THE INFLUENCE OF KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES ON THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD’S SOCIAL SKILLS

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Summary

INTRODUCTION...................................................................……………..…………..PAGE 3

Chapter I.

The importance of family socialization process in the future integration of the childI.1 The concept of socialization. Theoretical

delimitation...............................................PAGE 5

I.2 The roles of parents in the psychological development of thechild..........................PAGE 12

I.3. Educational types of the parents and their effects on the development of thechild....................................................................................................................................PAGE 21

Chapter II.

The kindergarten a socialization factor



II.1The teacher and the group of elderly-factor of socialization.....................................PAGE 27

II.2 Kindergarten Social Skills

Activities........................................................................PAGE 34Chapter III.

Research on how the sociability of the pre-scholars varies over

time…………………...PAGE 43

III.1. Methods andtechniques.........................................................................................PAGE 52

Chapter IV.Conclusions andrecomandations.............................................................................. PAGE 54

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………...P

AGE 55

THE INFLUENCE OF KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES ON THE PROGRESSIVE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD’S SOCIAL SKILLS

INTRODUCTION

The entire development, as well as the human condition itself, are flooded and stimulated

by the socializing processes by which the social integration and personal identity are

constituted. The influences are exerted upon the child first through the family and in a

more orderly and systematic manner with the help of the educational institutions, through



social life, as a whole, as factors which concur on offering them behaviour models, clichés

of appreciation and reactions, opinions and knowledge of everything which surrounds

them. The child, as an adult to be and not as an adult in miniature, owns specific traits due

first of all to the age and then to the fact that every individual of the human species is

unique, traits which will become adjusted or maladjusted behaviours, depending on the

quality of the influences exerted upon him.

The habits with which the child is born and with which he develops are influenced by

certain experiences, as they grow up and their innate vulnerability or vivacity interacts with

the facilitative character of the surrounding environment. A strong environment is that

where the child has loving and sensitive parents and is provided with rich and stimulating

effects, so that favourable conditions will appear in this type of ambient environment,while a child raised in a poor unsatisfying environment will live an enormous disadvantage.

The family environment is most directly linked to the harmonious development of the

child, bearing a decisive role in the growth of the child and, under the conditions where it

permanently satisfies the need for affective support and protection and offers the premises

on which psychological and social models will be structured, it will manage to valorise

entirely the biological potential of the child. It is the system in which the child has

experiences, observes activity and interaction models or patterns they develop under therelationships between the family members.

The roles which the parents fulfil, mainly affective and communicative functions and

especially through the mother, create the ulterior conditions for the actions of the teachers,

of those who, in their turn, will influence the later development of the child. The

importance of these roles resides from the fact that the young being acquires everything

that they observe around, their behavioural manifestations being counterparts to the

behavioural models, action and communication types within the family so that the child’s

conduct will be dependent on the values, necessities and norms the parent manifests, as

main architectures of the social being of the child. The parents have the role to model the

objective reality for them, selecting the aspects which will be transmitted, working as a

filter between the child and the reality and ensure them, through their answers, the optimal



setting to develop and learn. The intervention of the parent as a development factor helps

the child develop adequate habits of social interaction, first of all by satisfying their

physical and emotional needs, by preparing the grounds for communication, allowing them

to try new things which they are not capable of yet, adapting a specific activity so that they

can handle it and, especially, functioning as a data base for the child, which helps them to

organize the information and elaborate plans.

The sociability, as a trait which has the capacity to facilitate the adaptation, develops

through the unification of numerous specific habits, which have the same general adaptive

significance for a person, so that the sociability is structured depending on the conditions of

the exterior environment. The preschooler child manifests an intense sociability, a powerful

desire for social contact, but they are not generally sociable, as they learn through specificlearning units, to reach an adaptive and expressive behaviour. Thus, it can be said that the

evolution of the child is marked by the interactions between them, as developing

individuals and the others, by the interest which they start showing to the others, with

which they discover they can act together. The kindergarten ensures the enlargement of the

personal experience, and especially the conditions of a wealthy varied social activity, in

which and through which the child will manage to take over the initiative of the social

contact more frequently, maybe than the adult and he will elaborate relationships of trustwith others and will become aware of his place and role inside the group.

CHAPTER I

The importance of family socialization process in the future integration of the child

I.1 The concept of socialization. Theoretical delimitation



The process of socialization is a social process in which the human individual, active

member of the society undergoes successive transformations, a continuous interaction

process, unequal as intensity, which offers to a potential social being the possibility to

develop an identity, an ensemble of ideas, a set of habits. The essence of this process is that

the society tries, through socialization agents, to transform the individual so as to

correspond to its norms and values. Through socialization, the child is guided towards the

acquirements of life’s rules, habits, the way of thinking, beliefs and ideals in accordance

with the social environment in which they grew up. In a widely accepted assertion,

socialization means assimilation of social experience (knowledge, norms, ideals and roles),

the formation of action capacities, conceptions, personality traits, social intelligence,

necessities development, motivations and personal and collective aspirations.

In psychology, the socialization process of the child is considered an essential aspect of the

personality’s development, the research in this direction laying on the theories of some

renowned personalities such as L.S. Vîgotski, J. Piaget. H. Wallon, each one centred on

certain aspects of the child’s socialization. L.S. Vîgotski outlines the fact that socialization

is a permanent confrontation of the child with his social environment in which they learn

the language, thus reaching the socialization of their thoughts and ideas. J. Piaget

underlines the role of the knowledge of the psycho-hereditary patrimony within theevaluation of the results obtained and of those monitored in the socialization process,

because, due to the hereditary characteristics of the child, “the process of socialization isn’t

reduced to fixing certain fingerprints on a tabula rasa”

At the same time, Piaget states that in the realization of socialization through interactions,

spontaneous or guided, between human-human and human-object, an important role is

being held by the connections with the worlds. Socialization comprises, in balance, the two

processes of adjustment to the environment – when it’s requested to respect rules and

norms and assimilation of the environment, dimensions of which equilibrium condition a

constructive socialization, built on phases. As every phase is based on the acquirements of

the anterior one, if a phase is not covered, the next one cannot be well constructed, thus



reaching deviant behaviours, affective and intellectual handicaps, created by those who

take action directly on the child’s personality development.

