to get rejected from your peers, leads to not liking school and academic problems

- More at risk for heart attacks

- Higher risk for delinquency and crime

- Anger Management

Social Aggression

- Peaks during adolescence

- Don't use fists

- Withhold friendships

- Spread rumours

- Exclusion

- Jealousy

- Girls are more likely to do this than boys

- Tend to expect a knife in their back

- They're always on edge, believe that their life is on a reality show

Shyness

Behaviours:

- Moving away

- Shy kids bring their stress inwards

- Social withdrawal

- More likely to withdraw from friends

- More likely to sit alone in class

- Less likely to speak

- Reticence

- Social awkwardness

-> When they engage in social interactions, they tend to be awkward since they lack practice

Predictors:

- Anxiety and nervousness

- Helicopter parenting

- Maternal self-talk: mothers say their stress out loud and then you internalise it

Outcomes:

- Low self-esteem

- Low self-efficacy

- Low confidence

- Less likely to form friends

- Lower quality friendships

- Lack of disclosure and bonding

- Don't believe their capable fo things

- We're worried about shy kids being lonely

- When two shy kids are friends, they have a crappy friendship because they have no intimate disclosure and vulnerability

Prosocial

Behaviours:

- Moving with

- Assertiveness

-> Can communicate their feelings

- Helping behaviours

-> More likely to help people

- Cooperation

- High in social confidence

Predictors:

- Good emotional regulation skills

- Positive self-esteem

- More likely to have authoritative democratic parents

Outcomes:

- High quality friendships

-> More friends

- Higher achievement

- Better relationships

- Less risk-taking behaviours

Emotional Development

Self-esteem

- Takes a nosedive

- They start to rate themselves as 3/5 because we make big jumps in theory of mind and social comparisons

5-6 years

- Social comparisons

- Able to make social comparisons to see who does better and worse

- Objectively understand the are not the best at everything

- We're worried about those who say they are the worst at everything

7-11 years:

- Social, academic, athletic

- As long as one of these domains is going good for you, you tend to have good self-esteem

- Kids start to identify these area and are resilient if one domain is going well

- Those who do not do well in any of those domains are more at risk for low self-esteem

Social Emotional Learning

Used to be called emotional intelligence

Five domains:

- Self-awareness

- Self-regulation

- Social awareness

- Relationship skills

- Responsible decision making

Self awareness

Emotion labeling

- Can you label your emotions and understand what you are feeling

Emotional communication

- Being able to explain to people one's emotions and communicate your needs

Aware of strengths and weaknesses

- Social comparison part: do you know what you're good at and what you need support with?

Introspection:

- Looking into yourself

Identity and self:

- Creating a sense of identity and self

- Not all kids naturally develop these skills, so many need training

Self-regulation

Delayed gratification

- Waiting for things to happen, and talk about the benefits of this

Emotional control

- Less reliant on our parents to help regulate us

Coping

- Distraction

- Support seeking

- Cognitive reframing

- Think about something in a new way

- Start to problem solve and think rationally

Hypothetical question: imagine you're getting your things and you see your friend and you wave but they don't respond back and they actually push you and walk away. What would you assume happened?

- Those who are more aggressive will assume that it was an act of aggression

- Those who are more shy will think they did something wrong

-Cognitive reframing: may rationalize it (they got bad news, have a bad day, didn't see them)

Growth mindset

Fixed mindset: my skills at this thing will always be the same

Growth mindset: adaptive, I may not be good at this yet but if I try and put in effort maybe I can get better, this also improves neural health

- Starts to get this in mid childhood, but it is life long

Social awareness

Autonomy:

- Age-appropraite changes as we grow older: ex. being able to walk to your playground by yourself - problem solve and think of risk assessment

Contextual cues:

- Understanding if there is danger, if they should be calm or more excited

- Neurodivergent kids may struggle with this

Cultural cues:

- When I travel, things work differently

Group conformity:

- Fit in by matching

Perspective taking:

- Get good at this

- Observe other people and understand social needs of a particular context, what is appropriate and when it's appropriate

Relationship Skills

Prosocial skills:

- To make friends

Winning and losing:

- Kids get the competency to be good winners and losers

- Kids under the age of 5 aren't able to be good losers

- Start to develop this in middle childhood

Cooperation:

- Skills that will make someone want to be your friend

- If you don't have these, you are at risk of being excluded

Communication:

- Skills that will make someone want to be your friend

- If you don't have these, you are at risk of being excluded

Assertiveness

- Skills that will make someone want to be your friend

- If you don't have these, you are at risk of being excluded

Altruism:

- Skills that will make someone want to be your friend - if you don't have these, you are at risk of being excluded

Responsible decision making

Planning

- More cognitive because it involves planning

Studying

Goal-orientated behaviour:

