Behavior_Awareness_in_Care

Behaviour Awareness in Care Children Our self-concept is most important part of us because it affects all our relationships and interactions with others. Self concept is how we think, evaluate ourselves and what we are like inside. The term of self-concept is a general term used to refer how someone thinks or perceives themselves for both social psychology and humanism. Self concept is based on two things: • What we believe we are like as a person • What other people think about us It is important for us to have a positive opinion about ourselves in order to have a good relationship with others. However, if we have poor self- concept it is more likely to affect our behaviour for example when we are taking the exam in your mind you are thinking you may not achieve the examinations leading you to feel nervous. There are many factors that affect the self-concept: • Age • Appearance • Gender • Culture • Emotional Development • Education • Relationships with others This is necessary to have high self-concept to improve feature developments as they are growing. Self concept is part of our emotional and social development. The way we evaluate our selves includes our physical, moral, personal, family and social situations dimensions. The self concept is influence by our sense of identity. By two powerful effects on our self concept which are: i. Other people opinions and judgements which they make. We may go further with opinion or judgement from the person and try improving our self or we make take to our heart. This may lead to low self esteem as we would be saying “I am useless I cannot do this”. ii. There would social comparisons which are the perceptions of ways that you are similar to and different from other people. For example “A child wearing glasses”. Self esteem is the value you attach to yourself and your skills. The way we define ourselves are influenced by our motivations, attitudes, behaviours, and affects to our emotional adjustment. High-esteem helps us to communicate to the people we meet, such as our family, friends and others like colleagues. This leads to a positive self-concept. The person who has positive self- concept will generally view life experience positively without take to heart. However, if we have poor self-concept, it is more likely that we are not going to feel good about themselves also has low self-esteem. We will have poor view ourselves and we may not get on well with others as we might feel jealous on others which subsequently lower our self-esteem. It will put us in a position thinking that others do not value us. Age, Appearance, Gender, Culture, and Emotional Development There are changes in self concept depending on our age and the life stage we are in. Self concept is an important part of our life as we believe in what other people think about us. Looking on self concept in children it’s a different level. From the beginning of infancy, children obtain and organise the information about themselves as a way to allow them to understand the relations between self and their social world. It is important part of our emotional development. For example when a toddler learns to walk, this experience is an accomplishment for them as the parents would be encouraging the toddler and cheering along which boosts their self esteem. There are most children who feel good about themselves and seem to have an easier time handling the conflicts and resisting the negative pressures. It shows these children are optimistic and down-to-earth. Instead they smile and enjoy their life rather than worrying about it. Though there are some children who worry about what other people think about them. Which shows these children will have low self- esteem and find it hard as it will lead them to anxiety also frustration. But if they get the support from a friend or even an adult they will feel safe. But if the parents treat them badly or harshly when they are young, it is likely when they grow up with poor sense of our own worth. When newborn baby is born they don’t have any self-concept as they will need to develop emotionally before they can understand that other people have feelings or their own. If they don’t understand this, they wouldn’t be able to understand other individuals that have opinions regarding on them. There are signs which show their understanding hasn’t developed properly this is why children cannot play cooperatively with others also this is why a child will have a tantrum in the shop or street not embarrassed that others are seeing them kicking and screaming. For babies they are helpless and depend on their carers which their parents as they are new to the world and need to meet their needs for example a one year old baby maybe crying because they are hungry, they cannot talk as they haven’t been through that stage they can say one or two words. So it is important for the carer to understand the baby needs and full fill their needs. When the child gets older they would meet wider range of people from grandparents to relatives like cousins or aunties and these people will start to influence them. They get influenced by people who are in the same age group as they are or couple years older than them. For example if you had a little sister and you are the eldest in the family she is likely to follow your footsteps because she feels that you know more than her and you’ve been here longer than them but really you don’t instead you have same understanding as her. Really they are getting pieces of themselves which is forming and their self portrait from individuals that influence them. When they are in this stage they learn they have to fit in with others and learn the basic social rules and values. So when a child does something well they get praised but if they do something unacceptable they are told off. This way the child understands from the rights and wrongs which adds picture of them developing from these values. They do not do this from thin air but they are taught or imitate what they see happening around them. This is called internalising or examining within themselves the experience they are having. However, if a child does not get the praise they will feel not loved may eventually experience low self-esteem. A child who feels they loved but is hesitant about his or her own skill also ends up with low self-esteem. A healthy self-esteem can be right balance when it’s reached. As a child grows their self-esteem fluctuates, it changes frequently due to the child’s experiences and new perceptions. This helps them understand the signs of healthy and un-healthy self-esteem. A child with low-self esteem may not want to try new things and speak or respond negatively about themselves or else with others, for example ‘I’m stupid or what’s the point’. At this point they will frustrate and will give up easily. They put them position where the child is disappointed in them and overly critical. For those who have a healthy self esteem will have a positive vibe about themselves and enjoy interacting with others. The child is comfortable