Early Childhood Parent Handout week 5

CHAPTER 13 EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

Walking in the Rain

Hennie Brandt, 7 years, Republic of Namibia

As children reach school age, empathy increases and friendships become more selective, developing into mutual relationships based on trust and emotional commitment.

Reprinted with permission from Children’s Museum of the Arts Permanent Collection, New York, NY

WHAT’S AHEAD IN CHAPTER 13

13.1 Self-Understanding

Self-Concept • Cognitive, Social, and Cultural Influences on Self-Concept • Self-Esteem • Influences on Self-Esteem

13.2 Emotional Development

Self-Conscious Emotions • Emotional Understanding • Emotional Self-Regulation

13.3 Moral Development

Moral and Social-Conventional Understanding • Understanding Individual Rights • Culture and Moral Understanding • Understanding Diversity and Inequality

13.4 Peer Relations

Peer Groups • Friendships • Peer Acceptance

■ Biology and Environment: Bullies and Their Victims

13.5 Gender Typing

Gender-Stereotyped Beliefs • Gender Identity and Behavior

13.6 Family Influences

Parent–Child Relationships • Siblings • Only Children • Lesbian and Gay Families • Never-Married Parent Families • Divorce • Blended Families • Maternal Employment and Dual-Earner Families

13.7 Some Common Problems of Development

Fears and Anxieties • Child Sexual Abuse • Fostering Resilience in Middle Childhood

■ Cultural Influences: Impact of Ethnic and Political Violence on Children

■ Social Issues: Health: Children’s Eyewitness Testimony

One afternoon as school dismissed, Joey urgently tapped his best friend Terry on the shoulder. “Gotta talk to you,” Joey pleaded. “Everything was going great until I got that word—porcupine,” Joey went on, referring to the fifth-grade spelling bee that day. “Just my luck! P-o-r-k, that’s how I spelled it! I can’t believe it. Maybe I’m not so good at social studies,” Joey confided, “but I know I’m one of the best spellers in our class, better than that stuck-up Belinda Brown. I knocked myself out studying those spelling lists. Then she got all the easy words. If I had to lose, why couldn’t it be to a nice person?”

Joey’s conversation reflects new emotional and social capacities. By entering the spelling bee, he illustrates a major change of middle childhood: energetic pursuit of meaningful achievement in his culture. As Erik Erikson emphasized, children whose previous experiences have been positive enter middle childhood ready to forge a sense of industry: feelings of competence at useful skills and tasks. In cultures everywhere, adults respond to children’s improved physical and cognitive capacities by making new demands, and children are ready to benefit from these challenges.

In most of the world, the transition to middle childhood is marked by the beginning of formal schooling. With it comes literacy training, which prepares children for a vast array of specialized careers. In school, children discover their own and others’ unique capacities. Notice how the spelling bee induced Joey to size up his own and his classmate’s strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits. Schooling also increases opportunities for children to cooperate with agemates, contributing to a growing understanding of the value of division of labor and to an enhanced sense of moral commitment and responsibility. And as time spent with peers rises during the school years, peer relationships become more influential in children’s lives. Friendship, for example, means something different to Joey than it did earlier: He counts on his best friend, Terry, for understanding and emotional support.

In this chapter, we take a close look at children’s changing views of themselves and others, moral understanding, and peer relationships during middle childhood. Each increases in complexity as children reason more effectively and spend more time in school and with agemates.

Despite changing parent–child relationships, the family remains powerfully influential in middle childhood. Today, family structures are more diverse than ever before. Through Joey’s and his younger sister Lizzie’s experiences with parental divorce, we will see that family functioning is far more important than family structure in ensuring children’s well-being. Finally, we discuss some common emotional problems of middle childhood. ■

13.1 SELF-UNDERSTANDING

13.1 Describe school-age children’s self-concept and self-esteem, and discuss factors that affect their achievement-related attributions.

In middle childhood, children become able to describe themselves in terms of psychological traits, to compare their own characteristics with those of their peers, and to speculate about the causes of their strengths and weaknesses. These transformations in self-understanding have a major impact on children’s self-esteem.

13.1.1 Self-Concept

During the school years, children refine their self-concept, organizing their observations of behaviors and internal states into general dispositions. A major change takes place between ages 8 and 11, as the following self-description by a fourth grader illustrates:

I’m pretty popular, at least with the girls who I spend time with, but not with the super-popular girls who think they are cooler than everyone else. With my friends, I know what it takes to be liked, so I’m nice to people and helpful and can keep secrets…. Sometimes, if I get in a bad mood I’ll say something that can be a little mean and then I’m ashamed of myself. At school, I’m feeling pretty smart in certain subjects like language arts and social studies…. But I’m feeling pretty dumb in math and science, especially when I see how well a lot of the other kids are doing. I now understand that I can be both smart and dumb, you aren’t just one or the other. (Harter, 2012, p. 59)

Instead of specific behaviors, this child emphasizes competencies: “smart in certain subjects like language arts and social studies” and “having good English skills.” ‘She also describes her personality, mentioning both positive and negative traits: “helpful” and “can keep secrets” but sometimes “a little mean.” Older school-age children are far less likely than younger children to describe themselves in extreme, all-or-none ways (Harter, 2012).

These evaluative self-descriptions result from school-age children’s frequent social comparisons—judgments of their appearance, abilities, and behavior in relation to those of others. Notice, in the introduction to this chapter, Joey’s observation that he is “one of the best spellers” in his class. Similarly, our fourth grader’s self-description mentions feeling “smart” at some subjects but not at others, especially when she sees “how well a lot of the other kids are doing.” Whereas 4- to 6-year-olds can compare their own performance to that of a single peer, older children can compare multiple individuals, including themselves (Harter, 2012).

13.1.2 Cognitive, Social, and Cultural Influences on Self-Concept

What factors account for these revisions in self-concept? Cognitive development affects the changing structure of the self. School-age children, as we saw in Chapter 12, can better coordinate several aspects of a situation in reasoning about their physical world. Similarly, in the social realm, they combine typical experiences and behaviors into stable psychological dispositions, blend positive and negative characteristics, and compare their own characteristics with those of many peers (Harter, 2012). In middle childhood, children also gain a clearer understanding that traits are linked to specific desires (a “generous” person wants to share) and, therefore, are causes of behavior (Yuill & Pearson, 1998).

The changing content of self-concept is a product of both cognitive capacities and feedback from others. Sociologist George Herbert Mead (1934) proposed that a well-organized psychological self emerges when children adopt a view of the self that resembles others’ attitudes toward the child. Mead’s ideas indicate that perspective-taking skills—in particular, an improved ability to infer what other people are thinking and to distinguish those viewpoints from one’s own—are crucial for developing a self-concept based on personality traits. As we saw in Chapter 12, middle childhood brings the capacity for recursive thought, which enables school-age children to “read” others’ messages more accurately and internalize their expectations. As they do so, they form an ideal self that they use to evaluate their real self. As we will see, a large discrepancy between the two can greatly undermine self-esteem, leading to sadness, hopelessness, and depression.

Parental support for self-development continues to be vitally important. School-age children with a history of elaborative parent–child conversations about past experiences construct rich, positive narratives about the self and thus have more complex, favorable, and coherent self-concepts (Baddeley & Singer, 2015). Children also look to more people beyond the family for information about themselves as they enter a wider range of settings in school and community. And

As school-age children enter a wider range of settings beyond the family, their self-concepts include frequent reference to social groups. When asked about themselves, these baseball players are likely to mention being a member of a Little League team.

Michael Greenlar/Post Standard

Look and Listen

Ask several 8- to 11-year-old children to tell you about themselves. Do their self-descriptions include personality traits (both positive and negative), social comparisons, and references to social groups, as is typical in middle childhood?

But recall that the content of self-concept varies from culture to culture. In earlier chapters, we noted that Asian parents stress harmonious interdependence, whereas Western parents emphasize independence and self-assertion. When asked to recall personally significant past experiences (their last birthday, a time their parent scolded them), U.S. school-age children give longer accounts including more personal preferences, interests, skills, and opinions. Chinese children, in contrast, more often refer to social interactions and to others rather than themselves. Similarly, in their self-descriptions, American and European children list more personal attributes (“I’m smart,” “I’m good at singing,” “I like hockey”); Chinese children, more attributes involving group membership and relationships with others (“I’m in fifth grade,” “My friends are crazy about me,” “I’m British-born Chinese”) (Wang, 2006; Wang, Shao, & Li, 2010). Interestingly, however, in a trend that likely reflects growing valuing of individualistic traits in China’s rapidly expanding market economy, Chinese schoolchildren in urban areas have recently increased the mention of personal attributes in their self-descriptions (Dai, Williams, & McGregor, 2016).

13.1.3 Self-Esteem

Recall that most preschoolers have extremely high self-esteem. But as children enter school and receive much more feedback about how well they perform compared with their peers, self-esteem differentiates and also adjusts to a more realistic level.

To study school-age children’s self-esteem, researchers ask them to indicate the extent to which statements such as “I’m good at reading” or “I’m usually the one chosen for games” are true of themselves. By age 6 to 7, children in diverse Western cultures have formed at least four broad self-evaluations: academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance. Within these are more refined categories that become increasingly distinct with age (Marsh, 1990; Marsh & Ayotte, 2003; Van den Bergh & De Rycke, 2003). Furthermore, the capacity to view the self in terms of stable dispositions permits school-age children to combine their separate self-evaluations into an overall psychological image of themselves—a global self-esteem (Harter, 2012). As a result, self-esteem takes on the hierarchical structure shown in Figure 13.1 on page 480.

Children attach greater importance to certain self-evaluations than to others. Although individual differences exist, during childhood and adolescence perceived physical appearance correlates more strongly with global self-esteem than does any other self-esteem factor (Baudson, Weber, & Freund, 2016; O’Dea, 2012; von Soest, Wichstrøm, & Kvalem, 2016). Emphasis on appearance—in the media, by parents and peers, and in society—has major implications for young people’s overall satisfaction with themselves.

Typically, self-esteem remains high during elementary school but becomes more realistic and nuanced as children evaluate themselves in various areas (Chung et al., 2017; Marsh, Craven, & Debus, 1998). These changes occur as children receive more competence-related feedback, as their performances are increasingly judged in relation to those of others, and as they become cognitively capable of social comparison (Bukowski & Raufelder, 2018).

13.1.4 Influences on Self-Esteem

From middle childhood on, individual differences in self-esteem become increasingly stable (Steiger et al., 2014; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003). And positive relationships among self-esteem, valuing of various activities, and success at those activities emerge and strengthen with age. Academic self-esteem predicts how important, useful, and enjoyable children judge school subjects to be, their willingness to try hard, and their achievement (Denissen, Zarrett, & Eccles, 2007; Whitesell et al., 2009; Yeung, 2011). Children with high social self-esteem are consistently better-liked by classmates (Jacobs et al., 2002). And as we saw in Chapter 11, sense of athletic competence is positively associated with investment in and performance at sports.

Figure 13.1 Hierarchical structure of self-esteem in the mid-elementary school years. From their experiences in different settings, children form at least four separate self-esteems: academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance. These differentiate into additional self-evaluations and combine to form a global self-esteem.

PHOTOS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: © ELLEN B. SENISI; © Cultura RM/Alamy Stock Photo; © Don Mason/Tetra Images, LLC/Alamy Stock Photo Design Pics/Alamy Stock Photo

Furthermore, across age, sex, SES, and ethnic groups, individuals with favorable self-esteem tend to be well-adjusted, sociable, and conscientious. In contrast, a profile of low self-esteem in all areas is linked to anxiety, depression, and increasing antisocial behavior (Kim & Cicchetti, 2006; Robins et al., 2001; Sowislo & Orth, 2013).

Culture, Gender, and Ethnicity

Cultural forces profoundly affect self-esteem. An especially strong emphasis on social comparison in school may explain why Chinese and Japanese children, despite their higher academic achievement, score lower than U.S. children in self-esteem—a difference that widens with age (Harter, 2012; Twenge & Crocker, 2002). At the same time, because of cultural valuing of modesty and social harmony, East Asian children rely less on social comparisons to enhance their own self-esteem (Falbo et al., 1997). Rather, they tend to be reserved in positive self-judgments but generous in praise of others.

Gender-stereotyped expectations also affect self-esteem. In one study, the more 5- to 8-year-old girls talked with friends about the way people look, watched TV shows focusing on physical appearance, and perceived their friends as valuing thinness, the greater their dissatisfaction with their physical self and the lower their overall self-esteem a year later (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006). And in an investigation of third graders, being overweight was more strongly linked to negative body image for girls than boys (Shriver et al., 2013). By the end of middle childhood, girls feel less confident than boys about their physical appearance and athletic abilities. In academic self-judgments, boys, again, are somewhat advantaged: Whereas girls score higher in language-arts self-esteem, boys tend to have higher math and science self-esteem—even when children of equal skill levels are compared (Jacobs et al., 2002; Kurtz-Costes et al., 2008; Tatangelo & Ricciardelli, 2017). At the same time, girls exceed boys in self-esteem dimensions of close friendship and social acceptance.

Compared with their European-American agemates, African-American children tend to have slightly higher self-esteem, possibly because of warm extended families and a stronger sense of ethnic pride (Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000). Consistent with this interpretation, African-American 7- to 10-year-olds randomly assigned to a ten-session, small-group program celebrating Black family life and culture gained in self-esteem relative to agemates assigned to a no-intervention control (Okeke-Adeyanju et al., 2014). But media exposure has the opposite effect: The more TV African-American children watch, the lower their self-esteem—an association that also applies to European-American girls. In contrast, TV viewing predicts higher self-esteem among European-American boys (Martins & Harrison, 2012). Ethnic and gender stereotypes in TV programs may explain these findings.

Finally, in a study of Mexican-American 10- to 16-year-olds living in urban areas in California, academic self-esteem (rather than perceived physical appearance) correlated most strongly with global self-esteem (Harris et al., 2018). Mexican-immigrant parents’ pressure on their children to succeed in school as a pathway to a better life may explain this close tie between the youths’ perceived academic performance and overall self-worth.

Children learn African drumming skills at a community center during Kwanzaa, a holiday honoring their African heritage. A stronger sense of ethnic pride may contribute to slightly higher self-esteem among African-American children compared with their European-American agemates.

© Sean D. Elliot/The Day/AP Images

Child-Rearing Practices

School-age children who are securely attached and whose parents use an authoritative child-rearing style (see Chapter 10) feel especially good about themselves (Kerns, Brumariu, & Seibert, 2011; Yeung et al., 2016). Warm, positive parenting lets children know that they are accepted as competent and worthwhile. And firm but appropriate expectations, backed up with explanations, help them evaluate their own behavior against reasonable standards. Also, securely attached children are more likely than their insecure counterparts to have learned to take a caring, nonjudgmental attitude toward themselves during times when they struggled or failed—a personal quality called self-compassion (Neff & Vonk, 2009; Peter & Gazelle, 2017). Self-compassion protects mental health in the face of threats to self-esteem.

Controlling parents—those who too often help or make decisions for their child—communicate a sense of inadequacy to children. Having parents who are repeatedly disapproving and insulting is also linked to low self-esteem (Atzaba-Poria & Pike, 2015; Wuyts et al., 2015). Children subjected to such parenting need constant reassurance, and many rely heavily on peers to affirm their self-worth—a risk factor for adjustment difficulties, including aggression and antisocial behavior (Donnellan et al., 2005). In contrast, indulgent parenting is associated with unrealistically high self-esteem, which also undermines development. These children—whom researchers label narcissistic because they combine an inflated sense of superiority with obsessive worry about what others think of them—are vulnerable to temporary, sharp drops in self-esteem when their overblown self-images are challenged (Lynch et al., 2016; Thomaes et al., 2008, 2013). They tend to lash out at peers who express disapproval and display adjustment problems, including meanness and aggression.

Over the past several decades, parents in Western nations have become increasingly concerned with boosting their children’s self-esteem by showering them with praise (Brummelman, Crocker, & Bushman, 2016). Research, however, confirms that children do not benefit from inflated praise (“You’re terrific!” “That’s fantastic!”). Rather, they may conclude that they are expected to perform fantastically all the time. When children fail to meet this impossibly high standard, they question their self-worth (Brummelman & Thomaes, 2017; Wentzel & Brophy, 2014). Parents more often give inflated praise to children with low self-esteem, in a well-intentioned effort to get them to feel good about themselves. But longitudinal research confirms that inflated praise has the reverse effect: It predicts declines in self-esteem over time. Declining self-esteem, in turn, may induce parents to provide even more inflated praise, yielding a self-sustaining downward spiral in children’s evaluations of themselves (Brummelman et al., 2017).

Rather than heaping compliments on children that have no basis in real accomplishment, a better way to foster a positive, secure self-image is to encourage children to strive for worthwhile goals. Over time, a bidirectional relationship between performance and self-worth emerges: Achievement fosters gains in self-esteem, which contributes to further effort and gains in performance.

What can adults do to promote, and to avoid undermining, this mutually supportive relationship between motivation and self-esteem? Answers come from research on the precise content of adults’ messages to children in achievement situations.

Achievement-Related Attributions

Attributions are our common, everyday explanations for the causes of behavior. Notice how Joey, in talking about the spelling bee at the beginning of this chapter, attributes his disappointing performance to luck (Belinda got all the easy words) and his usual success to ability (he knows he’s a better speller than Belinda). Joey also appreciates that effort matters: “I knocked myself out studying those spelling lists.”

The combination of improved reasoning skills and frequent evaluative feedback permits 10- to 12-year-olds to separate all these variables in explaining performance. Those with favorable academic self-esteem and motivation make mastery-oriented attributions, crediting their successes to ability—a characteristic they can improve through trying hard and can count on when faced with new challenges. This growth mindset about ability—that it can increase through effort and effective strategies—influences the way mastery-oriented children interpret negative events. They attribute failure to factors that can be changed and controlled, such as insufficient effort or a difficult task that will require greater persistence and struggle to master (Dweck & Molden, 2013). So whether these children succeed or fail, they take an industrious, persistent approach to learning.

In contrast, children who develop learned helplessness attribute their failures, not their successes, to ability. When they succeed, they are likely to conclude that external factors, such as luck, are responsible. Unlike their mastery-oriented counterparts, they hold a fixed mindset about ability—that it is set in stone and cannot be improved by trying hard (Dweck & Molden, 2013). When a task is difficult, these children feel threatened by the possibility of failure (it means they are “not smart”), experience an anxious loss of control, and give up without really trying.

Children’s attributions affect their goals. Mastery-oriented children focus on learning goals—seeking information on how best to increase their ability through effort. Hence, their performance improves over time, with students who find schoolwork challenging gaining the most (Burnette et al., 2013). In contrast, learned-helpless children focus on performance goals—obtaining positive and avoiding negative evaluations of their fragile sense of ability. Because they fail to connect effort with success, they do not develop the metacognitive and self-regulatory skills necessary for high achievement (see Chapter 12) (Pomerantz & Saxon, 2001). Gradually their ability ceases to predict how well they do.

Influences on Achievement-Related Attributions

What accounts for the different attributions of mastery-oriented and learned-helpless children? Surprisingly, parents’ mindsets about ability are only weakly related to their children’s mindsets. Also, children cannot accurately “read” their parents’ mindsets, suggesting parents do not directly pass on these beliefs (Gunderson et al., 2018; Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016, 2017). Rather, parents appear to influence children’s mindsets through the feedback they give children in success and failure situations.

When adults offer process praise, children learn that persistence and effective strategies build competence. With remarks such as “You worked really hard on that problem!” this mother fosters a growth mindset about ability and a mastery-oriented approach in her child.

