The Caring Child

The Caring Child

Help your child to deal with other human beings at all levels

How a child develops at this stage is a fair indication of his behaviour in the years to come – with exceptions. And one of the most important aspects of the child at this stage is his development into a social human being – of being able to belong to the society he lives in and interact with the people around him. This development requires him to master certain social skills, and it falls upon the parent to take him though to develop these skills.

These are not easy years for the child learning to live in his social environment. He has just started school. He is about to come into contact with people outside his immediate family circle – and they are all going to be as varied as the colours of the earth! The child will meet up with his peers, children older than himself, adults of varying temperaments, and other adults involved in his education.

Thinking for himself

Manners are important at this stage because society judges his upbringing by his behaviour in public. And unless he is actually taught manners or is in a social set-up where manners are observed, the child will not know. He is no more a `baby’ and the people around him will expect much more from him and hold him responsible for his actions. He is also required to be responsible in the home, and his parents may expect him to be the `older one’ in behaviour if there are younger siblings. He may at this time also be undergoing his own confusions of trying to understand the behaviour of other children at school, including perhaps schoolyard bullying, friendships, animosity and teasing. Sometimes the variability of the standards of behaviour expected of him by his parents and those of his friends requires him to balance the two. For a child these are heavy responsibilities. There is less dependence on his parents and so often he may have to think for himself. He may even find his parents’ rules and regulations not to his liking, and yet he must conform.

Mind your manners

Perhaps a simple way to start helping your child to develop social skills would be to insist on basic manners. Manners are a mere expression of our consideration for others as required by the society we live in. While social customs vary from culture to culture, basic good manners are not very different. What we knew as children are still good values for our children. Your child needs to understand that saying `please’ and `thank you’ just show that you appreciate what is done for you. That people feel good when you ask them nicely to do things for you, even members of your family. That older people should be shown respect. That to stand up when an older person is talking to you is a very lovely old-fashioned way of respecting age. It is something that seems to be dying out in our fast `advancing’ urban society but it is good to remind our very young ones of this until it becomes second nature to them. That it s rude to be greedy and grab more than you require of anything – be it food at the table, or anything else that is there for sharing. That to tell lies is to lose the trust and respect of those around you and shows that you do not respect them.

Each family will make its own set of rules of what constitutes good manners. These may sound simplistic but for the primary school child they give an indication of what is expected of him in his society. These will stay with him forever, even if he slides every now and then, he knows clearly what being `well mannered’ means.

Learning to live in a group

Social skills are best fostered at home and then transferred to behaviour when in other groups. If there are some basic ground rules, the child knows that he is one part of a whole and has his part to play in the group.

At home:

The child learns that he is one member of the household. He has to understand that no one else is responsible for his things, for instance. A six-year-old can understand that: he is required to put away his things; he is to tidy his own area; he cannot expect others to keep track of his things. While theoretically, this seems simple enough, in practice it only comes accompanies by a lot of cajoling and persistence on the part of the parent! But that is how skills are taught. He also learns that he has to obey the rules of the house, as he will have to bide by the rules of the school and later on by the laws of the land.

Friendships:

One of the marks of this age is a greater degree of sociability among children of the same age. Close friendships, inseparable chums are now a familiar part of his life. There is intimacy and sharing of stimulating ideas. This in intimacy and sharing of stimulating ideas. This is an important learning period of social development. While conflicts and jealousies may arise among friends, these are not so intense as with siblings at home. He is more likely to share secrets with chums than with adults who “would not understand”.

Friendship can also manifest in group rivalry, the `gang’ syndrome. Though these are only gentle and harmless at this stage, as with girls-against-boys attitudes, a wise parent or teacher will covert these to healthy competition.

Parents need to accept these early childhood friendships and respect them – because the child will view it as a reflection of how the parent views him. A number of later teenage conflicts arise from parents’ dismissing what is important to the child at this stage. Respecting his choice of friends may not always be easy – but the parent has to veer him gently away from what may be considered `bad company’. To reject them is to undermine his confidence. Tread softly, because his choice of friends reflects attributes of character he admires and that he may desire to have himself.

The child at this stage (seven and eight-year-olds especially) is undergoing a weaning process from his dependence on his parents. This will sometimes manifest itself as naughtiness or rebellion against his parents as in `answering back’ irritations. The child may seek gang security – as in class against teacher, siblings against parental authority and so on. While these are largely harmless, it is the wise parent who detects deeper problems that may be arising from early childhood. Otherwise parents can only stay calm and develop an indulgent and humourous attitude (if that is possible in the face of constant cheekiness and swaggering smart talk!). the child is busy resolving conflicts of the transition from babydom to independence. He dislikes physical demonstration of affection – being kissed and cuddled by parents is only acceptable on those too rare occasions when he wants to. Recognise it and stay calm!

When things are not right

One of the dangers of the period around 8 to 10 years is the stirring of delinquency. If the child has not resolved conflicts of social behaviour between home rules and peer group pressure, he may veer towards the latter. A certain degree of healthy hostility against rules is to be expected during these years. But if it mars all relationships with adults in acts of delinquency, then further investigation is needed. Giving him a sense of self-worth, of concentrating on what is good in him rather than emphasizing the bad, being genuinely loving, letting him know that you feel his conflict and pain and will always be loving, may lead the child back to social balance. In these early stages, love, not punishment or deprivation, is the answer.