Emotions In Late Childhood

Socioemotional: Socioemotional development involves the changes in one’s emotions, one’s relationships with others, and the changes in one’s personality. In late childhood, children often have difficulties in controlling their emotions (Santrock, p. 296). It is during later childhood and adolescence that improved emotional understanding of oneself and the emotional perspective of others increases. As children age into adolescence, they are seen to grow in their abilities to suppress their negative emotions (Santrock, p. 302). They normally do not throw public displays of erratic emotion, such as temper tantrums, and are able to redirect those negative emotions. This coincides with their greater life experiences in that they see the social …show more content…
While our textbook portrays children of late childhood as mild-tempered, many are ruled by their emotions and fail to think before their emotion takes over (Santrock, p. 413). This is related to the child’s physical development, specifically the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for executive functions like decision making. Therefore, the ability of children of later childhood to suppress negative emotions is an ongoing process until their physical development is also complete. One aspect of late childhood that is characteristic of their emotional self, is how they compare themselves to others. Children of late childhood find self-understanding in their social aspects of life. This would include their own social descriptions and relationships to the social groups they associate with (Santrock, p. 338). Other social aspects of life would include the comparisons they find …show more content…
They can interpret the intentions of people when they commit a certain action, and think of the consequences they will see if they themselves committed it. This coincides with Piaget’s theory on moral thought and autonomous morality (Santrock, p. 407). Development in one’s morals up until this age can come from the result of vaster life experience. Children in late childhood have experienced a lot of different situations in which their moral values may have been tested. Bandura would argue that our moral behavior is run by our want to avoid punishment and the feeling of self condemnation (Santrock, p. 412). This was not the experience that I encountered in my first hand experience. An example that I encountered at my service learning site was the use of cheating. The kids of late childhood were more likely to cheat during a game then the adolescents at the site. This could be due to the fact that these adolescents had a past experience where they had gotten in trouble, or it could be the that the teens have greater self-regulation (Santrock, p. 412). Peers are highly influential on children’s morals and many are encouraged through peer pressure to do things that go against their morals (Santrock, p. 412 & 493). Children of late childhood do not want to be singled out or made fun of for being different, so they will simply follow the crowd and repeat the actions everyone