Social/Emotional Development

Observing and Interacting with Families of the Children in your Setting.

I am observing in an early childhood program in the public school.  All the children in the classroom have identified special needs and also have an IEP.  I spoke with one of the parents when they dropped off their child.  Mrs. Wilson has a child with autism and her son is four years old.  I explained to her that I was involved in an advocacy project for the promotion of social/emotional development for young children.  I asked her if she believed that her son was emotionally at his age level or did she feel that he was behind?  She replied that she really was not aware of his social/emotional level but she did not believe that he acted like other four year olds his age; she believed that he was more on a three year old level.  Since I have had this child at my daycare in the past I agreed with her that he was probably only on a three year old level with his social/emotional development.  

Mrs. Wilson also shared with me that she believed that special needs children were normally behind social/emotionally.  I told her that from my observations that I believed that this was true.  I asked her if she had ever had a discussion with her son’s doctors concerning his social/emotional development and she said that topic had not come up.  Her answer was one that I had suspected because in my experience a doctor does not focus on this aspect of a child’s development.  I then asked her if she had any conversations with her son’s teachers at early childhood concerning his social/emotional development.  She said that they had not discussed this aspect with her.  She also said that the only thing that they talk to her about is his behavior and usually only his poor behavior.  The answer to this last question was a surprise to me because I thought that as an early childhood teacher they would be focusing on the child’s social/emotional development.  

I also spoke to Mrs. Gray who has a five year old child with physical disabilities and he is also in the early childhood program.  Her child has a quick tempter, plays very intense, throws a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way, and has a very short attention span.  I asked her if she knew about social/emotional development and she replied that she did and she believed that her son was at the level of development that he needed to be.  I have been observing her son since early January and he definitely is not at the social/emotional level of development that he needs to be.  I asked her what indicators she used to come to this determination.   She replied that the child’s doctor had told her that he was perfect and not to be concerned about his social/emotional development.  This was a real surprise to me and I can only image that the doctor has not spent any amount of time with this child. 

I asked her if the early childhood teachers had ever talked with her concerning his social/emotional development and she said that they had not mentioned it.  They only talked with her concerning his poor behavior and this was almost daily.  At this point of our conversation, I wondered if she was not connecting his poor behavior with his lack of social/emotional development.  

These conversations confirmed what I had believed that a child’s social/emotional development is not being fully considered and many early childhood teachers do not know how to identify a child’s social/emotional level or how to help the child move to the next level of development.  As a result, my advocacy will be focusing on providing additional education to early childhood teachers so that they can help a child promote their social/emotional development. 

Module 3-Social Emotional Development

I first talked with the teacher where I am doing my observations and asked her what some of her concerns were concerning a child’s social emotional development.  Since she teaches special needs children she believed that they were not at the social emotional level of development that they should be.  She worked daily on trying to move them to the next level.  The children in her class start when they turn three years old and stay with in her classroom until they enter kindergarten.  As a result of having the child for at least two years she can measure their social emotional development. 

Some of the areas that she worked with them in relationship to social emotional development included:

                       

*Following classroom routines-at first the child allows the teacher to direct the child through the daily routine and as they develop social emotional responsibility they will follow and understand the purpose of this daily procedure and tells others what will come next such as we can’t eat snack until we wash our hands.

*Sharing and respecting the rights of others-at first the child may play alongside another child using the same material without any kind of conflict but as they grow they begin to share as well as defend the rights of other children to have a turn. 

She agreed that this area of development is very important and many times overlooked by early childhood educators.  She believes that social emotional development does not just happen but a child needs to be taught this skill just as they are taught how to catch a ball, listen when read a story, or how to hold a pencil. 

The second person that I spoke to was a director of another center in my area.  She indicated that her biggest challenge in relationship to social emotional development is the lack of education on the part of her staff.  In Illinois, to work in a center the minimum education that is required is an associate degree and many times social emotional development is never talked about at this level.  She tries to provide educational materials and seminars for her staff but many of them just do not seem to understand the importance of working with the child to develop social emotional development.  Before she bought the center and became the director she was a kindergarten teacher and she shared with me that she could see the lack of social emotional development in the children entering kindergarten.  They had to learn this skill as well as everything else that were required of them for kindergarten and sometimes it was to overwhelming for the child.  She believes that if social emotional development were nurtured intentionally during early childhood then the child would not have as many problems when they started kindergarten.