Jeff Greenough/Getty Images

When a child succeeds, parents can offer person praise, which emphasizes the child’s traits (“You’re so smart”; “you’re very artistic”), or process praise, which emphasizes behavior and effort (“you worked really hard”; “you figured it out”). Children—especially those with low self-esteem—respond unfavorably to person praise. They feel more shame following failure if they previously received person praise, less shame if they previously received process praise or no praise at all (Brummelman, Crocker, & Bushman, 2016). Consistent with a learned-helpless orientation, person praise teaches children that ability is fixed and evident after just one performance, which leads them to question their competence in the face of failure and to retreat from challenges (Pomerantz & Kempner, 2013). In contrast, process praise—consistent with a mastery orientation and growth mindset—teaches children that competence develops through hard work and effective strategies (Pomerantz, Grolnick, & Price, 2013).

The way parents respond to children’s failures is just as influential as the way they respond to successes. Parents with a failure-is-enhancing mindset see failure as benefitting children’s learning and future performance. As a result, they focus on helping children understand how they can use failure experiences to improve. For example, a parent might say, “What did you learn from doing poorly on the test that might help you do better next time?”—communication that promotes a growth mindset in children. In contrast, parents with a failure-is-debilitating mindset react to children’s failure with doubts about their ability and attempts to comfort them for not having what it takes, as reflected in this response: “It’s OK, you can’t expect to be good at every subject”—feedback that cultivates a fixed mindset (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016).

Teachers’ messages also affect children’s attributions. Teachers who emphasize learning over performance goals tend to have mastery-oriented students. In a study of first and second graders, researchers asked the children’s teachers to indicate the extent to which they used learning-oriented practices (emphasizing student understanding and individual progress) and performance-oriented practices (emphasizing grades and other indicators of ability). Learning-oriented teaching predicted a growth mindset about ability in students, whereas performance-oriented teaching predicted a fixed mindset about ability (Park et al., 2016). Furthermore, a survey of 40 middle-school math teachers and over 3,000 of their students revealed that teachers who fostered a growth mindset in students frequently asked them to explain their thinking and praised them for deeper understanding and individual progress (Sun, 2018). In contrast, teachers who promoted a fixed mindset engaged in ability grouping and often publicly complimented high-performing students using person praise, such as ““smart” or “quick” (which implied that others were “not smart” or “slow”).

Look and Listen

Observe a school-age child working on a challenging homework assignment under the guidance of a parent or other adult. What features of the adult’s communication likely foster mastery-oriented attributions? How about learned helplessness? Explain.

The performance of some children is especially vulnerable to undermining messages from adults. For example, despite their higher achievement, girls more often than boys attribute poor performance to lack of ability. When girls do not do well, teachers and parents tend to fault their ability, reinforcing negative stereotypes (for example, that girls are weak at math) that further erode their interest and performance (Gunderson et al., 2012; Lohbeck, Grube, & Moschner, 2017; Robinson-Cimpian et al., 2014). Similarly, as noted in Chapter 12, low-SES ethnic minority students often receive less favorable teacher feedback, which contributes to declining academic self-esteem and achievement.

Finally, cultural values influence adults’ messages to children and, in turn, children’s mindsets about ability. Asian parents and teachers are more likely than their American counterparts to view effort as key to success and also as a moral responsibility (Mok, Kennedy, & Moore, 2011; Qu & Pomerantz, 2015). Asians also attend more to failure than to success because failure indicates where corrective action is needed. Americans, in contrast, focus more on success because it enhances self-esteem. Observations of U.S. and Chinese mothers’ responses to their fourth and fifth graders’ puzzle solutions revealed that the U.S. mothers offered more praise after success, whereas the Chinese mothers more often pointed out the child’s inadequate performance. And regardless of success or failure, Chinese mothers made more task-relevant statements aimed at ensuring that children exerted sufficient effort to do well (“You concentrated on it”; “You need to spend more time figuring out this one”) (see Figure 13.2). When children continued with the task after mothers left the room, the Chinese children showed greater gains in performance (Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, 2007).

Description

Figure 13.2 Chinese and U.S. mothers’ task-relevant statements in response to their fourth-grade child’s success or failure on puzzle tasks. Observations revealed that regardless of whether their child had just succeeded or failed, Chinese mothers were more likely than U.S. mothers to make task-relevant statements aimed at ensuring that the child exerted high effort. (Based on Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, 2007.)

Applying What We Know

Fostering a Growth Mindset About Ability and a Mastery-Oriented Approach to Learning

Context

Description

Provision of tasks

Select tasks that are meaningful, responsive to a diversity of student interests, and appropriately matched to current competence so that the child is challenged but not overwhelmed.

Parent and teacher encouragement

Communicate warmth, confidence in the child’s abilities, the value of achievement, and the importance of effort, including overcoming obstacles, in success.

Resist praising children’s personal qualities, focusing instead on praising their competent behavior, sustained effort, and successful strategies.

Model high effort in overcoming failure, including a willingness to try new strategies and to ask for assistance when stuck.

For teachers: Communicate often with parents, suggesting ways to foster children’s effort and progress.

For parents: Monitor schoolwork; provide scaffolded assistance that promotes knowledge of effective strategies and self-regulation.

Performance evaluations

Make evaluations private; avoid publicizing success or failure through wall posters, stars, privileges for “smart” children, or prizes for “best” performance.

Emphasize individual progress and self-improvement.

Provide accurate, constructive feedback to children about their performance.

School environment

Offer small classes, which permit teachers to provide individualized support for mastery.

Provide for cooperative learning (see page 466 in Chapter 12,) and peer tutoring, in which children assist one another; avoid ability grouping, which makes evaluations of children’s progress public.

Create a growth-mindset atmosphere that sends a clear message that all students can increase their ability through effort and effective strategies.

Sources: Haimovitz & Dweck, 2017; Wentzel & Brophy, 2014.

Attribution Retraining

Once learned helplessness has set in, what can be done to replace it with mastery-oriented attributions? An intervention called attribution retraining encourages learned-helpless children to believe they can overcome failure by exerting more effort and using more effective strategies. Researchers give children tasks difficult enough that they will experience some failure, followed by repeated feedback that helps them revise their attributions: “You can do it if you try harder. How about taking a different approach?” After children succeed, they are given process praise—”Your new strategy worked. You really tried hard on that one”—so that they attribute their success to both effort and effective strategies, not chance. Another approach is to encourage low-effort children to focus less on grades, more on mastering a task for its own sake, and more on individual performance improvement than on comparisons with classmates (Wentzel & Brophy, 2014). Instruction in effective strategies and self-regulation is also vital, to compensate for development lost in this area and to ensure that renewed effort pays off (Berkeley, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2011).

After just a few hours of instruction in attribution retraining, teachers have successfully delivered it to small groups and entire classes, inducing positive changes in students’ attributions, motivation, and performance (Chodkiewicz & Boyle, 2014). An even better approach is to prevent learned helplessness, using the techniques summarized in Applying What We Know above.

Ask Yourself

Connect ■ What cognitive changes, described on pages 442–443 in Chapter 12, support the transition to a self-concept emphasizing competencies, personality traits, and social comparisons?

Apply ■ Should parents try to promote children’s self-esteem by telling them they’re “smart” or “wonderful”? Explain.

Reflect ■ Recall your own attributions for academic successes and failures and mindset about ability when you were in elementary school. What are your attributions and mindset like now? What messages from others might have been influential?

13.2 EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

13.2 Cite changes in self-conscious emotions, emotional understanding, and emotional self-regulation in middle childhood.

Greater self-awareness and social sensitivity support advances in emotional competence in middle childhood. Gains take place in experience of self-conscious emotions, emotional understanding, and emotional self-regulation.

13.2.1 Self-Conscious Emotions

As children integrate social expectations into their self-concepts, self-conscious emotions of pride and guilt become clearly governed by personal responsibility. Unlike preschoolers, school-age children experience pride in a new accomplishment and guilt over a transgression even when no adult is present (Harter, 2012). Also, children no longer report guilt for any mishap, as they did earlier, but only for intentional wrongdoing, such as ignoring responsibilities, cheating, or lying (Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991). These changes reflect the older child’s more mature sense of morality, a topic addressed later in this chapter.

When school-age children feel pride or guilt, they connect successes or failures to specific behaviors: “I worked hard on that tough problem, and it paid off” (pride) or “I made a mistake, and now I have to deal with it” (guilt). They tend to feel shame when their violation of a standard is not under their control (Lewis & Ramsay, 2002; Saarni et al., 2006). For example, Lizzie felt ashamed when she dropped a spoonful of spaghetti and had a large spot on her shirt for the rest of the school day. But as children develop a global self-esteem, they may also experience shame after a controllable breach of standards if someone blames them for it by criticizing their personal traits (Muris & Meesters, 2014; Rote & Smetana, 2017). After a parent reprimands a child for poor performance (“Everyone else can do it. Obviously, you don’t want to improve!”), the child may hang her head in shame, repeating to herself, “I’m stupid! I’m a terrible kid!”

Pride motivates children to take on further challenges, whereas guilt prompts them to make amends and to strive for self-improvement. But profound feelings of shame (as noted in Chapter 10) are particularly destructive. A shame-induced drop in self-esteem can induce sharp declines in motivation and performance along with withdrawal and depression or intense anger at those who participated in the shame-evoking situation, followed by lashing out with aggression (Mills, 2005; Oedes-Sese et al., 2014). A summary of findings from many studies confirms that children and adolescents who experience guilt after transgressions tend to be well-adjusted—unlikely to react with depression, anger, or aggression. In contrast, those who experience shame are prone to these adjustment problems (Muris & Meesters, 2014).

If this child reacts with guilt to wrongdoing, he is likely to make amends. But adult blame and criticism may cause him to experience intense shame, leading to depression, anger, and a sharp drop in self-esteem.

© Radius Images/Alamy Stock Photo

13.2.2 Emotional Understanding

School-age children’s understanding of mental activity means that, unlike preschoolers, they are likely to explain emotion by referring to internal states, such as happy or sad thoughts, rather than to external events (Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 2001). Also, between ages 6 and 12, children become more aware of circumstances likely to spark mixed emotions, each of which may be positive or negative and may differ in intensity, and they increasingly report experiencing more than one emotion at a time (Burkitt, Lowry, & Fotheringham, 2017; Heubeck et al., 2016). For example, recalling the birthday present he received from his grandmother, Joey reflected, “I was very happy I got something but a little sad that I didn’t get just what I wanted.”

Appreciating mixed emotions helps children realize that people’s expressions may not reflect their true feelings (Misailidi, 2006). It also fosters awareness of self-conscious emotions. For example, between ages 6 and 7, children improve sharply in ability to distinguish pride from happiness and surprise (Tracy, Robins, & Lagattuta, 2005). And 8- and 9-year-olds understand that pride combines two sources of happiness—joy in accomplishment and joy that a significant person recognized that accomplishment (Harter, 1999). As well, children of this age refine their grasp of the subtle distinction between guilt and shame (Muris & Meesters, 2014).

Third graders help prepare meal packages to be sent to Africa to feed children in need. Gains in emotional understanding and perspective taking in middle childhood enable children to respond with empathy to people’s general life condition.

© Jason Clark/The Evansville Courier & Press/AP Images

Furthermore, older school-age children can reconcile contradictory facial and situational cues in figuring out another’s feelings. And they can use information about “what might have happened” to predict how people will feel in a new situation—realizing, for example, that someone will feel a sense of relief when an actual outcome is more favorable than what might have occurred (Guttentag & Ferrell, 2004).

As with self-understanding, gains in emotional understanding are supported by cognitive development and social experiences, especially adults’ sensitivity to children’s feelings and willingness to discuss emotions. Together, these factors contribute to a rise in empathy as well. As children move closer to adolescence, advances in recursive perspective taking permit an empathic response not just to people’s immediate distress but also to their general life condition (Hoffman, 2000). Similar to early childhood, emotional understanding and empathy in middle childhood are linked to favorable social relationships and prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Morris, 2013). As Joey and Lizzie imagined how people who are chronically ill or hungry feel and evoked those emotions in themselves, they gave part of their allowance to charity and joined in fundraising projects through school, community center, and scouting.

13.2.3 Emotional Self-Regulation

In Chapter 10, we saw that emotional understanding and effortful control, along with parents’ modeling and teaching of emotion-regulation strategies, contribute to young children’s ability to manage emotions. These factors continue to play important roles during middle childhood, a period of rapid gains in emotional self-regulation (Zalewski et al., 2011).

By age 10, most children shift adaptively between two general strategies for managing emotion. In problem-centered coping, they appraise the situation as changeable, identify the difficulty, and decide what to do about it. If problem solving does not work, they engage in emotion-centered coping, which is internal, private, and aimed at controlling distress when little can be done about an outcome (Kliewer, Fearnow, & Miller, 1996; Lazarus & Lazarus, 1994). For example, when faced with an anxiety-provoking test or an angry friend, older school-age children view problem solving and seeking social support as the best strategies. But when outcomes are beyond their control—after receiving a bad grade—they opt for distraction or try to redefine the situation in ways that help them accept it: “Things could be worse. There’ll be another test.” School-age children’s improved ability to appraise situations and reflect on thoughts and feelings means that, compared with preschoolers, they more often use these internal strategies to manage emotion (Brenner & Salovey, 1997).

Cognitive development and a wider range of social experiences permit children to flexibly vary their coping strategies (Zimmer-Gembeck & Skinner, 2011). Furthermore, through interacting with parents, teachers, and peers, school-age children become more knowledgeable about socially approved ways to display negative emotion. With age, they increasingly prefer verbal expression (“Please stop pushing and wait your turn”) to crying, sulking, or aggression (Waters & Thompson, 2014). Young school-age children justify these more mature displays of emotion by mentioning avoidance of punishment or disapproval, but by third grade, they begin to emphasize concern for others’ feelings. Children with this awareness are rated as especially helpful, cooperative, and socially responsive by teachers and as better-liked by peers (McDowell & Parke, 2000).

Two boys argue while their friends look on. Through interactions with adults and peers, school-age children acquire socially approved ways to express negative emotions. With age, they increasingly prefer verbal expression to crying, sulking, or aggression.

© Laura Hartley/Alamy Stock Photo

When emotional self-regulation has developed well, school-age children acquire a sense of emotional self-efficacy—a feeling of being in control of their emotional experience (Thompson & Goodman, 2010). This fosters a favorable self-image and an optimistic outlook, which further help children face emotional challenges.

As at younger ages, school-age children whose parents respond sensitively and helpfully when the child is distressed are emotionally well-regulated—generally upbeat in mood and also empathic and prosocial (Abraham & Kerns, 2013; Vinik, Almas, & Grusec, 2011). When mothers supported their 5-year-olds’ emotional development in this way, children demonstrated more effective emotional self-regulation at age 7, which in turn predicted better quality friendships at age 10 (Blair et al., 2014). In contrast, poorly regulated children often experience hostile, dismissive parental reactions to distress (Morris et al., 2007). These children are overwhelmed by negative emotion, a response that interferes with empathy and prosocial behavior.

Finally, culture influences emotional self-regulation. In a striking illustration, researchers studied children in two subcultures—Hindu and Buddhist—in rural Nepal. In response to stories about emotionally charged situations (such as peer aggression or an unjust parental punishment), Hindu children more often said they would feel angry but would try to mask their feelings. Buddhist children, in contrast, interpreted the situation so that they felt “just OK” rather than angry. “Why be angry?” they explained. “The event already happened.” Accordingly, Hindu mothers reported that they often teach their children how to control their emotional behavior, whereas Buddhist mothers pointed to the value their religion places on a calm, peaceful disposition (Cole & Tamang, 1998; Cole, Tamang, & Shrestha, 2006). Compared to both Nepalese groups, U.S. children preferred conveying anger verbally in these situations. For example, to an unjust punishment, they answered, “If I say I’m angry, he’ll stop hurting me!” (Cole, Bruschi, & Tamang, 2002). Notice how this response fits with the Western emphasis on personal rights and self-expression.

Look and Listen

Ask several school-age children how they would manage their emotions in the following situations: (1) a friend is angry with them, and (2) they receive a bad grade on an important test. Do their responses reflect flexible, adaptive coping?

13.3 MORAL DEVELOPMENT

13.3 Describe changes in moral understanding during middle childhood, including children’s understanding of diversity and inequality.

Recall from Chapter 10 that preschoolers pick up many morally relevant behaviors through modeling and reinforcement. By middle childhood, they have had time to internalize rules for good conduct: “It’s good to help others in trouble” or “It’s wrong to take something that doesn’t belong to you.” This change leads children to become considerably more independent and trustworthy.

In Chapter 10, we also saw that children do not just copy their morality from others. As the cognitive-developmental approach emphasizes, they actively think about right and wrong. An expanding social world, the capacity to consider more information when reasoning, and gains in recursive perspective taking lead moral understanding to advance greatly in middle childhood.

13.3.1 Moral and Social-Conventional Understanding

During middle childhood, children construct a flexible appreciation of moral rules. They take into account an increasing number of variables—not just actions and their immediate impact, but also the intentions of the actors and the context of their behavior (Killen & Smetana, 2015). For example, between ages 7 and 11, children increasingly say it is acceptable to hit other children in certain situations—in self-defense, to protect someone else from serious bodily injury, or to prevent the other children from hurting themselves (Jambon & Smetana, 2014). Older children focus less on actors’ transgressions (hitting) and more on the aim of their actions (trying to prevent harm).

Similarly, by age 7 to 8, children no longer say truth telling is always good and lying is always bad but consider prosocial and antisocial intentions and the context of the behavior. They evaluate certain types of truthfulness very negatively—for example, blunt statements, particularly in public contexts where they are especially likely to have negative social consequences (telling a friend that you don’t like her drawing) (Ma et al., 2011).

Although both Chinese and North American schoolchildren consider lying about harmful acts as “very naughty,” Chinese children more often rate lying favorably when the intention is modesty, as when a student who has thoughtfully picked up litter from the playground says, “I didn’t do it” (Cameron et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2001). Similarly, Chinese children are more likely to favor lying to support the group at the expense of the individual (saying you’re sick so, as a poor singer, you won’t harm your class’s chances of winning a singing competition). In contrast, North American children more often favor lying to support the individual at the expense of the group (asserting that a friend who is a poor speller is actually a good speller because the friend wants to participate in a spelling competition) (Fu et al., 2007, 2016; Lau et al., 2012).

Students follow a social convention as they wait their turn at a water cooler. School-age children distinguish social conventions with a clear purpose (making sure everyone gets equal access to the water) from ones with no obvious justification.

© JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/Redux

These judgments reflect school-age children’s increasingly sophisticated understanding of different reasons for deception. They realize that people may convey inaccurate information because they are biased, trying to be persuasive, concerned about how others will react, or protecting others’ welfare. Notice how such perspective taking is recursive: Children must consider simultaneously the viewpoints of two or more people—the person who lies and the targets of the lie.

Appreciation of second-order false belief, which depends on recursive thought (see page 442 in Chapter 12), is related to gains in moral judgment in middle childhood. In one study, researchers gave children a morally relevant second-order false-belief task: A child, while helping her teacher clean up, accidently throws out a bag containing a treasured cupcake belonging to a classmate who is out of the room (Fu et al., 2014). School-age children who reasoned accurately about the helper’s belief about the bag’s contents (trash) and the cupcake owner’s belief about the cupcake’s location (in a bag in the classroom) assigned less blame to the helper. Using their recursive capacity, these children inferred that the cupcake owner would understand that the helper thought the bag had trash in it.

As children construct more advanced ideas about justice, they clarify and link moral imperatives and social conventions. School-age children distinguish social conventions with a clear purpose (not running in school hallways to prevent injuries) from ones with no obvious justification (not wearing your cap in the classroom) (Buchanan-Barrow & Barrett, 1998; Thornberg et al., 2016). They regard violations of purposeful conventions as closer to moral transgressions.

