Lindsay

== Memorandum: In this chapter we learned about the question that children at this age consistently try to answer "Who am I?" We also talked about how they view themselves less in terms of external, physical attributes and more in terms of psychological traits. For example, a child in middle childhood will describe themselves as being smart, friendly, and helpful to others. Another way these children view themselves is using social comparisons, or evaluating one's own behavior, abilities, expertise, and opinions by comparing them to those of others. This social comparison can also lead to a child's good or poor self esteem. We learned that self esteem often works like a cycle; bad self esteem carries on into adolescence as does high self esteem. Another topic we discussed was the changing views of friendships at this age. There are three different stages of friendship which are: basing friendships on others' behaviors, basing friendship on trust, and basing friendships on psychological closeness. Something to be considered when talking about friendships is the popularity of the children as well. We talked about some of the components that many popular children have, such as social competence and social problem solving skills. Then, we moved on to discussing the many differences among the sexes. We also talked about border work, which helps emphasize the clear boundaries that exist between the two sexes. The dominance hierarchy represents the rankings of the relative social power of those in a group. In the next section, we learned about the family aspect of middle childhood. Coregulation, which is where children and parents jointly control behavior, is commonly seen at this age. Home life can vary, but we learned that many children are self-care children, who let themselves into their homes after school and wait there alone until their parents return from work. Finally, we talked about how divorced, blended, single-parent, and multigenerational families have an effect on the children. ==

Questions to consider:
1. Standard vi- How might the race of a child and his/her family effect the child's home life and success in school? 2. Standard ii- How does having social competence help a child feel at ease among their peers? 3. Standard i- How might self care children be affected positively from their at home life?