Film* What is Forest Kindergarten?
2 yr public school program where children ages 4-7 are out in the forest every day, rain or shine
What were some initial comments by parents regarding Forest Kindergarten?
They think its great for them to team about nature, that Its great, scary cause they use knives, take responsibilities, know how to use knives, saws, they have to learn & make mistakes, scary to let kids to walk to school/home
Dr. Krauthammer – what were his comments on outcomes for children who attend forest kindergarten in comparison to those who did not?
Forest Kinder: Stronger motor skills, no hyperactivity disorders
Indoor kinder: weaker motor skills, higher % of hyperactivity disorders
Dr. Guddemi – what were her comments on children and recess?
Children learn more skills outdoors than inside. Bullying increased when recess was
eliminated. They learn how to negotiate
What are some of the other benefits of attending Forest Kindergarten?
learning how to socialize, deal w/ conflict, can play w/ anything, Imagination Is strong, teaches essential life skills
Film* What metaphor does Dr. Steinberg use for the two systems?
“Accelerator” is activated before a good braking system
What were the findings involving adolescents and driving?
with friends, increase in accidents/crashing in room or w/ them in the other room
Done to impress peers
What were the findings regarding alcohol consumption between adolescent and adult mice?
Adolescent mice drink more when in presence of peers, while adult mice drink same amount either way.
What was the example provided in the Q & A regarding changing the context and not
the teenager?
Graduated drivers licenses
Gross and fine motor skills
Gross
• Age 6 or 7, children can
– hop, jump, climb, pedal, and
balance bicycle
• Age 8 to 10, children
– develop balance, coordination, and strength
-engage in gymnastics and team sports
• Reaction time
– Improves (decreases) from early childhood to about age 18, but there are individual differences
Fine
• At 6 to 7 years, children can
- tie shoelaces
– hold pencils like adults do
– zip zippers
– brush teeth
– wash themselves
– use chopsticks
Piaget’s concrete-operational stage (decentration, transitivity, seriation)
COS: 7-12, reversible & flexible, less egocentric, and engage in
Decentration: ability to focus on more than one aspect of a problem at a time (organizing leaves)
Age7: understand law of conservation
Understanding of relational concepts increases
Transitivity: ability to recognize relationships among various things in a serial order (If A > B and B > C, then A > C)
Seriation: ability to sort objects according to any characteristic (“line these up from tallest to shortest”)
Strutt et al. (1975)
examined selective attention
– Children sorted cards based on a figure on the card
• Condition 1 – only relevant figure is on card (shape)
• Condition 2 – relevant figure + additional dimension (shape & line)
• Condition 3 – relevant figure + 2 additional dimensions (shape, line & star)
Sensory, working- and long-term memory
Sensory: lasts fraction of a second, presents for all senses
Working (short term) can last up to 30 seconds if there is focus on the stimulus in sensory memory, very limited to about 7 items (grouping)
Long term: lasts days, years, or lifetime, storehouse containing names, dates, places in categories
-elaborative strategy: relate new material to material they already know
Language development – vocabulary and grammar
6: vocabulary at 10,000 words
7-9: realize words can have different meanings
Can understand passive language(“The truck was hit by the car”)
Use connectives: (“I’ll go to school, but I don’t want to”)
Bilingualism
bilingual children do not encounter more academic problems than monolingual children
advantageous for children to be bilingual
– contributes to the complexity of the child’s cognitive processes.
Self-concept in middle childhood – changes in how children describe themselves
Self-concept gradually evolves
– 9-year-olds list several physical characteristics
• Focus on preferences - rudimentary psychological traits – but tied to the concrete
– 11-year-olds will include relationships
• descriptions now include dispositional qualities, or traits – truthful, helpful
• Less positive in their descriptions and increasingly compare themselves to others
Self-esteem
– Young preschoolers: see themselves as generally “good at doing stuff” or not
– By 5 – 7: judge their performance in several areas
Learned helplessness
Low self-esteem in academics can lead to an acquired belief that one cannot obtain rewards
– believe that success is due more to ability than to effort
• (Carol Dweck) Attribution retraining!
– intervention where helpless children persuaded to attribute failures to lack of effort rather than lack of ability.
