Task 1. D1&D2: At the age of four, children should be starting to gain confidence in their social development as they start to make friends and play with other children through nursery or day care. They are starting to explore friendships and new ways of playing; ‘Four-year-olds can usually play happily with other children. Your child is learning to understand about the feelings and needs of others’ – (http://www. markedbyteachers. com).
Children may be openly affectionate to the people they feel close to – friends, family and careers, being able to communicate with others more effectively then before is a huge step in social development, understanding knew words and meanings which means they can have conversations understanding what is being said and what they are talking about to a certain extent, this is great for making and understanding jokes from children of their age, and having age appropriate conversations and games with peers ‘Most children will:…play with other children, mostly pretend play. ’ – (pg. 43, Tassoni, 2007).
Children may be learning to help and want to please adults by contributing to what someone may be doing for example if a mother is hovering a child may ask to help or have a turn on the hoover, the child may be given tasks to contribute to the hovering like picking up little objects, lifting feet and moving things. As children at this age often crave adult approval and encouragement in what they are doing. At the age of five years old, after most children have been at nursery or day care, children understand how to be social, acceptable social behaviors, they have an understanding of others – emotions, behaviour and social expectancies.
Children are often willing to ‘start playing cooperatively with others, take turns and share’ – (http://www. aboutkidshealth. ca). Some children may start to develop close friendships but often start to play with children of their own genders which could help towards their understanding of gender roles ‘They come in contact with different ideas and ways of behaving at school and also have to fit in to a whole new system or rules that might be very different to those at home’ – (http://www. cyh. om), they become more independent and in control of their behaviour so leading to fewer tantrums because they should become a little more aware of what kind of behaviour is acceptable and what is not. Children may be very keen to show others of their achievements, showing pride in what they’ve done and wanting praise and encouragement from familiar adults. In turn they may be starting to follow and understand rules and how to be fair ‘However expect at times that it may be too much to cope with, and they may cheat or get upset or not want to play. – (http://www. cyh. com). They are starting to grasp the basics of what is expected as proper behaviour in the social world. Task 2. D3, D4, B2&A1: One method of observing and recording the social development of children aged 5 years is structured recording ‘which involves looking for particular skills or behaviour that children show’ – (CACHE, Tassoni, 2007.
Page:53) this can be done with check lists, one advantage of this is how quick and easy it is to carry out the observation with the checklist, where as one disadvantage is that it is mainly focused on only the skills shown on the check list therefore skills that aren’t written down can be easily recorded. Observations can be used to support the development of children, by being able to study and record how children are learning through play practitioners can gain a view into what activities to promote more often in order to aid their learning and development. This means considering how children use materials or play and then working out what their next steps might be. ’ – (CACHE, Tassoni, 2007. Pg. 52) carrying out observations on children will help practitioners find out more about children as individuals, this can be used to spot early signs of anything to be raised concerns of, patterns of routine and Observations can be used to track progress and patterns of development or if a child is lacking in development, recognizing children’s individual needs.
It is important to understand the pattern of child development in children from birth to 16 years because these are the years children learn the personal skills to set them up for the rest of their lives, they learn the basics on everything; physical, Intellectual, language, emotional and social skills that are set as a foundation of human learning, being able to develop on these aspects as well and learn and master new skills throughout life. Understanding the pattern of development allows adults to recognize where a child is in terms f its development, adults can recognize when a child is on track, ahead or far behind on its development, therefore this can be dealt with early or be recognized that maybe that child has an issue with an area of development or may have a learning/mental disability e. g. Dyslexia or Asperger’s ‘Being aware of, and fully understanding these patterns and the implications of possible variations allows practitioners to recognise early on if there may be a problem. ’ – (http://www. blurtit. com).
By understanding the pattern of development adults can recognize what activities may or may not be appropriate for the child, what they need to help with a certain area, what may stimulate their learning to full potential, therefore catering to children’s individual needs, ensuring practitioners are doing everything in their power for children to learn and not fall behind. No two children develop at exactly the same rate, every child is different and learns at their own rate in their own preferred way or learning.
Task 3. D5: A child’s social development may be influenced by negative and positive events that happen in their lives as children such as the child’s personal life and family; Bereavement, new members to families, new partners of parents and familiar adults, births and divorce. Also age is a big factor in children’s lives, and very much in their social development, as babies there’s only so much social interaction but as children go into childcare e. g. nurseries, child minders.
They get it interact with children of their age, then into schools and clubs these can be great for children to socialize with others maybe from different backgrounds or people they wouldn’t normally interact with. As children become teenagers and young adults, it is common for them to become socially awkward, change friendship groups or create a wider range of friends, they start feeling differently about the opposite sex with hormone changes and puberty.
Changes to friendships like fall outs can seem like the end of the world to children and adolescents, although it may seem minor to adults, this can have a big impact on children, their moods and behaviours, it may even impact on school work. If I child is bullied at school, this can have a huge impact on home, school, personal and social life. If children are scared at school they will be less able to focus on school work, as a long term problem this can damage children’s learning throughout education.