Furthermore, as with moral rules, older children realize that people’s intentions and the context of their actions affect the moral implications of violating a social convention. In one study, 8- to 10-year-olds judged that because of a flag’s symbolic value, burning it to express disapproval of a country or to start a cooking fire is worse than burning it accidentally. They also stated that public flag burning is worse than private flag burning because it inflicts emotional harm on others. But they recognized that flag burning is a form of freedom of expression, and most agreed it would be acceptable in a country that treated its citizens unfairly (Helwig & Prencipe, 1999).

In middle childhood, children also realize that people whose knowledge differs may not be equally responsible for moral transgressions. Many 7-year-olds would tolerate a teacher who gave more snack to girls than to boys because she thought (incorrectly) that girls need more food. But if her actions reflected an immoral belief (“it’s all right to be nicer to girls than boys”), almost all children would judge her negatively (Wainryb & Ford, 1998).

13.3.2 Understanding Individual Rights

When children challenge adult authority, they typically do so within the personal domain (Nucci, 2005). As their grasp of moral imperatives and social conventions strengthens, so does their conviction that certain choices, such as hairstyle, friends, and leisure activities, are up to the individual.

Notions of personal choice, in turn, enhance children’s moral understanding. As early as age 6, children view freedom of speech and religion as individual rights, even if laws exist that deny those rights (Helwig, 2006; Helwig, Ruck, & Peterson-Badali, 2014). And they regard laws that discriminate against individuals—for example, denying certain people access to medical care or education—as wrong and worthy of violating (Helwig & Jasiobedzka, 2001). In justifying their responses, children appeal to personal privileges and, by the end of middle childhood, to the importance of individual rights for maintaining a fair society.

At the same time, older school-age children place limits on individual choice. Fourth graders faced with conflicting moral and personal concerns—such as whether or not to befriend a classmate of a different race or gender—typically decide in favor of kindness and fairness (Killen et al., 2002). Partly for this reason, prejudice generally declines in middle childhood. High-quality friendships may play an important role in facilitating these moral sensibilities (McDonald et al., 2014). The cooperativeness, responsiveness, and empathic understanding between good friends promotes concern for others’ rights and welfare, while also highlighting the circumstances in which some transgressions ought to be forgiven.

New York City schoolchildren participate in the People’s Climate March, which advocates for global action to prevent climate change. Children’s grasp of personal choice enhances understanding of individual rights, including freedom of speech.

© JIM WEST/ALAMY Stock Photo

13.3.3 Culture and Moral Understanding

Children and adolescents in diverse cultures use similar criteria to reason about moral, social-conventional, and personal concerns (Nucci, 2005, 2009). For example, Chinese children and youth, whose culture highly values respect for adult authority, nevertheless say that adults have no right to interfere in children’s personal matters (Hasebe, Nucci, & Nucci, 2004; Smetana et al., 2017).

Furthermore, U.S. and South Korean children alike claim that a child with no position of authority should be obeyed when she gives a directive that is fair and caring, such as telling others to share candy or to return lost money to its owner. And even in Korean culture, which highly values deference to authority, 7- to 11-year-olds evaluate negatively an adult’s order to engage in immoral acts, such as stealing or refusing to share—a response that strengthens with age (Kim, 1998). In sum, children everywhere seem to realize that higher principles, independent of rule and authority, must prevail when people’s personal rights and welfare are at stake.

13.3.4 Understanding Diversity and Inequality

By the early school years, children absorb prevailing societal attitudes, associating power and privilege with White people and poverty and inferior status with people of color. They do not necessarily acquire these views directly from parents or friends, whose attitudes may differ from their own (Aboud & Doyle, 1996; Elenbaas & Killen, 2019; Pahlke, Bigler, & Suizzo, 2012). Perhaps White parents are reluctant to discuss their racial and ethnic views with children, and friends also say little. Given limited, direct information from adults and peers, children seem to pick up mainstream beliefs from implicit messages in the media and elsewhere in their environments (Dorn, 2015). Powerful sources include social contexts that present a world sorted into groups, such as racial and ethnic segregation in schools and communities.

In-Group and Out-Group Biases: Development of Prejudice

Studies in diverse Western nations confirm that by age 5 to 6, White children generally evaluate their own racial group favorably and other racial groups less favorably or negatively. In-group favoritism emerges first; children simply prefer their own group, generalizing from self to similar others (Buttelmann & Böhm, 2014; Dunham, Baron, & Carey, 2011; Nesdale et al., 2004).

The ease with which a trivial group label supplied by an adult can induce in-group favoritism is striking. In one study, European-American 5-year-olds were told that they were members of a group based on T-shirt color. Although no information was provided about group status and the children never met any group members, they still displayed vigorous in-group favoritism (Dunham, Baron, & Carey, 2011). When shown photos of unfamiliar agemates wearing either an in-group or an out-group shirt, the children claimed to like members of their own group better, gave them more resources, and engaged in positively biased recall of group members’ behavior.

Out-group prejudice requires a more challenging social comparison between in-group and out-group. But it does not take long for White children to acquire negative attitudes toward ethnic minority out-groups when such attitudes are encouraged by circumstances in their environments. When White Canadian 4- to 7-year-olds living in a White community and attending nearly all-White schools sorted positive and negative adjectives into boxes labeled as belonging to a White child and a Black child, out-group prejudice emerged at age 5 (Corenblum, 2003). Unfortunately, many minority children show a reverse pattern: out-group favoritism, in which they assign positive characteristics to the privileged White majority and negative characteristics to their own group (Averhart & Bigler, 1997; Newheiser et al., 2014).

Fourth graders participate in a nature walk during a school lunch break. Around age 7 or 8, voicing of negative attitudes toward minorities declines, and most children judge exclusion based on skin color to be unfair.

Mike Greenlar/Post Standard

But recall that with age, children pay more attention to inner traits. The capacity to classify the social world in multiple ways enables school-age children to understand that people can be both “the same” and “different”—those who look different need not think, feel, or act differently. Consequently, voicing of negative attitudes toward minorities declines after age 7 or 8 (Aboud, 2008; Raabe & Beelmann, 2011). Around this time, both majority and minority children express in-group favoritism, and White children’s prejudice against out-group members often weakens (Nesdale et al., 2004; Ruble et al., 2004). Most school-age children and adolescents are also quick to verbalize that it is wrong to exclude others from peer-group and learning activities on the basis of skin color—discrimination they evaluate as unfair (Killen et al., 2002).

Likewise, children’s prejudice against peers affected by poverty declines in middle childhood. For example, in response to hypothetical stories about peer exclusion, 8-year-olds reported more negative moral feelings—such as “sad,” accompanied by explanations involving unfairness or other harm to the peer’s welfare—if the excluded child was economically disadvantaged than if the child was from another school (but not economically disadvantaged) (Dys et al., 2019).

Yet even in children aware of the injustice of discrimination, prejudice often operates implicitly, without awareness—as it does in many adults (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2006). Consider a study in which U.S. children and adults were shown pictures of computer-generated racially ambiguous faces displaying happy and angry expressions and asked to classify them by race. White participants more often categorized happy faces as White and angry faces as African American or Asian. These implicit biases were evident across all ages tested—as early as 3 or 4. In contrast, African-American participants did not show any racial biases in their responses (Dunham, Chen, & Banaji, 2013). The absence of any in-group favoritism (classifying happy faces as African American) suggests an early emerging, implicit sensitivity to prevailing racial attitudes among African Americans.

These findings raise the question of whether the decline in White children’s explicit racial bias during middle childhood is a true decrease, or whether it reflects their growing awareness of widely held standards that deem prejudice to be inappropriate—or both. Around age 10, White children start to avoid talking about race in order to appear unbiased, just as many adults do (Apfelbaum et al., 2008). At least to some degree, then, older school-age children’s desire to present themselves in a socially acceptable light may contribute to reduced explicit out-group prejudice, while implicit racial bias persists.

Nevertheless, the extent to which children hold racial and ethnic biases varies depending on the following personal and situational factors:

A fixed view of personality traits. Children who believe personality traits are fixed rather than changeable often judge others as either “good” or “bad.” Ignoring motives and circumstances, they readily form prejudices based on limited information. For example, they might infer that “a new child at school who tells a lie to get other kids to like her” is simply a bad person (Levy & Dweck, 1999).

Overly high self-esteem. Children (and adults) with very high self-esteem are more likely to hold racial and ethnic prejudices (Baumeister et al., 2003; Bigler, 2013). These individuals seem to belittle disadvantaged individuals or groups to justify their own extremely favorable self-evaluation.

A social world in which people are sorted into groups. The more adults highlight group distinctions for children and the less interracial contact children experience, the more White children express in-group favoritism and out-group prejudice (Aboud & Brown, 2013).

Reducing Prejudice

Research confirms that an effective way to reduce prejudice is through intergroup contact, in which racially and ethnically different children have equal status, work toward common goals, and become personally acquainted (Tropp & Page-Gould, 2015). Children assigned to cooperative learning groups with peers of diverse backgrounds show low levels of prejudice in their expressions of likability and in their behavior. For example, they form more cross-race friendships (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Sharing thoughts and feelings with close, cross-race friends, in turn, reduces even subtle, unintentional prejudices (Turner, Hewstone, & Voci, 2007). Also, children with higher levels of intergroup contact and more cross-race friendships are more likely to view social exclusion based on race as morally wrong (Killen et al., 2010).

Long-term contact and collaboration among neighborhood, school, and community groups may be the best way to reduce prejudice (Rutland and Killen, 2015). School environments that expose children to broad ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, that teach them to understand and value those differences, that directly address the damage caused by prejudice, and that emphasize moral values of fairness and justice prevent children from forming negative biases and reduce already acquired biases (Beelmann & Heinemann, 2014). Unfortunately, as noted in Chapter 12, segregation is widespread in U.S. schools, which seldom offer exposure to the diversity necessary for countering negative biases. Return to page 466 in Chapter 12 to review efforts of magnet schools to reduce ethnic and socioeconomic segregation.

Furthermore, inducing school-age children to view others’ traits as changeable, by discussing with them the many possible influences on those traits, is helpful. The more children believe that people can change their personalities, the more they report liking and perceiving themselves as similar to members of disadvantaged out-groups. Children who believe that human attributes are changeable spend more time volunteering to help people in need—for example, by serving meals to homeless people or reading to poverty-stricken preschoolers (Karafantis & Levy, 2004; Levy et al., 2016). Volunteering may, in turn, promote a view of others as changeable by helping children take the perspective of the underprivileged and appreciate the societal conditions that lead to disadvantage, such as restricted educational and job opportunities,

Palestinian and Israeli children and adolescents take a break from mural painting to sing and dance together. Intergroup contact, in which racially and ethnically different children have equal status, work toward common goals, and become personally acquainted, is an effective way to reduce prejudice.

© Joel Bergner (Artista)

Finally, teaching aimed at increasing the complexity of children’s beliefs about racial and economic disadvantage is important. Children as young as age 8 can appreciate inequalities in access to opportunities. And the larger the inequalities they perceive, the more they want to rectify those inequalities by giving more resources—such as material goods or special experiences like a chance to go to an educational summer camp—to those who have suffered deprivation (Chafel & Neitzel, 2005; Elenbaas, 2019; Rizzo & Killen, 2016). Children often explain their desire to take corrective action by referring to broad societal inequalities: “We have houses and clothes and money and get to buy stuff but they don’t”; “Kids with little money don’t get the same opportunities as those who are rich.”

Ask Yourself

Connect ■ Cite examples of how older children’s capacity to take more information into account enhances their emotional understanding, perspective taking, and moral understanding.

Apply ■ Ten-year-old Marla says her classmate Bernadette will never get good grades because she’s lazy. Jane believes that Bernadette tries but can’t concentrate because her parents are divorcing. Why is Marla more likely than Jane to develop prejudices?

Reflect ■ Did you attend an integrated elementary school? How might school integration be vital for reducing racial and ethnic prejudice?

13.4 PEER RELATIONS

13.4a Describe changes in peer sociability and friendship in middle childhood.

13.4b Describe categories of peer acceptance and ways to help rejected children.

In middle childhood, the society of peers becomes an increasingly important context for development. Advances in recursive perspective taking permit more sophisticated understanding of self and others, which, in turn, contributes to peer interaction. Compared with preschoolers, school-age children resolve conflicts more effectively, using persuasion and compromise (Mayeux & Cillessen, 2003). Sharing, helping, and other prosocial acts also increase. In line with these changes, aggression declines. But the drop is greatest for physical attacks (Côté et al., 2007). As we will see, verbal and relational aggression continue as children form peer groups.

13.4.1 Peer Groups

By the end of middle childhood, children display a strong desire for group belonging. They form peer groups, collectives that generate unique values and standards for behavior and a social structure of leaders and followers. Peer groups organize on the basis of proximity (such as being in the same classroom) and similarity in sex, ethnicity, academic achievement, popularity, and aggression (Rubin et al., 2013). When groups are tracked for 3 to 6 weeks, membership changes very little. When they are followed for a year or longer, substantial change can occur, depending on whether children are reshuffled into different classrooms. For children who remain together, 50 to 70 percent of groups consist mostly of the same children from year to year (Cairns, Xie, & Leung, 1998; Kindermann & Guest, 2018).

The practices of these informal groups lead to a “peer culture” that typically involves a specialized vocabulary, dress code, and place to “hang out.” Joey and three other boys formed a club whose “uniform” was T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. They met at recess on the playground and on Saturdays in the tree house in Joey’s backyard. Calling themselves “the pack,” the boys devised a secret handshake and chose Joey as their leader. Their activities included improving the clubhouse and playing basketball and video games, and—just as important—keeping unwanted peers and adults out!

As children develop these exclusive associations, the codes of dress and behavior that grow out of them become more broadly influential. Peers who deviate—by “kissing up” to teachers, wearing the wrong clothes, or tattling to get classmates in trouble—are often rebuffed, becoming targets of critical glances and comments. These customs bind peers together, creating a sense of group identity. Within the group, children acquire many social skills—cooperation, leadership, followership, and loyalty to collective goals. Through these experiences, children experiment with and learn about social organizations.

As with other aspects of social reasoning, children evaluate a group’s decision to exclude a peer in complex ways. Recall that after age 7 to 8 most children view exclusion on the basis of skin color and economic disadvantage as morally wrong. Similarly, with age children are less likely to endorse excluding someone because of unconventional appearance or behavior. Girls, especially, regard such exclusion as unjust, perhaps because they experience it more often than boys (Killen, Crystal, & Watanabe, 2002). But when a peer threatens group functioning, by acting disruptively or by lacking shared interests or the skills needed to participate in a valued group activity (such as dance or sports), both boys and girls say that exclusion (including gender-based exclusion) is justified—a perspective that strengthens with age (Killen et al., 2018; Killen & Stangor, 2001). As these findings reveal, children’s moral concerns about the injustice of prejudice coexist with their valuing of group cohesion.

Peer groups first form in middle childhood. These girls have probably established a social structure of leaders and followers. Their relaxed body language and similar dress suggest a strong sense of group belonging.

© MEDIANEWS GROUP/ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER/GETTY IMAGES

Despite these sophisticated understandings, children do exclude unjustly, often using relationally aggressive tactics. Peer groups—at the instigation of their leaders, who can be skillfully aggressive—frequently oust no longer “respected” children. Some of these castouts, whose own previous hostility toward outsiders reduces their chances of being included elsewhere, turn to other low-status peers with poor social skills (Farmer et al., 2010). Socially anxious children, when ousted, often become increasingly peer-avoidant and thus more isolated (Rubin et al., 2018). In either case, opportunities to acquire socially competent behavior diminish.

School-age children’s desire for group belonging can also be satisfied through formal group ties such as scouting, 4-H, and religious youth groups. Adult involvement holds in check the negative behaviors associated with children’s informal peer groups. And through working on joint projects and helping in their communities, children gain in social and moral maturity (Vandell et al., 2015).

13.4.2 Friendships

Whereas peer groups provide children with insight into larger social structures, friendships contribute to the development of trust and sensitivity. During the school years, friendship becomes more complex and psychologically based. Consider the following 8-year-old’s ideas:

Why is Shelly your best friend? Because she helps me when I’m sad, and she shares. … What makes Shelly so special? I’ve known her longer, I sit next to her and got to know her better. … How come you like Shelly better than anyone else? She’s done the most for me. She never disagrees, she never eats in front of me, she never walks away when I’m crying, and she helps me on my homework. … How do you get someone to like you? … If you’re nice to [your friends], they’ll be nice to you. (Damon, 1988, pp. 80–81)

As these responses show, friendship has become a mutually agreed-on relationship in which children like each other’s personal qualities and respond to one another’s needs and desires. And once a friendship forms, trust becomes its defining feature. School-age children state that a good friendship is based on acts of kindness, signifying that each person can be counted on to support the other (Hartup & Abecassis, 2004). Consequently, older children regard violations of trust, such as not helping when others need help, breaking promises, and gossiping behind the other’s back, as serious breaches of friendship.

Because of these features, school-age children’s friendships are more selective. Whereas preschoolers say they have lots of friends, by age 8 or 9 children name only a handful of good friends. Girls, who demand greater closeness than boys, are more exclusive in their friendships. In addition, children tend to select friends similar to themselves in age, sex, race, ethnicity, and SES. Friends also resemble one another in personality (sociability, inattention/hyperactivity, aggression, depression), peer popularity, academic achievement, and prosocial behavior (Rubin et al., 2013). But friendship opportunities offered by children’s environments also affect their choices. Children whose parents have cross-race friends form more cross-race friendships (Pahlke, Bigler, & Suizzo, 2012). And as noted earlier, in integrated classrooms with mixed-race collaborative learning groups, students form more cross-race friendships

School-age children tend to select friends who are similar to themselves in personality and academic achievement. Their friendships are fairly stable: These boys are likely to remain friends for at least a full school year.

© Klaus-Peter Wolf/imageBROKER/Alamy Stock Photo

Over middle childhood, high-quality friendships remain fairly stable: About 50 to 70 percent endure over a school year, and some last for several years (Berndt, 2004). Gains in friendship support—including compromise, sharing of thoughts and feelings, and prosocial behavior—contribute to this stability (Berndt, 2004; Furman & Rose, 2015). Friendships spanning several situations—such as school, religious institution, and children of parents’ friends—are more enduring (Troutman & Fletcher, 2010). Through friendships, children learn the importance of emotional commitment. They come to realize that close relationships can survive disagreements if friends are secure in their liking for each other (Hartup, 2006). Friendship provides an important context in which children learn to tolerate criticism and resolve disputes in ways that meet both partners’ needs.

Yet the impact of friendships on children’s development depends on the nature of their friends. Children who bring kindness and compassion to their friendships strengthen each other’s self-esteem, prosocial tendencies, and psychological adjustment (Bagwell & Bukowski, 2018). But when aggressive children make friends, the relationship is often riddled with hostile interaction and is at risk for breakup, especially when just one member of the pair is aggressive. And within these close ties, children’s aggressive tendencies worsen (Henneberger, Coffman, & Gest, 2017; Salmivalli, 2010). Aggressive girls’ friendships are high in exchange of private feelings but also full of relational hostility, including jealousy, conflict, and betrayal. Aggressive boys’ friendships involve frequent expressions of anger, coercive statements, physical attacks, and enticements to rule breaking (Rubin et al., 2013; Werner & Crick, 2004). These findings indicate that the social problems of aggressive children operate within their closest peer ties. As we will see next, these children often acquire negative reputations in the wider world of peers.

Look and Listen

Ask an 8- to 11-year-old to tell you what he or she looks for in a best friend. Is trust centrally important? Does the child mention personality traits, just as school-age children do in describing themselves (see page 478)?

13.4.3 Peer Acceptance

Peer acceptance refers to likability—the extent to which a child is viewed by a group of agemates, such as classmates, as a worthy social partner. Unlike friendship, likability is not a mutual relationship but a one-sided perspective, involving the group’s view of an individual. Nevertheless, better-accepted children tend to be socially competent and, as a result, to have more friends and more positive relationships with them (Mayeux, Houser, & Dyches, 2011).

