Hutson 1 Megan Hutson 4 April 2013 Lorraine Orenchuk Graduation Project The Development of Kindness and Self-Esteem Children

are constantly learning about the world and what is most important to them, and are influenced heavily by the caregivers they are surrounded by. At birth newborns recognize compassion from their caregivers, and by elementary school they have the ability to distinguish their worth as a person and how they can share their worth with the world. The cognitive development of these two capacities, kindness and self-esteem, is extremely important to a childs future within any and all socio-cultural settings. When children effectively learn how to reciprocate kindness and learn of their own self-worth at a young age, they do not resort to bullying and abusive measures when feeling hurt or inferior. They then grow to be successful adults who share healthy relationships and handle stressful situations well. The cognitive development of kindness and self-esteem is a step to success in the future for children, and begins the moment a child is born and throughout early and middle childhood. To understand the cognitive development of kindness and self-esteem in children, it is best to first understand how a child develops morally and begins to gain a sense of self. The term cognitive development is the scientific phrase used to refer to the growth that occurs in the brain and includes moral, social, and emotional development. Between birth and late childhood, children develop extensively in these areas (Belsky). This begins with the relationship a child shares with one person in the first few months of their lives. This bond is referred to as attachment. The Theory of Attachment was first formulated by John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst in the 1960s (McLeod). Bowlby theorized that the presence of a loving caregiver, called the

Hutson 2 primary attachment figure, and having a secure attachment with them is crucial for normal development (Belsky). A secure attachment between an infant and caregiver is recognized through a calmness an infant has in the presence of the caregiver and anxiety when the caregiver is absent. Children who have a secure attachment to their primary caregiver have shown higher socio-emotional development (Pasco-Fearon). The quality of the attachment is also very important in the later development of self-esteem, as a secure attachment is the first step to creating emotional security in children. Continued studies show that insecure, avoidant or disorganized attachment to the primary caregiver is detrimental to a child in the early years of elementary school (Pasco-Fearon). The noted variants of insecure attachment become identifiable through children who cannot be calmed by their caregiver when returning to the child or through the child who shows no emotion when their caregiver leaves or returns. Children with an avoidant or disorganized type of attachment at four and half years old showed a higher likelihood of behavior problems by age four as detailed in school teacher evaluations. A followup survey showed that boys between the first and third grades with an early life avoidant attachment type continued to show behavior problems (Rudi De Raedt). These children struggled with activities such as sharing and showing compassion to peers and adults. Some studies showed that children with insecure attachments later struggled with anxiety and depression, giving higher likelihood of a child who would bully (Gottman). The relationship a child has with parents is extremely important to early and continuing development, as it shows them how to best understand their emotions and their relationships with others. Some psychologists still hesitate to press with the importance of attachment to a primary early life care-giver, and feel as though there are other ways that a child can learn to achieve security in themselves (Santrock). Other effective security routes could include the kindness

Hutson 3 they receive from other family members, even if they are not the primary caregiver, and support from close adults from child care and elementary school teachers. The first years of life truly are crucial, and healthy attachment can help children in the future, but it is not a guarantee of staying secure. Ensuring that a child always has a trusted adult to turn too when in need can transcend any lack of healthy attachment to one primary caregiver. Kindness from any person, whether it is a stranger, a teacher, or a parent, can have the same power as having healthy attachment to a parent in early childhood. An important dynamic powering of moral and emotional development is the preparedness of the human brain to receive and reciprocate empathy and kindness. Children may gain this from their primary caregiver, but they also may learn it through multiple other avenues. This nature capacity is based upon the properties of mirror neurons, specialized neurons in the brain that light up in the human brain when seeing certain expressions and emotions (PBS). The same part of the brain that causes crowds at football games to go wild also teaches kindness, because infants are able to see and feel kindness in action. Another way kindness is taught is through touch (Doddridge). Infants are especially receptive to this type of learning, and are essentially born preferring, and thus valuing softness and gentleness over harshness, smiles over frowns, happy faces to sad faces, and compassion over selfishness. According to a study done in Yales Baby Lab, babies are born valuing good things over bad things. Despite this, it is often assumed that babies are not good subjects for experiments because they cannot talk, but that is far from true. Infants around the age of six months old can point and attempt to grab an object. This is exactly what the scientists did in setting up their experiment. Imagine three puppets, one struggling to open a box, one puppet that helps open the box, and one puppet that is mean and slams the box shut. According to the study, more than ninety percent of the babies that

