Peer Interactions We are not alone This section looks at when and how young children interact with each other Who were your friends What did you do with them Different Types of activities Peers as Equal Status Interactions Emotional security Growth promoting conflicts of viewpoint Practice in compromise Feedback and practice in role taking skills Training for later intimate relationships Time for Playtime 6mo Nonsocial Onlooker play 12mo Parallel play 15mo Simple social Associative play 24mo Cooperative play School Rough and Tumble Play Parents play too Playmate Attachment Scaffolding Mediator Cooperative Kids Sharing and Playing Social Coach More social Less aggressive Why can t we just be Friends Friendship A voluntary relationship between two people involving a mutual liking Ok Einstein Tell me something I didn t know Friendship Based on common interests and liking in children intimacy is more important in adolescents esp girls Friends usually alike in age gender and race unless small class size or popular Only opposite sex friendships often indicative of rejection Consequences of friendship Children with good friends have higher self esteem are more cooperative and deal better with life stresses Of course this could be the effect not the cause But friends can make us nicer meaner Romantic Relationships Sooner or later adolescents find a special someone Individuals with high self esteem are likely to think that their significant other likes thempositive feedback loop Those with low self esteem not so lucky and often avoid intimacy for fear of rejection or poison the well negative feedback loop Moral of the story be nice and optimistic Teen Sexuality Most have sex before end of teens culture determined Sexually transmitted diseases 1 in 4 will contract an STD Teenage pregnancy and childbearing 1 in 10 will become pregnant 40 abort This is generally bad not the sex the pregnancy Neither teen moms nor babies do well So why did they do it Teen pregnancy Caused by total lack of birth control Why Invulnerability Ignorance serious lack of knowledge about getting pregnant I thought only if older not if he pulled out not if I drank milk No access to contraceptives Want to have a child Dealing with the problem of teenage sexuality Abstinence IS 100 effective but not for everybody 30 60 of teens WILL have sex 1in 10 get pregnant 1 in 4 get STD Preventive strategy Parental discussions concerning sexual matters Teen Outreach Volunteer service activities Formal sex education POWER OF GROUPS Groups are amazing They are more powerful than one alone And more dangerous Robber s Cave Sherif 1961 HINT Survivor is based on it POWER OF GROUPS Week one Leaders emerge Week two Tribes fight compete Week three Work together Characteristics of Groups Clique 4 6 friends Crowd larger group who have similar values and attitudes Some crowds have higher status jocks and their members have higher self esteem Groups have a dominance hierarchy Boys it s power Girls it s skills Groups exert pressure primarily where social standards are fuzzy Popularity Social Skill 5 common categories Popular liked Julia Roberts Rejected disliked Kato Controversial both Jim Carey Average tolerated Ed Norton Neglected ignored Ed Beagley Popularity popular children tend to be attractive smart and socially skilled the world over rejected children are more likely to drop out of school commit juvenile offenses and are socially unskilled as are their parents Television Habits 3 4 hours a day 25 hours a week 20 000 hours by age 15 Two years straight More time than on any other activity except sleeping So does TV make us couch potatoes Does it make us lazy thinkers Are we sacrificing our lives to the square god Television The good side TV is not by itself evil Like any of our creations it has potential for great good and great evil Can encourage prosocial behavior vocabulary Children who watch PBS are smarter and more creative Television Myths No significant correlation between hours watched and Creativity Attention span TV is a diversion If kids didn t watch they would go to movies read comic books listen to music and otherwise waste time So who cares Blame Canada Once upon a time isolated town called Notel that ironically had NO Television Children there were smarter than kids in surrounding towns served by TV Then came TV Reading skills and creativity went down There was less community involvement and increases in aggression and gender stereotyping Some Potentially Undesirable Effects of Television Correlations of televised violence very frequent 58 of programs contain violence without remorse TV violence strongly correlated with aggression Found the world over boys girls in Austrailia Canada Finland Great Britain Israel and Poland Mean world beliefs and Desensitization Reciprocal Relation Strongest effects are those that identify with the violent characters Television is a source of social stereotypes Commercials 20 000 television commercials each year 18 or more minutes an hour Fast food toys treats Children are easily persuaded by commercial messages not until 8 or 9 years do kids get that commercials are trying to persuade Computers like TV Again the emphasis is on content not medium video games exposure to violent video games makes kids less sensitive to violence and associated with lower grades and aggression computers used in education for tutoring to provide experiential learning and as a multipurpose tool for traditional academic goals Word processing programming and having a computer are all good Day Care Day care is harmful to children only when the care is low quality and combined with ineffective parenting Some children can safely care for themselves after school but many factors must be considered e g child s maturity neighborhood safety and parents must monitor their children s behavior Neighborhoods Socioeconomic status income and education of the residents Children growing up in a wealthy neighborhood have access to more resources than children living in poverty But sense of community is still important Schools Some misconceptions about effective schooling Monetary support makes no difference in effectiveness School size Large schools may discourage participation in extracurricular activities Class size No differences found when classes hold 20 to 40 students Ability tracking is still being debated Schools Factors that contribute to effective schooling The scholastic atmosphere of successful schools Academic