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.