Know

Think about how you use social skills every day. When you wait your turn to comment during a meeting, receive constructive criticism from a spouse or sibling, apologize, spend time with a friend or accept others’ differences, you are using the social skills you learned as a child. You also use your social skills when adjusting to new situations and getting to know new people. This can occur when you take a new exercise class or attend a meeting at a community organization for the first time. These new and unfamiliar situations can be difficult for many people, especially if transitions and change are hard to accept. As a caregiver for school-age children, it is important that you find ways to interact with other adults so children can observe your use of social skills. When you interact with your own family members or families of the children in your care, be sure to always model the skills you teach the children in your program.

Children tend to focus on themselves and the world around them. They are working hard to learn and discover how their environment can help them learn, develop, and imagine. They are focused on how they can make sense of the world around them and relate it to themselves. As children grow, they are expected to develop skills that allow them to interact more broadly. To do this, school-age children must go outside of their own world and take other people’s emotions, cultures, and perspectives into consideration.

Milestones

Let’s look at school-age children’s social-emotional development.  The chart below provides an overview of the social-emotional developmental milestones in school-age children adapted from the book, What Teachers Need to Know about Social and Emotional Development by R. Leyden and E. Shale:

Typical Social-Emotional Development of School-Age Children

School-Age Children and Social-Emotional Development

When you provide care to school-age children, part of your role is to observe the children in your care. You can accomplish this by using a variety of developmental guidelines to support children and their families. Because having a solid foundation of social-emotional development is crucial for a child’s success in school and in life, it is important to observe children and document their growth. When observing a child’s social-emotional development, you should look at a variety of components such as:

The Ability to Establish and Maintain Relationships

Relationships are the core of social-emotional development. A child’s ability to establish and keep relationships is a very important aspect of their development. This is primarily seen in a child’s ability to make and keep friends. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, friendships allow children to “broaden their horizons beyond the family unit, begin to experience the outside world, form a self-image, and develop a social support system.” Because relationships are so vital to a child’s social-emotional development, a lesson will be dedicated to the topic later in this course.

The Ability to Manage Emotions

As children grow, they learn to regulate their emotions and feelings. The emotional surges we see in young children, such as crying when separating from their family or hitting when they become frustrated, will begin to lessen as children grow older. School-age children will begin to have a better understanding of what emotions are and will be able to discuss how they are feeling. Feelings of sympathy and empathy for others also develop.

The Ability to Cope with Stress

As adults, we know that stress can be the result of a variety of circumstances and it can be overwhelming if we don’t find a way to cope with it. You might cope with stress by going for a walk, spending some time with friends, exercising, or taking time for your favorite hobby. Other ways adults cope with stress are deep breathing, meditation, or visiting a therapist or counselor. As adults, we know when a situation is causing too much stress and we can decide to use one of these methods to help alleviate the stressor. School-age children are just beginning to learn how to identify and deal with stress in their lives. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the following are the most common circumstances that cause school-age children to worry:

• Feeling sick
• Having nothing to do
• Not having enough money
• Feeling pressure to get good grades
• Feeling left out of a group of peers
• Not spending enough time with parents
• Not having homework done
• Not being good enough at sports
• Not being able to dress as desired
• Experiencing body changes
• Being late for school
• Being smaller than other children of the same age
• Having parents argue in front of them
• Not getting along with teachers
• Being overweight or bigger than other children of the same age
• Moving
• Changing schools
• Arguing with parents about rules in the family
• Adjusting to parents separating or divorcing
• Being pressured to try something they didn’t really want to (e.g., smoking)

For children of military service members, these experiences may also cause worry:

• Deployment of a family member
• Upcoming or recent permanent change of station

School-age children are learning how to recognize what causes stress and how it affects their behavior. Some children may still openly act out their feelings, whereas others will keep their stress to themselves. We want children to learn how to manage their stress in a healthy and positive way. Keeping the lines of communication open with families will help you be on alert to whether a child may be experiencing a stressful situation at home or at school. As an important caregiver in the child’s life, it is important to watch for signs that a child may be overloaded with stress so you can help them cope with it in a healthy way. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, common signs of stress overload are when a child:

• Develops physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach pains
• Appears restless, tired and agitated
• Appears depressed and is uncommunicative about emotions
• Becomes irritable, negative, and shows little excitement or pleasure in activities
• Seems less interested in an activity that was once extremely important
• See grades at school begin to fall
• Has less interest than usual in attending classes and doing homework
• Exhibits antisocial behavior such as lying and stealing, forgets or refuses to do chores or tasks and seems much more dependent on family members or teachers than in the past

See

Do

As a family child care provider, you support school-age children’s social-emotional development. You can do this by:

• Providing opportunities for children to identify and understand their feelings and emotions and to discuss them with others
• Encouraging critical thinking, problem solving, and supervised risk taking
• Working hard to create an environment that is structured and safe and that allows children to learn and discover
• Demonstrating respect for others
• Providing an environment that recognizes, embraces, and celebrates diversity
• Providing an environment that is nurturing and inclusive to children with special needs
• Acknowledging the contributions of all children to the community
• Encouraging children and youth to experiment with a variety of activities, materials, and experiences to discover talents and preferences