SUMMARY

1. Emotional regulation is crucial during early childhood. It occurs in Erikson’s third developmental stage, initiative versus guilt. Children normally feel pride when they demonstrate initiative, but sometimes they feel guilt or even shame at an unsatisfactory outcome.

2. Emotional regulation is made possible by maturation of the brain, particularly of the prefrontal cortex, as well as by experiences with parents and peers.

3. Intrinsic motivation is apparent in a preschooler’s concentration on a drawing or a conversation with an imaginary friend. It may endure when extrinsic motivation stops.

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4. All young children enjoy playing—preferably with other children of the same sex, who teach them lessons in social interaction that their parents do not.

5. Active play takes many forms, with rough-and-tumble play fostering social skills and sociodramatic play developing emotional regulation.

6. Three classic styles of parenting have been identified: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Generally, children are more successful and happy when their parents express warmth and set guidelines.

7. A fourth style of parenting, neglectful/uninvolved, is always harmful. The particulars of parenting reflect the culture as well as the temperament of the child.

8. Even 2-year-olds correctly use sex-specific labels. Young children become aware of gender differences in clothes, toys, playmates, and future careers.

9. Freud emphasized that children are attracted to the opposite-sex parent and eventually seek to identify, or align themselves, with the same-sex parent. Behaviorists hold that gender-related behaviors are learned through reinforcement and punishment (especially for males) and social modeling.

10. Cognitive theorists note that simplistic preoperational thinking leads to gender schemas and therefore stereotypes. Humanists stress the powerful need of all humans to belong to their group. Evolutionary theory contends that biological differences are crucial for the survival and reproduction of the species.

11. All five theories of gender-role development are plausible, which poses a challenge for caregivers who must determine which set of values they choose to teach.

12. The sense of self and the social awareness of young children become the foundation for morality, influenced by both nature and nurture.

13. Prosocial emotions lead to caring for others; antisocial behavior includes instrumental, reactive, relational, and bullying aggression.

14. Parental punishment can have long-term consequences, with both corporal punishment and psychological control teaching lessons that few parents want their children to learn.

15. Accidents cause more child deaths in the United States than all diseases combined in early childhood. Close supervision and public safeguards can protect young children from their own eager, impulsive curiosity. Moreover, safety precautions are crucial, as evident in relatively high rates of motor-vehicle deaths.

16. Lead—from dust, paint, and pollution—can impair a young brain. Preventative laws have succeeded in reducing this problem.

17. Harm reduction occurs on many levels, including long before and immediately after each harmful incident. Primary prevention protects everyone, secondary prevention focuses on high-risk conditions and people, and tertiary prevention occurs after harm as occurred; all are needed.

18. The effects of child maltreatment may endure for decades in the life of an abused child. Many contextual factors influence the frequency of child abuse.

19. Substantiated maltreatment is less common than it was a few decades ago, but it still occurs for about 700,000 children in the United States each year. Victims are more often under age 6, and neglect is more common than abuse.

20. When maltreatment is substantiated, measures must ensure that it will stop. Sometimes foster care is needed, with kinship care—formal or not—a common practice.