Socialization is regarded through the dynamics of the two factors represented by the social

environment and individual, in the sense that social learning takes place under the influence

of the social context, a part of which being the individual, who thus becomes both

socialised and socialising agent. The research in this field starts from the idea that society,

the value system and culture influence the person more through smaller groups such as

family, kindergarten, peers, school, drawing attention on the priorities of the interpersonal

relations as factors influencing the mental development of the child.

In every society, family represents the essential factor of development and socialization of the child, as fundamental frame in which their psychological and social needs are satisfied

and their entire growing and development system is fulfilled, first integrating community

which conditions all ulterior acquirements. During childhood, the primary socialization

takes place, represented precisely by this children’s process of turning into social human

beings, by learning the basic values, preparation and language, process with profoundly

affective character, unlike the other socialization forms, secondary and continuous,

oriented towards affective neutrality Primary (or basic) socialization allows theacknowledgment of the mannerism rules, of the values and norms which can be assimilated

at early age and which represent the informational affective baggage of every individual.

A positive development from a psychological and social point of view is realized with

children when they are raised in families, by their parents.

During childhood, socialization has a powerful maternal character, associated to a certain

point, with the intense influence of the father. The initiation of the child into human life,

their learning of the main methods of evolution towards an autonomous behaviour, learning

of the language, acquiring values take place in the relationship with the mother, as the first

model from which they acquire knowledge and assimilates habits. Social elementary

behaviours are acquired by the child by simply observing and imitating external



behavioural models, imitation being for a child one of the most important way to

accumulate social experience, learning types of behaviour and adapting to certain

circumstances and contexts of life. The assimilation of complex social behaviours –

attitudes, beliefs, mentalities, purposes and reasons is insured by other ways of social

learning which continue the process of imitation. Identification is one of these ways, as

knowledge process which offers an explanation of the way in which the child learns a new

behaviour, the social roles and how they develop the internal control and conscience.

Identification represents a fundamental process in the socialization of the child, which

incorporates rules, behaviour types which he transforms into a way of being adequate, so as

not to be submitted to isolation or even social marginalization.

During childhood, the self-conscience starts: on the course of their identification as the onewho starts actions and verbalizing this relationship, the child assimilates the certainty of his

identity. The identity is acquired by the fusion between the subject and its model, so that

the child, in compliance with the parental model, will build himself, will feel he exists and

will recognise himself by referring to others, both as a singular being and identical with the

others. Through the relationship within the family, of the communication and experience,

the child will inherit personal identity, the feeling of one’s own, feeling essential to the

ulterior adjustment to changes and he will avoid the appearance of personality disorders, hewill be capable to nourish adequate relationships with others, he will be preoccupied for

others, he will develop a cooperative and humanist behaviour, he will be trustful and

untouched by the identity crisis. The parents will help them overcome the crisis specific to

childhood, important moments in strengthening the ego, and if they positively orient these

oppositions then the child will easily adapt and will show the capacity to action according

to social models. By not assimilating their own identity, it will determine them to become a

social victim, a young being in “drift” frustrated and lacked of realistic hopes. The

acquirements of this phase are based on the opening to the world, extremely important as it

offers a guiding to the world, outlining the limits of ulterior receptivity of the individual

and building the first universe of the child as universe of significance and reality which

they interiorise making it their own. The family is the most important socializing agent, the



place where the children learn to become humans and they start the basic social behaviours,

their socialization function taking place in four different specific situations:

- the moral education situation – which is based on the authority relationships with

the help of which the child receives moral rules, the family being the main frame in which

they assimilate the first notions regarding duty, responsibility and interdiction, marking the

development of a generalized structure of the moral conscience;

- the „cognitive learning” situation through which the child learns the knowledge

system, attitudes and skills necessary to coexist in the society.

- the situation which involves imagination, developing the participative thinking

and the creative capacities;

- the “psychological communication” situation through which the affectivity

specific to humans develops, necessary to acquiring a moral and psychological balance.By tracing the development of the child’s personality, the socializing process can

be viewed as having an intentional character, as a result in which the child acquires

desirable behaviours so as to integrate in the social life.

Only by transmitting this guidance lines for the personality development, the child can

become human, in a social meaning, as they profoundly internalize the forming methods

exerted by the parents, at the level of his developing personality structure. The child must be helped in the direction of integration preparation, and the family, as the first group with

which the child has continuous contact, starts the process of their modification in an

individual which will be capable to function and evolve coherently and productively in the

future. Socialization develops in a child the constant mental traits by which they receive an

identity in reference to the others, and the family represents the matrix in which this

identity is formed. The psychic traits socialization develops are not innate, they are

acquired during the first years of life, determining a constant and well-defined way of

“being”.

The privileged instrument of socialization and its content is language, by the integration

through which the child receives behaviour models, applicable immediately or in ulterior

situations for the daily life. Socialization is realized first of all through language, learned by



the child from adults in the daily experience, being the first and the most important “tool”

the child must possess, the instrument with which they can act upon others and they can

assimilate great knowledge and numerous abilities and which will ease the adjustment and

conquering of the surrounding environment.

At first, words mean nothing to the child, being simple sonorities, but, as they are

associated with the same objects and beings they acquire meaning: meanings are assigned

depending on the experience the child acquires; they are corrected and mentioned by the

parents, and later, by society. Learning terms means assimilating a vocabulary which

includes knowledge, the parent’s life experience and implicitly of the society they are part

of. Through language, the parents act upon the child, following the coordination of their

activities, triggering some actions or reactions, communicating them affective states,especially emotions and feelings, by different expressions.

