Getting Along with Other Children

Over the course of your child’s lifetime, his relationships with other people will be a major factor in his emotional well being- as central to his happiness, probably, as good food and exercise are to his physical health. Yet babies do not come endowed at birth with the civilized spirit. It takes a few turbulent years, and usually more than a few tears, for the social skills to develop and mature.

            The socializing process actually begins in infancy with the loving give and take between the parents and the child, a model for future social involvement that occurs long before a child shows any interest in playing with peers. But more specific training in getting along with others- sharing, taking turns, being friendly, considerate, generous and tactful has to be keyed to a youngster’s mental and emotional maturity, before he can control his behavior on his own, a child must be able to remember what is expected of him and to understand how a certain behavior affects himself as well as others.

 These abilities advance at different rates in different children, much as physical growth varies, and parents will experience nothing but frustration and disappointment if they insist on trying to hurry their youngster along before he is ready

Growing pains in your child

The life of an infant is enviably structured; everything is tailored to the child’s personal needs. When she wants a warm bottle, a clean diaper or an undemanding playmate, an attentive parent obliges. With the end of infancy, however, this comfortable patterns changes. No sooner does the child emerge from her parents’ protective cocoon –tentatively walking talking and asserting her independence- than the pressure to conform to the grown up standards of family and society begins.

            Suddenly the toddler is faced with a multitude of new ideas to comprehend and tasks to master. He is urged not to soil his diaper at all, but to recognize the purpose of the potty chair and anticipate his need to use it. Play no longer means grabbing a toy from another’s hands to use or fling away at will; he must learn to share his toys and to consider the feelings of others. And parental praise, in the past so forthcoming, is now lavished or with held on the basis of the child’s actions.

            The fast paced lessons of early childhood, like any process of maturation and change, bring with them predictable bouts of bewilderment and insecurity. A child’s stressful feelings may take many odd forms: stubborn battles at bath time or bedtime, thumb sucking, toileting accidents after months of being trained. All thought you may not immediately link such episodes to your youngster’s development; these behaviors too are a normal- and often necessary- part of growing up.

Happily they are also transitory, usually lasting only as long as it takes for your child to become comfortable at her new level of accomplishment.

Child’s Journey to Emotional Maturity Part.XII

The child’s first ideas about emotions were undistilled collections of everything she knew about a particular feeling. Her own experiences with feeling sad were mixed with everything that she could observe when she sensed that her mother was feeling unhappy. It is only with time and experience that the child learns to distinguish between its own feelings and those of someone else. The same sense of “me” and “you” that helps the child accept limits enables her for the first time, at the age of three or four, to feel empathy or compassionate love. Now, when the child sees her mother sad, she may try to help with a special hug or a handful of flowers.

The preschooler’s awareness of other people’s feelings is part of a growing ability to categorize her experiences. Increasingly she can perceive grown up distinctions between self and other animate and inanimate, right and wrong real and make believe yesterday and today. Once she has grasped the distinction between yesterday and today her first understanding of the concept of time patience will follow, for she now can appreciate the promise of future rewards.

The result of these developments is a set of skills that will be central to the child’s social and emotional adjustment throughout the coming years. These are the skills that will enable her to focus her attention and follow rules in school to distinguish between reality and fantasy in play, to plan a course of action and work toward a future goal in a job, and to consider the feelings and needs of those who share her life. Although her emotional abilities will continue to grow and change well into adulthood, the foundations are firmly laid by kinder garden age.

As you observe your child’s progress, remember that the path will not be entirely linear. There are bound to be some slips, some fits and start. Particularly when your child is learning something new, he may regress in other areas that he has long since mastered. By the age of five, your child will be standing on his own emotionally equipped to march off to school and take his place in world of other people. Like many accomplishments in life, the end of this journey is only a good beginning.

Child’s Journey to Emotional Maturity Part.XI

     Sometime between three and four years old, the child reaches a fifth stage, making dramatic leap in her ability to use ideas.  She begins to experiment with her concepts about emotions and tries to mimic reality in pretend play. Now the bear might receive undivided attention throughout an elaborate reenactment of the child’s own evening routine. There is dinner, a bath, then sympathy and help when the bear has trouble putting on his night clothes. The game might continue with a bedtime story and tender words of love as the bear is tucked into bed. The child has begun to use pretend play as a testing ground for emotional expression, manipulating ideas in search of a cause and effect understanding. In essence, she is connecting emotional ideas in the same easy that grownups do. She has begun to think about feelings in an organized way.

