Preschoolers
...rd their own and others’ racial identity ( Katz,1982). More recent studies indicate that their attitude toward their own and other peoples’ ethnicity “depends on the attitude of adult caregivers, and on the perceptions of the power and wealth of their own group in relation to others” (Cole and Cole, 1993,p.369). • Initiative – A component of a healthy sense of self in the preschool years, as defined by Erikson’s(1968) psychosocial theory of personality development, is a sense of initiative. Initiative involves pretending, inventing, creating, taking risks, and playing with others. As children initiate their own activities, enjoy their accomplishments, and feel valued for their purposeful actions, they become confident in their own actions and abilities. • Friendship- Cooperative play represents more complex social interaction in which children choose their playmates and work out plans for their play. Children at this stage are likely to define “ best friends,” individual particularly selected for companionship, though the friends may not be lasting and may be characterized by much friction (Parten, 1932; Smith, 1982). Popular children are well liked by peers and have many friends. They are active socially, initiating contact with peers and taking a leadership role in directing play activities (Trawick-Smith,1992), though rarely being bossy or aggressive (Dodge,1983). • Pro-social behavior verses aggression – Positive discipline methods help promote pro-social behaviors and lessen aggression. Appropriate adult interaction is essential in helping preschoolers with these new abilities and understandings. • Self-control – The preschool child expanded abilities for language and understanding enable them to comprehend standards of conduct taught by adults. The process of forming a conscience – “ an inner voice of self-observation, self-guidance, and self-punishment” (Erikson, 1968,p.119) is the goal appropriate guidance for preschoolers. Preschoolers are establishing a stable self-concept and have taken in and internalized the social rules of their culture. A healthy emotional environment offers the security, example, and teaching necessary to nurture emotional control. Helping preschoolers with emotional control in term of: • Security – in emotionally secure environments, children feel comfortable revealing their feelings and trust that adults will help them in gaining control. • Warm relationships – children can only learn in the context of warm, positive relationships. Teachers comfort children when they cry and reassure them when they are fearful, they provide “emotional bolstering”(NAEYC,1992,#516). • Acceptance – when adults recognize and accept children’s emotional responses as normal parts of their being, children’s self-awareness of feeling is positive. • Active listening – “ You seem very angry with me because you think I let Carlos have a longer turn than you. When you’re angry, I can’t let you hit me. You can tell me in words just how mad you are.” This example showed that the adult reflecting back to the child a perception of what that child was experiencing. This is know as active l...