A positive influence that may affect a child’s social could be making new friends, for example if a child makes friends with a certain social group at school who are ‘popular’ this may affect a child’s confidence in talking to new people, gaining new friends throughout the social group and expanding friendships. This can have a good effect on a child who may have previously had issues making friends or trying to approach people in order to make friends.
Task 4. D6: Snack and meal times can support the social development of children, this may be through serving food or preparing, children may like to help other children with pouring drinks or with preparing food, they can show them and talk them through it or try to help each other out by figuring it out together, allowing children to pour their own milk and watcher in settings.
They may interact with other children by offering food, sharing what they have if the other child is allowed, asking questions about each other’s meal or pack up. Before meal or snack practitioners may choose two or three children to help hand out cutlery, plates, cups and placemats. Then when children are eating they are able to communicate with other children as well as observe how other children behave at the table, they pick up different manners and behaviour’s, what is accept able in that social situation. Task 5. C1&B1:
Divorce or parents splitting can be very stressful for a child to go through especially if this is not explained properly to a child, they can feel to blame for the break up; a child may feel their behaviour has led to parents leaving and not wanting to be together any more, when left unexplained it is understandable for children to feel sad and upset, abandoned or even un loved. Children may be different in their behaviour, changes in moods and unusual behaviour such as lashing out at people becoming aggressive, being uite/not talking, changes in eating habits, the could display ‘naughty’ behaviour as a way of trying to get attention or a cry for help from confusion or upset during events. Children old enough, may even feel bereaved due to losing a parent or carer temporarily or long term. It is important children are spoken to honestly and appropriately to age but events such as these should be explained carefully to children and young adults.
Social development may also be affected by changes in a child’s physical environment such as, moving homes, changes to homes, after divorces there may be a second home of a parent, someone coming to live in the family home, something happening to family home e. g. flood/fire ect. And the transition to new places in their lives. Children will have to face the certainty of moving schools eventually whether it’s for personal reasons like moving home or through the necessity of moving on through the school years, to some children this may be new and exciting but to others this transition can be scary, stressful and daunting.
When a child is starting a new school this means new people. Children will be faced with meeting new teachers which comes with new learning and lessons, along with plenty of new children, if moving in to a bigger school it is likely there won’t be many of the child’s original friend in his or her class. Many schools offer transition days for children to come in for a day with others who will be joining and experience a day of what to expect when they start at that school, to see who will be in their classes and with which teachers.
They may also offer team building exercises for students from different schools to start to get to know each other and start building friendships. Also personal development may be effected through starting a new school or similar situations as a child may not have the courage or confidence to try and form a new social group, they may feel like an outsider to a whole new world they are entering, affecting their emotional development as they may feel sad and lonely because they have left their old friends behind.
During transitions in a child’s life practitioners can offer help and support for the child and families. For example when a child is going to move up into a different school, settings can work with the future school by arranging meetings to discuss the child, their learning styles and any information practitioners think needs to be known. Some settings take the children moving up into the school for a tester day to get children prepared to move up, but whilst they are with familiar faces to make the children feel comfortable.
When a child is moving house in a nursery setting for example, it is a good idea for the key worker to discuss this with the child’s key worker so the child can be told and reminded at home as well as in nursery so the child is always prepared for this transition. Staff may have a theme of moving house through some activities to make the child feel comfortable with the idea of discussing and letting others know about this big change.
Close staff members may work with families for support in circumstances of new people in the child’s house hold like a new partner or maybe a baby brother or sister on the way. Task 6. A*: Everyday care routines are important in early years group settings, when a child has a steady everyday routine they tend to feel more and more comfortable as they get into routines of what they are doing day-to-day.
They are likely to be better behaved in routine, which provides a good foundation for children to learn in their setting, while children know exactly what is going to happen in their day, they can spend less time wondering or worrying and spend their time on learning and having fun. This is good for their development as they feel secure in the familiar routine, comfortable to learn to their best abilities and enjoy activities set out for the children.
When children are in everyday care routines like knowing or learning hygiene, they learn the importance of these routines and why it is necessary to do so, for example setting having care routines in pictures in places such as the bathroom, this can serve as a little reminder to children such as washing hands after the bathroom, how we wash our hands, pictures that are easy to understand are great for most age ranges and will be easy to remember as the colours and pictures stay in their memories.
Through encouraging children to remember their own care routines, practitioners are supporting children’s independence to their best abilities, helping towards developing on their personal, social and emotional development as children have the confidence in what they are doing and as other children will be doing the same, children learn that this is what is socially the norm for now and the rest of their lives. Bibliography: * http://www. markedbyteachers. com/gcse/health-and-social-care/describe-the-expected-stage-of-social-development-of-children-aged-4-years. tml * CACHE, LEVEL 2, Childcare and Education, Penny Tassoni, 2007. * http://www. aboutkidshealth. ca/En/HealthAZ/DevelopmentalStages/SchoolAgeChildren/Pages/Social-and-Emotional-Development. aspx * http://www. cyh. com/ * http://www. experts123. com/q/how-can-snack-and-mealtimes-support-childrens-social-development. html * Children’s Care, Learning and Development Candidate Handbook By Penny Tassoni, Kath Bulman, 2005 * http://www. blurtit. com/
