Social and emotional development in early learners includes how children feel about themselves and their relationships with others. It also includes managing and expressing emotions. These skills are essential for general development and help children to better understand and care about others. It also helps them have the self-control to manage the demands of formal schooling when they are older.
Although we are social creatures by nature, we are not born with these skills. We learn them. The best environment for social and emotional skills to thrive is caring, open, and predictable. But it goes deeper than that, and the role that parents and caregivers play is crucial. What kind of parent you are can profoundly impact your early learner's social and emotional development. Let's look at a few parenting styles and how they can impact early learners.
- Helicopter Parenting – a parenting style that pays exceptionally close attention to their child's activities, schoolwork, and social lives to protect them from hurt and disappointment and ensure that they succeed. They tend to become hyper-involved in the lives of their children.
- Snowplow Parenting – a parenting style that has much in common with helicopter parents and also seeks to remove all obstructions and barriers from a child's life so that they don't experience failure, pain, or discomfort in their lives. They have their sights set on their child's future success, and they remove anyone or anything that stands in their way.
- Tiger Parenting – this parenting style is also a lot like helicopter parenting but puts an enormous emphasis on structure. These parents schedule and choreograph their children's lives from when they awake in the morning until bedtime. Much importance is on academics, especially grades and awards while deemphasizing play and free time. What freedom is allowed is usually organized activities.
- Jellyfish Parenting – this is a style that is polar-opposite of Tiger parenting and tends to be child-led. Parents provide little direction or rules and tend to be friends with their children instead of being the authority in the home. Routines and schedules are not strictly followed. Although academics can be significant, indicators like grades are not emphasized, and children are expected to find achievement based on self-motivation and interests.
- Dolphin Parenting – is a parenting style that is firm and flexible like a dolphin. A Dolphin parent believes in balance. They have strict rules and consequences, yet they allow their children to be in situations and make choices that lead to success and failure. These parents often will collaborate and plan with their children to learn and perform daily responsibilities or tasks. They believe in permitting unstructured and free play and encourage participation in activities that most interest their child.
What type of parent or caregiver are you? I have found that most parents I have worked with are usually combinations of styles. I had watched a Jellyfish turn into a Snowplow in the blink of an eye when they believed the situation was right!
We all want what is best for our children and making parenting decisions is often difficult. But suppose our children's social and emotional goal includes developing a positive sense of themselves and positive relationships with others. In that case, it is essential to allow them to experience all that goes with social interaction. That includes the joy of making friends and succeeding at something, but it also consists of some failure or discomfort. It also means children understand society has a structure with rules and consequences. It means that they learn that success takes effort and can be done by themselves or through teamwork (there is no better way to develop a positive sense of self).
The world can be a cruel place, and children are not immune from that cruelty. Overly protecting our children from the world will shelter them for a while, but it may cause much more harm later. Instead, parents whose goal is to provide their child with the tools to become independent and survive in that world are usually on the right track. Parents who are firm but supportive and offer guidance (only when needed) will usually raise children with the social skills required to start kindergarten, ready to learn and succeed later in life.
Two excellent resources in this area include:
The South Dakota Early Learning Guidelines serve as a shared vision for all adults supporting young children's experiences before kindergarten. Positive interactions with trusted adults, engaging with peers, and consistent environments that are safe, healthy, and enhance learning are vital elements to support young children.
Love and Logic - Raise self-confident, motivated children who are ready for the real world: loving yet powerful tools for parenting children of all ages.