Hutson 4 were tested reached for the nice puppet. Even the children as young as three months could use their eyes to participate (Wynn). On average, a three month old will look at the mean puppet for about five seconds, then quickly move on to pay attention to the nice puppet for thirty-three seconds. This experiment has also been done with different objects, such as shaped blocks and different colors. In every instant, children pick the nice object that is kind and helps the other. The article, Nice Guys Finish First, from the New York Times, also focuses on the kindness of young children. David Brooks states that, An infant of twelve months will inform others about something by pointing. Chimpanzees and other apes do not helpfully inform each other about things. Infants share food readily with others. Unlike any other species with similar brain functions, humans are much more altruistic. Brooks adds, Chimpanzees rarely even offer food to their own offspring. If a fourteen month old child sees an adult having difficulty, like being unable to open a door because her hands are full, the child will try to help (Brooks). Children are born valuing and able to show altruism, but as children grow, they become more selective in whom they share their kindness with (Price-Mitchell). Through a series of stages that occur in a childs cognitive development, children expand who they feel morally obligated to (Doddridge). During these stages, children must learn how to effectively regulate their emotions and develop empathy. Reacting to anothers feelings with an emotional response that is similar to the others feelings, the emotional response empathy, contributes to moral development and the development of kindness. When a child takes a toy from another child, empathy will most likely influence the child to give the toy back. By returning the toy, and observing the positive response, this child is learning kindness and quite possibly is spurred toward healthy adulthood. Research has shown that kindness is healthy for both the human body and the human

Hutson 5 mind. According to many studies, when an act of kindness is performed, both the giver and receiver feel better afterward. The giver is especially affected on a cognitive level, as an act of kindness creates higher levels of dopamine in the brain, creating more positive thinking, as well as producing endorphins, the feel good chemicals in the brain. In an article from The Huffington Post, Five Beneficial Side Effects of Kindness Dr. Hamilton notes the number one side effect of being kind is that kindness has the ability to make people happier. He follows this by saying that kindness gives people healthier hearts, slows aging, makes for better relationships, and that kindness is simply contagious. Dr. Hamilton states, When were kind, we inspire others to be kind (Hamilton). When a person sees an act of kindness, often a random one, he/she becomes more inclined to help others through acts of kindness. Kind acts increase happiness in both the giver and the receiver. This is extremely relevant in the growth of children, who are always watching the adults around them. Through what is termed social referencing, even the youngest child is taking in everything that the adults around them do and reciprocate those same actions (Doddridge). Children are constantly shaped by the actions of their models, giving both cruelty and kindness power over cognitive development. Exposure to kindness begets kindness, but exposure to cruelty and bullying have the same strength to build further hurt. Children who are bullied are more likely to fail in school, become aggressive, and have an extremely low sense of self that is thoroughly difficult to recover. However, kindness from the start of life gives children a head start in realizing their own importance and worth, as well as the importance of the rest of the world as well. Developing a sense of self is a crucial step in developing cognitively and asserting a sense of self-esteem. A small infant does not perceive themselves as a person for the first several months of their lives. Then, sometime between eighteen and twenty-four months, a distinct,

Hutson 6 separate sense of self is settled upon (Doddridge). The mirror test, or the rouge test, is an experiment demonstrating when a small child becomes self-aware. In the rouge test the mother of a child puts rouge on the childs nose. At a year old, a child will notice the red dot on their nose, but they will not realize it is their own nose. But by eighteen months old that perception changes. A child will try to wipe off the rouge, because they recognize the reflection as being them, an awareness that it is their own face (Parenting Counts). This opens a whole new world for children, with the realization that they are distinct, and separate from the people around them, with similar and different beliefs and feelings than others. Self-esteem in children springs from positive evaluations of this sense of self. Self-esteem is the evaluation or perception a person holds about themselves (Santrock). Self-esteem is also interchangeable with self-worth and self-image and can also mean the tendency a person feels to either feel good or bad about how they are as a person, ranging from their personality to their career (Belsky). Children evaluate their self-esteem by using two phrases: I am lovable and I am capable. A child must hold both to have a healthy sense of self-esteem (Corkille-Briggs). Self-esteem changes dramatically as children age. At age three, a young girl may describe herself by external things, such as her age, how she looks, and things that she possess. She may use the terms always and never many times in the description of herself. A child in the fourth grade will think much more abstractly than the smaller child (Belsky). In an interview with the same fourth grader, you can see that the child has developed a strong sense of self-awareness and self-esteem, based upon internal things, Im in the fourth grade this year, and Im pretty popular. Thats because Im nice to people and can keep secrets, although if I get into a bad mood I sometimes say something that can be a little mean. As school Im feeling pretty smart in certain subjects like Language Arts and Social Studies But Im feeling pretty dumb in Math and Science. Even though Im not doing well in those subjects I still like myself as a person.