The progress of language learning is realized at the same time with the thinking process

and, by learning to communicate, the child heads to a more and more complex organization

of the thinking process, which will help them explain to themselves the important aspects

of reality and to solve problematic situations, inherent in their life. Starting from a thinking

process involving movement and perception, the child will reach the ability to usededuction, but only in the presence of language, helped of course by the adult, on the

course of their psychological development.

This knowledge that they acquire couldn’t be valued if they wouldn’t learn adequate

abilities. Through experience and growth, the child develops aptitudes and abilities as the

parents, exemplifying and involving them in the fundamental activities of the human being:

playing, learning and working, they encourage their development, essentially submitted to

the contexts of the environment.

This is why the favourable character of the family environment conditions: education,

stimulation, appreciation and value, will influence decisively the structuring and

manifestation of the aptitudes. By permanently stimulating the child, the parents not only



develop their sensory and motor aptitudes so that they would be able to perform direct

actions with and upon objects, in order to satisfy some current needs, but also intellectual

abilities – specific to all human beings – which will allow them to adapt well to the

universe characteristic to every age and in the future they will form their capacity to handle

social situations, to relate and understand well with their peers. The improvement the

personal predilections must always be in the attention of the family, so that the hereditary

potential is being exploited properly.

Primary socialization involves, besides cognitive dimension an important affective

dimension. The child identifies emotionally with the important persons in his life, taking

over their roles and attitudes and transforming them into his own and living world as the

only possible world, his own, reality itself.

The advantage of family socialization is that it takes place within an affectivity climate

which facilitates the transmitting and assimilation of the values and social norms. The

nature of the contacts with the others around and the socio-affective climate generates and

supports emotional experiences of a certain quality, it forms corresponding attitudes and

adjustments. The positive role of the family within the socialization process is

demonstrated through the nature of the particular and diversified bond uniting themembers, by the securing role necessary to the growth of the child, by the fact that, due to

its permanence, it teaches the children to live in the durable.

No manifestation of affection must be stopped or blocked so as not to create a climate

which is less favourable to the growing and the personality development. The family, as an

affective environment offers through tenderness “the psychological vitamin necessary to

the child’s growth and the lack of this nutritive spiritual function represents one of the

parent’s flaws”. The affective factors bear the greatest importance in this situation and the

family climate must be characterized by love, relaxed and open relationships, so that it

won’t cultivate in them “the fear of mistaking”, provoking them fears or emotional

blockage. The environmental life must be organized with the most adequate and efficient

modalities under the principle of active and participative learning, as a base for the ulterior



motivation, which facilitates the transformation of the environmental influences and family

education in mental components.

It can thus be asserted that the importance of the family during the first years of life is so

overwhelming that it gives birth to some kind of a determinism of the future trajectory and

that the integration is in most of its part determined by the acquisitions made during

childhood through socialization, subsequently the child building the reality he knows, from

the perspective of his knowledge.

So as to resume, it can be said that socialization forms education, the control of instincts

and needs, satisfying them in a way set by society, inoculates aspirations and allows the

transmission of knowledge and ensures the existence of the qualities necessary in life. Byacting upon the personality traits, the family facilitates the transition from a normative

behaviour, adjusted by the exterior, to a normal behaviour represented by the fact that the

young being will be characterized by self-adjustment and moral autonomy.

The influence the society exerts through the family is colossal, the child being entirely

enlightened in report to the society of which they are part of and the family starts, based on

a specific psychological configuration, to develop their fundamental personality.

By respecting the interior model of the child, but aiming at the idea of organising and

modelling the personality, the family must target the construction of an individuality

characterized by harmony. The parents convey values, beliefs and conceptions on the

world, knowledge, customs and language, and the evolution of the child’s personality

results by integrating these significations, criteria, symbols and action models.

The family creates the ground for the child’s adaptation so that they integrate appropriately

in the psycho-social field, by reporting to the rules of the society. The integration results

from the formation of a mental unity and totality. Through the competition of the internal

and external environment of the child, a full and unitary development of their traits is

reached, their own construction which defines them as individuals, a typical and unique



behaviour, and specific to a rightly balanced personality. By not respecting the ensemble of

socially elaborated norms and values, the parents will form in the child a system lacking

personality, cause of a precarious balance and source of some adaptation impediments.

Although the role of the family changes as the child develops, its social responsibility

portrait doesn’t decrease its intensity, as the other socializing agents permanently underline

its importance. Even if the attitude towards the parents switches from the affective-

symbolic closeness to other relationships types (requested by its psychological traits in

development) the child will always feel the need for family, which will continuously

manifest its support in order to overcome the next “dramatic episodes” during puberty and

teenage years.

I.2. The roles of the parents in the psychological development of the child

The entire psychological and moral development of the child stands under the influence of

the family environment in which they evolve, environment which is the first intermediary

in the social relations,

Claude Levi-Strauss defined family through the point of view of the commune aspirations

and obligations of the married couple which have the duty to raise their family by ensuring

them not only the financial support but also an affective and moral favourable climate. The



family represents the oldest and most stable form of human community, which brings its

share not only by perpetuating the species but by bearing an essential role in the evolution

and continuity of social life.

The individualization of the family as a social group, in report to other groups, resides in

the fact that in its interior a certain life style practice, behaviour, norm and value models

reside, which are passed on from generation to generation, leading to the social role of the

family in forming the individuals’ personality.

Taking into account that the family members are also society members, the family

fulfils roles, which other groups cannot fulfil, towards society as a whole.

• By procreating, caring for, forming and educating the children, the family

contributes to the maintenance of the biological continuity of the society;

• By passing on the cultural inheritance in the process of socialization, it presents

the function of maintaining the cultural continuity;

• It satisfies the emotional needs of its members, thus ensuring feelings of

comfort and maintenance of the personality;

• It exerts social control on the entire behaviour of its members, especially of its

children;

As an agent with a predominant role in forming and developing the young being and as a

primary group with which the child keeps continuous contact, the family is obliged to

ensure them an affective and protective environment, to satisfy their elementary needs in

order for them to learn to build themselves, to situate in report to the others, to have their

first social experiences without danger.

