Emotional Development In Middle School

Middle Childhood: Social, Emotional, and Moral Development

Introduction

Middle childhood, often referred to as the latency period, spans approximately from 6 to 12 years old. It is characterized by significant cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development. This phase is crucial in human development because it lays the foundation for later development.

Cognitive Development

Middle childhood involves substantial cognitive advancements, influencing social interactions and dynamics. These cognitive abilities significantly impact social interactions, emotional regulation, and moral reasoning.

Social Development

During middle childhood, peer relationships, sometimes known as "gang" years, gain importance, emphasizing social interactions and conformity. These interactions, affect socio-emotional and moral development.

Emotional Development

Emotional regulation and awareness develop, forming a foundation for personal values and social interactions. Emotional understanding is intricately tied to physical, cognitive, and social changes during this stage.

Brain Development

Brain development is a key factor supporting cognitive understandings. For example, physical well-being intricately impacts emotional and social development. Furthermore, physical coordination and energy levels affect children's social activities and cognitive engagement. Good health is linked to the quality of social interactions and relationships.

Social Interaction

Reciprocal relationships facilitate engagement in cooperative play and collaborative problem-solving, demonstrating enhanced moral reasoning. The child learns and adopts societal norms and expectations, building confidence through these interactions.

Emotional Role in Social and Personal Development

Emotions play an important role in social and personal development. Continual emotional disturbance can negatively affect both personal growth and social adaptation. Drawing from research, emotions guide behavior and are shaped by experiences.

According to Woodworth, emotion can be viewed as a moved or stirred-up state of an organism. Similarly, Scherer (1993) defines emotion as an episodic, relatively short-term, synchronized, yet patterned reaction to an internal or external event of major significance for the organism.

Emotions involve several components:

• Cognitive perception
• Physiological, biological support
• Motivational components involving temporary planning
• Motor expression
• Subjective feeling

Social Development via Emotions

Emotions significantly influence social development, aiding in the infant's ability to organize experiences, values, and understanding, which is crucial for complex development and social adjustment. Emotions also play a role in shaping communication through expressions like smiles and laughter, which reinforce social interaction and contextualization.

During this phase, children navigate various social contexts, enhancing their ability to control emotional responses and to communicate effectively their emotional needs and desires.

Cognitive regulation may control expressions of emotions to fit social contexts, influencing individualistic responses and enhancing emotional intelligence, that enables them to understand appropriateness of emotional expression.

Theories of Emotion

Several theories explain the relationship between emotions, the body, and behavior:

James-Lange Theory

This theory posits that emotion is equivalent to the range of physiological responses associated with situations, interpreting our innate disposition to determine emotional behavior. Physiological changes directly follow the perception of a stimulus, with the feeling of these changes being the emotion.

Cannon's Critique of the James-Lange Theory

Cannon critiqued the James-Lange theory, arguing that animals display emotional characteristics even when bodily responses are inhibited. His experiments involved cutting sympathetic nerves in cats, and showed, animals still displayed emotional reactions like anger.

Cannon concluded that bodily changes alone are insufficient for emotional experience.

Emotional Development in Middle Childhood

During middle childhood, cognitive skills become important for emotional development, including forming cognitive states to explain emotions.

Understanding and Expressing Emotion

Around 6-8 years, children develop an understanding of the distinction between feeling an emotion and expressing it. They begin to experience emotions intensely but learn to moderate their external displays, internalizing them in a manner similar to internal or private speech.

Significance of Emotional Communication

Emotional communication is significant as it allows children to internally represent and navigate complex emotional landscapes. For example, experiencing challenges in regulating negative emotions may be linked to academic performance.

Coping Strategies

Middle childhood involves applying coping strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal. This strategy involves cognitively changing how one thinks about a situation to manage emotional responses. During this stage, children actively change their views about situations, influenced by cognitive development and a broader range of social experiences.

Emotional Development Milestones (7-11 years)

During this period, children show advancements in self-conscious emotions and awareness of their behavior, engaging in emotional self-regulation and emotional control.

Attachment

Attachment evolves to incorporate acceptance and conscious understanding of emotional display rules, further refining emotional competence and pro-social behaviors.

Empathy

Empathy becomes more evident as children understand and share the emotions of others.

Emotional Understanding

Children can recognize complex causes behind expressed emotions, displaying emotional awareness.

Emotional Cues

Children learn to pick up on emotional cues, discussing them and clearing up emotional ambiguity, differentiating between emotional expression (especially through body language).

Factors Influencing Emotional Development

Temperament and Individual Differences

Children may vary significantly in how easily they adapt, reflecting unique blends of temperament and emotional reactivity. An easy child demonstrates a unique blend of temperament and emotional regulation. For instance, slow-to-warm-up children may exhibit excessive shyness and constricted behaviors in later years.

Cognitive Development

Advancements in cognitive abilities facilitate strategies to modify emotional reactivity.

Social Factors

Shy or inhibited children may display anxious behaviors that discourage interaction.

Attachment Theories

Psychoanalytic and ethological theories emphasize the importance of healthy attachment relationships. Attachment quality, formed at key ages, promotes various aptitudes like confidence, self-concept, emotional understanding, emotional regulation, favorable peer relationships, internalization of morality, and high motivation to achieve.

Understanding emotions and developing social relationships depend on defining friendships and navigating socio-economic contexts. A supportive family environment contributes significantly to emotional well-being.

Exposure to media content influences emotional development, shaped by individual differences involving temperament and personality, which play key roles in emotional outcomes.