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Psychological Issues
• BEDWETTING
• EMOTIONS
EMOTIONS
CHARACTERISTICS FEATURES
Emotions
are intense
Young children respond with equal intensity to a trivial event and
to a serious situations. Even the preadolescent reacts with intense
emotions to what appears to an adult to be a trivial frustration.
Emotions
appear frequently
Children display their emotions frequently. As they grow older and
discover that disapproval or punishment often follows an emotional
outburst, they learn to adjust to emotion-arousing situations. They
then curb their emotional outbursts or react in a more acceptable
way.
Emotions
are transitory
Young children's rapid shifts from laughter to tears, from anger to
smiles or from jealousy to affection are attributable to three
factors clearing the system of pent-up emotions by unreserved
expression; lack of complete understanding of the situation because
of intellectual immaturity and limited experience; and short
attention span, which makes it possible for the child to be diverted
easily. As children grow older, their emotions become more
persistent.
Responses reflect individuality
In all newborns, the pattern of response is similar. Gradually, as
the influences of learning and environment are felt, the behavior
accompanying the different emotions is individualized. One child
will run out of the room when frightened, another will cry, and
still another will hide behind a piece of furniture or a person.
Emotions
change n strength
Emotions that are very strong at certain ages wane in strength as
the child grows older, while others, formerly weak, become stronger.
These variations are due partly to changes in the strength of
drives, and partly to changes in interests and values.
Emotions
can be detected by behavior symptoms
Children may not show their emotional reactions directly, but they
show them indirectly by restlessness, daydreaming, crying, speech
difficulties, and nervous mannerism such as nail-biting and
thumb-sucking.
FACTORS
RESPONSIBLE FOR FEARS
Intelligence
Precocious children have fears characteristic of those of an older
age level and retarted children, those of a lower level. While most
children of 3 years, for example, have fears that are situationally
determined, precocious 3 year olds usually have generalized and
imaginary fears. Furthermore, precocious children tend to have more
fears than their average age-mates because they are more aware of
the possibility of danger.
Sex
At all ages, girls as a group show more fears than boys as a group.
Also, It is more socially acceptable for girls to fear certain
things, such as snake and bugs.
Socioeconomic status
Lower-class children at all ages have more fears than children from
middle and upper-class backgrounds. They are especially afraid of
violence, which troubles middle and upper-class children very
little.
Physical
condition
If children are tired, hungry, or in poor health, they will respond
with greater fear than normally and will be frightened in many
situations which do not normally excite their fears.
Social
contents
Being with others who are frightened predisposes children to be
frightened also. As the number of individuals in the group
increases, fears are shared and the total number of fears for each
child increases.
Ordinal
Position
Firstborns tend to have more fears than later - born because they
are subjected to greater parental over protectiveness. The more
younger siblings associate with other siblings, the more fears they
learn.
Personality
Insecure children tend to be frightened more easily than children
who are emotionally secure. The extrovert learns more fears by
imitating others than the introvert.
CLOAKS
FOR ANXIETY
Boisterous and show-oof behavior. By showing off, anxious children
try to convince themselves and others of their competence. Boredom.
Anxiety makes children bored, restless, and disturbed, and they
cannot concentrate on anything long enough to become interested in
it.
Ill - at - ease
Whether alone or with others, anxious children feel insecure and
show their anxiety by nervous mannerisms and speech problems.
Avoidance of anxiety-threatening situations
Children avoid threatening situations by going to sleep, even though
not tried, by keeping themselves so busy that they have no time to
think, or by withdrawing into a fantasy world.
Characteristic reactions
Anxious children over or under react. A slight criticism may send
them into a fit of range, or a vicious attack may be met with an
apparently calm suppression of all anger.
Out-of-character behavior
A friendly child who is anxious may show a
streak of cruelty or a usually kind child may commit a brutal act.
Excessive use of mass media
Anxious children tend to use television
and other mass media more than their age-mates. In this way, they
escape temporarily from anxiety-threatening situations.
