Childhood aggression is the best-known behavioral predictor
of future social adjustment difficulties. Children with early onset aggression
are likely to engage in aggressive behavior throughout the life course . Early
aggressive behavior is also strongly associated with later criminal behavior
and deviant peer relations, poor school achievement, school dropout, and
unemployment. Recently, researchers have focused on determining the positive
behaviors that could potentially stop aggressive situations from progressing.
These helping behaviors are defined broadly as prosocial skills. Prosocial
skills help children make friends and maintain healthy relationships. The
ability to behave in prosocial ways is also referred to as social intelligence.
When children interact in a way that is safe, pleasant and
inviting to others, they are using prosocial skills and social intelligence or
in layman’s terms, “people skills”. Children who are able to get along with
others most likely have learned a variety of prosocial skills and have a high
level of social intelligence.
Although
the typical brain of a child develops more perspective taking ability after the
second year of life, children won’t automatically acquire the ability to get
along with others. Learning social interaction skills takes practice. The lack
of hands-on practice is one of several reasons why it’s hard for two-year-olds to share toys.
If childcare providers and parents want to
help children develop social skills such as sharing and taking turns, they must
first help children develop empathy and perspective taking skills. When
adults read books to children, they can ask children how the characters in the
book feel. Playing with puppets is another way to help young children learn
about different points of view. Children also learn from watching adults so
parents and childcare providers can teach social skills through modeling
perspective taking, empathy, self calming skills, etc.
Children need prosocial skills in order to
form healthy friendships and other types of relationships. Learning to get
along with others and developing social intelligence begins in the first three
years of life. The social skills acquired in childhood lay a foundation for
adult relationships with coworkers, managers, friends, spouses and children.
2 comments:
I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that aggression seems to be more prevalent then in previous years. I also agree that the teaching of prosocial behavior is essential for our children to show empathy and grow psychologically. Hyson and Taylor (2011)stated that prosocial behaviors are behaviors that show the child is learning about how to treat others, for example, by sharing and working with others on a team.
Talking about prosocial behavior reminded me of how much I hate teachers or parents making them say they are sorry. Most times the children are not sorry so why make them lie. Hyson and Taylor (2011)pointed out that children should voluntarily make decisions to have empathy with another child. "If children are forced to "be nice and share" or told to "say you're sorry, then their behavior is not voluntary and cannot be considered prosocial (Hyson and Taylor, 2011, p 74)."
Hyson,M. and Taylor, J.L. (2011). Caring about Caring: What Adults Can Do to Promote Young Children's Prosocial Skills. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/201107/CaringAboutCaring_Hyson_OnlineJuly2011.pdf
I have enjoyed reading your posts and insights. I can tell your love for children will help you tremendously in the early childhood field. Good luck in your classes.
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