in social settings and enjoys group activities than independent pursuits. Appearance is what we look like such as our body structure or facial features that are important for us. Faces are a significant part of our appearance because we use it to recognise and communicate with other people. For example a baby recognises is the shape of the face. Facial expressions are major means of communications as we can tell other people what we are feeling for example asking their opinion what we look like. This shows a honest picture of yourself. Once the child starts talking they will start to develop the facial expressions which are important as it helps us with the communication. If a individual has a defect on their face it can affect them emotionally also affecting their self concept for example the child maybe born with a birthmark across their face and this can affect their self concept as they will dislike their appearance which can affect in their development as they grow up such as in school they may not fit into a certain group. A child self concept may change when they start preschool or school as they will notice there are other children who are different from them and may point this out but not in a polite way for example the child may say ‘why is there boy with white hair'’ meaning that child is albino and may cause them to be upset as well as the child may dislike themselves because they feel marginalised. Not just their facial features that can affect their appearance on their self concept but their body shape as well. During childhood it is not a problem because at this stage it is their physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. With body appearance it can affect us at the stage of adolescents especially girls as they feel their body is not necessarily perfect as they way they perceive it to be, which can damage their self concept. The need to be perfect affects in all stages but mostly teenagers as an example of this a research has shown that younger girls are able to identify what is perfect and what is not. Children in society are over exposed to size zero models and airbrushed celebrities which the children will idolise because they see them on day to day basis such as on television, magazine, products and many more. The child will develop a distorted image of themselves in many cases can lead to low esteem as they will aspire to look like a particular celebrity for example girls from the ages of 5-11 will want to look like their favourite TV star Hannah Montanna, this is widely popular TV show for children all around the world. In this study it claims that half of Britain’s six year old girls want to be ‘thinner’. This was undertaken by Jo Frost who is a reality nanny who introduced a TV campaign on children health and well being. This was carried out by asking the 6 year old girls to ring their ideal body shape; over half of them chose the thinnest one as possible. http://www.nowpublic.com/health/half-six-year-old-girls-want-be-thinner The study shows the child is already developing an image of ‘perfect body’ and proves that adolescents aren’t the only stage that is being affected. With gender there is often confusion between gender and sex although they do not have the same meaning. Someone sex is determined by their genes and the child has to learn about the way society expects us as individuals of each sex to behave. This is known as gender role, gender can affect our self-concept as there are two ways the children are expected to learn as individuals of their own gender. The child will gain an idea of gender role by watching their parents or other key careers around them because the child will see them as their role models. A good example of this gender role in parents, the father will go to work and the mother will remain at home to look after the house and children. It is typically been expected by society and for many years only men went to work, so generally this is the stereotypical picture. The child will start to gain insight on between the difference of roles in female and males. The difference between male and female the way they are expected to behave is lessening the gender still affects the self concept as children tend to be treated differently due to their sex for example the toys in the play school that were given to the children will depend on their gender such as the girl is given a doll and a pram to play with while the boys are given care. Most young children are happy to play with range of toys and this type behaviour give an understanding to the child the difference between them and the opposite sex. In the UK there are many different cultures which is increasingly becoming a multicultural society. Cultures tend to have values, shared beliefs and custom. Culture can affect religion, language, faith, diet, dress, sport and music this is because culture comes in different variation. Culture gives a group of people a share identity meaning a sense of belonging and sense of community. In relation to self concept it can affect the child morality and gender roles. Culture can have huge effect on our self concept because for some individuals culture revolves around them their entire life. This is not seen as bad thing although because it is solely based on yourself and culture particularly in an environment with different cultures as they may not be treated the way they wish to be. For example a child comes from a different country with their parents and there is a possibility the child will have a language barrier but if the staff do not help with this barrier the child will feel isolated and abandoned because they don’t have the capability to communicate. The emotional development is the phase that everyone goes through which can affect their self concept as they will mature and experience a wide range of emotions. Emotional needs are the most common in children because the way they feel as it can affect their health and development. So the children who feel secure and content tend to be healthier, so is their ‘mental health’ important. But when their need is unmet they become frustrated and start to misbehave. For example the teacher assistants work with the children they need to make sure that the children feel good about themselves this would mean the children need higher self esteem because they find it easier to learn and also to make friends. The children gain confidence mainly through adults especially their own families or teachers as they support them to go further. They feel that they are cared for when adults support them or their families because it gives them a sense that you are paying attention to them not with other children by listening to their problems and supporting but children that don’t get the support from adults are more likely to have lack of confidence and less self-esteem. The child need to understand other people’s feelings and their feelings because they will meet different types of emotion which will occur in their life as it will be confusing for them to know complex feelings such as guilt or shame