To assess peer acceptance, researchers usually use self-reports that measure social preferences—for example, asking children to identify classmates whom they “like most” or “like least” (Cillessen, 2009). These self-reports yield five general categories of peer acceptance:

Popular children, who get many positive votes (are well-liked)

Rejected children, who get many negative votes (are disliked)

Controversial children, who receive many votes, both positive and negative (are both liked and disliked)

Neglected children, who are seldom mentioned, either positively or negatively

Average children, who receive average numbers of positive and negative votes and account for about one-third of children in a typical elementary school classroom

Another approach assesses perceived popularity, children’s judgments of whom their classmates admire—”whom everyone wants to be with.” Only moderate correspondence exists between the classmates children perceive as popular (believe are admired by many others) and those classified as popular based on peer preferences (receive many “like most” ratings) (McDonald & Asher, 2018).

Peer acceptance is a powerful predictor of both current and later psychological adjustment. Rejected children, especially, are anxious, unhappy, disruptive, and low in self-esteem. Both teachers and parents rate them as having a wide range of emotional and social problems. Peer rejection in middle childhood is also strongly associated with poor school performance, absenteeism, dropping out, substance use, depression, antisocial behavior, and delinquency in adolescence and criminality in adulthood (Ladd, 2005; Rubin et al., 2013).

However, earlier influences—children’s personal attributes combined with parenting practices—may largely explain the link between peer acceptance and adjustment. School-age children with peer-relationship problems are more likely to have preexisting, weak emotional self-regulation skills and to have experienced family stress due to low income and insensitive parenting, including coercive discipline (Blair et al., 2014; Trentacosta & Shaw, 2009). Nevertheless, as we will see, rejected children evoke reactions from peers that contribute to their unfavorable development.

Determinants of Peer Acceptance

Why is one child liked while another is rejected? A wealth of research reveals that social behavior plays a powerful role.

Popular Children

Socially successful children include those who are well-liked (socially accepted) and those who are admired (high in perceived popularity). Popular-prosocial children, who are both socially accepted and admired, combine academic and social competence. They perform well in school, communicate with peers in friendly and cooperative ways, solve social problems constructively, and are more likely than other children to be viewed as leaders (Cillessen & Bellmore, 2004; Mayeux, Houser, & Dyches, 2011).

But other popular children are admired for their socially adept yet belligerent behavior. Popular-antisocial children include “tough” boys—athletically skilled but poor students who cause trouble and defy adult authority—and relationally aggressive boys and girls who ignore, exclude, and spread rumors about other children and behave arrogantly and conceitedly but also engage in some prosocial acts (Bowker et al., 2010; Rose, Swenson, & Waller, 2004; Vaillancourt & Hymel, 2006). Despite their aggression and egotism, peers often view these youths as “cool,” perhaps because of their athletic abilities and sophisticated but devious social skills.

Although peer admiration gives these children some protection against lasting adjustment difficulties, their antisocial acts require intervention. With age, peers like these high-status, aggressive youths less and less, a trend that is stronger for relationally aggressive girls. The more socially prominent and controlling these girls become, the more they engage in relational aggression (Mayeux, Houser, & Dyches, 2011). Eventually, peers condemn their nasty tactics and reject them.

Peers gather around a popular classmate. Most popular children are prosocial—academically successful, socially sensitive, and cooperative. But some are antisocial, admired for their skill at controlling peer relationships through relational aggression.

© Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images

Rejected Children

Rejected children display a wide range of negative social behaviors. The largest subtype, rejected-aggressive children, show high rates of conflict, physical and relational aggression, and hyperactive, inattentive, and impulsive behavior. They are usually deficient in perspective taking, view the social world as threatening, often misinterpret ambiguous behaviors of peers as hostile, and blame others for their social difficulties (Rubin et al., 2013; Troop-Gordon et al., 2018). Compared with popular-antisocial children, they are more extremely antagonistic.

In contrast, rejected-withdrawn children are passive and socially awkward. Overwhelmed by social anxiety, they hold negative expectations about interactions with peers and worry about being scorned and attacked. Like their aggressive counterparts, they typically feel like retaliating rather than compromising when conflicts arise, although they less often act on those feelings (Rubin et al., 2013; Troop-Gordon & Asher, 2005).

Rejected children are excluded by peers as early as kindergarten. Rejection, in turn, further impairs biased social information processing, heightening hostility (Lansford et al., 2010). Soon rejected children’s classroom participation declines, their feelings of loneliness rise, their academic achievement falters, and they want to avoid school (Buhs, Ladd, & Herald-Brown, 2010; Gooren et al., 2011). Most have few friends, and some have none—a circumstance linked to low self-esteem, mistrust of peers, and severe adjustment difficulties (Ladd et al., 2011; Pedersen et al., 2007).

Both types of rejected children are at risk for peer harassment (Craig et al., 2016). But as the Biology and Environment box on the following page reveals, rejected-aggressive children also act as bullies, and rejected-withdrawn children are especially likely to be victimized.

Controversial and Neglected Children

Consistent with the mixed peer opinion they engender, controversial children display a blend of positive and negative social behaviors. They are hostile and disruptive, but they also engage in positive, prosocial acts. Even though some peers dislike them, they have qualities that protect them from exclusion. They have many friends and are happy with their peer relationships (de Bruyn & Cillessen, 2006). But like their popular-antisocial counterparts, they often bully others and engage in calculated relational aggression to sustain their dominance (Putallaz et al., 2007).

Perhaps the most surprising finding on peer acceptance is that neglected children, once thought to be in need of treatment, are usually well-adjusted. Although they engage in low rates of interaction and are considered shy by their classmates, most are just as socially skilled as average children and do not report feeling unhappy about their social life. When they want to, they can break away from their usual, preferred pattern of playing alone, cooperate well with peers and form positive, stable friendships (Ladd & Burgess, 1999; Ladd et al., 2011). Consequently, neglected status (like controversial status) is often temporary. Neglected, socially competent children remind us that an outgoing, gregarious personality style is not the only path to emotional well-being. Nevertheless, a few neglected children are socially anxious and poorly skilled and, thus, at risk for peer rejection.

Helping Rejected Children

A variety of interventions exist to improve the peer relations and psychological adjustment of rejected children. Most involve coaching, modeling, and reinforcing positive social skills, such as how to initiate interaction with a peer, cooperate in play, and respond to another child with friendly emotion and approval. Several of these programs have produced gains in social competence and peer acceptance that are still present from several weeks to a year later (Asher & Rose, 1997; DeRosier, 2007; Holosko, 2015). Combining social-skills training with other treatments increases its effectiveness. Rejected children are often poor students whose low academic self-esteem magnifies their negative interactions with teachers and classmates. Intensive academic tutoring improves both school achievement and social acceptance (O’Neill et al., 1997).

Another approach focuses on training in perspective taking and social problem solving. One eleven-session intervention involved teaching rejected-aggressive children to recognize others’ feelings and resolve conflicts constructively within their best friendships, which are typically of low quality (Salvas et al., 2016). Relative to no-intervention controls, participants gained in friendship quality and declined in aggressive behavior.

But many rejected-aggressive children are unaware of their poor social skills and do not take responsibility for their social failures (Lynch et al., 2016; Mrug, Hoza, & Gerdes, 2001). Rejected-withdrawn children, in contrast, are likely to develop a learned-helpless approach to peer difficulties—concluding, after repeated rebuffs, that they will never be liked (Wichmann, Coplan, & Daniels, 2004). Both types of rejected children need help attributing their peer difficulties to internal, changeable causes.

Look and Listen

Contact a nearby elementary school or a school district office to find out what practices are in place to prevent bullying. Inquire about a written antibullying policy, and request a copy.

As rejected children gain in social skills, teachers must encourage peers to alter their negative opinions. Accepted children often selectively recall rejected children’s negative acts while overlooking their positive ones (Mikami, Lerner, & Lun, 2010). Consequently, even in the face of contrary evidence, rejected children’s negative reputations tend to persist. Teachers’ praise and expressions of liking, along with classroom expectations for social acceptance, can modify peer judgments (De Laet at al., 2014).

Biology and EnvironmentBullies and Their Victims

Follow the activities of aggressive children over a school day, and you will see that they reserve their hostilities for certain peers. A highly destructive form of interaction is peer victimization, in which certain children become targets of verbal and physical attacks or other forms of abuse. What sustains these repeated assault–retreat cycles between pairs of children? About 5 to 12 percent of children are bullies, while 8 to 20 percent are repeatedly victimized. Most bullies who engage in face-to-face physical and verbal attacks are boys, but a considerable number of girls bombard vulnerable classmates with verbal and relational hostility (Salmivalli & Peets, 2018).

As bullies move into adolescence, an increasing number attack through electronic means. About 20 to 40 percent of youths have experienced “cyberbullying” through text messages, e-mail, social media sites, or other electronic tools (Kowalski & Limber, 2013). Compared with face-to-face bullying, gender differences in cyberbullying are less pronounced; the indirectness of online aggression may lead girls to prefer it (Menesini & Spiel, 2012). Girls more often use text messages, e-mail, or social media to cyberbully, whereas boys more often distribute embarrassing photos or videos (Menesini, Nicocenti, & Calussi, 2011).

“Traditional” bullying and cyberbullying frequently co-occur: Bullies and victims in one context are frequently involved in the other. But electronic bullying is not always an extension of traditional bullying (Smith et al., 2008). And victims are far less likely to report cyberbullying to parents or adults at school. In many instances, the cyberbully’s identity is unknown to the victim and audience.

Many bullies are disliked, or become so, because of their cruelty. But a substantial number are socially prominent, powerful youngsters who are broadly admired for their physical attractiveness, power, or athletic abilities (Vaillancourt et al., 2010). To preserve their high social status, bullies often target already-peer-rejected children, whom classmates are unlikely to defend (Veenstra et al., 2010). This helps explain why peers rarely intervene to help victims, and why about 20 to 30 percent of onlookers encourage bullies, even joining in (Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004). Bullying occurs more often in schools where teachers view it as having few harmful effects and where many students judge engaging in it to be “OK” (Guerra, Williams, & Sadek, 2011; Troop-Gordon, 2015). Indeed, bullies and the peers who assist them typically display social-cognitive deficits, including overly high self-esteem, pride in their acts, and indifference to harm done to their victims (Hymel et al., 2010).

Depression and other internalizing difficulties increase children’s risk of both real-life and cyber victimization (Kochel, Ladd, & Rudolph, 2012; Vaillancourt et al., 2013). Chronic victims tend to be passive when active behavior is expected. Biologically based traits—an inhibited temperament and a frail physical appearance—contribute. But victims also have histories of resistant attachment, overly controlling child rearing, and maternal overprotection—parenting that prompts anxiety, low self-esteem, and dependency, resulting in a fearful demeanor that marks these children and youths as vulnerable (Rubin et al., 2018).

Other adjustment problems associated with persistent victimization include loneliness, low peer acceptance, poor school performance, disruptive behavior, and school avoidance (Kochel, Ladd, & Rudolph, 2012). And like persistent child abuse, victimization is linked to impaired production of cortisol, suggesting a chronically disrupted physiological response to stress (Vaillancourt, Hymel, & McDougall, 2013).

As instances of traditional bullying and cyberbullying accumulate, victims report substantial interference with daily functioning. Both traditional bullying and cyberbullying are related to declining self-esteem, classroom and school participation, and academic achievement and to rising anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts (Ladd, Ettekal, & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2017; Menesini, Calussi, & Nocentini, 2012; van den Eijnden et al., 2014). Repeated cyberattacks directed at causing widespread damage to the victim’s reputation—for example, circulating malicious photos or videos on cell phones or social media sites—magnify these effects.

Bullies and the peers who assist them typically display overly high self-esteem, pride in their acts, and indifference to the harm done to their victims. Chronic victims are often easy targets—frail looking, passive, and inhibited.

John Birdsall/Alamy Stock Photo

Aggression and victimization are not polar opposites. One-third to one-half of victims are also aggressive, meting out physical, relational, or cyber hostilities. Bullies usually respond by abusing them again—a cycle that sustains their victim status (Cooley, Fite, & Pederson, 2017). Among rejected children, these bully/victims are the most despised. They often have histories of extremely maladaptive parenting, including child abuse. This combination of highly negative home and peer experiences places them at severe risk for maladjustment (Lereya, Samara, & Wolke, 2013).

Interventions that change victimized children’s negative opinions of themselves and that teach them to respond in nonreinforcing ways to their attackers are helpful. Another way to assist victimized children is to help them acquire the social skills needed to form and maintain a gratifying, supportive friendship (Cuadros & Berger, 2016). When children have a close friend to whom they can turn for help or belong to a clique in which some friends are willing to retaliate on their behalf, bullying episodes typically end quickly (Kendrick, Jutengren, & Stattin, 2012; Zarbatanay et al., 2017). Also, anxious, withdrawn children with friends have fewer adjustment problems than those without friends (Fox & Boulton, 2006).

Although modifying victimized children’s behavior can help, the best way to reduce bullying is to change youth environments (including school, sports programs, recreation centers, and neighborhoods), promoting prosocial attitudes and behaviors. Effective approaches include developing school and community codes against both traditional bullying and cyberbullying; teaching child bystanders to intervene; strengthening parental oversight of children and youths’ use of cell phones and other screen media; and increasing adult supervision of high-bullying areas in schools, such as hallways, lunchroom, and schoolyard (Fite et al., 2013; Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services manages an antibullying website, www.stopbullying.gov, that raises awareness of the harmfulness of bullying and provides parents, teachers, and students with information on prevention.

Finally, because rejected children’s socially incompetent behaviors often originate in harsh, authoritarian parenting, interventions focusing on the child may not be sufficient (Bierman & Powers, 2009). Without improving the quality of parent–child interaction, rejected children will continue to practice poor interpersonal skills at home and, as a result, may soon return to their old behavior patterns.

13.5 GENDER TYPING

13.5 Discuss changes in gender-stereotyped beliefs and gender identity during middle childhood.

Children’s understanding of gender roles broadens in middle childhood, and their gender identities (views of themselves as relatively masculine or feminine) change as well. We will see how gender stereotypes influence children’s attitudes, behaviors, peer relations, and self-perceptions.

13.5.1 Gender-Stereotyped Beliefs

By age 5, gender stereotyping of activities and occupations is well-established. During the school years, knowledge of stereotypes increases in the less obvious areas of personality traits and achievement.

Personality Traits

Research in many cultures reveals that stereotyping of personality traits increases steadily in middle childhood, becoming adultlike around age 11 (Best, 2001; Heyman & Legare, 2004). For example, children typically regard “tough,” “aggressive,” “rational,” and “dominant” as masculine and “gentle,” “sympathetic,” and “dependent” as feminine.

Children derive these distinctions from observing sex differences in behavior as well as from adult treatment. When helping a child with a task, for example, parents (especially fathers) behave in a more mastery-oriented fashion with sons, setting higher standards, explaining concepts, and pointing out important features of tasks—particularly during gender-typed pursuits, such as science activities (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003; Tenenbaum et al., 2005).

Furthermore, elementary school teachers tend to stereotype girls who display “feminine” behavior as diligent and compliant and boys who display “masculine” behavior as lazy and troublesome (Heyder & Kessels, 2015). These perceptions may contribute to boys’ reduced academic engagement and lower school grades relative to girls’. At the same time, when teachers are presented with a boy and a girl who are equally successful at math, they tend to see the girl as having to work harder (Robinson-Cimpian et al., 2014). As we saw in our discussion of achievement-related attributions, this downrating of girls’ ability negatively affects their performance.

Achievement Areas

Shortly after entering elementary school, school-age children figure out which academic subjects and skill areas are “masculine” and which are “feminine.” They often regard reading, spelling, art, and music as more for girls and mathematics, athletics, science, and mechanical skills as more for boys (Cvencek, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011; Eccles, Jacobs, & Harold, 1990). These stereotypes—and the attitudes and behaviors of parents and teachers that promote them—influence children’s preferences for and sense of competence at certain subjects and, ultimately, their performance (Muntoni & Retelsdorf, 2018; Plante et al., 2018). As we saw in our discussion of self-esteem, boys tend to feel more competent than girls at math, science, and athletics, whereas girls feel more competent than boys at language arts (see page 480).

An encouraging sign is that some gender-stereotyped beliefs about achievement seem to be changing. In several investigations carried out in Canada, France, and the United States, a majority of elementary and secondary students disagreed that math is a “masculine” subject (Kurtz-Costes et al., 2014; Martinot, Bagès, & Désert, 2012; Plante, Théoret, & Favreau, 2009; Rowley et al., 2007). Furthermore, when Canadian students were given the option of rating math as a “feminine” subject (not offered in previous studies), an impressive number—more girls than boys—viewed it as predominantly feminine. And in a British study, girls viewed their own gender as having superior math ability, though boys disagreed, believing they were better at math (Nowicki & Lopata, 2017).

Figure 13.3 Depiction of scientists as female in U.S. elementary and secondary school students’ drawings, 1985–2016. When more than 70 studies conducted between 1985 and 2016 were examined in which U.S. elementary and secondary school students were asked to draw an image of a scientist, over one-fourth drew female scientists—a dramatic rise over previous decades. Girls, however, did so far more often than boys. (Based on Miller et al., 2018.)

Similarly, when researchers examined five decades of studies in which thousands of U.S. elementary and secondary school students were asked to draw an image of a scientist, both girls and boys drew female scientists more often in later decades. In the 1960s and 1970s, less than 1 percent depicted scientists as female, compared with 28 percent between 1985 and 2016—results indicating that the stereotypic view of science as “masculine” has weakened (Miller et al., 2018). Still, as Figure 13.3 shows, girls drew female scientists far more often than boys.

Finally, the overwhelming majority of young people in recent investigations continue to view language arts traditionally—as largely “feminine.” And they still perceive girls as doing better in language arts than in math.

Toward Greater Flexibility

Although school-age children are aware of many gender stereotypes, they also develop a more flexible, open-minded view of what males and females can do, a trend that continues into adolescence.

In studying gender stereotyping, researchers usually ask children whether or not both genders can display a personality trait or engage in an activity—responses that measure gender-stereotype flexibility, or overlap in the characteristics of males and females. In a German study that followed children from age 5 to 10, flexibility increased dramatically from age 7 on regardless of the degree of early gender-stereotype rigidity (see Figure 13.4 on page 500) (Trautner et al., 2005). As they develop the capacity to integrate conflicting social cues, children realize that a person’s sex is not a certain predictor of his or her personality traits, activities, and behaviors (Halim & Ruble, 2010). Similarly, by the end of the school years, most children regard gender typing as socially rather than biologically influenced (Taylor, Rhodes, & Gelman, 2009).

Despite this increasing flexibility, many school-age children take a harsh view of certain gender-role violations—boys playing with dolls and wearing girls’ clothing, and girls acting noisily and roughly. They are especially intolerant when boys engage in these “cross-gender” acts (Blakemore, 2003). When asked for open-ended descriptions of boys and girls, children most often mention girls’ physical appearance (“is pretty,” “wears dresses”) and boys’ activities and personality traits (“likes trucks,” “is rough”) (Miller et al., 2009). The salience of these stereotypes helps explain why, when children of the other sex display the behaviors just mentioned, they are likely to experience severe peer disapproval.

Figure 13.4 Changes in gender-stereotype flexibility between ages 5 and 10. German schoolchildren responded annually to a questionnaire assessing the flexibility of their gender-stereotyped beliefs (whether they thought both genders could display a personality trait or engage in an activity). Children differing in degree of gender-stereotype rigidity at age 5 eventually became equally flexible. Findings support the powerful role of cognitive changes in inducing flexibility, since early individual differences in rigidity were not sustained. (From H. M. Trautner et al., 2005, “Rigidity and Flexibility of Gender Stereotypes in Childhood: Developmental or Differential?” Infant and Child Development, 14, p. 371. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons Limited. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.)

