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Social Awareness Development in Children
Children gradually develop their ability to show empathy, compassion, and social awareness. The most powerful way to encourage socially responsible children is to first ensure that our children are nurtured and well cared for themselves. Secondly, seeing these behaviors modeled also sends a powerful message to young children.
Under Threes
The concepts of giving and getting begin at birth. The development of empathy — understanding the feelings of others — and emotional and moral intelligence originates in the first months and years of life. Infants often respond to the cries of other infants by crying themselves. Happy infants change their expressions of joy to looking away or crying when their caregiver looks sad or talks in a depressed tone.
As a child’s world expands into toddlerhood, toddlers must work through the challenges of discovering what’s “mine” and the need to share and give to others. Toddlers’ empathetic responses may be what they themselves would like to have happen in a similar situation. For example, a toddler who sees a friend fall and get hurt may take his own mother over to the hurt child, even though the hurt child’s mother is also present. Children learn about giving from adults who value sharing, caring, and helping others and who model generosity and encourage children’s opportunities to experience caring and helping.
Three-to Five-Year-Olds
Preschool children become able to recognize and name emotions, particularly happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, and fear. They also realize that another child can feel different from how they are feeling. Preschool children often look at the faces of adults for facial expressions and listen for their tone in new situations to determine what action to take. Comforting a friend in distress (i.e., offering a blanket to a crying child or patting their back) is increasingly seen in preschoolers, especially those who have seen these behaviors modeled by adults.
Preschoolers tend to believe in absolutes (right or wrong with no grey areas). While they still tend to be primarily egocentric and think that others see things the same way they do, they are beginning to move towards seeing the perspective of others. Sharing is becoming easier for most preschoolers.
Three- to five-year-olds often use role-playing in dramatic play to act through and learn more about feelings and roles. Preschool children also respond to guidance in how to help others. This can be through dramatic play or real-life situations. For example, “Your baby doll is crying. Maybe if you gently rock her and hold her close, she will feel better.”
Younger School-Age
Younger school-age children are becoming more egalitarian (believing that everyone should have equal) and tend to be more focused on give and take relationships with their peers at this stage. Young school-agers are much more able to see things from another’s perspective which is a key component of empathy.
Younger school-agers are also beginning to see that another child doesn’t just show feelings when the two of them are together, but that another child’s sadness, for example, may continue when the children are not together. This new understanding leads to children beginning to comprehend concepts like poverty and other forms of oppression.
Older School-Age
Older school-agers are becoming increasingly interested and concerned about abstract topics such as ‘justice.’ They now take into consideration extenuating circumstances, motivations, and intentions of the actor. While younger children can begin to understand what it might be like to not have a home, for example, it is often at this age where children can most fully appreciate the plight of others who suffer from hunger, homelessness, etc.
Learn More
Download (PDF) more information or visit our Education at Bright Horizons home page to learn more about our programs for learning.
Visit the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, a non-profit organization committed to helping to make a difference in the lives of children in distress.