Interview With The Parent Of An Adolescent About Social Development

Parents have an important influene on middle childhood values, attuitudes,and behaviors.

I interviewed a parent about her 10 year old boy.  I asked her what types of values and behaviors she teaches her son.   She said "I just want him to do his best in school and put on his best behavior."  She told me that she rewards him when he is good and punishes him when he is bad. She also said that he knows when he is doing something wrong so she usually doesnt have to get on him often.

Social Development Interview With An Adolescent

I interviewed a 6th grade girl that is 12 years old.  I asked her about her best friends at school and who all she talked with.  She told me "Skyler is my best friend." "But I have many other friends like Mason, Hannah, McKenzie."  I asked her what they liked to do at school and she said "We love to talk at lunch time because thats when we can talk the most!" "And we just had prom at the middle school and we got to dress up and I even got to wear heels!" She was very excited.  I asked her if that was something all her friends went to and she said "Yeah we all got dressed up and took lots of pictures."  She showed me some of the pictures.

YouTube Videos That Relate To Social Development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrsb1idgceY
This video really shows how girls are in "Cliques" as well as, how mean girls can really be at the pre-teen and teenage years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx3Ubl7y8JM
This video explains how a young boy does not know how to control his emotions yet so he acts out and starts using bad behavior.

A Few Websites About Social Development

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=2083&cn=28
This website explains how students make transitions during their years of school and how these major events can cause stress and what to go about it.

http://www.classroominterpreting.org/Interpreters/children/Cognitive/midhigh.asp
This is a great website that talks about friendships, cliques, cultures, idenitity, etc. in middle childhood.

Examples of Social Development from Observations

I observed a group of 6th grade girls that were what you would call a "clique" or a small group of friends.  I watched them as they walked down the hallway talking about what they were going to do for the coming up weekend and which house they were going to stay at.  I continued to watch the girls in the classroom pass notes to one another while class was going on.  I know when I was about their age, I did the exact same thing and I even still have some of the notes I kept over the years.  When I look back and read my notes, I cannot believe I acted in such a way.  But thats how the middle age brain works!

What is Social Development?

Social development icludes acquiring social skills, increasing interpersonal understanding, refining concepts of friendship, and using moral reasoning to guide social interactions with family and peers.  School-age children's social and moral development allows relationships built during middle childhood to pave the way for adolescent dating experiences and social identity.

Interview With A Parent Of An Adolescent About Emotion & Temerament ( Affective Development)

In middle childhood, emotional competence involves the ability of school-age children to understand their own emotional states, to correctly interpret their affective experiences with others, and to control their emotions.

I asked the parent of a 12 year old girl to tell me about her emotions and if she was able to control them in certain situations.  The parent told me that she could not control her emotions yet, in fact, she cries about everything. The parent said she is extremely sensitive and worries about what everyone else is doing.  The parent said one day the girl left her backpack at home before school.  They turned around to go get her backpack and she burst into tears because she knew she was going to be late for school and get a tardy slip.  The parent told her to calm down the world was not going to come to an end.  Therefore, I can see that the 12 year old girl still has to learn how to deal with her emotions.