Page 113 - Meeting with Children Book

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Child talks to self out loud "bad Sally,
can't do that" (beginning of internal
dialogue skill)

Social Emotional Development

Social-emotional development is the foundation upon
which all healthy relationships are built.
It is linked to early development and
attachment (see chapter on
attachment). It is about the child's experience with

relatedness during early caregiving years and about "give
and take" experiences. It is associated with the ability to
form trusting relationships during a time when the brain is
undergoing the most dramatic growth. As basic motor
abilities form, language comes on-line, thinking gets more
complex and children begin to understand their own
feelings and of those of others.

Erikson (1950, 1959, 1968) developed a theory that
identifies eight stages in which a healthy developing person
passes through from infancy to late adulthood. It is thought
that all stages are present at birth but only begin to unfold
with one's ecological and cultural upbringing. At each stage,
the person confronts and hopefully masters new
challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion
of the earlier one. It is theorized that if one does not meet
the challenge of a stage in a positive way, that stage will
reappear later as a social-emotional problem. If mastery of
a stage does not occur, one can move to the next stage and
be modified later.

Each stage is characterized by a psychosocial crisis of two
conflicting forces. If an individual does indeed successfully
reconcile these forces (favoring the first mentioned