Assessment and Analysis Guide: Personal Development

Self-Concept: Child’s description of self.

Watch for: ability to distinguish between private thoughts and imaginings and public ones; descriptions of self in terms of concrete characteristics; descriptions of self in terms of psychological and emotional disposition.

Most children:

• Distinguish between inner self (private thoughts, imaginings accessible only to child) and outer world; describe self in terms of concrete characteristics (name, physical appearance, possessions, typical behaviors—what I can do, or temporary states—how I feel at this moment). (4–7 yrs.)
• Describe self in terms of psychological characteristics and traits (honest, trusting), emotional characteristics and traits (happy, get angry easily, moody), increasingly complex combination of characteristics; use social comparisons; attribute stable personality characteristics to self and others. (7 yrs. and older)

Self-Esteem: Evaluation of self-concept. Can be high where child sees self in a positive light, is satisfied with own strengths and accepts own weaknesses. Can be low where child sees self in negative light.

Watch for: descriptions of self in terms of social acceptance, competence, physical prowess, academic/ cognitive competence, and social self-worth; positive or negative evaluations of own characteristics.

Most children:

• Evaluate self-esteem in terms of social acceptance (“Do people like me?”) and competence (“I can do ________”); tend to rate selves extremely high on all aspects. (4–6 yrs.)
• Evaluate self-esteem in terms of cognitive/academic competence (i.e., math, reading), physical prowess (sports), and social self-worth (good person, funny person); display global sense of self-esteem; show a decline in overall self-esteem at this age because unrealistically high assessments are adjusted. After a period of decline, self-esteem rises again. (7–8 yrs.)

Achievement Motivation: Tendency to evaluate one’s performance against a standard of excellence. Adaptive motivation style: strive for success; desire to do well; and select challenging, but not impossibly difficult, tasks.

Watch for: efforts to achieve mastery; selection of challenging, but not impossibly difficult, tasks; mastery efforts in all subjects/areas.

Most children:

• Recognize success and failure and begin to attribute causes; tend to choose easy tasks; are “learning optimists”—overestimate their own abilities and underestimate task difficulties; believe they can learn if they try harder; need help setting realistic, reasonable short-term goals. (3–5 yrs.)
• More realistically view their abilities and other levels of achievement; compare own performance to that of other children.
• Set high levels of aspiration for selves; feel anxiety about failure.
• Need help setting realistic, reasonable short-term goals.
• Can develop adaptive mastery-oriented styles (attribute success to high ability, failure to lack of effort, like challenges) or can develop patterns of test anxiety.

Emotional Development: Child’s ability to feel, describe, and regulate emotions. Ability to identify emotions in others.

Watch for: feelings expressed in different situations (pleasant or stressful situations); ability to recognize and label the emotions of self and others with words: “I feel happy.” “He looks sad.”

Most children:

• Can describe basic emotions (happy, sad, scared). (3 yrs.)
• Exhibit pride, envy, and guilt.
• Can learn through social referencing (reading the emotions of others).
• Recognize facial expressions (sad, happy, angry, surprised, and fearful).
• Begin to mask or hide emotions; describe cause and consequences of emotions.
• Decline in separation distress and other attachment behaviors.
• Use multiple cues to evaluate emotions in others; recognize that the cause of feelings can be internal and not visible to another person.
• Know that someone may hide feelings.
• Can suppress feelings, such as anger.
• Know emotions fade with time and can be controlled by thoughts.
• Understand mixed emotions (can feel happy and sad at the same time). (8 yrs.)

Self-Regulation—Social & emotional:

Watch for: signs of emotional self-control; use of language to control emotions; ability to delay gratification; knowledge of and ability to abide by classroom rules; ability to sustain effort in spite of failure; monitoring of success and failure on academic tasks.

Most children:

• Are capable of controlling emotions. (3–5 yrs.)
• Refrain from forbidden behaviors.
• Can internalize the rules of behavior of the classroom.
• Use language to control own emotions and emotions of others (says “No!” rather than hitting).
• Are capable of sustained social interactions involving negotiation and compromise of own wishes and desires.
• Can wait for their turn. Can propose taking turns as a social solution.
• Can plan play interactions prior to engaging in them.
• Can voice strategies for regulating self (I don’t think about it, I count to 10, etc.). (5–8 yrs.)
• Are capable of conscious self-control.
• Can use strategies that focus on the problem rather than on the emotions.
• Reflect on own and other children’s motivation for actions.
• Have begun developing internalized standards of behavior in many areas (pro-social, achievement, etc.).
• Engage in conscious pro-social behaviors.