Ensuring a normal family structure – which responds best to the needs of the child and

good functionality are indispensable for the establishment of a child’s universe so that they

would never be in the position of facing human problems (divorce, re-marriage, adoption)

which overcome their power of understanding.



The parents represent, indisputably, the strongest and most important educators as they

influence the child from a very early stage. A child belonging to the human species can not

survive without help, at least on the course of the first four or five years, when their

fundamental needs must be satisfied: love, language, obedience, game, creation of an

image of the world, the feeling of belonging to a family, using power, movement, proper

feeding, needs which can not be fulfilled otherwise than in a commune space – not only

physical space – where they meet and communicate. The helpless being will turn into a

self- conscious, intelligent person and integrated in the type of culture where born.

Still, the process is not realized in a passive way, in the sense that the child would only

absorb the influences they get into contact with, as they are active beings whose exigencies

or needs affect the behaviour of the ones responsible with their nursing and especially because there is this daily routine of their interaction. Both the parents and child change

their behaviour towards each other through continuous reciprocal stimulation and the

unique manner of the child’s participation is a crucial factor also for the parent’s behaviour.

Nevertheless, the child couldn’t be educated without being raised under the influences of

the adults.

Social initiation starts within the enlarged family frame and implies a psycho-social processof transmitting-receiving specific behaviour models of this group, process essentially even

more as the child, as potential human personality, does not possess articulated language,

has no knowledge, attitudes, targets or life ideals whatsoever. The contact with others is

important in our life, interaction being essential during the first years of life in order for the

biological, mental and social development to be able to run its normal course.

The interaction of the child with the others is strongly dependent on the cohesion and

adaptability of the family, so that their psycho-social development depends on the

interaction type and behaviour of each of the members.

The specificity of the roles which characterize family results from a relational logic of the

roles, built inside the family experience. The maternal and paternal identities are not



predetermined, but they are built in the history of the couple itself, the conjugal and

parental report play the role of “revelator” of the latent identity of each of the members.

The parenting role is one of the many roles fulfilled by the adult, but unlike the others, this

has unique traits: while the human relationships take place under the sign of change, the

first relationships between the parents and the child have the particularity to be one way

only, as the child can not offer anything, they can only receive. The parents, accustomed

until the child’s birth with a certain lifestyle must, all of a sudden, take upon themselves a

new responsibility, change their behaviour and adapt themselves to the needs of a new

human being.

To offer attention, support and protection to life represents a crucial condition for the future

social interactions, for the reciprocal communication and development of the socialcustoms, and expert studies can only confirm the fact that the parents are the most

important persons in the life of their child. The lack of experience makes the child an

incapable and unknowing being, dependent on the adult, who thus has the moral obligation

to protect and guide, especially because the parent position is synonym with the cognitive

and interactional competence, with the certainty that, for exchange, the childhood is

equivalent with the absence of knowledge and abilities.

The roles practiced by the parents are negotiated with each one’s personal identity, but one

must underline the fact that being a parent doesn’t mean a certain main feminine or

secondary masculine role, as the maternal and paternal role are specific and

complementary. The differences between roles is represented by the manner and nature of

the involvement and not by the lower or higher involvement level, which cannot be

measured as these qualitatively different behaviours cannot be compared from a

quantitative point of view. The differences reveal, in essence, two visions on the world, two

moral lessons: the father ensures the material security, and even if he is more unavailable,

this is not equivalent with lack of involvement, as he is working “alone, for the others” and

the mother works “for the others, along with them”, resulting in a greater availability of the

mother, an open and thoughtful attitude at any time with the children’s problems.



The role of the mother is essential in the mental development of the child and the

relationship between the mother and the child has been transformed in the key of

understanding the humanisation and socialization process of the child. The mother becomes

the instrument which “marks” their destiny: the entire intellectual and emotional

development, their success and integration, everything being based on the precocious

relationship with the mother, considered an irreplaceable and indispensable presence. The

development of the child and its adaptation is favoured by a series of maternal factors:

behavioural, attitudinal and of personality, their influence being associated with the social

environment in which the child is integrated. The mother’s behaviour is favourable when

she is proactive when the child encounters difficulties, when she expresses few anxiety

feelings and positive strengths. The attitude of the mother stimulates development andadaptation when she manifests tolerance and confidence in the possibilities of the child and

respects the child’s presence. The personality factors, represented by a great emotional

stability, good control of emotive states, perseverance and maternal energy are responsible

directly for the variation in the mental development of the child.

The greatest importance is represented by the affective dimension of the mother-child

relationship, as the affective relationship is essential in the greatest part of the child’sdevelopment, and in its absence, they could not have a relationship life, which is

indispensible to the individuals of the human species.

The normal structure of the family itself, but especially the relationships with the mother,

responds better than anything else to the child’s affective needs. The research made by

Anna Freud outlined the differences between the child raised in the family and the child

raised in the orphanage: the child within the family finds the territory appropriate to the

growth of their personality, as within this natural environment they receive the maximum

affective stimulant, whereas the children privileged of the maternal love are in

disadvantage regarding the physical, intellectual, moral and social development.



“The family is an affective environment by excellence, a school of feelings”, environment

which models the personality in its dynamism and allows the child to develop as a balanced

individual, with rich affectivity and well adapted to the challenges of life. According to the

same author, “the parents’ attitudes often have another unexpected consequence: it seems

that the social acceptance of the individual could be compared to the family acceptance he

received”.

The health and mental balance depend mostly on the way the mother chooses to fulfil her

role towards the child, as the lack of love represents the only thing that the young being

cannot overpass. The tenderness of the mother must be a shelter which the child must know

for sure he will always find and on which to rely on under any circumstances. In the

relationship with the mother the child will find the elements of his dynamism, which isneeded his affective evolution, elements represented by the love impulses which the child

will “match” in order to switch step by step from the pure selfish “entrapped” phase,

specific to the new born, to a phase of altruism and social participation.