or when people express their feelings with facial expression. So they need to understand feelings because the child will know how to comfort their friends when they are upset. All children are different even those who being brought up in the same family by the same parents. So this makes it very important for the adults to communicate with their children about their feelings as they can help indentify the children’s emotional. There are other needs that will relate in for example Pre-school from the children; which will be they should learn how to control their feelings because they may use it at wrong situations for example a child may have a tantrum when they are not sharing toys with the other child. However the child should learn how to share the toys and control their anger into patience and the teacher assistant can support this by telling the child its wrong not to share toys as the other child will become upset and they wouldn’t like if that happened to them. At most time the children can get upset when they fall over so the teacher will come and comfort them so the child feels a sense of belonging when upset because this helps the child’s self esteem. The activities they do at pre-school every children must be included because they will feel that they are not wanted and there self-esteem will go down which means the teacher assistants must treat every child equal and not single them out. Education The child will learn more and faster in their earliest years than at any other time in life. The development and learning in these earliest years lay the foundations for abilities, characteristics and skills in later life. It encourages the child to help them identify what they are good at. Learning begins at birth (some research suggests before birth). The care and education of children are interwoven. The children should be offered a range of experiences and activities that support all aspects of their development which are; social, physical, intellectual, linguistic, emotional and creative. The choice of experiences and activities (the curriculum) should depend on accurate assessment of the stage of development reached by the child, following observation and discussion with families. All contributions to the planning and running should set high expectations for the children and should build on their achievements and interests. A Child makes the first move in play and activities should be valued and recognised as well as the adult planned curriculum. Also all written record of the children’s progress should be kept and reviewed with the parent or guardian and inform any planning. Education is not the only thing that will affect the child self concept with relationship with others such as teachers and peers. The education provides a structure to ensure the child is able to do best in each subject as possible. Day by day a child mind can develop. So each day the child learns something new about people, things new skills such as the teacher assistants would teach them the alphabets, numbers, shapes and colours which are the most important as they will go through this in their daily lives, how to communicate, memories and gain more experiences. Such as in a pre-school they make the activities fun for the children because young children have powerful feelings. So they don’t always have the language skill to talk about how they are feeling. Some activities can help young children to express their feelings. Doing activities helps children learn basic mathematical concepts for example a child may have a jug filled up with sand and an empty cup but the child doesn’t realise that not all of the sand will fit into the cup as it is smaller than the jug. This shows that the child is learning volume. Relationship with others The relationship is an important part in self concept as it is made up of what people will think of them and the kind of relationships they will build. Relationship is important part of our lives as it helps us meet new people. A child they will have friendships to build potential in their self concept, they may have some ups and downs but the feelings of satisfaction and security that most children derive from interacting with peers outweigh periodic problems. For a number of children, however, peer relations are persistently problematic. Some children are actively rejected by peers. Others are simply ignored, or neglected. It even appears that some popular children have many friends but nevertheless feel alone and unhappy. If the child has a poor relationship with family members it is likely that their confidence will be affected because they have a sense of being unloved. As these are the first opinions that they will develop they will think that other people do not like them and do not value them as an individual. Theorists Erikson With personality many people believe this is developed during the early childhood, the theorist Erikson believes personality continues to develop and grow throughout their life. Erikson believes the development of the personality is biological based e.g. the life stages are genetically linked with the affective individual behaviour. His theory states that every person has to go through and deal with these stages in order to develop their individual personality. For them to meet this they should be able to interrelate with the environment they are in by enabling to pass through the stages of the development which is part of psychosocial development. If a child is not able to deal with the development of their personality this method will be less successful on the basis of psychosocial development. Erikson theory is structured in life stages because he believes that personality is developed throughout life. In the structured table of life stages he believes that individual will experience crisis with an overall outcome and one significant relationship. The life stage covers from infancy which is birth to a year old and the significant relationship with their mother. The crisis they may face is trust against mistrust which is the relationship the child will have as well as determining the outcome of the first year. The outcome of this stage is to trust people or mistrust of others depending on how they are being treated by those around them in this life stage. It is important to have trust built during this stage so the child later in life will be able to represent this later in life. The next life stage two years, in crisis Erikson believes this is dealt with during the stage of Autonomy verses shame and doubt. The child will begin to develop independence step by step which can be frightening for the child as they used to have dependant attachment which is their mother. In this stage the significant relationship the child has is with both parents than one parent such as the mother. It is important for the parent to support the child with independence by allowing them the space to do it, so in the future the child isn’t always dependant on their parents. If a parent doesn’t allow their child to develop this way and decide to overpower the