Middle Childhood Notes

Middle Childhood (7-12 years)

Setting the Context

• Middle childhood spans from 7 to 12 years.
• Piaget's Theory: Logical thinking emerges around age 7 or 8, enabling children to reason conceptually about concrete objects, but not in a scientific abstract manner.
• Erikson's Theory: The psychosocial crisis during this stage is industry versus inferiority, where children strive to meet adult expectations and work towards desired goals.

Physical Development

Brain Development

• Frontal lobes grow slowly and steadily, driving advancements in middle childhood achievements.
• Cerebral Cortex: Continuous development enhances cognitive functions.
• Myelin Sheath: The insulation around nerve fibers improves, speeding up neural transmission.
• Synaptogenesis: The formation of new synapses supports learning and adaptation.
• Neurons in visual and motor cortices refine, improving motor skills and visual processing.

Motor Skills and Health

• Motor skills expand, but contemporary elementary school children are often less physically proficient compared to previous generations.
• Significant individual differences in motor skills are observed throughout childhood.
• The correlation between physical coordination and fitness tends to decrease during the teenage years.
• Childhood activity levels are related to caregiver activity levels.
• Physically active preschoolers tend to exhibit better working memory skills.

Obesity and Health

• Lifelong weight struggles are often associated with a high body mass index (BMI) in preschool years.
• Obesity Definition: BMI at or above the 95th percentile.
• Obesity is related to negative emotional effects on children.

Facts About Child Obesity

Several statements about child obesity are often debated:

• Myth: Children become obese solely due to excessive eating and lack of exercise.
• Myth: Parents are entirely responsible for child obesity due to overfeeding.
• Fact: Childhood obesity rates have been increasing, although there are recent signs of decline in the youngest age groups.
• Myth: School-based anti-obesity programs that measure BMI and inform families are consistently effective.
• Fact: Obese children are more prone to bullying and may experience psychological problems.

Trends in US Obesity Rates

• Overall obesity rates continue to rise.
• Obesity rates are beginning to decline for the youngest age group, but remain unacceptably high.

Cognitive Development

Memory: An Information-Processing Perspective

• Intellectual growth is viewed through an information-processing lens.
• Information is processed via working memory, which includes a growing memory bin and a maturing executive processor.
• Development of concrete operations and theory-of-mind capacities influences cognitive abilities.
• School-related executive functions become more refined.
• Information rehearsal increases, aiding memory retention.
• The ability to understand and selectively attend to relevant information improves.
• Inhibition skills develop, becoming a continual socialization goal.

Using Information-Processing Theory

• Younger Children:
  • Use prompts to aid memory.
  • Expect difficulty in inhibiting impulsivity.
  • Encourage physical activity and collaborative play.
• Middle Childhood:
  • Teach study skills and selective attention strategies.
  • Include scaffolding organizational strategies for school and life.
  • Expect difficulty in multitasking.
  • Reduce distractions to improve focus.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

• ADHD is the most widely diagnosed childhood disorder in the United States.
• Diagnosis typically occurs in elementary school, with higher prevalence among boys.
• Executive Function Deficits: Involve issues with working memory, inhibition, impulsivity, selective attention, and task completion under pressure.
• Primarily Genetic Causes: ADHD has strong genetic components.
• Delayed maturation of frontal lobes or lower brain center impairment can contribute to ADHD.
• Lower dopamine output may be a factor.
• ADHD can partly stem from a poor child–environment fit.

Helping Children with ADHD

• Psycho-stimulant medications can help manage symptoms.
• Parent training provides strategies for managing behavior.
• White background noise can reduce distractions.
• Exercise can improve focus and reduce hyperactivity.

Emotional Development

Emotion Regulation

• Emotion regulation involves skills for controlling feelings.
• Tendencies and self-esteem distortions influence emotional responses.
  • Externalizing Tendencies: Denying reality.
  • Internalizing Tendencies: Learned helplessness.

Self-Awareness

• Self-esteem becomes a significant issue during middle childhood as children develop a tendency to feel good or bad about themselves.
• Harter’s Five Areas Related to Self-Esteem:
  • Scholastic competence
  • Behavioral conduct
  • Athletic skills
  • Peer likeability
  • Physical appearance

Self-Esteem Distortions

• Externalizing Problems: Children act out emotions, are impulsive, and may be aggressive; they may ignore real problems and have unrealistically high self-esteem, leading to continued failure due to a lack of perceived need for improvement.
• Internalizing Problems: Children are intensely fearful and anxious; they may interpret failure in everything and have overly low self-esteem, causing them to give up and stop working towards success.