Abraham Maslow introduced the notion of individual’s request which must be satisfied, if

one follows a normal development pattern and one of the superior levels is represented by

the need for affection of the human being. Essentially for affectivity is the role of thematernal model, synonymous to ulterior development. The mother-child duplex is

inseparable especially during the first life period: both participants need the presence of

each other and this bond can exemplify one of the most stable human connections. The first

social relationships of the child are related to their mother, with whom they form a social

couple and one’s behaviour is decisively conditioned by the other’s. The attachment

manifested towards the mother offers security as the child also invests emotional energy

into the relationship, and at the same time, learns how to appreciate, under the form of

feelings, what he receives from the person who takes care of him with love and carefulness.

Still, the attachment can only appear towards the person with whom they actively interact

and who answers positively to their needs for attachment.



Affective evolution is marked by the relationships with the parents and especially with the

mother as they have an effect on the structure of the infantile psychic because in childhood

the conditions of the psycho-affective symbiosis with the mother start to manifest. The

attachment towards the mother is a powerful constant, bearing great importance for the

other plans of the infantile psychic. A mother who estranges her child, who treats him cold,

not showing them love, generates negative effects which puts a stop to the adaptive

behaviours development. Any relationship with the exterior world takes place first through

the mother, whose nursing through the first years of life has prolonged moral

consequences. The child perceives, first of all, the behavioural and affective resonances, of

significance being the positive affective relationships of acceptance and warmth with the

parents, or, on the contrary, the rejection attitude which is manifested through hostility and

brutal authority.

The family is the most indicated to develop human contacts, especially though the mother,

the most relevant impersonation of the neighbour, from which the child learns to recognise

and feel the others close, developing feelings of social communion, without which no

human being could entirely evolve. Erick Erickson underlines the fact that the maternal

relationship type is more important than the food quantity offered to the child, this

relationship being considered as a prototype of the later relationships. The mother isconsidered a source which generates primary rewards, the contact with whom can lead to

the satisfaction of some needs, or not, depending on the feelings developed: pleasure,

affection of conflict. These reactions of appreciation or avoidance learned from their

relationships with the mother are extended in the relationships with the others, governed at

the same time by feelings of trust or distrust, which originate in these precise relationships

with the environment, especially with the mother. By fulfilling the child’s needs, she

contributes to the installation of trust and a state of affection, while a sporadic and

accidental nursing certainly leads to the appearance of lack of trust and hostility.

During the social and personality development of the child, the father bears a privileged

role, as he transfers the love and security offered to the mother also to the child. The father

means most of all love and safety for the mother, and by this, indirectly for the child.



The positive precocious and long term relationship with the mother appears to be important

due to the presence of the child near the baby, but the mother is not the only value carrier.

Although the father establishes with the mother what we might call “the family policy”, the

values of this policy, tradition and socio-economic circumstances make out of him the

agent through which the family connects to the wider material and social environment. The

paternal authority is coloured by its own nuance, as more fundamentally than the mother,

the father is engaged in the confrontation with a reality which is exterior and inexorable.

The father introduces a differentiating element because he practices his function of

representing the external order, thus leading to the first individualization traits of the child,

guiding him beyond the universe formed by the maternal sphere. The specification of the

paternity consists in the opening to the outer world, the father representing the intermediary between the world and the child.

The parental roles present themselves under three aspects: the aspect of direct adjustment

of the child’s behaviour, to encourage and supervise them; the aspect of communication –

exchange of information and dialogue under the aspect of cooperation, of participating to

common activities. The role of the father is thus presented as having an instrumental role,

the resources he is offering being cooperation, consistency and information, whichcompletes each other, with the expressive resources of protection and understanding of the

mother.

The role of the father in the family is not related to his masculinity or his life style in which

he succeeds in overcoming the emotional states, but to the way in which he leads and

manages the family life, to his capacity of taking decisions and the consequences of these

decisions, the way in which he ensures emotional support to the mother and the children.

The father cannot truly love the child if he is not involved in all their development stages,

starting with the birth. The father must be the friend and teacher of the child, social and

ethic behaviour role model, with a protective role.



The father brings an essential contribution to the aspects which concern child protection

and consolidation of the protection feeling in their conscience; he extends the possibilities

of elaborating and experimenting his socio-affective behaviours and attitudes, balances his

mental potential which can find its entire efficiency within an integrating vision of the

society, feminine and masculine. The principle of the symmetry appears in this case, and

not only, as form of existence of intra-family relationships, but also as a projection in the

child’s conscience of an exterior bipolar reality.

The figure of the father is fixed in the child’s conscience later than the mother’s, and, as

time goes by, the two presences tend to balance more and more. The connections which

bond the child with his father are formed later than the ones he establishes with the mother,

but it is certain that starting with the age of two, the feeling that the child carries for thefather integrates into the affective life of the child and represents an element necessary in

the ensemble of forces that contributes to the evolution of the child’s character and

personality.

Regarding the direct role of the father, P.Osterrieth supposes that the presence of the father

is for the child a mirror of the mother, presence which comes to extend the rewards and

satisfactions range offered by the mother. The contacts with the father have a differentcharacter – the thesis of a weak paternal involvement was confirmed in the sense that the

fathers interfere twice as little in adjusting the behaviour, but the child thus knows a

different way to learn and adapt, without having his safety feelings affected. As the child

becomes aware of the father’s presence, they assign specific traits to them, they give them

more importance and the father becomes, as Freud asserted, “a necessary ingredient of the

complex forces which contributes to the formation of their character.”

The father represents in the family, the principle of authority, which is deemed as factor of

the family co-existence, as education factor - the father, symbol of strength and power,

becomes an identification and imitation pattern for the child. His absence from home,

conditioned by the necessity of ensuring financial income for everybody, turns the

decisions he makes into incontestable facts. His presence awakens in the child resistance,



opposition and self affirmation forces, authority leading to a large number of unavoidable

frustrations, with good effect, equivalent to the desire to resemble him and take his place.