outcome will be in due course be of fear. The third stage is three to five years which the crisis is dealt with in this stage if initiative verses guilt. At this phase the child will understand the difference between themselves and an adult. For example the child will hang around with their parent who is a police man and will imitate them by wearing parts of their uniform such as the hat and the hand cuffs. This shows the child wants to follow their parent’s footstep and is the initiative side of this crisis comes from the child’s imagination in creative play. On crisis of guilt Erikson believes it can build up during these early years as the desires and goals can prevent pressure particularly if isn’t met which results in guilt. The main relationship during this stage is family as they will encourage the initiative and create positive outcome. As the outcome of this stage is either high self esteem or low self esteem. Next stage if six to eleven years the crisis of this stage will encounter is industry versus inferiority as new skills will be developed constantly throughout this stage; this will be by learning skills that allows the child gain an understanding of industry. Inferiority comes against this as this is social development which may approach to unresolved issues between others. May well be caused by feeling less or below certain individuals and this establish in damaging the self esteem. The significant relationship seen in this stage has changed to friends from family as the child seem to build better relationship and understands them better for example the child spends more time with their friend than their family as they go to school every day, it is also seen most influential relationship. The outcome of this stage is either being success or failure, route to take is clearly success to take place the industry needs to take main concern meaning on able to develop the skills, in sense that they do not see themselves as bellow other people but equal individuals. Those were the relevant stages to childhood as the theorist Erikson goes on to talk about the through the stages of adulthood which are adolescence, early adulthood, middle age and older age. Erikson suggests that as individuals we go through eight stages of development which each one is characterised by a psychosocial crisis that adapts our behaviour. Erikson believes that throughout life personality will continue to develop also change during our lives. The outcome of these life stages is likely to be on the effectiveness and strength of most significant relationships. Erikson believes to resolve these crises but retain an element of both the adaptive (positive) and maladaptive (negative) features of each stage. In support of healthy development of self, the adaptive quality needs to outweigh the maladaptive quality. Piaget Piaget is another theorist who has particular interest in behaviour particularly in children, on how infants and young children process their thoughts in perceptions and link them to behaviour. His theory is upon bases on the research he conducted into the organisation. Piaget results are gained from the research of observations of children playing, interactive and solitary play. Piaget believes that the self concept is created in various schemas is the term is used to refer to clusters of information or known as early concepts which the schemas is grouped together to make whole image. It is like putting together jigsaw puzzle, meaning the child will hold small pieces of information and when fitted together gives a whole picture. The schemas are brought forward in society by Piaget although it has been developed further by researchers. Schemas are patterns of behaviour which children simplify making it possible for them to use it for different situation that may take place. He considers that the development of the child’s thinking process and ideas occur in the same sequence within each stage. The exact age may vary but he believes the sequence is always the same throughout the development of stages in their life. The sequence which it is identified by Piaget theory is the the sensor motor stage which occurs between the ages of birth to eighteen months, the development of operation stage between the ages of eighteen months and seven years. The concrete operations stage between the ages of seven to twelve and the final stage formal operations stage between the ages of twelve until adulthood. The sensory motor stage is pattern of schemas that an infant can increase their co-ordination for example a baby of around 4 ½ months reach out for favourite toy, they will grasp it and put the toy into their mouth. It is tracking, reaching, grasping and sucking. This explains that babies are currently going through the sensorimotor stages are believed to be intellectually egocentric by Piaget as even toddlers within this stage still only see their own and cannot change their view to identify things through the point of view of others. The developing operations stage is when a young child will start use symbolic behaviour this includes language, drawings (without the shape or form) and pretend play. These are internalised which the child begins to think. The process of the child recalling past thoughts and ideas also past experiences is able to anticipate the future. Being able to do this the child will be able to develop the concepts and will begin to think about time and space. For example they may make reference to people who are not there and may try to share with others they know as well as how they feel. The cooperate stage is the stage where the child and adolescent begin to have an understanding of mass, number, area, quantity, volume and weight. They begin to understand what the thing are not always they look, but they still have great difficulty is thinking about the abstract. To do this they will need to be given the practical work to help them understand such as numbers and concepts in mathematics. The children at this stage will be in the development on the ability to take into consideration more than one aspect of an object or an event. In other words they no longer concentrate on just one thing at a time but can manage several different things. The formal of operation stage is when the child has reached this stage their development and understands the abstract of the concept such as fairness. They will have the ability to form hypothese and solve the problems as the child are able to speak about things in abstract form and doesn’t need an object in present to explain what it is. Sources: http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/self_esteem.html# http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/self-concept.html http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/regsys/self.html http://social.jrank.org/pages/554/Self-Concept.html http://www.nelsonthornes.com/aqagcse/samples/chapter-samples09-10/9781408503980_sc-hsc.pdf http://www.learningplaceonline.com/stages/organize/Erikson.htm http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/fit/what_time.html