Excessive use of defense mechanisms
While all children use defense mechanisms, especially projection of
blame on others, anxious children use them excessively in the hope
of freeing themselves from the vague uneasiness caused by feelings
of guilt and inadequacy.
COMMON
REACTIONS TO JEALOUSY
Direct response
to jealousy may be aggressive attacks - biting, kickings, hitting,
punching, and scratching or socially approved attempts to outdo
ones's rival in competition for the attention and affection of the
loved person. When jealously springs from envy, children may be
motivated to engage in socially disapproved acts, such as cheating
or stealing. They may complain about what they have, make
sour-grapes comments about the things they crave, or blame their
parents for not providing them with the things their playmates have.
It is also common for jealous children to make belittling comments
about the person who has aroused their jealousy.
Indirect response are more subtle than the direct ones and,
therefore, harder to recognize. They include reversion to infantile
forms of behavior, such as bed-wetting and thumb-sucking; bids for
attention in the form of new fears or food idiosyncrasies; general
naughtiness; destructiveness; verbal expression, such as tattling
and name-calling; unwonted displays of affection and helpfulness;
venting of feelings on toys or animals; and subdued behavior, as in
grieving.
Forms of expression of grief
Overt
Expressions
The typical overt expression of grif in childhood is crying. The
crying may be so anguished and prolonged that children will enter a
state of near hysteria that will last until they are near
exhaustion. If they interpret the loss as a punishment for their
misbehavior, it will intensify their grief.
Inhibited expressions
Inhibited expression of grief consist of a generalized state of
apathy marked by a loss of interest in things going on in the
environment, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, a tendency to
experience fearful dreams, refusal to play, lack of communication
with others, and general listlessness. Prolonged grief leads to
anxity, with all its undesirable accompaniments.
Conditions for emotional
dominance
Health
conditions
Good health encourages the dominance of the pleasant emotions,
while poor health encourages the dominance of unpleasant emotions.
Home
climate
If children grow up in a home environment where happiness prevails
and where friction, jealousy, animosity, and other unpleasant
emotions are kept to a minimum, the chances are that they will
become happy children.
Child
Training
Authoritarian child training, where punitive methods are used to
enforce strict obedience, encourages a dominance of unpleasant
emotion, while democratic or permissive child training leads to a
more relaxed home climate which promotes the expression of the
pleasant emotions.
Relationships
with family members
A frictional relationship with parents or siblings will arouse so
much anger and jealousy that these emotions will tend to dominate
the child's home life.
Relationships with peers
The child who is well accepted by members of the peer group will
experience a dominance of the pleasant emotions, while a child who
is rejected or neglected by the peer group will experience a
dominance of the unpleasant emotions.
Over
protectiveness
Overprotective parents, who dwell on the potential danger in
everything, encourage the dominance of fear in children.
Parental
Aspirations
If parents have unrealistically high aspirations for their
children, children will become embarrassed and ashamed and feel
guilty when they realize, from parental criticism, that they have
fallen below these expectations. Repeated experiences of this kind
will soon make the unpleasant emotions the dominant ones in their
lives.
Guidance
Guidance, with emphasis on understanding why some frustrations are
necessary, can prevent anger and resentment from becoming dominant
emotions. Without it, these emotions are likely to become dominant,
especially when the frustrations seem unfair to a child.
Releasing Pent-up Emotional
Energy
Moodiness
Moodiness is drawn out state of the emotions caused by bottled up
emotional energy and allowing it to smolder. The unpleasant emotions
are more likely to be controlled, so children are sullen, morbid,
reticent, or bed humored. They become listless and work below their
capacities; their interest in things and people wanes, and they
become pre occupied with themselves and their own feelings.
Substitute Responses
Emotional energy can be released by substituting a more socially
acceptable response for the one normally associated with the
emotions. When angry, children may substitute name-calling for
hitting or kicking, or may do something useful or constructive.