Nevertheless, school-age children do extend more flexible gender attitudes to the peer context to some degree. As with ethnicity, the majority regard excluding an agemate from peer group activities on the basis of gender as unfair. But between fourth and seventh grades, more young people—again, especially boys—say it is OK to exclude on the basis of gender than ethnicity (see Figure 13.5). They point to concerns about group functioning related to sex differences in interests and communication styles—boys’ preference for active pursuits and commanding, forceful behavior, girls’ preference for quiet activities, politeness, and compromise (Killen et al., 2002, p. 56).

In line with these findings, sex-segregated peer associations strengthen during middle childhood and continue to contribute powerfully to gender typing. School-age children come to expect that communication with same-sex peers will be more responsive and involve less discomfort (for example, not knowing what to say)—beliefs that predict gains over time in the number of same-sex friendships children report (Xiao et al., 2019). Teachers and schools might actively arrange for more interaction between boys and girls to broaden the array of relationships children develop and reduce gender-role conformity. Having other-sex friends may contribute, especially, to reduced stereotyping of other-sex peers.

13.5.2 Gender Identity and Behavior

Children who were more strongly gender-typed relative to their agemates in early childhood usually remain so in middle childhood (Golombok et al., 2008). Nevertheless, overall changes do occur, with boys’ and girls’ gender identities following different paths.

From third to sixth grade, boys tend to strengthen their identification with “masculine” personality traits, whereas girls’ identification with “feminine” traits declines. Girls are more likely than boys to describe themselves as having some “other-gender” characteristics. And whereas boys usually stick to “masculine” pursuits, many girls experiment with a wider range of options—from cooking and sewing to sports and science projects—and more often consider traditionally male future work roles, such as firefighter or astronomer. As many as one-third to two-thirds of school-age girls say they are “sort of” or definitely tomboys (Halim, Bryant, & Zucker, 2016).

Figure 13.5 Percentage of children and adolescents saying “It’s OK” to exclude an agemate from a peer-group activity on the basis of gender and ethnicity. When asked about excluding an other-sex or other-ethnicity peer from a peer-group activity (a music club in which members trade DVDs), many more young people said that it is OK to do so on the basis of gender than on the basis of ethnicity. Willingness to exclude on the basis of gender increased with age, with many participants justifying their decision by pointing to sex differences in interests and communication styles. (Based on Killen et al., 2002.)

These changes reflect a mixture of cognitive and social forces. School-age children of both sexes are aware that society attaches greater prestige to “masculine” pursuits. For example, they rate “masculine” occupations as having higher status than “feminine” occupations, and an unfamiliar job as higher in status when portrayed with a male worker than a female worker (Liben, Bigler, & Krogh, 2001; Weisgram, Bigler, & Liben, 2010). Messages from adults and peers are also influential. In Chapter 10, we saw that parents (especially fathers) are especially disapproving when sons, as opposed to daughters, cross gender lines. Similarly, a tomboyish girl can interact with boys without losing the approval of her female peers, but a boy who hangs out with girls is likely to be ridiculed and rejected.

As school-age children make social comparisons and characterize themselves in terms of stable dispositions, their gender identity expands to include the following self-evaluations, which greatly affect psychological adjustment:

Gender typicality—the degree to which the child feels similar to others of the same gender. Although children need not be highly gender typed to view themselves as gender-typical, their psychological well-being depends, to some degree, on feeling that they “fit in” with their same-sex peers.

Gender contentedness—the degree to which the child feels comfortable with his or her gender assignment, which also promotes happiness.

Felt pressure to conform to gender roles—the degree to which the child feels parents and peers disapprove of his or her gender-related traits. Because such pressure reduces the likelihood that children will explore options related to their interests and talents, children who feel strong gender-typed pressure are often distressed.

In a longitudinal study of third through seventh graders, gender-typical and gender-contented children gained in self-esteem over the following year. In contrast, children who were gender-atypical and gender-discontented declined in self-worth. Furthermore, gender-atypical children who reported intense pressure to conform to gender roles experienced serious internalizing difficulties—withdrawal, sadness, disappointment, and anxiety (Corby, Hodges, & Perry, 2007; Yunger, Carver, & Perry, 2004). In other research, children who, on gender typicality, expressed an androgynous identity—said they felt similar both to peers of the same gender and to peers of the other gender—reported high self-esteem, little felt pressure to conform to gender roles, and few internalizing problems (Pauletti et al., 2017).

Because felt pressure to conform to gender roles predicts maladjustment among gender-atypical children, more experts are advocating interventions that help parents, teachers, and peers become more accepting of children’s gender-atypical interests and behaviors and that protect such children from peer harassment (Bigler, 2007; Hill et al., 2010; Smith & Juvonen, 2017). Return to page 390 in Chapter 10, to review related evidence on gender-dysphoric children, who feel profoundly discontented with their birth sex and who strongly identify as the other sex, along with evidence on the best therapeutic approach to help them.

An 8-year-old launches the rocket she made in her school’s Young Astronaut Club. Whereas school-age boys usually stick to “masculine” pursuits, girls experiment with a wider range of options.

Chris Zuppa/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Press

Ask Yourself

Connect ■ Describe similarities in development of self-concept, attitudes toward racial and ethnic minorities, and gender-stereotyped beliefs in middle childhood.

Apply ■ What changes in parent–child and teacher–child relationships are likely to help children who are rejected by their peers?

Reflect ■ As a school-age child, did you have classmates you would classify as popular-antisocial? What were they like, and why do you think peers admired them?

13.6 FAMILY INFLUENCES

13.6a Discuss changes in parent–child communication and sibling relationships in middle childhood.

13.6b Explain how children fare in lesbian and gay families and in never-married, single-parent families.

13.6c Cite factors that influence children’s adjustment to divorce and blended family arrangements.

13.6d Discuss how maternal employment and life in dual-earner families affect school-age children.

As children move into school, peer, and community contexts, the parent–child relationship changes. At the same time, children’s well-being continues to depend on the quality of family interaction. In the following sections, we will see that contemporary diversity in family life—fewer births per family unit, more lesbian and gay parents who are open about their sexual orientation, more never-married parents, and continuing high rates of divorce, remarriage, and maternal employment—have reshaped the family system. As we consider this array of family forms, note how children’s well-being, in each instance, depends on the quality of family interaction, which is sustained by supportive ties to kin and community and by favorable public policies.

13.6.1 Parent–Child Relationships

In middle childhood, the amount of time children spend with parents declines dramatically. Children’s growing independence means that parents must deal with new issues. “I’ve struggled with how many chores to assign, how much allowance to give, whether their friends are good influences, and what to do about problems at school,” Rena remarked. “And then there’s the challenge of keeping track of them when they’re out—or even when they’re home and I’m not there to see what’s going on.”

Despite these new concerns, child rearing becomes easier for parents who established an authoritative style during the early years. Reasoning is more effective with school-age children because of their greater capacity for logical thinking and their increased respect for parents’ expert knowledge. And children of parents who engage in joint decision making when possible are more likely to listen to parents’ perspectives in situations where compliance is vital (Russell, Mize, & Bissaker, 2004).

As children demonstrate that they can manage daily activities and responsibilities, effective parents gradually shift control from adult to child—a change associated with favorable academic achievement and high-quality peer relationships (Wang & Fletcher, 2016). Parents do not let go entirely but, rather, engage in coregulation, a form of supervision in which they exercise general oversight while letting children take charge of moment-by-moment decision making. Coregulation grows out of a warm, securely attached parent–child relationship based on cooperation, compromise, and mutual respect. Parents must guide and monitor from a distance and effectively communicate expectations when they are with their children. And children must inform parents of their whereabouts, activities, and problems so parents can intervene when necessary (Collins, Madsen, & Susman-Stillman, 2002; Koehn & Kerns, 2018). Coregulation supports and protects children while preparing them for adolescence, when they will make many important decisions themselves.

As at younger ages, mothers spend more time than fathers with school-age children and know more about children’s everyday activities, although many fathers are highly involved (Pew Research Center, 2013b). Both parents, however, tend to devote more time to children of their own sex (Lam, McHale, & Crouter, 2012).

Although school-age children often press for greater independence, they know they need their parents’ support. A positive parent–child relationship is linked to improved emotional self-regulation in children, reducing the negative impact of stressful events (Brumariu, Kerns, & Seibert, 2012; Hazel et al., 2014). School-age children often turn to parents for affection, advice, affirmation of self-worth, and assistance with everyday problems

13.6.2 Siblings

In addition to parents and friends, siblings continue to be important sources of support. Yet sibling rivalry tends to increase in middle childhood. As children participate in a wider range of activities, parents often compare siblings’ traits and accomplishments. The child who gets less parental affection, more disapproval, or fewer material resources is likely to be resentful and show poorer adjustment (McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012).

For same-sex siblings who are close in age, parental comparisons become more frequent, resulting in more quarreling and antagonism. This effect is particularly strong when parents are under stress as a result of financial worries, marital conflict, single parenthood, or child negativity (Jenkins, Rasbash, & O’Connor, 2003). Parents whose energies are drained become less careful about being fair. Perhaps because fathers, overall, spend less time with children than mothers, children react especially intensely when fathers prefer one child: Jealousy over attention from fathers predicts sibling conflict (Kolak & Volling, 2011).

To reduce rivalry, siblings often strive to be different from one another (McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012). For example, two brothers I know deliberately selected different athletic pursuits and musical instruments. If the older one did especially well at an activity, the younger one did not want to try it. Parents can limit the effects of rivalry by making an effort not to compare children, but some feedback about their competencies is inevitable. As siblings strive to win recognition for their own uniqueness, they shape important aspects of each other’s development.

Although conflict tends to rise, many siblings continue to rely on each other for companionship, assistance, emotional support, and resilience in the face of major stressors, such as parental divorce (Conger, Stocker, & McGuire, 2009). Providing parents with training in mediation—how to get siblings to lay down ground rules, clarify their points of disagreement and common ground, and discuss possible solutions—increases siblings’ awareness of each other’s perspectives, reduces animosity, and enhances siblings’ ability to resolve disagreements constructively (Ross & Lazinski, 2014).

When siblings get along well, the older sibling’s academic and social competence tends to “rub off on” the younger sibling, fostering more favorable achievement and peer relationships. And both older and younger siblings benefit in empathy and prosocial behavior (Lam, Solmeyer, & McHale, 2012; Padilla-Walker, Harper, & Jensen, 2010). But destructive sibling conflict in middle childhood is associated with negative outcomes, including conflict-ridden peer relationships, anxiety, depressed mood, and later substance use and delinquency, even after other family-relationship factors are controlled (Kim et al., 2007; Ostrov, Crick, & Stauffacher, 2006; Pike & Oliver, 2016). Child conduct problems, in turn, predict worsening of sibling relationship quality over time.

An older brother teaches his sister how to play basketball. Although sibling rivalry tends to increase in middle childhood, siblings also provide each other with emotional support and help with challenging skills.

© FATCAMERA/GETTY IMAGES

13.6.3 Only Children

Although sibling relationships bring many benefits, they are not essential for healthy development. Contrary to popular belief, only children are not spoiled, and, in some respects, they are advantaged. U.S. children growing up in one-child and multichild families do not differ in self-rated personality traits (Mottus, Indus, & Allik, 2008). And compared to children with siblings, only children are higher in self-esteem and achievement motivation, do better in school, and attain higher levels of education. One reason may be that only children have somewhat closer relationships with parents, who may exert more pressure for mastery and accomplishment and can invest more time in their child’s educational experiences (Falbo, 2012). Furthermore, only children have just as many close, high-quality friends as children with siblings. However, they tend to be less well-accepted in the peer group, perhaps because they have not had opportunities to learn effective conflict-resolution strategies through sibling interaction (Kitzmann, Cohen, & Lockwood, 2002).

Favorable development also characterizes only children in China, where a one-child family policy was strictly enforced in densely populated urban areas for more than three decades, until it was replaced in 2015 by a two-child policy. Compared with agemates who have siblings, Chinese only children are slightly advantaged in cognitive development and academic motivation and achievement. They also report fewer emotional symptoms (such as anxiety, depression, or hostility), perhaps because government disapproval led to tension in families with more than one child (Falbo, 2012; Falbo & Hooper, 2015; Liu et al., 2017). Chinese mothers usually ensure that their children have regular contact with first cousins (who are considered siblings). Perhaps as a result, Chinese only children do not differ from agemates with siblings in social skills and peer acceptance (Hart, Newell, & Olsen, 2003).

13.6.4 Lesbian and Gay Families

According to recent estimates, about 20 to 35 percent of lesbian couples and 5 to 15 percent of gay couples are parents, most through previous heterosexual marriages, some through foster or adoptive parenthood, and a growing number through reproductive technologies (Brewster, Tillman, & Jokinen-Gordon, 2014; Patterson & Farr, 2016). In the past, because of laws assuming that gay men and lesbians could not be adequate parents, those who divorced a heterosexual partner lost custody of their children. Today, child custody and adoption by sexual minority parents is legal in all U.S. states and in many other industrialized nations.

Most research on families headed by same-sex couples is limited to volunteer samples. Findings indicate that lesbian and gay parents are as committed to and effective at child rearing as heterosexual parents and sometimes more so (Bos, 2013). Also, whether born to or adopted by their parents or conceived through donor insemination or surrogacy, children in lesbian and gay families usually do not differ from children of heterosexual parents in peer relations, gender-role behavior, sexual orientation, quality of life, or mental health (Bos & Sandfort, 2010; Goldberg, 2010; Patterson, 2013; Potter, 2012; van Gelderen et al., 2012). And some evidence suggests that children of same-sex parents are better adjusted (Fedewa, Black, & Ahn, 2015; Green et al., 2019).

Lesbian and gay parents are as committed to and effective at child rearing as heterosexual parents, and the children of same-sex and other-sex parents develop similarly.

© HERO IMAGES INC/ALAMY Stock Photo

To surmount the potential bias associated with volunteer samples, some researchers take advantage of large, nationally representative data banks to study lesbian and gay families. Findings indicate that children with same-sex and other-sex parents develop similarly, and that children’s adjustment is associated with factors other than parental sexual orientation (Moore & Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, 2013). For example, close parent–child relationships predict better peer relations and a reduction in adolescent delinquency, whereas family transitions (such as parental divorce and remarriage) are related to academic difficulties, regardless of family form (Potter, 2012; Russell & Muraco, 2013).

When extended-family members withhold acceptance, lesbian and gay parents often build “families of choice” through friends, who assume the roles of relatives (Frost, Meyer, & Schwartz, 2016). Usually, however, parents of sexual minorities cannot endure a permanent rift. With time, extended family relationships become more positive and supportive.

A major concern of lesbian and gay parents is that their children will be stigmatized because of their parents’ sexual orientation. Peer teasing and harassment are problems for some children of sexual minority parents, but close parent–child relationships, supportive school and neighborhood environments, and connections with other lesbian and gay families protect children from the negative effects of these experiences (Bos, 2013; Patterson, 2017). Overall, children of lesbian and gay parents can be distinguished from other children mainly by issues related to living in discriminatory contexts.

13.6.5 Never-Married Parent Families

Over the past several decades, births to unmarried mothers in industrialized nations have increased dramatically. Today, about 40 percent of U.S. births are to single mothers, more than double the percentage in 1980. Whereas teenage parenthood has declined steadily since 1990, births to single adult women have increased, with a particularly sharp rise during the first decade of the twenty-first century, followed by a period of stability and a recent slight decline (Child Trends, 2018b; Martin et al., 2018).

A growing number of nonmarital births—about 1 in 3—are to cohabiting couples, relationships that are especially common among young adults with low education and income. In addition, more than 12 percent of U.S. children live with a single parent who has never married and does not have a partner. About 90 percent are mothers, 10 percent fathers (Martin et al., 2018; Pew Research Center, 2018d). A far larger share of never-married single parents than cohabiting parents—27 versus 16 percent—live in poverty.

African-American young women are considerably more likely than other same-age women to give birth outside of marriage and less likely to live with the child’s father or another partner. Nearly 70 percent of births to African-American mothers are to unmarried women, compared with about one-third to Hispanic and one-fourth to European-American women (Martin et al., 2018). The high African-American rate is mostly due to substantially higher imprisonment and mortality rates (as the result of homicides, chronic diseases, and injuries) among African-American men than men of other ethnicities (Levs, 2015). Largely for these reasons, more than 1 in 6 African-American men have disappeared from daily life and are unavailable to fulfill the roles of father and husband.

African-American fathers who remain in their communities are unfairly stereotyped as prone to desert their children. In fact, they do the opposite: 60 percent live with at least one child, a growing number by cohabiting with the child’s mother. Living with children greatly elevates fathers’ active participation in child rearing. With respect to parental involvement, African-American residential fathers do as well as or better than residential fathers of other ethnicities (Jones & Mosher, 2013). And as Figure 13.6 illustrates, even when African-American fathers live apart from their children, they are highly involved parents, equaling or exceeding their European-American and Hispanic counterparts.

Never-married African-American parents—especially the large number of mothers rearing children without a partner—tap the extended family, often their own mothers and sometimes male relatives, for help with child rearing (Anderson, 2012). Still, as noted earlier, single parenthood greatly increases financial hardship. Many children in single-mother homes display adjustment problems associated with economic disadvantage (Lamb, 2012; Mather, 2010). Furthermore, children of never-married mothers who lack a father’s consistent warmth and involvement show less favorable cognitive development and engage in more antisocial behavior (Sterrett et al., 2015; Waldfogel, Craigie, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010).

Figure 13.6 Involvement of U.S. nonresidential fathers with their 5- to 18-year-old children by ethnicity. A nationally representative sample of over 1,000 nonresidential fathers answered questions about how often they engage in various parenting behaviors with their school-age and adolescent children. African-American fathers’ involvement equaled or exceeded that of European-American and Hispanic fathers, as illustrated by the extent to which they talked with children about their day, took children to or from activities, and helped children with homework at least several times per week. African-American nonresident fathers’ involvement with infants and preschoolers, including joint play, book reading, and meals (not shown), is similarly high. (Based on Jones & Mosher, 2013.)

But a marital or cohabiting relationship benefits children only when the father is a reliable source of economic and child-rearing support. For example, adolescents who feel close to their nonresident father fare better in school performance and emotional and social adjustment than do adolescents in two-parent homes where a close father tie is lacking (Booth, Scott, & King, 2010). Strengthening coparenting skills, social support, education, and employment opportunities for low-SES parents would greatly enhance the well-being of unmarried parents (both mothers and fathers) and their children.

13.6.6 Divorce

Children’s interactions with parents and siblings are affected by other aspects of family life. When Joey was 8 and Lizzie 5, their father, Drake, moved out. During the preceding months, Joey began pushing, hitting, taunting, and calling Lizzie names—fighting that coincided with Rena and her husband’s growing marital unhappiness.

Between 1960 and 1985, divorce rates in Western nations rose dramatically before stabilizing in most countries. The United States has experienced a decline in divorces over the past 20 years, largely due to a rise in age at first marriage and a drop in marriage rates. However, this decrease mostly applies to well-educated, financially secure families. As Figure 13.7 on page 506 shows, individuals with less education experience substantially greater marital instability (Lundberg & Pollack, 2015). Because educational and economic disadvantage increases family fragility, divorce rates are higher among low-income ethnic minority couples (Raley, Sweeny, & Wondra, 2015).

Among developed nations, the United States has one of the highest divorce rates. Of the estimated 42 to 45 percent of American marriages that end in divorce, half involve children. More than one-fourth of U.S. children live in divorced, single-parent households. Although most reside with their mothers, the percentage in father-headed households has increased steadily, to about 17 percent (Grall, 2016).