Peer relationships (acceptance and rejection)
• Children more likely to be rejected by peers -
– display behavioral/learning problems
– are aggressive
– disrupt group activities
Acceptance & rejection very important, affect later adjustment
– Reinforcement and Modeling Therapies(positive feedback for good behaviors)
– Cognitive Approaches to Social Skills Training
• Coaching
• Role-taking skills(focus on child’s perspective for others)
Characteristics of effective schools
– Active, energetic principal
– Atmosphere that is orderly - not oppressive
– Empowered teachers involved in decision-making
– Teachers who have high expectations that children will learn
– Curriculum that emphasizes academics
– Frequent assessment of student performance
– Empowered students who participate in goal setting, making decisions, and engaging in cooperative learning activities
Teacher expectations (pygmalion effect, self-fulfilling prophesy)
• Teachers with high expectations influence achievement.
self-fulfilling prophesy
– Teachers expect high performance - child performs accordingly
– Teacher expects low performance - child performs accordingly
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)
told teachers one set of children were about to “blossom” intellectually during the current school year.
– Children made significant IQ gains
Puberty and the feedback loop
– Hypothalamus ——>pituitary gland—->hormones that control physical growth and the gonads
– Gonads respond to pituitary hormones by increasing production of sex hormones
– Sex hormones further stimulate the hypothalamus, perpetrating the feedback loop
Primary and secondary sex characteristics
• Primary sex characteristics – Involved in reproduction
– Females: ovaries, vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes
– Males: penis, testes, prostate gland, and seminal vesicles
• Secondary sex characteristics
– Not directly involved in reproduction
– Breast development, deepening of the male voice, and the appearance of facial, pubic, and underarm hair
Changes that occur in boys during puberty
Boys:
11 1/2: first signs of puberty accelerated growth of testes – accelerates testosterone production/other pubertal changes.
14-15: Underarm/facial hair, voice deepens
– growth of the “voice box” or larynx, lengthening of vocal cords.
• Male erections infrequent until age 13 or 14
– Begin to have nocturnal emissions about a year later
– At about 15: ejaculatory emissions contain mature sperm
Changes that occur in girls during puberty
8-9: estrogen stimulates growth of breast tissue (breast buds).
– Breasts reach full size in about 3 years.
11: adrenal glands produce small amounts of androgens: underarm and pubic hair.
Estrogen causes the labia, vagina, and uterus to develop
11-14: 1st menarche
Regulation of menstrual cycle
• Ovulation typically begins 12 to 18 months after menarche.
– Most menstrual cycles in first two years after menarche occurs without ovulation.
– If ovulating, a ripe ovum is released by the ovary when estrogen reaches peak blood levels.
• Average menstrual cycle is 28 days
Nutrition during adolescence
• At peak of growth spurt, use twice as much
– Calcium (prevents osteoporosis)
– Iron
– Zinc
– Magnesium
Eating Disorders
As young as 3 – prefer thin body ideal
Early grade school – body image declines
Preteens – dieting common
Adolescence - very concerned with weight/appearance
50 years ago – BMI 10% less than average woman Today – 31% less
• Anorexia nervosa
• Bulimia nervosa
Piaget’s formal operations stage (cognitive abilities in hypothetical thinking, use of symbols)
FOS: begin as early as 11-12 Thinks flexibly & hypothetically, reached cognitive maturity
Hypothetical thinking: develop concept of “what might be”, try things out, become more realistic with their abilities, likes, etc
Use of symbols: Solving mental activities with “x”, manipulate symbols, analyze metaphors, limited thinking( crystal clear solutions)
Imaginary audience, personal fable
Adolescent egocentrism:
• Imaginary audience: they they are on stage and everyone is watching/judging them
• Personal fable: “no one understands me”
Marcia’s identity statuses (diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, achievement)
Diffusion: cruising, not exploring or committing
Foreclosure: no exploring but committed
Moratorium: exploring but haven’t committed
Achievement: have explored and committed
Ethnic identity (unexamined, identity search, achieved)
Phinney & Baldelomar (2011):
1) Unexamined ethnic identity (CRUISING)
• Similar to diffusion or foreclosure
2) Ethnic identity search(EXPLORING)
• Similar to moratorium
3) Achieved ethnic identity(COMMITTED)
• Involves a clear self-acceptance as a member of
one’s ethnic group
• Similar to identity achievement
Relationships with parents and peers
Parents:
• Conflict occurs between what parent thinks they should control versus what teenager thinks they should control
-less conflict as teen gets older
-NOT in constant state of rebellion
Peers:
• Tend to have one or two “best friends” and several good friends
-High screen time
Teenage pregnancy
• A great majority of adolescents in the United States who become pregnant do so accidentally
-U.S.: highest rates of teen pregnancy
• Causes for teen pregnancy
– Some get pregnant to rebel
– Some do to force partner to make commitment
– Most occur due to lack of knowledge of reproduction and/or contraception