This authority must not generate fear neither in the eyes of the little girl, who must love

him, nor in the eyes of the boy, who must identify with him, acquiring the characteristics of

the paternal presence.

In the absence of the parental model, when the mother is not involved in the control and

cooperation accepted by the children, the boys become uncertain and they manifest

antisocial behaviours such as higher aggression and delinquent tendencies. For the girls, the

absence of the father could create difficulties in establishing relationships with the opposite

sex, neuroticism and discomfort in relationships with peers.

The paternal typology elaborated by R. Vincent (1972) identifies five types of father:

• The dominant father, who pretends obedience and respect from the child and

mother, whom he sees as weak helpless beings, who must be protected and

leaded. The child reacts with timidity and inhibition to this type of behaviour.

• The tyrant father, characterized by aberrant authority crisis which actually

hides weakness. The child devalues this paternal type which will no longer be a

model and later, becoming aware of its real mediocrity, will manifest profoundimbalances.

• The friend father tries to form in the child feelings of esteem, using a collegial

behaviour, but which is disadvantaged by the fact that it does not have precise

limits, thus creating damaging confusions to the child.

• the quitting father: the type of father who is forever absent, occupied and who,

actually, hides behind these reasons as he does not feel capable of controlling

his child, forcing his wife to replace him, thus damaging the mental coordinates

of the child. The lack of this control will favour the appearance of stubborn

attitudes as the child will develop the habit not to comply with the moral, social

and scholar imperatives.



With his extremely sharp sensitivity, the child perceives, denounces and rejects a series of

situations such as: the too great a distance between them and the father (insensitive,

unavailable father), too small a distance (friend father), impersonal father, morally or

materially dependent of the mother. A child who does not see in their father a model to

follow can not receive from him the necessary affection which he deserves.

What is common to both the mother and father in their affection for the child and essential

to their security in front of the unpredicted circumstances of life is the availability of the

parents to always be receptive, interested and the capacity to be the guides of the child.

Within a family in which there is an atmosphere of reciprocal esteem, where the mother is

centred on the child’s needs, attentive with their manifestations and their emotional and

physical wealth, and the father gives an identification model, the child will have a peacefulgeneral behaviour, not being marked by relational and psychological problems.

I.3. Educational types of the parents and their effects on the development of the child

The concept of educational attitude is defined by G. Allport as “a state of mind built in

experience which exerts a dynamic influence on the individual, preparing him to react in a

particular way to a certain number of objects and situations”.

The educational type aims at the nature and the characteristics of the family relationships in

which the educational process evolves. The transmission of values, attitudes and

knowledge is made by using different styles, adapted to objectives and are organized

around two axes: authority axe/ liberalism or constraining/ permittivity and love/hostility or

attachment/rejection.

The relationships between parents and children constitute the nucleus of socialization, as

within the family models for all fundamental relationships are built. The child is in direct

psychological bond with their family, in the sense that their personality in development

enters a relationship with the entire range of functions, traits, moods and psychological

experiences of the parents. This way, the representation the child will later have on family



depends on the educational style practiced in the family, as either a refuge of the

individuality - a welcoming environment of affection and understanding, in which there is

an exchange of ideas, or as a tradition tower in which the only preoccupation of the parents

is to model the child by their face and resemblance.

The educational style offers optimum conditions for the cognitive and affective

development of the child, very important being the fact that the young being evaluates the

family climate in terms of understanding and parental support.

Not all families are oriented towards the same values and educational attitudes, the

diversity resulting from the educational/training level, the residence environment and

socio-professional affiliation. Numerous authors observe the fact that parents belonging toa different socio-economic category pass on to their children different values, in the sense

that some value autonomy and self-control, imagination and creativity and others the order,

obedience, respect for the elders, exterior rules and the capacity to solve problems.

The educational style is dependent on several variables, among which there is the internal

structure of the family: families poorly structured present less rules to the child, the norms

being almost absent, families with rigid structure which have the tendency to adopt aneducational style based in parental control and submission of the child, facing him with

rules applicable without exception and families with supple structure, which supply flexible

norms, leaving the child the possibility to manifest his initiative and express himself freely.

The correspondence of the educational influences with hereditary potential existing in

childhood is very favourable to global development, especially if the education is done

accordingly – the parents should keep in mind the present but also future possibilities of the

child. The educational tasks suppose, from both parents, a conscientious and continuous

action, but oriented towards the specific of the child’s personality, so much more as the

child influences his parents at the same time. The development and normal growth of the

child depend on these educational styles of the family, and, while they fulfil a series of

conditions, there is a harmonious and balanced development. Thus, M. Voinea considers

that parents should:



- be aware of the necessity of the education they exert upon the child;

- have clearly outlined in their minds the finality of the educational actions

- have the capacity to run these activities, to make time and to dispose of adequate

means to realize them;

- to agree upon the actions as their cohesion sets the basic for the educational

ethics; the parents should agree first upon some requests or sanctions and then impose them

unitarily, as the child will undermine the request of one parent, relying on the support of

the other.

The pattern should ensure rich, varied and interesting influences, to support the child in

activities with formative role, to stimulate them, to give them tasks which should favour

their participation and power of understanding, and especially, to communicate a lot with

them. An insufficient training in activities with formative potential leads to a limiteddevelopment as the poor demand becomes important part of the hereditary potential loss

never to be recovered. The opposite effect, overburdening, appears from the normal desire

of the parents who want for their child an evolution as close as possible to the aspirations

they never reached, thus overloading them with the content and intensity of the activities.

Parents with too good intentions overburden them with their expectations related to career

and prestige so that the child will do until puberty all that is requested and expected from

them, by fear of not disappointing their parents.Besides the spectacular temporary results, you can obtain only psychosomatic disorders

later on, as the premature fatigue sets in and these children will become indifferent towards

the society, they will avoid human contacts and will manifest antisocial behaviours. The

incorrect education leads to neurotic disorders, and during scholar age, to intolerance,

depression and an extremely hard adaptation to the ulterior life conditions in general.