Children of divorce spend an average of five years in a single-parent home—almost a third of childhood. About 10 percent of U.S. children live with one parent (usually their mother) and a married or cohabiting stepparent (Kreider & Ellis, 2011). Many of these children eventually experience a third major change—the end of their parent’s second marriage or cohabiting partnership.

These figures reveal that divorce is a transition that leads to a variety of new living arrangements, accompanied by changes in housing, income, and family roles and responsibilities. Although divorce is stressful for children and increases their risk of adjustment problems, most adjust favorably (Greene et al., 2012; Lamb, 2012). How well children fare depends on many factors: the custodial parent’s psychological health, the child’s characteristics, and social supports within the family and surrounding community.

Figure 13.7 Current marital status reported by U.S. women varying in level of education. A survey of over 10,000 U.S. women between ages 15 and 44 revealed that increased education is linked to marital stability, whereas limited education is linked to divorce, remarriage, and subsequent divorce. (Based on Lundberg & Pollak, 2015.)

Immediate Consequences

“Things were the worst after Drake and I decided to separate,” Rena reflected. “We fought over division of our belongings and custody of the children, and the kids suffered. Sobbing, Lizzie told me she was ‘sorry she made Daddy go away.’ Joey kicked and threw things at home and didn’t do his work at school. We had to sell the house; I couldn’t afford it alone. And I needed a better-paying job.”

Family conflict often rises in newly divorced households as parents try to settle disputes over children and possessions. Once one parent moves out, additional events threaten supportive interactions between parents and children. Mother-headed households typically experience a sharp drop in income. In the United States, nearly 30 percent of divorced mothers with young children live in poverty, and many more are low-income, getting less than the full amount of child support from the absent father or none at all (Grall, 2016). These families often have to move to lower-cost housing, reducing supportive ties to neighbors and friends.

The transition from marriage to divorce typically leads to high maternal stress, depression, and anxiety and to a disorganized family life. Declines in well-being are greatest for mothers of young children (Williams & Dunne-Bryant, 2006). “Meals and bedtimes were at all hours, the house didn’t get cleaned, and I stopped taking Joey and Lizzie on weekend outings,” said Rena. As children react with distress and anger to their less secure home lives, discipline may become harsh and inconsistent. Over time, contact with noncustodial fathers—and the quality of the father–child relationship—often decreases, particularly when parental conflict is high (Troilo & Coleman, 2012). Fathers who see their children only occasionally are inclined to be permissive and indulgent, making the mother’s task of managing the child even more difficult.

The greater children’s exposure to parental conflict and inadequate warmth, involvement, and consistent guidance, the poorer children’s adjustment (Elam et al., 2016, 2019). About 20 to 25 percent of children in divorced families display severe problems, compared with about 10 percent in nondivorced families (Golombok & Tasker, 2015; Lansford, 2009). At the same time, reactions vary with children’s age, temperament, and sex.

Children’s Age

Five-year-old Lizzie’s fear that she had caused her father to leave home is not unusual. Preschool and young school-age children often blame themselves for a marital breakup and fear that both parents may abandon them (Lansford et al., 2006). Hence, they are more likely to display both anxious, fearful and angry, defiant reactions than older children and adolescents with the cognitive maturity to understand that they are not responsible for their parents’ divorce.

Still, many school-age and adolescent youngsters also react strongly, experiencing depressed mood and declining in school performance, becoming unruly, and escaping into undesirable peer activities, such as running away, truancy, substance use, and early sexual activity, particularly when family conflict is high and parental support and supervision are low (Kleinsorge & Covitz, 2012; Sigle-Rushton et al., 2014; Weaver & Schofield, 2015). Some older children—especially the oldest child in the family—display more mature behavior, willingly taking on extra household tasks, care of younger siblings, and emotional support of a depressed, anxious mother. But if these demands are too great, these children may eventually become resentful and engage in angry, acting-out behavior (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002).

When parents divorce, young children often blame themselves and respond with both fear and anger. This father’s soothing words help his daughter understand that she is not responsible for the marital breakup.

© CATCHLIGHT VISUAL SERVICES/ALAMY

Children’s Temperament and Sex

Exposure to stressful life events and inadequate parenting magnifies the problems of temperamentally difficult children (see Chapter 7). In contrast, easy children are less often targets of parental anger and also cope more effectively with adversity.

These findings help explain sex differences in response to divorce. Girls sometimes respond as Lizzie did, with internalizing reactions such as crying, self-criticism, and withdrawal. More often, children of both sexes show demanding, attention-getting behavior. But in mother-custody families, boys are at slightly greater risk for serious adjustment problems (Amato, 2010). Recall from Chapter 10 that boys are more active and noncompliant—behaviors that increase with exposure to parental conflict and inconsistent discipline. Research reveals that long before the marital breakup, sons of divorcing couples display higher rates of impulsivity, defiance, and aggression—externalizing difficulties that may have been caused by their parents’ marital problems while also contributing to them (Shaw, Winslow, & Flanagan, 1999; Strohschein, 2005). As a result, more boys enter the period of turmoil surrounding divorce with reduced capacity to cope with family stress.

Perhaps because their behavior is more unruly, boys of divorcing parents receive less emotional support from mothers, teachers, and peers. And as Joey’s behavior toward Lizzie illustrates, the cycles of coercive interaction between distressed children and their divorced mothers soon spread to sibling relationships (Sheehan et al., 2004). After divorce, children who are challenging to rear generally get worse.

Long-Term Consequences

Rena eventually found better-paying work and gained control over the daily operation of the household. After several meetings with a counselor, Rena and Drake realized the harmful impact of their quarreling on Joey and Lizzie. Drake visited regularly and handled Joey’s disruptiveness with firmness and consistency. Soon Joey’s school performance improved, his behavior problems subsided, and both children seemed calmer and happier.

Most children show improved adjustment by two years after divorce. Yet overall, children and adolescents of divorced parents continue to score slightly lower than children of continuously married parents in academic achievement, self-esteem, social competence, and emotional and behavioral adjustment (Lansford, 2009; Weaver & Schofield, 2015). And divorce is linked to problems with adolescent sexuality and development of intimate ties. Young people who experienced parental divorce—especially more than once—display higher rates of early sexual activity and adolescent parenthood. Some display other difficulties in adulthood—reduced educational attainment, troubled romantic relationships and marriages, and divorce (Amato, 2010). Thus, divorce can have consequences for subsequent generations.

The overriding factor in positive adjustment following divorce is effective parenting—how well the custodial parent handles stress and shields the child from family conflict, and the extent to which each parent uses authoritative child rearing (Lamb, 2012). Parent-training programs can help custodial parents support their children’s development. One eleven-session parent-training intervention for mothers of school-age children yielded improved mother–child relationships and increased children’s coping skills, with effects persisting for six years (Velez et al., 2011).

Where the custodial parent is the mother, regular contact with fathers—especially those who were highly involved in child rearing—is important. The more paternal contact and the warmer the relationship, the less children react with internalizing and externalizing problems (Elam et al., 2016; Poortman, 2018). A few studies report that children’s adjustment is slightly better when the father is the custodial parent, perhaps because of fathers’ greater economic security (Clarke-Stewart & Hayward, 1996; Guttman & Lazar, 1998; McLanahan, 1999). At the same time, single mothers tend to provide children with more warmth, monitoring, and supervision than fathers (Coles, 2015). In most investigations, children in mother-custody and father-custody homes do not differ in psychological well-being.

Regular contact with both parents and effective coparenting—supporting each other in their child-rearing roles—greatly improves adjustment in children of divorce.

Phanie/Alamy Stock Photo

Although divorce is painful for children, remaining in an intact but high-conflict family is much worse than making the transition to a low-conflict, single-parent household (Lamb, 2012; Strohschein, 2005). Divorcing parents who manage to set aside their disagreements and engage in effective coparenting, supporting each other in their child-rearing roles, greatly improve their children’s chances of growing up competent, stable, and happy.

Divorce Mediation, Joint Custody, and Child Support

Awareness that divorce is highly stressful for children and families has led to community-based services aimed at helping them through this difficult time. One such service is divorce mediation, a series of meetings between divorcing adults and a trained professional aimed at reducing family conflict, including legal battles over property division and child custody. Mediation increases out-of-court settlements, cooperation and involvement of both parents in child rearing, and parents’ and children’s feelings of well-being (Douglas, 2006).

Parent education programs, which are widespread, further encourage parents to resolve their disputes. During several sessions, professionals teach parents about the positive impact of constructive conflict resolution and of respectful, cooperative coparenting on children’s well-being (Cookston et al., 2006; Pruett et al., 2016). Because of the demonstrated impact of parent education on parental cooperation, courts in many U.S. states may require parents to attend a program.

Joint custody, which grants each parent an equal say in important decisions about the child’s upbringing, has become a common outcome of divorce settlements. Children usually reside with one parent and see the other on a fixed schedule, similar to the typical sole-custody arrangement. In other cases, parents share physical custody, and children move between homes. Joint-custody parents usually report little conflict—fortunately so, since the success of the arrangement depends on effective coparenting (Bauserman, 2012). And their children, regardless of living arrangements, tend to be better-adjusted than children in sole-maternal-custody homes (Baude, Pearson, & Drapeau, 2016; Bauserman, 2002).

Finally, many single-parent families depend on child support from the noncustodial parent to relieve financial strain. All U.S. states have procedures for withholding wages from parents who fail to make these payments. Although child support is usually not enough to lift a single-parent family out of poverty, it can ease its burdens substantially. Noncustodial fathers who have generous visitation schedules and see their children often are more likely to pay child support regularly (Amato & Sobolewski, 2004). And increases in paternal contact and in child support over time predict better coparenting relationships (Hofferth, Forry, & Peters, 2010). Applying What We Know on the following page summarizes ways to help children adjust to their parents’ divorce.

13.6.7 Blended Families

“If you get married to Wendell and Daddy gets married to Carol,” Lizzie wondered aloud to Rena, “then I’ll have two sisters and one more brother. And let’s see, how many grandmothers and grandfathers? A lot!” exclaimed Lizzie.

Applying What We Know

Helping Children Adjust to Their Parents’ Divorce

Suggestion

Explanation

Shield children from conflict.

Witnessing intense parental conflict is very damaging to children. If one parent insists on expressing hostility, children fare better if the other parent does not respond in kind.

Provide children with as much continuity, familiarity, and predictability as possible.

Children adjust better during the period surrounding divorce when their lives have some stability—for example, the same school, bedroom, babysitter, playmates, and daily schedule.

Explain the divorce and tell children what to expect.

Children may develop fears of abandonment if they are not prepared for their parents’ separation. They should be told that their parents will not be living together anymore, which parent will be moving out, and when they will be able to see that parent. If possible, parents should explain the divorce together, providing a reason that each child can understand and assuring children that they are not to blame.

Emphasize the permanence of the divorce.

Fantasies of parents getting back together can prevent children from accepting the reality of their current life. Children should be told that the divorce is final and that they cannot change this fact.

Respond sympathetically to children’s feelings.

Children need supportive, understanding responses to their feelings of sadness, fear, and anger. For children to adjust well, their painful emotions must be acknowledged, not denied or avoided.

Engage in authoritative parenting.

Authoritative parenting—providing affection and acceptance, reasonable demands for mature behavior, and consistent, rational discipline—greatly reduces children’s risk of maladjustment following divorce.

Promote continuing relationships with both parents.

When parents disentangle their lingering hostility toward the former spouse from the child’s need for a continuing relationship with the other parent, children adjust well. Grandparents and other extended-family members can help by not taking sides.

About 60 percent of divorced parents remarry within a few years. Others cohabit, or share a sexual relationship and a residence with a partner outside of marriage. Parent, stepparent, and children form a new family structure called a blended, or reconstituted, family. For some children, this expanded family network is positive, bringing greater adult attention. But children in blended families usually have more adjustment problems—including internalizing and externalizing symptoms and poor school performance—than children in stable, first-marriage families (Pryor, 2014). Switching to stepparents’ new rules and expectations can be stressful, and children often view steprelatives as intruders. How well they adapt is, again, related to the quality of family functioning. This depends on which parent forms a new relationship, the complexity of blended-family relationships, and the child’s age and sex. As we will see, older children and girls seem to have the hardest time.

Mother–Stepfather Families

Because mothers generally retain custody of children, the most common form of blended family is a mother–stepfather arrangement. Boys tend to adjust quickly, welcoming a stepfather who is warm, who refrains from exerting his authority too quickly, and who offers relief from coercive cycles of mother–son interaction. Mothers’ friction with sons also declines as a result of greater economic security, another adult to share household tasks, and an end to loneliness (Visher, Visher, & Pasley, 2003). Stepfathers who marry rather than cohabit are more involved in parenting, perhaps because men who choose to marry a mother with children are more interested in and skilled at child rearing (Hofferth & Anderson, 2003). Girls, however, often have difficulty with their custodial mother’s remarriage. Stepfathers disrupt the close ties many girls have established with their mothers, and girls often react with sulky, resistant behavior (Pryor, 2014).

But age affects these findings. Older school-age children and adolescents of both sexes display more irresponsible, acting-out behavior than their peers not in stepfamilies (Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 2000; Robertson, 2008). If parents are warmer and more involved with their biological children than with their stepchildren, older children are more likely to notice and challenge unfair treatment. And adolescents often view the new stepparent as a threat to their freedom, especially if they experienced little parental monitoring in the single-parent family. But when teenagers have affectionate, cooperative relationships with their mothers, many develop good relationships with their stepfathers—a circumstance linked to more favorable adolescent well-being (Jensen et al., 2017; Jensen & Lippold, 2018; King, 2009).

A girl in a newly formed mother–stepfather family quarrels with her mother. Stepfathers can disrupt the close ties many girls have established with their mothers.

© Robert Clay/Alamy Stock Photo

Father–Stepmother Families

Remarriage of noncustodial fathers often leads to reduced contact with their biological children, especially when fathers remarry quickly, before they have established postdivorce parent–child routines (Juby et al., 2007). When fathers have custody, children typically react negatively to remarriage. One reason is that children living with fathers often start out with more problems. Perhaps the biological mother could no longer handle the difficult child (usually a boy), so the father and his new partner are faced with a youngster who has behavior problems. In other instances, the father has custody because of a very close relationship with the child, and his remarriage disrupts this bond (Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1996).

Girls, especially, have a hard time getting along with their stepmothers, either because the remarriage threatens the girl’s bond with her father or because she becomes entangled in loyalty conflicts between the two mother figures. But the longer girls live in father–stepmother households, the closer they feel to their stepmothers and the more positive their interaction with them becomes (King, 2007). With time and patience, children of both genders benefit from the support of a second mother figure.

Support for Blended Families

Parenting education and couples counseling can help parents and children adapt to the complexities of blended families. Effective approaches encourage stepparents to move into their new roles gradually by first building a warm, friendly relationship with the child, which enhances feelings of closeness and support and makes more active parenting possible (Ganong et al., 2019; Pryor, 2014). Counselors can offer couples guidance in coparenting to limit loyalty conflicts and provide consistency in child rearing. And tempering parents’ unrealistic expectations for children’s rapid adjustment—by pointing out that building a unified blended family often takes years—makes it easier for families to endure the transition and succeed.

Unfortunately, the divorce rate for second marriages is even higher than for first marriages. Parents with antisocial tendencies and poor child-rearing skills are particularly likely to have several divorces and remarriages. The more marital transitions children experience, the greater their adjustment difficulties (Amato, 2010). These families usually require prolonged, intensive therapy.

13.6.8 Maternal Employment and Dual-Earner Families

Today, U.S. single and married mothers are in the labor market in nearly equal proportions, and more than three-fourths of those with school-age children are employed (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). In Chapter 7, we saw that the impact of maternal employment on early development depends on the quality of child care and the continuing parent–child relationship. The same is true in middle childhood.

Maternal Employment and Child Development

When mothers enjoy their work and remain committed to parenting, children develop favorably, displaying higher self-esteem, more positive family and peer relations, less gender-stereotyped beliefs, and better grades in school. Girls, especially, profit from the image of female competence. Regardless of SES, daughters of employed mothers perceive women’s roles as involving more freedom of choice and satisfaction and are more achievement- and career-oriented (Hoffman, 2000). Furthermore, stable maternal employment begun in early childhood is linked to higher achievement and fewer behavior problems in elementary school, especially for children of low-income mothers (Lombardi & Coley, 2013, 2014; Lucas-Thompson, Goldberg, & Prause, 2010; Pilkauskas, Brooks-Gunn, & Waldfogel, 2018). Parenting practices and improved financial well-being likely contribute to these benefits. Employed mothers who feel economically more secure are more likely to engage in warmer, more involved parenting.

A small but increasing number of U.S. fathers stay home full-time to care for their children.

© WESTEND61/GETTY IMAGES

In dual-earner households, maternal employment often leads fathers—especially those who believe in the importance of the paternal role and who feel successful at parenting—to take on greater child-rearing responsibilities. A small but increasing number of U.S. fathers (about 2 percent) stay home full-time to care for their children (Pew Research Center, 2018c). Paternal involvement is associated in childhood and adolescence with higher achievement, more mature social behavior, and a flexible view of gender roles; and in adulthood with generally better mental health (Bornstein, 2015; Lamb & Lewis, 2013).

But when employment places heavy demands on parents’ schedules or is stressful for other reasons, children are at risk for ineffective parenting. Working many hours, working a nonstandard schedule (such as night or weekend shifts), or experiencing a negative workplace atmosphere is associated with lower quality parenting, fewer joint parent–child activities, poorer cognitive development, and increased behavior problems throughout childhood and adolescence (Johnson et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014; Strazdins et al., 2006, 2013).

Negative consequences are magnified when low-SES mothers spend long days at low-paying, physically exhausting jobs—conditions linked to maternal depression and to harsh, inconsistent discipline (Raver, 2003). In contrast, part-time employment and flexible work schedules are associated with good child adjustment (Buehler & O’Brien, 2011; Youn, Leon, & Lee, 2012). By preventing role overload, these arrangements help parents meet children’s needs.

Child Care for School-Age Children

High-quality child care is vital for parents’ peace of mind and children’s well-being, even during middle childhood. An estimated 7 million 5- to 13-year-olds in the United States are self-care children, who regularly look after themselves for some period of time during after-school hours (Child Trends, 2016a). Self-care increases with age and also with SES, perhaps because of the greater safety of higher-income neighborhoods. But when lower-SES parents lack alternatives to self-care, their children spend more hours on their own (Casper & Smith, 2002).

Younger school-age children who spend more hours alone have more adjustment difficulties (Vandell & Posner, 1999). As children become old enough to look after themselves, those who have a history of authoritative child rearing, are monitored by parental phone calls, and have regular after-school chores appear responsible and well-adjusted. In contrast, children left to their own devices are more likely to bend to peer pressures and engage in antisocial behavior (Coley, Morris, & Hernandez, 2004; Vandell et al., 2006).

High-quality after-school programs with enrichment activities yield academic and social benefits, especially for low-SES children.

© SIMON A THALMANN/KELLOG COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Before age 8 or 9, most children need supervision because they are not yet competent to handle emergencies. But throughout middle childhood and early adolescence, attending after-school programs with well-trained and supportive staffs, generous adult–child ratios, and skill-building activities is linked to better school performance and emotional and social adjustment than unstructured arrangements such as self-care or supervision by a neighbor (Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010; Kantaoka & Vandell, 2013). Low-SES children who participate in after-school programs offering academic assistance and enrichment activities (scouting, music and art lessons, clubs) show special benefits. They exceed their self-care counterparts in classroom work habits, academic achievement, and prosocial behavior and display fewer behavior problems (Lauer et al., 2006; Vandell et al., 2006).

