What do social and emotional development have to do with one another? Well, your child’s development doesn’t happen in a vacuum. One area of development impacts another. That means social, emotional, cognitive, physical and language/communication growth all rely on one another. If your child is excelling in one area, she may very well excel in another (related) area. Likewise, if she’s struggling to meet milestones for one type of development, it’s likely to affect another area. With that in mind, check out how your little learner’s social and emotional development weave and work together. Marking Milestones Before understanding how these different areas of development (also known as developmental domains) work together, it’s helpful to know what to expect of each one independently. This means familiarizing yourself with the milestones. Keep in mind, milestones represent a sequence, and not necessarily a rate, of development. They are steps, and aren’t always set in stone. Obviously, completely missing one is a red flag. But, each milestone has a window of development. Your child is an individual, and might not reach a milestone at the exact same time as your BFF’s kiddo. Social Development Your child starts developing socially the moment she looks in your eyes and notices that she’s seeing another person. Will she immediately understand that you’re her parent or that big sis is her friend? No, not yet. Babies aren’t exactly sophisticated when it comes to their social skills. They’re building a framework for future development, and tackling the basics. By the time your baby turns 3-months it’s likely that she’ll be smiling – and in a social way. She may look at you and smile or give that overly expressive little face when you play peek-a-boo. Between 4- and 7-months your baby is starting to delight in social play. This means that she’ll enjoy it when you make faces at her or sing songs. She’s not anywhere near ready to “play” with other kids. But, she’s starting to take notice and responds to other people’s emotions. From 8-months to 1-year your child is starting to show preferences for certain people (such as you!) and may act shy or anxious with strangers. Even though you can’t stand to hear her cry, if your child sheds a tear (or a few) when you walk out of the room, that’s just part of social development.
During the toddler time (between 1 and 3-years) your child is growing more and more aware of herself as separate from other people. She’s starting to get truly excited about being around other children and she may constantly imitate other people’s behaviors. Your little shadow may make the same faces that you do or even act out scenes that are similar to everyday actions (such as babbling while pretending to talk on the phone or serving dinner to big sister). While she’s all about playing near other kids, she might not be ready to play with them. Known as parallel play, it’s common to see two toddler building with blocks or sifting through a sandbox within feet (or even inches) of each other, but not interacting at all.
As your child makes her way into the preschool years (3- to 5-years), she’s now playing with other children – and not just next to them. She’s beginning to make her first real friends and probably shows some sort of affection towards her favorite pals (a smile or a hug). During this period children are also learning about social norms and expectations. This is the time when your child first starts to exhibit ‘acceptable’ social behaviors, such as taking turns or waiting for her turn.
The older your child gets, the more sophisticated her social skills become. As she moves into the grade school years, your child is broadening her social arena and building solid friendships. She may seem to change friends quickly, but that’s not necessarily cause for alarm. Your child is trying on new identities (which you’ll really get to see during the tween and teen years) and learning how to navigate different social circles. You can also expect your child to follow more complex social norms as she gets older. She should be able to sit patiently and wait to talk during a conversation and stop herself from interrupting.
Emotional Development
Emotional and social development are tightly wound together. This is so much so that you may see the term ‘socio-emotional’ development in reference to milestones. During the first year of life many of the emotional skills that your child is building go closely along with the social ones. Abilities such as social smiling and imitating other people’s emotional expressions/gestures are also emotional milestones. Likewise, expressing emotions in response to social situations also bridges both areas of development. When your baby notices that you’re sad and cries or screams as you walk out of the room, you’re seeing both social and emotional skills at work.
You’ll continue to see a clear alignment of social and emotional development as your child moves into the toddler years. Even though your 2-year-old is a master at expressing herself (you’ve seen the tantrums), she’s not ready to fully recognize or control powerful emotions (this comes with greater cognitive development).
Don’t expect your child to magically master her emotions when she gets to the preschool years. She’s fantastically fabulous at expressing how she feels, but she’s still not ready to control herself. As she moves closer to age 5, she’ll start showing you that she can stop, recognize, name and control her emotions (but, not each and every time). Along with expressing her feelings, your child is probably starting to show interest in fantasy or imaginative play. She’ll building rich dramatic worlds and acting out scenes that she sees in movies, hears about in books and sees in everyday life.
Grade schoolers and older children have enough emotional development to control their feelings. Will your child continue to have an occasional outburst? Possibly. But, adults do too. The older she gets, the more you’ll notice that your child understands emotions and expresses them with her words – and, not with her fists or with her cries.
Your child’s social development happens as her emotional abilities grow. Of course, other areas (such as cognitive and language development) are also part of this too! As you look for those milestone markers, you may start noticing that both social and emotional changes seem very much the same. And, that’s what you should be seeing. Before you know it your baby will become a giggling toddler (who may throw more than the occasional emotional outburst), your toddler will become a preschooler who is all about creative expression and imaginative play and your preschooler will turn into an older child who has true best friends, a stunning social life and actual emotional restraint.
What are you looking most forward to from your child’s growing social or emotional development? Share your pick with us in the comments section!
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