Identifying Self-Esteem Distortions

• Externalizing Issues:
  • Denial of responsibility for poor performance.
  • Belief in invulnerability to physical risks.
  • Blaming others for relationship issues.
  • Overestimation of physical appearance.
  • Entitlement to disregard rules.
• Internalizing Issues:
  • Feelings of stupidity and inability to succeed academically.
  • Belief in lack of physical skills and willpower.
  • Feelings of inadequacy in relationships.
  • Negative self-perception of physical appearance.
  • Belief in inability to change negative behaviors.

Promoting Realistic Self-Esteem

• Enhancing self-efficacy by helping children believe in their ability to succeed.
• Emphasizing effort over innate ability.
• Helping children set realistic goals.
• Providing honest, compassionate feedback.
• Offering explicit opportunities for success.
• Creating an efficacy-enhancing environment.
• Providing information about concrete skills needed for success.

Morality

• Variations exist in the ability to be ethical and kind.
• Gender differences may exist in sensitivity to others’ emotional pain and prosocial behavior.
• Girls may be more attuned physiologically to distress in others.
• Boys may express prosocial behaviors differently.

Prosocial Behavior

• Sharing, helping, and caring actions.
• Empathy: Directly feeling someone’s emotion.
• Sympathy: Feeling for another person.
• Emotion-regulation skills support prosocial behavior.

Moral Considerations

• Moral considerations can influence whether prosocial acts are performed.
• Merit vs. Need: Balancing deservingness with requirements.
• Fairness and Friendship: Navigating loyalty and impartiality.
• Moral Disengagement: Rationalizing selective caregiving.

Socializing Moral Children

• Stimulate theory of mind.
• Use induction (inductive discipline).
• Adopt a mind-minded caregiving/parenting style.
• Remain alert to children’s feelings/emotions.

Guilt and Prosocial Acts

• Children must have theory of mind and the capacity to empathize with another person’s distress.
• Producing Prosocial Children:
  • Praise generous behavior and label caring actions.
  • Identify feelings and moral issues when a child hurts another (induction).
  • Avoid teasing and shaming.
  • Model tolerance and moral principles.
  • Encourage empathy for all those who suffer.

Aggression

• Any hostile or destructive act.
• Types of Aggression:
  • Proactive: Deliberate harm.
  • Reactive: Impulsive response.
• Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: Frustration leads to aggression.
• Forms of Aggression:
  • Direct: Physical or verbal harm.
  • Relational: Damaging relationships.

Pathway to Problematic Aggression

• Step 1: A toddler’s exuberant or difficult temperament evokes harsh discipline, such as power assertion/shaming.
• Step 2: The child is rejected by teachers and peers in school, leading to poor school performance, compounding the tendency to lash out.
• Result: A hostile worldview.
• Reactive-aggressive children may exhibit hostile attributional bias, interpreting social situations negatively.

Taming Excessive Aggression

• Avoid punitive, shaming discipline.
• Encourage socialization of prosocial behavior.
• Understand that early acting-out, risk-taking behavior may be predictive of adult competence in the right person–environment fit.

Social Development

Friendships

• Friendships are vital during middle childhood.
• Friendships help protect and enhance the developing self.
• Friendships teach emotional management and conflict management skills.
• Reciprocated friendships promote well-being.

Popularity

• Differs from friendship; involves competition to rise in peer ranks.
• May be enhanced by relational aggression.
• Fades when social circles are selected.
• Categories:
  • Popular children
  • Average children
  • Rejected children

Decoding Popularity

• Elementary School: Friendly, outgoing, prosocial, kind.
• As Early as Third Grade: High levels of relational aggression may contribute to popularity (in the U.S.).

Rejection

• Occurs when children are disliked due to externalizing or internalizing problems or differences.
• Occurs when children do not fit in with the dominant group.
• Bidirectional process.
• Later Life:
  • Unpopular, friendless children may suffer later-life emotional problems.
  • Rejected, different children may excel as adults or older children.

Bullying

• Bullying involves one or more children (or adults) harassing or targeting a specific child for systematic abuse.
• Bully-Victims: Exceptionally aggressive children (with externalizing disorders) who repeatedly bully and get victimized.
• Cyberbullying: Systematic harassment conducted through electronic media.
• Bystander Behavior: Applauding or passively watching as someone is being victimized, thus encouraging a bully’s behavior.

Abandoning the Bystander Role

• What provokes the courage to abandon the bystander role?
• Personal attributes and wider context of life.
• Moral Distress: Recognition of the wrongfulness of bullying.
• Belief that bullying is wrong.
• No prioritization of being popular.
• Bullying prevention programs are not always effective.