Yet after-school programs are in shorter supply and weaker in quality in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Programs with inexperienced staff and few constructive activities are not associated with the favorable outcomes just mentioned (Greenberg, 2013; Park & Zhan, 2017). A special need exists for well-planned programs in poverty-stricken areas—ones that provide safe environments, warm relationships with adults, and enjoyable, goal-oriented activities.

Look and Listen

In your community, what after-school programs are available, and how plentiful are they in low-income neighborhoods? If possible, visit a program, observing for supportive adult involvement, academic assistance, and enrichment activities.

Ask Yourself

Connect ■ How does each level in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory—microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem—contribute to effects of parents’ employment on children’s development?

Apply ■ Steve and Marissa are in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. Their 9-year-old son Dennis has become hostile and defiant. How can Steve and Marissa help Dennis adjust?

Reflect ■ What after-school child-care arrangements did you experience in elementary school? How do you think they influenced your development?

13.7 SOME COMMON PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT

13.7a Cite common fears and anxieties in middle childhood, and discuss their impact on children’s adjustment.

13.7b Discuss factors related to child sexual abuse, its consequences for children’s development, and its prevention and treatment.

13.7c Cite factors that foster resilience in middle childhood.

We have considered a variety of stressful experiences that place children at risk for future problems. Next, we address two more areas of concern: school-age children’s fears and anxieties and the consequences of child sexual abuse. Finally, we sum up factors that help school-age children cope effectively with stress.

13.7.1 Fears and Anxieties

Although fears of the dark, thunder and lightning, and supernatural beings persist into middle childhood, older children’s anxieties are also directed toward new concerns. As children begin to understand the realities of the wider world, the possibility of personal harm (being robbed, stabbed, or shot) and media events (war and disasters) often trouble them. Other common worries include academic failure, physical injuries, separation from parents, parents’ health, the possibility of dying, and peer rejection (Muris & Field, 2011; Weems & Costa, 2005).

As long as fears are not too intense, most children handle them constructively, using the more sophisticated emotional self-regulation strategies that develop in middle childhood. Consequently, the overall number of fears declines with age, especially for girls, who express more fears than boys throughout childhood and adolescence (Gullone, 2000; Muris & Field, 2011). But about 5 percent of school-age children develop an intense, unmanageable fear called a phobia. Although an inhibited temperament increases the risk, children with weak behavioral control and even those who are well-adjusted also acquire phobias (Capriola, Booker, & Ollendick, 2017; Ollendick, King, & Muris, 2002).

Some children with phobias and other anxieties develop school refusal—severe apprehension about attending school, often accompanied by physical complaints such as dizziness, nausea, stomachaches, and vomiting (Wimmer, 2013). About one-third of children with school refusal are 5- to 7-year-olds for whom the real fear is maternal separation (Elliott, 1999). Family therapy helps these children, whose difficulty can often be traced to parental overprotection.

Most cases of school refusal appear around age 11 to 13, in children who usually find a particular aspect of school frightening—an overcritical teacher, a school bully, or too much parental pressure to achieve. A change in school environment or parenting practices may be needed. Firm insistence that the child return to school, along with training in how to cope with difficult situations, is also helpful (Kearney, Spear, & Mihalas, 2014).

Severe childhood anxieties may also arise from harsh living conditions. In poverty-stricken, crime-ridden urban neighborhoods and in war-torn areas of the world, many children live in the midst of constant danger, chaos, and deprivation. As the Cultural Influences box on page 514 reveals, they are at risk for long-term emotional distress and behavior problems. Finally, as we saw in our discussion of child abuse in Chapter 10, too often violence and other destructive acts become part of adult–child relationships. During middle childhood, child sexual abuse increases.

Some children develop school refusal—severe apprehension about attending school. For many younger children, the real fear is maternal separation, often due to parental overprotection.

Burger/Phanie/Alamy Stock Photo

13.7.2 Child Sexual Abuse

Until recently, child sexual abuse was considered rare, and adults often dismissed children’s claims of abuse. In the 1970s, efforts by professionals and media attention led to recognition of child sexual abuse as a serious and widespread problem. About 57,000 cases in the United States were confirmed in the most recently reported year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018a). But this figure greatly underestimates the extent of sexual abuse because most victims either delay disclosure for a long time, tell someone (such as a family member or friend) who takes no further measures, or remain silent (Martin & Silverstone, 2013; Stiller & Hellmann, 2017).

Characteristics of Abusers and Victims

Globally, an estimated 18 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys are sexually abused during childhood or adolescence (Stoltenborgh et al., 2015). Most cases are reported in middle childhood, but for some victims, abuse begins early in life and continues for many years (Collin-Vézina, Daigneault, & Hébert, 2013).

In the vast majority of cases, the abuser is a male, often a parent or someone the parent knows well—a father, stepfather, live-in boyfriend, uncle, or older brother (Olafson, 2011). If the abuser is a nonrelative, the person is usually someone the child has come to know and trust, such as a teacher, caregiver, clergy member, or family friend (Sullivan et al., 2011). The Internet and smartphones have become avenues through which some perpetrators commit sexual abuse—for example, by exposing children and adolescents to pornography and online sexual advances as a way of “grooming” them for sexual acts offline (Kloess, Beech, & Harkins, 2014). Sadly, a substantial number of abusers are themselves children or adolescents, many of whom are also victims of sexual abuse or other forms of maltreatment (Vizard, 2013).

Abusers make the child comply in a variety of distasteful ways, including deception, bribery, verbal intimidation, and physical force. You may wonder how any adult—especially a parent or close relative—could violate a child sexually. Many offenders deny their own responsibility, blaming the abuse on the willing participation of a seductive youngster. Yet children are not capable of making a deliberate, informed decision to enter into a sexual relationship! Even older children and adolescents are not free to say yes or no. Rather, the responsibility lies with abusers, who tend to have characteristics that predispose them toward sexual exploitation of children. They have great difficulty controlling their impulses and may suffer from psychological disorders, including alcohol and drug abuse. Often, they pick out children who are unlikely to defend themselves or to be believed—those who are physically weak, emotionally deprived, socially isolated, or affected by disabilities (Assink et al., 2019).

Cultural InfluencesImpact of Ethnic and Political Violence on Children

Around the world, many children are exposed to armed conflict, terrorism, and other acts of violence stemming from ethnic and political tensions. Some children participate in fighting, either because they are forced or because they want to please adults. Others are kidnapped, assaulted, and tortured. Child bystanders often come under direct fire and may be killed or physically maimed. And many watch in horror as family members, friends, and neighbors are wounded or die. An estimated 250 million children live in conflict-ridden, poor countries. During the past twelve years, wars and civil conflicts have left 31 million homeless and displaced as refugees or voluntary migrants, 6 million physically disabled, and more than 1 million separated from their parents, many for extended time periods or permanently (Masten et al., 2015; UNICEF, 2019).

When war and social crises are temporary, most children can be comforted and do not show long-term emotional difficulties. But chronic danger requires children to make substantial adjustments that can seriously impair their psychological functioning. The greater their exposure to life-threatening experiences, the more likely they are to display symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—extreme fear and anxiety, terrifying intrusive memories, depression, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and a pessimistic view of the future. Additional internalizing and externalizing difficulties may emerge, including negative mood, depression, and aggression, especially during times of heightened exposure to violence and atrocities (Eisenberg & Silver, 2011; Khamis, 2019; Miller-Graff & Cummings, 2017) These outcomes seem to be culturally universal, appearing in children in every war zone studied—from Bosnia, Rwanda, and South Sudan to the West Bank, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria.

Parental affection and reassurance are the best protection against lasting problems. When parents offer security, discuss traumatic experiences with children sympathetically, and serve as role models of calm emotional strength, most children can withstand even extreme war-related stressors (Richter, Lye, & Proulx, 2018). Parenting interventions that foster positive child-rearing practices enhance children’s well-being (Murphy et al., 2017). But programs must also address parents’ wartime stressors, fostering their resilience so they can parent more effectively.

Children separated from their parents are at greatest risk for long-term maladjustment. Without relatives to step in with loving care and guidance, these children must rely on help from the surrounding community. Yet most refugee camps and institutions housing displaced children offer little emotional support (Wessells, 2017).

In recent years, many families fleeing Central American countries riddled with poverty and violence who crossed from Mexico into the United States illegally saw U.S. immigration officials arrest parents along with other adult relatives, take away children, and place them in institutional care. Also, large numbers of older children and adolescents who crossed the U.S. border on their own (often in hopes of reuniting with family members) have been deported, unaccompanied on their return journey by any adult responsible for their care and safety (Sotomayor-Peterson & Montiel-Carabajal, 2014). As their border-crossing attempts and days in shelters increase, these youths report rising loneliness, anxiety, depression, and risky behaviors.

Numerous child welfare and mental health organizations have publicly denounced these U.S. separation and deportation practices. They point to a wealth of evidence confirming that the emotional effects—especially for children and adolescents already suffering from adversity—can last a lifetime (Bouza et al., 2018; Daniel, 2018; MacKenzie, Bosk, & Zeanah, 2017).

Families seeking asylum in the United States line up to be processed by U.S. immigration officials. Many migrant children fleeing poverty and violence in Central American countries have faced separation from their parents and other adult relatives at the southern U.S. border. They are at risk for emotional effects that can last a lifetime.

© VERONICA G. CÁRDENAS

In addition to keeping families together and supporting positive parenting, education and recreation programs are powerful safeguards of mental health, providing children with consistency in their lives along with teacher and peer supports. Evaluations of school-based interventions in war-torn regions that offer children and adolescents opportunities to express emotions through writing, drawing, and discussion along with relationship-building experiences are highly effective in lessening PTSD symptoms (Peltonen & Punamaki, 2010; Qouta et al., 2012).

When wartime drains families and communities of resources, international organizations must step in and help children. The Children and War Foundation, www.childrenandwar.org, offers programs and manuals that train local personnel in how to promote children’s adaptive coping. Efforts to preserve children’s physical, psychological, and educational well-being may be the best way to stop the transmission of violence to the next generation.

Reported cases of child sexual abuse are linked to poverty, marital instability, resulting weakening of family ties, and other forms of child abuse. Children who live in homes with a constantly changing cast of characters—repeated marriages, separations, and new partners—are especially vulnerable (Murray, Nguyen, & Cohen, 2014). But children in economically advantaged, stable homes are also victims, although their abuse is more likely to escape detection.

Consequences of Sexual Abuse

The adjustment problems of child sexual abuse victims—including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, mistrust of adults, and anger and hostility—are often severe and can persist for years after the abusive episodes. Younger children frequently react with sleep difficulties, loss of appetite, and generalized fearfulness. Adolescents may run away and show suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, and delinquency. Longitudinal research suggests that rates of obesity and other physical and mental health problems are elevated among survivors of child sexual abuse. At all ages, persistent abuse accompanied by force, violence, or a close relationship to the perpetrator (incest) is especially likely to result in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to have lasting effects on mental health. And repeated sexual abuse, like physical abuse, is associated with central nervous system damage (Teicher et al., 2016; van Duin et al., 2018).

Miami schoolchildren participate in a candlelight vigil sponsored by Amigos for Kids, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing child abuse and neglect. Adjustment problems resulting from child abuse, including sexual abuse, are often severe and persistent.

© Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Sexually abused children frequently display precocious sexual knowledge and behavior. In adolescence, abused young people often become promiscuous, increasing the risk of teenage pregnancy. As adults, they show elevated arrest rates for sex crimes (mostly against children) and prostitution. Furthermore, women who were sexually abused are likely to choose partners who abuse them and their children. As mothers, they often engage in irresponsible and coercive parenting, including child abuse and neglect (Collin-Vézina, Daigneault, & Hébert, 2013; Krahé & Berger, 2017; Trickett, Noll, & Putnam, 2011). In these ways, the harmful impact of sexual abuse is transmitted to the next generation.

Prevention and Treatment

Treating child sexual abuse is difficult. The reactions of family members—anxiety about harm to the child, anger toward the abuser, and sometimes hostility toward the victim for telling—can increase children’s distress. Because sexual abuse typically appears in the midst of other serious family problems, specialized trauma-focused therapy with both children and parents is usually needed (Saunders, 2012). The best way to reduce the suffering of victims is to prevent sexual abuse from continuing. Today, courts are prosecuting abusers more vigorously and taking children’s testimony more seriously (see the Social Issues: Health box on page 516).

Education programs that teach school-age children and adolescents to recognize inappropriate sexual advances, use self-protective strategies to repel these approaches, and identify appropriate sources of help reduce the risk of abuse (Morris et al., 2017; Walsh et al., 2018). Yet because of controversies over educating children about sexual abuse, many schools do not offer these interventions. New Zealand is the only country with a national, school-based prevention program targeting sexual abuse available to all elementary and secondary students. In Keeping Ourselves Safe, children and adolescents learn that abusers are rarely strangers. Parent involvement ensures that home and school collaborate in teaching essential knowledge and skills. At the same time, parents learn the importance of creating safe environments and helping their children feel self-confident and secure so they are less likely to be targets of abusers. Evaluations reveal that virtually all New Zealand parents and children support the program and that it has helped many children avoid or report abuse (Sanders, 2006).

13.7.3 Fostering Resilience in Middle Childhood

Throughout middle childhood—and other periods of development—children are confronted with challenging and sometimes threatening situations that require them to cope with psychological stress. In this trio of chapters, we have considered such topics as chronic illness, learning disabilities, achievement expectations, divorce, conflict-ridden living conditions, and sexual abuse. Each taxes children’s coping resources, creating serious risks for development.

Social Issues: HealthChildren’s Eyewitness Testimony

Increasingly, children are being called on to testify in court cases involving child abuse and neglect, child custody, and similar matters. The experience can be difficult and traumatic, requiring children to report on highly stressful events and sometimes to speak against a parent or other relative to whom they feel loyal. In some family disputes, they may fear punishment for telling the truth. In addition, child witnesses face an unfamiliar situation—at the very least an interview in the judge’s chambers and at most an open courtroom with judge, jury, spectators, and the possibility of unsympathetic cross-examination. Not surprisingly, these conditions can compromise the accuracy of children’s recall.

Age Differences

Previously, children younger than age 5 were rarely asked to testify, and not until age 10 were they assumed fully competent to do so. As a result of societal reactions to rising rates of child abuse and the difficulty of prosecuting perpetrators, legal requirements for child testimony have been relaxed in the United States (Klemfuss & Ceci, 2012). Children as young as age 3 frequently serve as witnesses.

Compared with preschoolers, school-age children provide more detailed narrative accounts of past experiences and are better at accurately inferring others’ motives and intentions. Older children are also generally more resistant to misleading questions that attorneys may ask when probing for more information or trying to influence the child’s response (Hobbs & Goodman, 2014). Inhibition (ability to suppress impulses and ignore irrelevant information), which improves from early to middle childhood, predicts children’s resistance to suggestion (Melinder, Endestad, & Magnussen, 2006).

Nevertheless, when properly questioned, even 3-year-olds can recall recent events accurately (Peterson & Rideout, 1998). And in the face of biased interviewing, adolescents and adults often form elaborate, false memories of events (Ceci et al., 2007).

Suggestibility

Court testimony often involves repeated questioning—a procedure that, by itself, negatively affects children’s response consistency and accuracy (Krähenbühl, Blades, & Eiser, 2009). When adults lead witnesses by suggesting incorrect “facts,” interrupt their denials, reinforce them for giving desired answers, ask complex and confusing questions, or use a confrontational style, they further increase the likelihood of incorrect reporting by children and adolescents alike (Zajac, O’Neill, & Hayne, 2012).

In one study, 4- to 8-year-olds were asked to recall details about a visitor who had come to their classroom a week earlier. Half the children received a low-pressure interview containing leading questions that implied abuse (“He took your clothes off, didn’t he?”). The other half received a high-pressure interview in which an adult told the child that her friends had said “yes” to the leading questions, praised the child for agreeing (“You’re doing great”), and, if the child did not agree, repeated the question. Children were far more likely to give false information—even fabricating quite fantastic events—in the high-pressure condition (Finnilä et al., 2003).

By the time children appear in court, weeks, months, or even years have passed since the target events. When a long delay is combined with biased interviewing and with stereotyping of the accused (“He’s in jail because he’s been bad”), children can easily be misled into giving false information (Quas et al., 2007). The more distinctive, emotional, and personally relevant an event is, the more likely children are to recall it accurately over time. For example, a year later, even when exposed to misleading information, children correctly reported details of an injury that required emergency room treatment (Peterson, Parsons, & Dean, 2004). Children’s memories of these experiences remain remarkably intact for as long as five years (Peterson, 2012).

In some sexual abuse cases, anatomically correct dolls or body diagrams are used to prompt children’s recall. Although these methods help older children provide more detail, they increase the suggestibility of preschoolers, who may report physical and sexual contact that never happened (Poole & Bruck, 2012). Props may be confusing to very young witnesses because they require dual representation of the doll or drawing as both an object and a symbol—understandings that are still emerging during the preschool years (see page 310 in Chapter 9).

School-age eyewitnesses are better able than preschoolers to give accurate, detailed descriptions and correctly infer others’ motives and intentions. This juvenile court judge can promote accurate recall by using a warm, supportive tone and avoiding leading questions.

Phanie/Alamy Stock Photo

Interventions

Adults must prepare child witnesses so they understand the courtroom process and know what to expect. In some places, “court schools” take children through the setting and give them an opportunity to role-play court activities. Practice interviews—in which children learn to provide the most accurate, detailed information possible and to admit not knowing rather than agreeing or guessing—are helpful for both enhancing children’s memory and reducing the stress of testifying (Irvine, Jack, & Zajac, 2016; Nathanson & Saywitz, 2015).

At the same time, legal professionals must use interviewing procedures that increase children’s accurate reporting. Unbiased, open-ended questions that prompt children to disclose details—”Tell me what happened” or “You said there was a man; tell me about the man”—reduce suggestibility (Goodman et al., 2014; Steele, 2012). Also, a warm, supportive interview tone fosters accurate recall, perhaps by easing children’s anxiety so they feel freer to disagree with an interviewer’s false suggestions (Ceci, Bruck, & Battin, 2000).

If children are likely to experience emotional trauma or later punishment (as in a family dispute) for answering questions, courtroom procedures are sometimes adapted to protect them. For example, children can testify over closed-circuit TV so they do not have to face an abuser. When it would be harmful for a child to participate directly, impartial expert witnesses can provide testimony that reports on the child’s psychological condition and includes important elements of the child’s story.

Applying What We Know

Resources That Foster Resilience in Middle Childhood

Type of Resource

Description

Personal

Easygoing, sociable temperament

Above-average intelligence

Favorable self-esteem

Persistence in the face of challenge, pleasure in mastery, and a growth mindset about ability

Good emotional self-regulation and flexible coping strategies

Family

Warm, trusting relationship with at least one parent

Authoritative child-rearing style

Positive discipline, avoidance of coercive tactics

Warm, supportive sibling relationships

School

Teachers who are warm, helpful, and stimulating; who encourage students to collaborate; and who emphasize effort and self-improvement

Lessons in tolerance and respect and codes against bullying, which promote positive peer relationships and gratifying friendships

Extracurricular activities, including sports and social service pursuits, that strengthen physical, cognitive, and social skills

Community

High-quality after-school programs that protect children’s safety and offer stimulating, skill-building activities

An adult—such as an extended-family member, teacher, or neighbor—who provides warmth and social support and is a positive coping model

Stability of neighborhood residents and services—safe outdoor play areas, community centers, and religious organizations—that relieve parental stress and encourage families and neighbors to share leisure time

Youth groups—scouting, clubs, religious youth groups, and other organized activities—that promote positive peer relationships and prosocial behavior

Note: One or a few resources may be sufficient to foster resilience, since each resource strengthens others.