Hutson 7 Note that the older child holds an understanding of herself based on a comparison she has made with her peers. This is a normal progression in the basis for an older childs development of selfunderstanding and self-esteem (Santrock). For example, when given a difficult task to do, children under the age of seven often pay no mind to how well other children did. But children over the age of seven compare themselves with their peers, and will continue to do so as they grow to adolescence (Santrock). Sometimes, however, children grow to have too high a sense of self. This can often be determined based on how much or little empathy a person has for others (Goleman). Children who bully can either have a very low or a very high sense of self-esteem, giving themselves a higher sense of priority that gives themselves the right to be mean because they are more important than anyone else. Children that do not feel empathy for others may bully to get objects and reactions they want; they may not even care how the other feels. On the other hand, children with very low self esteem may even feel so miserable that they would be willing to take their own life. It is important that caregivers help children evolve from feeling as though they are the center of the world or that they have no place in the world. Children need to deeply feel that they are important, as well as understanding that other people are important too. There is an essential cycle that must be at work here. When parents are kind to their children, their children are kind. Kind children are well-rounded and have a healthy sense of selfesteem. Children who have a healthy sense of self-esteem share this with their peers and do not rely on bullying to get what they want. Then these children grow up and raise children who are kind and have a healthy sense of self-esteem. That is why it is so important that children learn at a young age that compassion is a powerful asset that leads to success and happiness, as well as positive relationships. By learning kindness and developing a healthy sense of self-esteem, children will grow to be more capable, loving, and compassionate as they mature into adulthood.

Hutson 8 Works Cited Belsky, Janet. Experiencing the Lifespan. New York: Worth, 2007. Print. Bowlby, Richard. "Babies And Toddlers In Non-Parental Daycare Can Avoid Stress And Anxiety Attachment & Human Development 9.4 (2007): 307-319. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. Briggs, Dorothy Corkille. Your Child's Self-Esteem: The Key to His Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. Print. Brooks, David. "Nice Guys Finish First." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 May 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. Colmer, Kaye, Lynne Rutherford, and Murphy Pam. "Attachment Theory And Primary Caregiving." Australasian Journal Of Early Childhood 36.4 (2011): 16-20. Academic Search Complete. Web8 Apr. 2013. Doddridge, Rock. Psychology in Children. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Asheville, NC. 14 May 2013. Personal Interview. Goleman, Daniel. "The Narcissist: Dreams of Glory." Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. New York: Bantam, 2006. 118-24. Print. Gottman, Ph.D, John, Colette Crawford, RN, BSN, and Kori Levos Skidmore, Ph.D. "Early Moments Matter." Early Moments Matter. Vulcan Productions, 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. Hamilton, Ph.D., David R. "5 Beneficial Side Effects of Kindness." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 02 June 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. Recognizes the Difference Between Self and Other People. Parenting Counts. Talaris Institute, 2013. Web. 11 May. 2013.

Hutson 9 Pasco Fearon, R.M., and Jay Belsky. "Infant-Mother Attachment And The Growth Of Externalizing Problems Across The Primary-School Years." Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry 52.7 (2011): 782-791. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Apr. 2013.

Price-Mitchell, Marilyn, Ph.D. "Acts of Kindness: The Key to Happiness for Children and Teens." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 2 Jan. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.

Rudi De Raedt, et al. "Attachment Security And Attentional Breadth Toward The Attachment Figure In Middle Childhood." Journal Of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology 38.6 (2009): 872-882. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Santrock, John W. "Socioemotional Development in Infancy." Children. 8th ed. Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark, 1995. 242-71. Print. Wynn, Karen. "Babies Help Unlock the Origins of Morality." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.