Child's Social Development
A few years ago a study was made of the personnel records of ty-six companies to find out why they had fired some four and of their white-collar workers. The reasons given varied, of course, from individual to individual, but when all the cases were analyzed, two main categories stood out: "lack of competence in their and "inability to get along with other people." Even more mg was the relative number of persons fired for one or the other of these reasons. Those let go for lack of competence totaled about 11 percent, while some 89 percent lost their jobs because of inability to get along with other people.
Development of Social Responses
One study illustrates how individ.ual social behavior may be acquired indirectly through the influences of the environment. An experimental comparison was made between the social responses of children ere organized into "autocratic" and "democratic" clubs. As time went on, the children who were treated in a rather dictatorial exhibited more aggressive domination in their relations with other and showed less give-and-take than did those subjects who lived in the more democratic climate. Individual expressions of resistance, hostility, demands for attention, and competition were '-Dan twice as freq.uent in the authoritarian group. The children in this autocratic group were less spontaneous and friendly in their relations with their adult leader than were those in the permissive club.
When children join a social group they take into the situation many attitudes and habits which they have learned at home. These may be such as to reinforce the habits acquired outside the home, or they may come in conflict with them.
The boy becomes noticeably more social as he grows older and at e time becomes more independent. He must learn a balance between these two, must learn to share his toys, yet at the same not be taken advantage of. He must learn some resene, yet; becoming timid. He must learn cooperation, yet be able to carry I activity by himsnlf. He must learn to respect the rights of other not develop a submissive attitude. He must learn to resolve his conflicts, yet avoid overaggressiveness. This is a tightrope ha walk. Girls often mature in social responses more rapidly than boys.
Friends
One way in which parents can help the child to have friends IS tc him or her a chance to be with other children around their owr Selfishness among young children comes naturally, cooperation ually. There may be many reasons why a child fails to make frierl may be that some of these questions are related to the problem: I "mama's darling"'? Have the parents prohibited his noisy friends coming around? Was she pushed too hard into being sociable? teachers recognize that often an unpopular, sometimes lonely has to be worked into a group activity where he or she can warm the situation. The lonely child has a hard time expressing why she is lonely. This is also true of some adults. One person put i way: "I feel most alone when I am misunderstood."
By the age of two years chiidren may begin to show prefen in friends among several children, and a year or so later s attachments between two children may be noticed. Such attachr. may last only a fp.w days or weeks, or they may last for year. Some companionships may become so close among two or three child!' to limit the widening of their social contacts.
Quarrels among children are frequent, and so are aggre! ness, teasing, bad manners, and impoliteness. These types of bl ior, however, rarely have a long-term bad effect on social de\ ment. In contrast, prejudice instilled in the young may restrict opportunities later.
Leadership
Leadership differences may be noticed in children even at tht school age. There are no set rules for helping the child de leadership.
Several children who are leaders may differ markedly. One may become a leader because he or she gets around, is construct aggressive, or is resourceful in ideas for play. Another may hav knack of running things behind the scenes while the other pel feel important. A child may be a leader in one situation and a fall in another. It is not always the child who makes the big splash leads the group. Behind him or her may be the idea child, quie mild.
Development of Values
In some respects the values the child acquires are imposed on him, and often they come in indirect ways. Some come from parents, some from school situations, and some from one's peers. Values also relate to identification and to social class determinants. Goal setting relates to our value system. For example, a child raised in a middle-class home, where self-sacrifice and long-range educational planning are part of the environment, is likely to be motivated by these values. In such a home, self-discipline is taught and an effort is made to subdue imediaee gratifications. The person growig up in this climate strives to learn the appropriate social as well as technical skills and struggles for improvement. When achivement is a dominant goal, failure is an ever-present threat.
In contrast, a child growing up in a poor environment may be deprived not only of material possessions, education, and opportunity, but of other values that relate to goal seeking. The person who is guided by middle-class values may find it difficult to understand or even communicate with those whose values differ markedly. But it is characteristic that some children, as well as adolescents and adults, revolt against their original class value structures.
The feelings, attitudes, strivings, and even complacencies of many adults are more easily understood wl1en we look into their backgrounds for determinants of values. There is considerable difference in values between those who have a background of struggle against poverty and those raised in affluence. One of the problems in subcultures where there has been laxity of parental control is that the individual may evade, try to destroy, or make a game out of control exercised by others, particularly by legal authorities. The standards of success or failure set by any given adult may well be traced to values learned in childhood. It should also be noted that a child or young person may have good intelligence, even special abilities, and still function within a value system that decreases motivation for achievement. We sometimes see this in college, where attending class on a regular basis and doing the required work may not be part of one's habit structure.