The parents must know that everything they offer to the child for assimilation is accessible

to the child only in relation to the mental level of development reached, so that their every

new acquisition is obtained in certain moments of their development, and the most

important thing, they must know the fact that their mental development is made in a

progressive way, with an exact coincidence between the evolution level and the age of the

child. Every moment of the childhood is a moment of addition, which is done on a daily



basis and which is not improvised by every individual, but it is itself the reason of being of

the childhood, which aspires to the realization of the adult as an example of its species and

the environmental stimulations are indispensable for these changes to manifest.

The parents act as a data base for the child, thing which will help them acquire and later on

elaborate action methods, but this information data base must include mechanisms which

take into account the needs and possibilities of the child and, under no circumstances, to

use mechanisms similar to dressage. Building as self-conscience being is taking place,

initially, through the primary identification with the parents, signifying that the child copies

the general behaviour styles, which turn out as the moral conscience at the end of the

socialization process. The moral conscience is associated with the relational experiences

from the most fragile age and is formed through the integration by the child of thesanctions, judgements and values which come from the parents and which act as models of

acceptable behaviour: they decide which of these behaviours will be forbidden and which

will be allowed. The child’s evaluation of the family climate in terms of understanding and

parental support is frequent for children of young age, while the feeling of being

understood and supported decreases during the adolescence.

The indicators which reflect the parents’ permissiveness and restrictiveness are represented by:

• Parental control, as an indicator which reflects the constraints imposed to

the child and the strictness with which rules are applied and controlled

• The parental support which represents the engagement level of the parents

in the child’s life, the help and time they give to them and the receptivity to

their emotional states and needs.

Depending on these indicators, the research outlined three obvious parental action models:

- the permissive model, characterized by low level of control, associated to the

identification of the parent with the emotional states of the child and with the strive to

answer their needs. They are imposed with few norms and responsibilities, so that the way

in which the child responds to the parental expectations are submitted to poor control.



-the authoritarian model is associated with a high level of control with poor support

for the child’s activity. The parents systematically transmit values such as authority,

tradition, order and discipline, imposing unbreakable behavioural principles and rules to

the child.

-the authorized model combines systematic control with a high level of parental

support. The parents form rules and control them so as to be complied with, but they do not

impose them, being open to verbal exchanges with the children, explaining them the

reasons for which the rule must be respected, thus stimulating their thinking autonomy.

Starting from the observation that some parents act upon the environmental life of the child

and other upon their personality, Kellerhals and Montadon (1991) elaborated four influence

techniques used by the parents:

• Of control – the parents form a series of interdictions and obligations, practice a

system of sanctions in order to obtain the desired behaviour

• Relational - based on the belief of the parents that the child’s manifestations

are only answers to the behaviour of the persons with whom they interact; thus,

the action is made on the relational context (with family members, with other

children)

•

Of motivation – they aim at making the child conscientious of the relationship between the costs and benefits of an action and to give up/ accept another action

• Of moralization – consists in stimulating or inhibiting a behaviour of the child

by using values already assimilated

The research Kellerhals and Montadon made, led to differentiating these influence

techniques from the educational principles represented by:

• Affective protection – warm and protective family environment, absence of

conflicts

• Love – tenderness, manifestation of the affection and understanding

• Valorisation – trust in the child, appreciation for their accomplishments,

underlining their particularities in relation to others



• Normative stability – constancy in the family rhythms, the existence of life

discipline and norms.

The family education is guided by values which point to the flourishing of the child’s

personality and their social success, but for this, the parents don’t elaborate educational

strategies by certain logic and don’t opt firmly in favour of one principle or another. Every

parent keeps in mind a combination of the two, wishing for the plenary accomplishment of

their potential which can lead them further to integration and social success. This way, the

child must be assisted in all their actions while being allowed the liberty of speech,

encouraging them, valorising them and stimulating their self-confidence on a permanent

basis.

The importance of relationships inside a family resides in the fact that they are the source

of building and crystallizing the personality traits that the child will form by interiorizing

these inter-human relationships. The personality of the child will thus be the result of the

relational context. An organized family environment, positively valued, with educational

influences, will form a balanced personality. A vitiated environment from a relational,

immoral point of view will form a personality with unstable traits, with difficulties in

adjusting and tendencies to confusion. The formative value of the relationship between the parents and the children resides precisely from this direct and vital connection between

them, from the fact that only the parents are the most sensibly interested by their needs,

weaknesses and the entire development potential of the child, especially now, when the

human being has the maximum plasticity, favourable to the personality development.

Many times, the relationships between parents and children manifest themselves in an

exaggerated manner due, in the first place, to parents who forget to carefully dose the

affectivity as specific trait of family education. Thus, if on an intellectual plan they can be

normally developed, the deficiencies can be felt on an affective and moral plan, as a result

of practicing a style detrimental to the harmonious development of the child. This is the

reason why it is indicated that the two extremes be avoided: exaggerated love and

estrangement, which lead to lack of self-confidence and non-communication.



Carmen Ciofu synthesizes the mistakes parents can commit in their effort to offer optimum

conditions of development, but unconsciously forcing them to pay for their love:

• Excessive authoritarianism of parents who ignore the possibility that the child must

assimilate moral and ethic principles necessary to live in the society. The education of the

child implies the capacity of the parents to analyze their unreasonable behaviour and

attitudes and not impose them without prior judgement. The child must understand and

learn the rules of an adequate behaviour, not under the threat of the punishment, but in this

case the relationship parent-child does not have the character of a dialogue. This attitude

of the parent teaches them nothing but an unacceptable social behaviour and the child will

not learn how to control themselves and to not answer aggressively to frustration.

