Young children’s understanding of
people, objects, and situations increases
rapidly.
During early childhood, their
understanding is limited to where
babies.

 Because of their inability to comprehend
the whys and wherefores of moral
standards, young children must learn moral
behavior in specific situations.
 Children may be told not to do something
one day, but the next day or even the day
after that, they may have forgotten what
they were told not to do.

Morality by Constraint by Piaget:
Children obey rules automatically, without using
reason or judgment.
Preconventional Morality by Kholberg:
In the first stage, children are obedience and
punishment oriented in the sense that they judge gets as
right or wrong in terms of the physical consequences of
these acts.
Discipline in Early Childhood
Its goal is to let children know what behavior is
approved and what is disapproved and to motivate them to
behave in accordance with these standards.

Types of Discipline Used in
Early Childhood
Authoritarian Discipline
Parents and other caretaker establish rules and inform
children that they are expected to abide by them.
Permissive Discipline
Children would learn from the consequences of their acts
how to behave in a socially approved way.
Democratic Discipline
Emphasize the rights of a child to know why rules are
made and have to an opportunity to express their opinion.

Interest in Religion
Religion concepts of young children are
realistic in the sense that they interpret what they
hear and see in terms of what they already know.
Interest in Human Body
Young children express their interest in the
body by commenting on the various parts and by
asking questioning about them.

Interest in Self
Once young children begin to play with their peers,
interest in self gradually gives way to increased interest in peers
and their activities.
Interest in Sex
However, because many parents regard sex play and
masturbation as naughty, if not actually wicked, such activities
are usually carried out in private.
Interest in Clothes
Children discover that their clothing attracts attention.

 Young children are subjected to indirect methods. They are kept from
having opportunities to learn to behave in what those responsible for their
training regard as sex-inappropriate behavior.
 Berstein explained: “sexism starts with kindergarten activities in which
little girls are directed to the housekeeping corner, while boys are steered
toward blocks and trucks...Schools thus provide a shrinking of alternatives
instead of an expansion.

Parent-Child Relationship
Because young children depend more on their parents for
feelings of security and for happiness than on anyone
else, for relationships with their parents have a devastating effects.
This is especially true when the poor relationship is with the mother,
the parent on whom most young children are especially dependent.
Sibling Relationship
Young children learn to evaluate their own behavior as other
do. Older siblings serve as role models to imitate. Whether the siblings
are older or younger, they contribute emotional security and teach
young children how to show affection for others.

Relationships with Relatives
Many families today live in areas remote from other
family members. Young children’s relationships with their
relatives are often infrequent and brief.
Of all relatives, the most frequent contacts are
those between the child and the maternal grandmother
because it is she who is the most often called on to help in
an emergency, or to look after the young child if the parents
are unable to get or afford a baby-sitter when they want to
be away from home.

Conditions Shaping the Self-Concept
in Early Childhood
Child-Training
Child training method used in the
home shaping the young child’s developing
concept of self.
Aspirations
Aspirations parents have for their children
play an important role in their developing
self-concepts.

Ordinal Position
Ordinal position of children in a family has an effect on their
developing personalities. This influence may be explained in part by
the past that each child in the family learns to play a specific role.
Environmental Insecurities
Whether due to death, divorce, separation,
or social mobility, affects young children’s s
elf-concepts unfavorably because they
feel insecure and different from their peers.

Physical Hazards
Mortality
Deaths in early childhood are often the result of accidents than of illness, and
because boys have more accidents than girls, deaths in early childhood are more frequent
among boys than among girls.
Illness
Young children are highly susceptible to all kinds of illness,
though respiratory illness is the most common.
Accidents
Most young children experience cuts, infections, burns, broken
bones, strained muscles, o similar minor disturbances resulting from accidents.
Others have more serious that disable them temporarily or permanently. As
what pointed out above, boys have more accidents than girls, and the
accidents tend to be more serious.

Unattractiveness
Children become increasingly unattractive, reaching a low point as they
emerge into late childhood.
The less attractive appearances of young children added to their changed
behavior makes them less appealing to their parents and other adults than they were
when they were babies.
Left-Handedness
There are other reasons why being left-handed is regarded as a hazard
during the early childhood years.
When young children attempt to learn a skill from a
right-handed person, they are likely to become confused about how to
imitate the model.
Left-handedness can affect children’s educational success and,
later, their vocational success or their social adjustments.

Psychological Hazards
Speech Hazards
Because speech is a tool for communication is essential to social belonging,
children who, unlike their age-mates, cannot communicate with others will be socially
handicapped, and this will lead to feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.
Emotional Hazards
The major emotional hazard on early childhood is the dominance of the
unpleasant emotions, especially anger. If young children experience too many of the
unpleasant and too few of the pleasant ones, it will distort their outlook on life and
encourage the development of an unpleasant disposition.
Social Hazards
Social development of young children is parental encouragement to spend
proportionally too much time with other children and
proportionally too little time alone.

Moral Hazards
Too much emphasis on punishment for misbehavior and too little emphasis on
rewards for good behavior can lead to unfavorable attitude toward those in authority.
Family-Relationship Hazards
Deterioration in any human relationship is hazardous to good personal and
social adjustments.
Threats to good parent-child relationships in early childhood are working
mothers and step-parents. When mothers work outside the home, the care of the children
must be turned over to relatives or paid caretakers or they must be sent to a day-care
center.Deterioration in relationships with relatives comes
when relatives are expected to play the roles of surrogate
parents.

Children’s happiness depends mainly on how
the different members of their families treat them and
on what they believe family member thinks of them.
The basic ingredients that make children happy
during childhood seem to be the same ones that help
them to become happy adults: a secure relationship
with parents gives the base to confidently explore the
world and develop a sense of mastery and recognition,
all important components in the recipe for happiness.
However, in the short term, the new toy might provide a
smile too!

BSECED-II