An important component to creating age-appropriate anti-bias curriculum is an understanding of children’s social, emotional, and moral development.
4 and 5 year olds
Cognitive:
- Recognizes and can name colors.
- Can distinguish between different types of characteristics
- Beginning to use skills of identifying, classifying, comparing, contrasting, sequencing, predicting and problem solving.
Social:
- Developing strong curiosity about the world around them and the relationships they have with people in their circle.
- Successfully enters a group of children.
- Begins and sustains pretend play.
- Shows progress in developing friendships with peers and begins to try to please other children.
- Responds more sympathetically to peers who seems to be in need, are hurt, upset or angry.
- Can offer solutions to problems with peers while also seeking adult help.
Emotional:
- Uses adults as trusted role models (e.g., imitates teachers or parents).
- Is better able to tolerate the absence of familiar adults; copes with distress through the use of language, drawing
- Increasingly expresses a sense of self in terms of abilities, characteristics, preferences, and actions (e.g., says, “Look at me! I’m building a castle!”).
- Compares self to others
- Continues to gain an understanding of the causes of feelings, and that others may feel differently about the same situation
- Learns coping strategies (e.g., using words, pretend play, drawing) to establish greater control and competence in managing intense emotions.
Moral:
- Begin to show morally-based behaviors and beliefs.
- Show empathy-based guilt when they break the rules
- Rules and norms of the family are important to the child.
- Expect that adults around them will take care of them.
- Begin to recognize that actions have consequences.
6 and 7 year olds
Cognitive:
- Learn through the trial and error of play
- Beginning to link cause and effect
Social:
- Can share and take turns
- Social interaction based on mutual interest and child’s enjoyment.
- Want friends and social interaction, but few social tools and egocentric.
- Can go to extremes because of few tools (“never be friends,” “I hate you.”)
- Begins to compare self to others (may be competitive)
Emotional:
- Enthusiastic and curious
- Easily upset when criticized or discouraged
Moral:
- Moral principles are the established rules
- Focus on being “good, “ (i.e., following the rules). Disobeying the rules is morally “bad.”
- Strives for approval from others
7 and 8 year olds
Cognitive:
- Transitioning from“learning to read” to “reading to learn”
- Strive to be productive and master skills
- Beginning conceptual understanding of the world
Social:
- Interested in games, especially rules and fairness
- Seek social interaction/relationships: either In groups or with one friend
- Increased perspective taking: beginning understanding of others’ actions and feelings
- Curious about their identities (“who am I”)
Emotional:
- Sense of humor
- Can be impatient
- Excited but also anxious about the world
- Resilient: bounce back from mistakes
- Need adult support with big feelings and coping
Moral:
- Morality is a set of rules that apply to everyone
- The rules are delineated by authority figures
8 and 9 year olds
Cognitive:
- Logical thinking
- Interested in how things work
- Transition from focus on big ideas to attention to detail. Can make big plans but not include steps to enact them.
- Need for relevance in learning
Social:
- Focus on acceptance by peers and belonging to group(s)
- Deeper understanding of various aspects of their own identity (e.g., gender, ethnicity, family structure).
- Interest in identity can conflict with need to belong, leading to vacillation between competitiveness (prove their worth to themselves) and cooperation (acceptance from peers).
- With their logical thinking and broader world understanding, third graders frequently argue and debate over rules. Group work includes many arguments.
Emotional:
- Sense of humor.
- Resilient: bounce back from mistakes. May need adult support at times..
- Can be critical or negative.
- Passionate and intense feelings (e.g., “I hate that;” That’s boring.”)
- Growth in coping strategies and self-regulation.
Moral:
- Concerned about fairness for all
- Fairness is achieved through rules that apply to everyone
- The rules (i.e., morality) maintain the community
9 and 10 year olds
Cognitive:
- Understands concepts
- Investigative thinking: interested in science
- Attention to detail and pride in finished work
- Need for relevance in learning: “Why do we have to do this?”
Social:
Fourth graders are changing and full of contradictions socially and emotionally
- Work well in groups. Good age for teams and clubs: cooperative, loyal, enjoy knowing rules
- Peer pressure and popularity important for some
- Cliques can grow from friendship groups into a hierarchy.
- Perceive connections: mood or actions of one person can affect others
- Compassion: can take others’ point of view at times and care for those in need
- Some develop crushes
- Social drama: enables children to feel part of the group. Fourth graders like the intensity of drama
Emotional:
- Changing: at different rates, grow from a focus on reason and how the world works to Tween.
- Can have variable moods: deeply upset then happy soon afterwards (because of hormones and social focus)
- Confidence increases from their greater ability to understand the world and agency.
- Insecurity can arise from changing body and friendships.
Moral:
- Morality defined as fair rules that apply to all. The rules are established by a cultural authority, such as government or religion.
- Concerned with fairness and social justice for all
- Towards end of fourth grade, some begin to differentiate moral and legally acceptable behavior.
Resources
Kohlberg, Lawrence: The Philosophy of Moral Development (1981), The Psychology of Moral Development (1984), Child Psychology and Childhood Education (1987)
Thompson, Michael and O’Neill-Grace, Catherine. Best Friends, Worst Enemies (2001) Wood, Chip. Yardsticks. (2015)