            Now at three or four, the child not only understands that certain actions are wrong, but also experiences feelings of shame arising from her own misbehavior. Even if she only imagines a jealous assault upon a sibling, she may find herself suddenly stricken with pangs of guilt. As she learns the difference between “me” and “you.” She sees that the limits one imposes by her parents are now coming from with. In pretend play she may practice her newfound acceptance of limits by finding cause to discipline one of her dolls. As your child gains experience socially and practices this new skill of self imposed limits, he begins to appreciate shades and nuances of emotion. He discovers that sometimes he has to let the context be his guide in deciding how to express his feelings. Shouting angrily at a playmate is different from shouting at the teacher in nursery school. He also learns that every expression of emotion will produce an emotional reaction in response. If he tells you that the lasagna tastes terrible, your face may look exasperated or hurt. But if he screams out “Mama, I hate you,” your face will very likely look either devastated or mad. When your child was just six months ole he learned that his action could produce a response. Now he sees that his ideas can have the same effect.

Child’s Journey to Emotional Maturity Part.X

To recognize the other stages of this learning process, it helps to focus on your child’s pretend play. A second stage commences at about two years. In play, your child may have her teddy bear ask for a hug, then let a doll embrace the bear in response. In this simple exchange, the child moves beyond using ideas merely to state a demand. Now there is the idea of the teddy bear’s demand plus the idea that the doll fulfills a role in responding to that need. At this stage the child might say ‘daddy, apple juice’ rather than just blurting our “juice, juice.’

At two and half, the child’s play is characterized by a random stream of ideas without concern for the kinds of constraints that adults take for granted. Logic, sequential time, cause and effect- all of these are missing. In the course of 10 minutes, the teddy bear might get in a fight, fall asleep on a lumpy bed of building blocks, fly on a plane one tenth his sixe and try to play a harmonica. Whatever occurs to the child is what happens next. Whatever props are nearby becomes part of the game. In this third level, the child is using a lot of ideas, but the ideas have little apparent connection.

In the fourth level, around the age of three, the child starts to fill in the first of those missing connections. Now the teddy bear may be seated in company at a rather elaborate tea party. The child’s play begins to follow a somewhat more organized theme. Moment to moment details are still decided spontaneously, but there is an underlying plan and a unifying emotional thread that keeps the part on track. The child’s feelings about taking care of her imaginary guest keep the game organized.

Child’s Journey to Emotional Maturity Part.IX

      Some children communicate ideas quite well with gestures before their language skills bloom. At two and half, a child night tug at Mothers blouse and point to the baby, thereby telling her that it is time for baby brother to nurse. Working only with gestures, the child shows concern for the baby.

Another way that your child might first use ideas is through the spatial patterns that he devises when playing with his toys. A child who organizes a long, straight line of toy cars clearly has a preconceived mental picture that gives structure to his game. When the child opens a gate in a wall of blocks and drives car through, she is demonstrating yet another idea.

      As a parent, it is important for you to recognize your child’s ability to deal with abstract concepts, no matter what form of expression that ability takes. Whether he first uses language, gestures, spatial relationships or pretend play to express his ideas, you will want to encourage this development: using ideas to manage feelings is an important milestone on the road to emotional maturity. It is a skill your child must master in order to bring the raw, self centered impulses of his early childhood under control and to learn to live harmoniously with other.

      The capacity to use ideas does not emerge full blown overnight. It develops in stages that you can observe.  In the first stage which typically begins at about 18 months the child will employ ideas simply to communicate something she wants. She may use words to ask for apple juice, gesture for her favorite blanket or tug at your leg for a hug.

Child’s Journey to Emotional Maturity Part.VIII

      Using the new words she is learning, she labels her ideas with names. This allows her to plan more complex actions, combining two or more related ideas. At two and a half, for example, the child spies a favorite toy that is up too high to reach. She Calles out to mother, then points and says” want it” when mother arrives. The child has identifies a need, formed an idea of the solution to that need, combined the idea with her concept of mother, then put her ideas into words. She was, in short, used her mind to solve a problem. When the child tells you she is scared, happy or mad, she is summarizing all that she has felt and observed about those emotion. With experience, her understanding will be greatly refined, but by the simple act of applying the correct label to her feelings, she has acquired a powerful tool for organizing her emotional life.

      The use of language is the most obvious way that a child reveals newfound conceptual abilities. But different children arrive at this stage with different tools as their disposal. Some children first show their use of ideas through fantasies and pretend play. Earlier, the child learned that you draw with a crayon and drink from the cup. Not she makes these objects part of her make believe games. Her toy bear sits with her in front of the coloring book and is allotted a share of the crayons. Later the child offers the bear a sip from her empty cup. She is showing the ability to use ideas. When the child lavishes care or affection on the toy animal, she has evidently abstracted her own need for care and formed an idea about love.