Nevertheless, only a modest relationship exists between stressful life experiences and psychological disturbance in childhood (Masten, 2014). In our earlier discussions of poverty, troubled family lives, and birth complications, we noted that some children manage to surmount the negative impact of these circumstances. The same is true for school difficulties, family transitions, and child maltreatment. Refer to Applying What We Know above for an overview of factors that promote resilience—the capacity to overcome adversity—during middle childhood.

Often just one or a few of these ingredients account for why one child is “stress-resilient” and another is not. Usually, however, personal and environmental factors are interconnected: Each resource favoring resilience strengthens others in a developmental cascade (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). For example, safe, stable neighborhoods with family-friendly community services reduce parents’ daily hassles and stress, thereby promoting good parenting (Chen, Howard, & Brooks-Gunn, 2011). In contrast, unfavorable home, school, and neighborhood experiences can also cascade, increasing the chances that children will act in ways that expose them to further hardship. When negative conditions pile up, such as crowded living conditions, neighborhood disorganization, marital discord, and parental insensitivity and abuse, the rate of maladjustment multiplies (Ettekal et al., 2019).

Of great concern are children and adolescents’ violent acts. Some forms, such as bullying, gang antisocial conduct, taunting, and other incivilities, have become pervasive in schools and communities. Victims of even low-level aggression that persists over time react with elevated anxiety, depressive symptoms, hostility, reduced engagement in school activities, and declines in academic performance (Meyer & Jimerson, 2019).

Several highly effective school-based social and emotional learning programs reduce violence (including bullying and gang involvement) and increase academic motivation by fostering social competence and supportive relationships (CASEL, 2013; Sauve & Schonert-Reichl, 2019). Among these is the 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution) Program, which provides elementary school students with weekly lessons in emotional and social understanding and skills (Aber et al., 2011). Topics include managing anger, responding with empathy, being assertive, resolving social conflicts, cooperating, appreciating diversity, and identifying and standing up against prejudice and bullying. The program is integrated with language arts: High-quality children’s literature, selected for relevance to program themes, complements each lesson. Discussion, writing, and role-playing of the stories deepen students’ understanding of conflict, emotions, relationships, and community.

Ten- and eleven-year-olds in a school-based social and emotional learning program take part in a trust exercise. Gains in social competence and supportive relationships are among beneficial outcomes of social and emotional learning that foster resilience.

© LAURA DWIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

To evaluate the effectiveness of 4Rs, researchers randomly assigned 18 elementary schools in New York City to the program or a control condition. Teachers in 4Rs schools used more supportive instructional techniques—encouraging discussion, making concepts relevant to students’ everyday lives, and providing feedback that acknowledges effort. And compared to children in control schools, children who received 4Rs instruction became less depressed and less likely to misinterpret others’ acts as hostile. After a second year of intervention, the benefits spread to other related outcomes: Teachers rated 4Rs children as less aggressive, more attentive, and more socially competent compared to children in control schools (Aber et al., 2011). In unsafe neighborhoods, 4Rs transforms schools into places of safety and mutual respect, where learning can occur.

Programs like 4Rs recognize that resilience is not a preexisting attribute but rather a capacity that develops, enabling children to use internal and external resources to cope with adversity. Throughout our discussion, we have seen how families, schools, communities, and society as a whole can enhance or undermine the school-age child’s developing sense of competence (Masten, 2018; Yule, Houston, & Grych, 2019). Young people whose childhood experiences helped them learn to control impulses, overcome obstacles, strive for self-direction, and respond considerately and sympathetically to others meet the challenges of the next period—adolescence—quite well.

Ask Yourself

Connect ■ Explain how factors that promote resilience contribute to children’s favorable adjustment following divorce.

Apply ■ Claire told her 6-year-old daughter never to talk to or take candy from strangers. Why is Claire’s warning unlikely to protect her daughter from sexual abuse? What preventive actions can Claire take?

Reflect ■ Describe a challenging time during your childhood. What aspects of the experience increased stress? What resources helped you cope with adversity?

Summary

13.1 Self-Understanding (p. 477)

13.1 Describe school-age children’s self-concept and self-esteem, and discuss factors that affect their achievement-related attributions.

As school-age children gain in perspective-taking skills, their self-concepts increasingly include personality traits, competencies, and social comparisons. Self-esteem differentiates further and becomes hierarchically organized and more realistic.

Gender stereotypes contribute to sex differences in physical, academic, and social self-esteem. Warm extended families and strong ethnic pride may contribute to the slight self-esteem advantage of African-American over European-American children. Among urban Mexican-American children, global self-esteem (rather than perceived physical appearance) correlates most strongly with academic self-esteem.

Authoritative child-rearing is associated with favorable self-esteem, and secure attachment is linked to self-compassion. Inflated praise reduces self-esteem rather than raising it.

Children with mastery-oriented attributions and a growth mindset about ability believe ability can be improved through effort and effective strategies. In contrast, children with learned helplessness have a fixed mindset about ability and attribute success to external factors, such as luck, and failure to low ability, which cannot be modified.

Process praise, which emphasizes behavior and effort, fosters a growth mindset and mastery orientation, whereas person praise, which focuses on the child’s traits, is linked to a fixed mindset and learned helplessness. The way parents respond to children’s failures—with a failure-is-enhancing mindset or a failure-is-debilitating mindset—is similarly influential.

Attribution retraining encourages learned-helpless children to believe they can overcome failure by exerting more effort and using effective strategies.

13.2 Emotional Development (p. 485)

13.2 Cite changes in self-conscious emotions, emotional understanding, and emotional self-regulation in middle childhood.

Self-conscious emotions of pride and guilt become clearly governed by personal responsibility. Intense shame is particularly destructive, yielding declines in motivation and performance along with withdrawal and depression or intense anger.

School-age children develop an appreciation of mixed emotions and recognize that emotional expressions may not reflect people’s true feelings. They also reconcile contradictory cues in interpreting another’s feelings. Empathy increases and includes sensitivity to people’s immediate distress and their general life condition.

By age 10, most children can shift adaptively between problem-centered and emotion-centered coping in regulating emotion. Emotionally well-regulated children develop a sense of emotional self-efficacy and are optimistic, empathic, and prosocial.

13.3 Moral Development (p. 487)

13.3 Describe changes in moral understanding during middle childhood, including children’s understanding of diversity and inequality.

During middle childhood, children construct a flexible appreciation of moral rules based on intentions and context. Their capacity for recursive thought supports an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the morality of deception and truthfulness. They also clarify and link moral imperatives and social conventions and better understand personal choice and individual rights. Children in diverse cultures use similar criteria to reason about moral, social-conventional, and personal concerns.

School-age children absorb prevailing societal attitudes about race, ethnicity, and SES. With age, they pay more attention to inner traits and realize that prejudice violates widely held social standards. Consequently, explicit prejudice typically declines, although prejudice often continues to operate implicitly. Children most likely to hold racial and ethnic biases believe that personality traits are fixed, have overly high self-esteem, and live in a social world that highlights group differences. Long-term, intergroup contact and collaboration may be the best way to reduce prejudice.

13.4 Peer Relations (p. 492)

13.4a Describe changes in peer sociability and friendship in middle childhood.

Peer interaction becomes more prosocial, and physical aggression declines. By the end of middle childhood, children strongly desire group belonging and organize into peer groups.

Friendships develop into mutual relationships based on trust and become more selective. Children tend to choose friends who resemble themselves in age, sex, race, ethnicity, SES, personality, popularity, academic achievement, and prosocial behavior. Girls form closer, more exclusive friendships than boys.

13.4b Describe categories of peer acceptance and ways to help rejected children.

Measures of peer acceptance—a powerful predictor of psychological adjustment—yield five general categories: popular children, rejected children, controversial children, neglected children, and average children.

Popular-prosocial children are academically and socially competent and more likely than others to be viewed as leaders, while popular-antisocial children are aggressive but admired, perhaps for their athletic ability and sophisticated but devious social skills. Rejected-aggressive children are especially high in conflict and hostility, and rejected-withdrawn children are passive, socially awkward, and frequent targets of peer victimization.

Coaching in social skills and academic tutoring, and training in perspective taking and social problem solving can help rejected children gain in social competence and peer acceptance. Intervening to improve parent–child interaction is often necessary for lasting change.

13.5 Gender Typing (p. 498)

13.5 Discuss changes in gender-stereotyped beliefs and gender identity during middle childhood.

School-age children extend their awareness of gender stereotypes to personality traits and academic subjects, but gender-stereotyped beliefs about achievement in math and science seem to be changing. In addition, gender-stereotype flexibility increases during middle childhood. Nevertheless, many children take a harsh view of certain gender-role violations, and sex-segregated peer associations strengthen

Boys strengthen their identification with the “masculine” role, whereas girls feel free to experiment with “other-gender” activities. Gender identity includes self-evaluations of gender typicality, contentedness, and felt pressure to conform to gender roles—each of which affects adjustment.

13.6 Family Influences (p. 501)

13.6a Discuss changes in parent–child communication and sibling relationships in middle childhood.

Despite declines in time spent with parents, coregulation allows parents to exercise general oversight of children, who increasingly make their own decisions.

Although siblings continue to be sources of mutual support, sibling rivalry tends to increase with greater participation in diverse activities and more frequent parental comparisons. Compared to children with siblings, only children are higher in self-esteem, school performance, and educational attainment.

13.6b Explain how children fare in lesbian and gay families and in never-married, single-parent families.

Lesbian and gay parents are as committed to and effective at child rearing as heterosexual parents, and their children usually do not differ from the children of heterosexual parents in adjustment and, in some studies, are better adjusted.

Never-married parenthood generally increases financial hardship, and children of never-married mothers who lack a father’s consistent involvement show less favorable cognitive development and greater antisocial behavior. Parental involvement of African-American fathers, both residential and nonresidential, equals or exceeds that of fathers of other ethnicities.

13.6c Cite factors that influence children’s adjustment to divorce and blended family arrangements.

Although marital breakup is stressful for children, how well they fare depends on parental psychological health, the child’s characteristics (age, temperament, and sex), and social supports. Divorce is linked to early sexual activity, adolescent parenthood, and long-term relationship difficulties.

The overriding factor in positive adjustment following divorce is effective parenting and both parents continued involvement. Divorce mediation and parent education programs can foster parental conflict resolution in the period surrounding divorce. The success of joint custody depends on effective coparenting.

In blended, or reconstituted, families, girls, older children, and children in father–stepmother families tend to have more adjustment problems. Stepparents can help children adjust by moving into their roles gradually.

13.6d Discuss how maternal employment and life in dual-earner families affect school-age children.

When employed mothers enjoy their work and remain committed to parenting, their children benefit from higher self-esteem, more positive family and peer relations, less gender-stereotyped beliefs, and better school grades. In dual-earner families, the father’s willingness to take on greater child-rearing responsibilities is associated with diverse, positive child outcomes.

Authoritative child rearing, parental monitoring, and regular after-school chores lead self-care children to be responsible and well-adjusted. Good after-school programs also aid school performance and emotional and social adjustment, especially for low-SES children.

13.7 Some Common Problems of Development (p. 512)

13.7a Cite common fears and anxieties in middle childhood, and discuss their impact on children’s adjustment.

School-age children’s fears include personal harm, media events, academic failure, parents’ health, and peer rejection. Even well-adjusted children can develop phobias, although children with inhibited temperaments are at higher risk. Harsh, dangerous, chaotic, and deprived living conditions like those encountered in war zones or recently by migrant children at the southern U.S. border fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, can result in long-term emotional stress and behavior problems.

13.7b Discuss factors related to child sexual abuse, its consequences for children’s development, and its prevention and treatment.

Child sexual abuse is generally committed by male family members, more often against girls than against boys. Abusers have characteristics that predispose them toward sexual exploitation of children. Reported cases are associated with poverty and marital instability.

Abused children often have severe, persisting adjustment problems. Treatment typically requires specialized trauma-focused therapy with both children and parents. Educational programs that teach children to recognize inappropriate sexual advances and identify sources of help reduce the risk of sexual abuse.

13.7c Cite factors that foster resilience in middle childhood.

Only a modest relationship exists between stressful life experiences and psychological disturbance in childhood. Children’s personal characteristics, a warm family life that includes authoritative parenting, and school and community resources predict resilience. Each resource favoring resilience usually strengthens others, in a developmental cascade.

Important Terms and Concepts

attribution retraining (p. 484)

blended, or reconstituted, family (p. 509)

controversial children (p. 494)

coregulation (p. 502)

divorce mediation (p. 508)

emotion-centered coping (p. 486)

fixed mindset about ability (p. 482)

gender-stereotype flexibility (p. 499)

growth mindset about ability (p. 482)

learned helplessness (p. 482)

mastery-oriented attributions (p. 482)

neglected children (p. 494)

peer acceptance (p. 494)

peer groups (p. 492)

peer victimization (p. 497)

person praise (p. 482)

phobia (p. 512)

popular-antisocial children (p. 495)

popular children (p. 494)

popular-prosocial children (p. 495)

problem-centered coping (p. 486)

process praise (p. 482)

rejected-aggressive children (p. 495)

rejected children (p. 494)

rejected-withdrawn children (p. 495)

self-care children (p. 511)

self-compassion (p. 481)

social comparisons (p. 478)

MilestonesDevelopment in Middle Childhood

6–8 years

Physical

Slow gains in height and weight continue. (405)

Permanent teeth gradually replace primary teeth. (407)

Prints an increasing number of uppercase, then lowercase, alphabet letters. (422)

Drawings become more organized and detailed and include some depth cues. (422)

Games with rules and rough-and-tumble play become common. (423, 425)

Cognitive

Thought becomes more logical, as shown by the ability to pass Piagetian conservation, class inclusion, and seriation problems. (431–432)

Improves dramatically in speed of information processing. (438)

Executive function—including working memory, inhibition, flexible shifting of attention, and planning—improves markedly. (436–439)

Uses memory strategies of rehearsal and then organization. (440)

Awareness of mental activities, of the impact of psychological factors (such as applying memory strategies) on task performance, and of sources of knowledge (including mental inferences) expands. (440–441)

Understands second-order false belief; capable of recursive thought. (442–443)

Uses informal knowledge of number concepts and counting to master more complex mathematical skills. (446–447)

Language

Vocabulary increases rapidly as children learn about 20 new words each day. (457)

Word definitions are concrete, referring to functions and appearance. (458)

Transitions from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” (446)

Metalinguistic awareness improves. (457)

Mastery of complex grammatical structures improves. (458)

Grasps increasingly subtle, indirect expressions of language meaning, including irony and sarcasm. (458)

Narratives increase in organization, detail, and expressiveness. (458)

Emotional/Social

Self-concept includes personality traits, competencies, and social comparisons. (478)

Self-esteem differentiates, is hierarchically organized, and becomes more realistic. (479)

Self-conscious emotions of pride and guilt are governed by personal responsibility. (485)

Recognizes that people can experience more than one emotion at a time and that their expressions may not reflect their true feelings. (485–486)

Empathy increases. (486)

Becomes more independent and trustworthy. (487)

Constructs a flexible appreciation of moral rules, considering prosocial and antisocial intentions and the context of the behavior. (486)

Resolves conflicts more effectively; sharing, helping, and other prosocial acts increase. (492)

Physical aggression declines; verbal and relational aggression continue. (492)

9–11 years

Physical

Adolescent growth spurt begins two years earlier in girls than in boys. (405)

Executes gross motor skills of running, jumping, throwing, catching, kicking, batting, and dribbling more quickly and with better coordination. (420–421)

Steady gains in attention and reaction time contribute to improved motor performance. (420–421)

Ability to represent depth in drawings is clearly evident. (422)

Dominance hierarchies become more stable, especially among boys. (426)

Cognitive

Continues to master Piagetian tasks in a step-by-step fashion. (434)

Spatial reasoning improves; readily draws and reads maps of large-scale spaces and grasps the notion of scale. (432–433)

Continues to improve in speed of information processing. (438)

Continues to improve in executive function. (436–440)

Uses memory strategies of rehearsal and organization more effectively. (440)

Applies several memory strategies simultaneously; begins to use elaboration. (440)

General knowledge base (semantic memory) grows larger and becomes better organized. (441)

Awareness of mental activities, including effective memory strategies and reasoning, becomes more elaborate and refined. (443)

Cognitive self-regulation improves. (443–444)

Language

Thinks about and uses words more precisely; word definitions emphasize synonyms and categorical relations. (458)

Grasps multiple meanings of words, as reflected in comprehension of metaphors and humor. (458)

Continues to master complex grammatical constructions, such as passive voice and infinitive phrases. (458)

Narratives lengthen, become more coherent, and include more evaluative comments. (458)

Emotional/Social

Continues to refine self-concept to include competencies, positive and negative personality traits, and more sophisticated social comparisons. (477–478)

Distinguishes ability, effort, and external factors (such as luck) in attributions for success and failure. (482)

Reconciles contradictory facial and situational cues in understanding another’s feelings. (486)

Empathic responding extends to general life conditions. (486)

Shifts adaptively between problem-centered and emotion-centered strategies in regulating emotion. (486)

Clarifies and links moral imperatives and social conventions. (488)

Convictions about matters of personal choice strengthen, and understanding of individual rights expands. (489)

Explicit outgroup prejudice declines. (490)

Friendships become more selective and are based on mutual trust. (493–494)

Peer groups emerge. (492–493)

Becomes aware of a wider range of gender stereotypes, including personality traits and achievement areas, but has a flexible appreciation of what males and females can do. (498–500)

Gender identity expands to include self- evaluations of typicality, contentedness, and pressure to conform. (500–501)

Sibling rivalry tends to increase. (502–503)

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate the page or pages on which each milestone is discussed.

Descriptions of Images and Figures

Back to Figure

The chart is as follows.

Global self-esteem branches to academic competence, social competence, physical and athletic competence, and physical appearance.

Academic competence branches to language arts, math, and other school subjects.

Social competence branches to relationship with peers and relationship with parents.

Physical and athletic competence branches to outdoor games and various sports.

Back to Figure

The data is as follows. Task-relevant statements after success. Chinese mothers, 6.5. U S mothers, 3.7. Task-relevant statements after failure. Chinese mothers, 6.8. U S mothers, 4.5. All values estimated.

Back to Figure

The plots pass through the following points. Low stereotype rigidity. (5, 12). (6, 11). (7, 14), (8, 21). (9, 25), (10, 30). High stereotype rigidity. (5, 8), (6, 5), (7, 9), (8, 21), (9, 26), (10, 30). All values estimated.

Back to Figure

Each grade includes two bars, one for excluding on the basis of gender and one for excluding on the base of ethnicity. By grade, the mean percentages are as follows. Grade 4. Exclude on gender, 20%. Exclude on ethnicity, 10%. Grade 7. Exclude on gender, 24%. Exclude on ethnicity, 5%. Grade 10. Exclude on gender, 40%. Exclude on ethnicity, 16. All values estimated.

Back to Figure

By activity, the percentages for each ethnicity are as follows. Talked with children about their day. African American, 52%. European American, 34%. Hispanic, 22%. Took children to or from activities. African American, 13%. European American, 11%. Hispanic, 9%. Helped with homework. African American, 25%. European American, 10%. Hispanic, 8%. All values estimated.

Back to Figure

By education level, the graph shows the percentage of those who reported their first marriage, those who are formerly married, and those in their second marriage or higher. By education level, the data is as follows.

No high school diploma. First marriage, 36%. Formerly married, 16%. Second or higher, 8%.

High school diploma. First marriage, 40%. Formerly married, 15%. Second or higher, 10%.

Some college. First marriage, 42%. Formerly married, 13%. Second or higher, 7%.

Bachelor’s degree. First marriage, 58%. Formerly married, 6%. Second or higher, 3%.

Master’s degree or higher. First marriage, 63%. Formerly married, 6%. Second or higher, 4%.

All values estimated.