common problems of ECED

Social and Emotional Facts
• Kindergarten teachers say that about 20 percent of children entering kindergarten do not yet have the necessary social
and emotional skills to be “ready” for school.

• Social and emotional development is important because it contributes to cognitive development.

• When children are young, the adults around them (parents, other adult caregivers, preschool teachers) are the most
important influences on their social and emotional development.

• Preschool education can support early development with long term social and emotional benefits.
Understanding Social and Emotional Behaviors
Evaluating social and emotional capability in very young children can be difficult. Accuracy of the child’s behavior
often depends upon certain variables including the age of the child, when the behavior occurs, the setting where it
occurs, and which adults are present at the time. Developmental and cultural variability, differences in adult and child
temperament, and changing behavioral expectations are some factors that make social and emotional assessment
particularly challenging. For example, one family may tolerate loud talking and throwing of play toys while another
family may tolerate only quiet voices and no throwing of objects indoors. A two-year-old who throws herself on the
floor at the supermarket and screams because she can’t have a chocolate donut will not be labeled “unusual” while an
eight-year old who does the same would be.

Very young children, for example, have to learn to understand and recognize their own feelings, but then they
increasingly learn to associate verbal labels to those feelings, to learn that others have feelings too, and to begin to
sympathize with others. As children grow older, they learn to manage their emotions to block feelings of anxiety,
sadness, or frustration, and to delay gratification in order to achieve a goal.

Children need a combination of intellectual skills, motivational qualities, and social emotional skills to succeed in school.
They must be able to understand the feelings of others, control their own feelings and behaviors, and get along with
their peers and teachers. Children need to be able to cooperate, follow directions, demonstrate self-control, and “pay
attention.”  One of the most important skills that children develop is self-control - the ability to manage one’s behavior
so as to resist impulses, maintain focus, and undertake tasks even if there are other more tempting options available.
Self-control motivates the ability to take on every task, so that the outcomes are not just how children get along with
one another but also how they can focus and learn in the classroom.
Social-emotional skills include the following:

•        The child is able to understand and talk about his/her own feelings.
•        The child understands the perspective of others and realizes that their feelings may be different from his/her own
feelings.
•        The child is able to establish relationships with adults and maintains an ongoing friendship with at least one other
child.
•        The child is able to enter a group successfully.
•        The child is able to engage in and stay with an activity for a reasonable amount of time with minimal adult
support.
Social and emotional development involves the achievement of a set of skills. Among them is the ability to:

• Identify and understand one’s own feelings.
• Accurately read and comprehend emotional reactions from others.
• Manage strong emotions and their expression in a constructive manner.
• Control one’s own behavior.
• Develop compassion for others.
• Establish and maintain relationships.
Social and Emotional Behaviors in Preschool
Children with social and emotional problems enter kindergarten unable to learn because they cannot pay attention,
remember information on purpose, or act socially in a school environment. The result is growing numbers of children
who are hard to manage in the classroom. These children cannot get along with each other, follow directions, and are
impulsive. They show hostility and aggression in the classroom and on the playground. The problems begin before
kindergarten. In some studies as many as 32 percent of preschoolers in Head Start programs have behavioral problems.

Children lacking social and emotional skills suggest that teachers spend too much time trying to restrain unmanageable
children and less time teaching. Early childhood teachers report that they are extremely concerned about growing
classroom management problems, and that they are unprepared to handle them. Kindergarten teachers report that more
than half of their students come to school unprepared for learning academic subjects. If these problems are not dealt
with, the result can be growing aggression, behavioral problems and, for some, delinquency and crime through the
school years and into adolescence and adulthood.
Sleep Patterns and Problems:

• Early childhood, sleep deeply through the night, more so that in later life

• Need a daytime nap or rest until around 5

1. Normal sleep patterns:

• At age 5 harder to get to sleep

• Transitional object can be helpful to go from dependent infant to

independent toddler

2. Sleep Disturbances

• Ages 2-4 bedtime struggles and wake parents frequently at night worst 2-4

• Often sleep in same bed with parents

• Normally 3-6 nightmares or night terrors

3. Nightmares

• Frightening dreams

• Often due to staying up late and heavy meals close to bedtime

• Over excitement close to bedtime

• Children can usually recall the nightmare

• Occurs in REM sleep

• Can signal stress if excessive

4. Night Terrors

• Not connected to dreams

• Result from waking suddenly from deep sleep

• Wake in unexplained state of panic

• Scream, sit up in bed, breath rapidly, stare ahead blankly

• Often go back to sleep quickly and don’t remember

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5. Sleep walking

• Sleeping and walking

• Outgrown usually by age 6

6. sleep talking

• talking while sleeping

• not related to any problem

• doesn’t require corrective action

7. bedwetting/enuresis

• usually potty trained by 3-5 years (day and night)

• repeated urination in clothing or in bed common especially at night

• not considered a problem unless occurs at least 2 times/month after age 5

• runs in families: family history is strongest predictor

• 7% of 5 yr. old boys and 3% of girls

MOTOR SKILLS

Gross Motor Skills:

Jumping, running, which involve the large muscles of the body

Fine Motor Skills:

Buttoning shirts, copying figures which involved the small muscles of the body

Large muscle Coordination:

• More fluid in movement, center of gravity shifts and moved down and

they become more coordinated

• Involves muscles of neck, back, shoulders legs and arms

• Jumping, hopping, catching a ball, throwing

• Non-structured activities are better than structured i.e. instruction v.

competition (not until age 6)

Small Muscle/Eye-Hand Coordination

• Becomes more accurate

• Involves muscles of fingers, toes, wrists and ankles

• More accurate in coloring, can stay in the lines

• Expression moves, express emotions and needs through motor activities

• Curious, like to explore, important to learn through “hands on

involvement”

• Exs. Draw shapes, cut with scissors, draw a person, letters, string beads,

copy shapes

• Can tend to more of their personal needs, competence and independenct

• By 3 should use one had more than the other,

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Gene for right handedness, inherited from either or both parents = 82% are

right handed

Those who do not inherit the gene still have a 50/50 chance otherwise are

left handed or ambidextrious

Buttoning, dressing, using the toilet, washing hands and by kindergarten

can dress alone

•

•