Displacement
In displacement, emotional responses are directed against a person,
animal, or object unrelated to the stimulus. Instead of hitting or
shouting at them, for example, angry children attack an innocent
victim.
Regression
One of the common ways of expressing thwarted emotions in childhood
is regression-going back to earlier, perhaps infantile forms of
behavior, jealous children, for example, may wet their beds or claim
that they need help in dressing.
Emotional explosion
In emotional explosions, children react violently to a seemingly
trivial stimulus. When angry they have temper tantrums out of all
proportion to what angered them. As older children know they are
expected to develop frustration tolerance, their emotional
explosions often lead to feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and shame.
Effects of deprivation of
affection
Degree of
deprivation
A slight frustration of desire for affection whets a child's
desire for it. For example, a child competing with siblings for the
mother's or father's attention becomes friendly and eager to please.
Pronounced deprivation of affection leads to many of the serious
effects reported in the text.
When
deprivation occurs
A critical period for deprivation of affection is from 6 months to 5
years of age. Deprivation after 5 years has minor effects because
the child can find substitute satisfactions. Before that time, it
has little effect because an emotional attachment was never firmly
established.
Person
from whom the child is separated
After becoming accustomed to the care and love of the mother or
mother surrogate, a baby or young child cannot comprehend the sudden
withdrawal - even temporarily - of this source of emotional
security. As a result, the child feels unwanted, unloved, and
rejected.
Extent
of separation
When young children are separated from the mother or mother
substitute for a long time, the effects are more serious than when
the separation is temporary. If the deprivation lasts for less than
3 months, reestablishment of emotional interchange will lead to a
resumption of normal physical and mental development.
Personality
Some children are dependent and crave more or less constant
attention and affection while others can be happy with less.
Self-bound children have less craving for affection than do those
who are outer-bound.
Ordinal
position
Firstborn children, accustomed to constant attention and affection
from the mother, are more damaged by emotional deprivation than are
their later-born siblings.
Family
size
Children from large families are accustomed to fewer contacts with
the mother and are less damaged by emotional deprivation than only
children. Since children from large families are often cared for by
mother substitutes, they do not become dependent on any one person
for affection.
Satisfactory substitute
source of affection
Much of the psychological damage from emotional
deprivation can be avoided if there is a satisfactory substitute for
the child's original source of emotional satisfaction. In adoption,
babies or young children soon adapt themselves to their substitute
and make good adjustments.
Effects
of shyness
If persistent, shyness leads to a generalized timidity which causes
children to be afraid to try anything new or different. This results
in achievements below their potentials. Fear of strangeness can,
unless checked, become a generalized fear of anything that differs
from the accustomed. This militates against the child's trying to do
anything new - a fear that stifles creativity. Shy children
contribute little to the group, so they are not popular. Generally,
they are not disliked, but are overlooked and neglected. This
contributes to poor adjustment because of lack of social learning
experiences. Shyness make it difficult for children to play
leadership roles because of their inability to communicate
effectively and creatively with others. Shy children are afraid to
talk to others so other people do not talk of them. This encourages
children to become self-bound. Except in babyhood, when shyness is
normal, shy children are likely to be unfavorably judged by others.
They are also likely to be considered less bright than they are.
Since self - evaluation reflects social evaluation, shy children
judge themselves as others judge them. This may and often does
contribute to the development of an inferiority complex.
Effects
of grief
Grief may lead to feelings of martyrdom if children interpret their
loss as a punishment for their naughtiness.
Grief-stricken children may become resentful if they feel that their
parents or others could have prevented the loss.
Grief may lead to feelings of guilt if children believe that they
could have prevented the loss.
Grief - stricken children may withdrawn from people and become
self-bound, thus eliminating opportunities for socialization.
Grief may encourage children to escape from reality by daydreaming
or by contemplating suicide.
Grief will militate against achievement if children are so
preoccupied with their loss that they cannot concentrate on what
they are doing.
Grief may be intensified by anxiety, with all its damaging effects.
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