Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 338

Self-awareness and the emerging self-concept permit self-control, as one must be aware of oneself as separate from others to comply with requests and modify behavior in accordance with caregivers’ demands. In order to engage in self-control, the infant must be able to attend to a caregiver’s instructions, shift his or her attention from an attractive stimulus or task, and inhibit a behavior. Cortical development, specifically development of the frontal lobes, is responsible for this ability (Posner & Rothbart, 2018). Between 12 and 18 months, infants begin to demonstrate self-control by their awareness of, and compliance to, caregivers’ simple requests (Kaler & Kopp, 1990).

Although toddlers are known for asserting their autonomy, such as by saying no and not complying with a caregiver’s directive, compliance is much more common (Kochanska, 2000). Paradoxically, when parents encourage autonomous, exploratory, behavior, their children are more likely to show compliance to parental instructions in toddlerhood through early childhood (Laurin & Joussemet, 2017). Secure attachment relationships and warm parenting are associated with effortful control, likely as securely attached infants feel comfortable exploring their environment, which promotes autonomy (Pallini et al., 2018). Toddlers’ capacities for self-control improve rapidly. For example, delay of gratification tasks suggest that between 18 and 36 months, toddlers become better able to control their impulses and wait before eating a treat or playing with a toy (Białecka-Pikul, Byczewska-Konieczny, Kosno, Białek, & Stępień-Nycz, 2018; Cheng, Lu, Archer, & Wang, 2018).

Infants make great strides in socioemotional development over the first 2 years of life, as summarized in Table 6.3. Infants’ advances in emotional expression and regulation represent the interaction of biological predispositions, such as inborn capacities for basic emotions and temperament, and experienc—particularly parent–child interactions—the contexts in which they are raised, and the goodness of fit between infants’ needs and what their contexts provide. Infants’ gains in emotional and social development and a growing sense of self form a socioemotional foundation for the physical and cognitive changes that they will experience in the early childhood years.