- Those with this tend to pursue their goals

Safety and risk assessment:

- Assess safety more frequently

Focus and task completion:

- Attention span: usually 20 mins

- Those who are high in this tend to not be on the ADHD spectrum as severely, have good attention spans, good moods

Gender and sexuality in middle childhood

- Understanding of nuances

- Less critical of other children

- Understand there are exceptions to the rules

- The majority play with the same gender

- Majority will prefer gender-typed play and neural activities

School and gender

- Teachers reinforce stereotypes

- Praise girls for being quiet

- Their temperament usually allows them to sit still and not fidget - so girls tend to be praised for being themselves and boys disciplined for their natural temperament

- Discipline boys for being disruptive

- Girls vs boys teams

-> Heightens the awareness of gender

Gender consistency

Age 7:

- Gender identity stage 3

- Stage 1 label gender; stage 2 learn it is stable; stage 3 gender consistency

Gender doesn't change based on:

- Situation

- Clothes

- Haircut

There is more to gender than just what is on the surface

Gender restriction

Boxing in

Unrealistic expectations for your gender:

- Body image/type

- Emotions

- Personality

- Feel like you can't be your full self un;ess you fit in that box

- Girls: unrealistic body expectations, submissive emotions, agreeable personality

- Boys: muscled body, limited emotional expressions, leadership personality

- These expectations can be exhausting

Teasing, exclusion:

- You find out that when you don't exactly fit these roles or are not as gender conforming, you may get teased

Low self-esteem:

- Those with gender non-conforming may have lower self-esteem

Gender Dysphoria

- 10% feel this

- Extreme discomfort from an early age

- Typically continues in childhood

- May transition to more gender conformity

- You can experience this even if not trans of non-binary

- May proceed a transgender identity

-> Only 10% of the 10% will gp in to change their gender identity

-> Extreme discomfort about your gender role - your whole gender identity

- Experienced equally in boys and girls

- More negative for those labelled boys at birth

- Moving away from masculinity and toward femininity is often punished in our society, we have an inherently misogynistic culture in North America

Sexual Identity

Crushes:

- Emotional attachment to crushes - puppy love, not sexual, mostly emotional/mental

Attention and admiration:

- May start looking at them more - you're not sure why you want to look at them more, you may start to want to sit beside them

Status and affiliation:

- Status of having a bf/gf is so exciting, and the affiliation of sitting beside them is exciting - special friendship and companionship

- Start to see if those who may be queer as well: may start to look more at those of the same gender

Companionship

Physical Development

Fine motor:

- Writing, drawing, crafts

- Can start to learn to knit or crochet, needle craft

- Fidget spinners

- Teaching typing in possible

Gross motor:

- Coordination

- Balance

- Improvement

- Age 10: can start to do racket sports with some proficiency

Development:

- Eyes

- First wave: huge spike in the use of corrective lenses/glasses around age 8

Teeth:

- Lose a lot of baby teeth: age 6 - lose front ones

- May get braces/spacers etc

Youth Sports

- Beneficial for everyone, not necessarily about weight management, but super helpful for coordination

- Coordination

- Balance

- Muscle development

- bine density

- Hormones

-> Endorphins that make them happier

- Mood

-> Good for mental health

- Teamwork

- Problem solving

Adrenarche

- Pre-pubertal growth spurt

- First spurt of puberty: giant growth spurt and put on lots of fat - two years before menstrual cycle

- Up to 2 years before "the big event"

- Increase appetite

- Healthy fat hain

- Hips and shoulders

- Long limbs

- Start getting gangly

- Acne and oils

- Get smelly - has to do with adrenal glands

- Girls will hit this about a year before boys

Gender Development (Early childhood)

4 years

- Extensive knowledge

- Activities & Traits

- Rules of a game

- Power segregation

- Gender segregation can be associated with power:understand that some genders have not just different duties but different privileges

- We start to assimilate all of the info we get culturally and socially about gender- we start to identify gender like a game- we overregularize the rules of gender

Peers & Gender (Early Childhood)

- More exposure to peers in early childhood

- We see gender as pretty rigid in early childhood

Gender police

- They enforce heteronormative gender roles if they were taught that

- If you are exposed to other types of gender roles (eg: non-binary), then you will start to incorporate that earlier

- Preference for gender stereotyped toys

- Preference for same-gender playmates

Media and Gender (Early Childhood)

Modeling:

- TV, internet, music

Consumerism:

- Children's clothing

- Toys and Meals

- Shampoo, pencils

- Colors

- All of these were boy and girl coded

- This is getting less extreme than early 2000s where everything had to be gender coded, but still influences us

Gender Stability (Early Childhood)

- In infancy, had first step gender labelling, but at age 4, we have gender stability

- Age 4

- Gender identity stage 2

- Gender is stable

- Boys become men

- Girls become women