• Authoritarianism which appears from an excessive physical and social

contact between the mother and child, at the age when their relative independence should

have been installed. The mother of these children is restrictive and, from a sense of

possession, limits the tendencies of the child to become autonomous. The long term

effects of this type of dominance over the child are represented, first, by lack of autonomy,

anxiety and other infantile behaviours.

• The indulgence, characterized by inadequate control of the child’s activities,

acceptance, obedience without judgement to the requests of the child. This attitude favoursthe development of aggression with two types of major manifestation: anger crisis

(behaviour disorders as a result of the conflict between the child’s personality in full

affirmation and the permissive attitude of the parents) and the opposition/negativism

(unjustified attitude of refuse, resistance and hostility towards any type of offers) and

influences the later school performances.

• The parents’ aggression, which main cause was established by

psychological and social studies as being represented by the personal disastrous

experience during their own childhood.

The following subscribe to these wrong methods to love: the parents’ perfectionism which

underline all the child’s faults and discourage them, and anxiousness, major flaw of the

parents, which make the child unstable, disobedient, actually imitating their parents. None



of these form any defence form nor contribute to their life experience and the affectivity

and activity, being independent will be perturbed.

An affective climate which does not offer any security faced with the environment, still

unknown and unusual for the children, will later generate physical, affective, intellectual

and social traumas, will lead to difficulties in the manifestation of trust in others and in the

establishment of good relationships with the others. If the parents don’t dose closely and

affective, the relation between them and the children will be hard to integrate in the

collective and even in their own families and in the future they won’t be able to have this

relationship life so indispensable to man. The inter-relationships between the mother-

father, mother-father-child form the base of activity for their whole life, and together with

the constant attitudes, their frequency and quality contribute to the crystallization of feelings, event caused by long term relationships and generalising the emotions.

CHAPTER II

Kindergarten – a socializing factor

II.1. The teacher and the group of elderly - factors of socialization

Starting kindergarten is an important social event for the preschooler child and the process

of adjusting to the new situation is not very easy. The child, who sets foot on the steps of

the kindergarten for the first time, leaving the familiar universe of home behind, lives an

unexpected adventure: at home they were the only representative of their generation, in an

environment formed of characters of different importance and dimensions, but

characterized by the fact that they were all irreplaceable. Compared to their place, well

established by the parents, through a more or less sudden transition, they now find

themselves in a new environment, from which they don’t know what to expect and how toanswer. The first phenomenon produced is a tensioned mood generated by the child’s effort

to stock an excessive quantity of new information, among persons they now first see. The

adjustment, including group adjustment, is realized as accommodation and assimilation of



what is important in the group’s characteristics, of the requests it imposes and the

acceptance it offers.

Kindergarten is a group frame larger than family, which implies, on one hand, an

unpredictable quantity and, on the other hand, imposes more severe requests from the

child’s behaviour: a more diversified and complex schedule which involves new

adjustment demands, due to the subtle discomfort created. Moreover, they now encounter a

more restricted type of affection than within the family, politeness rules, a greater request

to personally control self- hygiene and way of eating, so that all these involve adaptation

efforts. What they used to think of as the absolute truth is shaking faced with all these

unfamiliar things, and they find themselves alone, with no “armour”, in a world which

enjoys no favourable prejudice.

The following behavioural plans represent the adjustment to the entire ensemble of requests

aimed at the child: service plan, mandatory activities plan and society integration plan.A

good adjustment, characterized by curiosity and active investigation and quick

relationships with those with whom they will interact further on in this environment, is

dependent now on the previous socialization in the family. Besides some exceptional cases

the children adapt well: once the temporary separation of the mother is accepted,kindergarten seems to offer a safety feeling, a world in which, step by step, they will

become more free and powerful. The child entering the new institutionalized environment

of the kindergarten, where they meet strangers, generates various affective reactions: some

adapt fast, others with more difficulty or not at all.

Ursula Şchiopu identifies six types of adjustment of the child to the ensemble of requests

aimed at them:

• Very good adjustment (maximum adjustment level) which is characterised by

separating without hesitation from the person who accompanied them, by

manifesting active curiosity and relaxed behaviour and by quickly establishing

relationships with the other children and teacher.



• Good adjustment: the child separates without hesitation, quickly establishes

relationships with the teacher, but slower and in a more selective with the children

(attitudes of expectation are met more frequently than active investigation)

• Intermittent tensioned adjustment: characterized by anxiety, alternant mood,

insecurity and also curiosity towards the environment and a tacit detainment of the

person accompanying them

• Continuous tensioned adjustment characterized by: anxiety, verbal insistence,

establishment of some very reduces relationships with the teacher and the other

children, evident abandonment behaviour

• Difficult adjustment: the child’s refusal to separate from the person who

accompanies them, quasi-total refuse of establishing verbal relationships

(inhibition), blockage of the curiosity and investigation, tensioned and reserved

mood

• Radical attitude of maladjustment with an active, sometimes violent refuse of the

child to separate from the person who accompanies them, negativism, and

repugnant and even aggressive behaviour sometimes.

The adjustment process is relatively difficult and complex, with particularities which

express the age, temper and previous experience, but the adjustment to the kindergartenenvironment offers a great socialization potential to the child. Most of the children pass this

difficult obstacle especially if the teacher understands the “small drama” which takes place

and also if the parents know how to ease this “obstacle” which the child is going through,

giving up an attitude that is too possessive with them, therefore creating the best

adjustment conditions.

The role of the teacher is essential, as the teacher is the main intermediary between the

preschooler and the new world: the educator is privileged by the child’s full attention and,

this way, he enters the first degree socialization area. Moreover, many interesting

phenomena of active transfer and affective identification are produced, meaning that the

preschoolers transfer all their love and attention towards the educator, which they also

identify with, as an effort to substitute the mother. A great part of the child’s life will run

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its course in the kindergarten and the further development of the child depends on the

harmony between the two educational environments represented by the parents and the

teacher

Magdalena Dumitrana synthesises the competences which the one who continues the

activity of modelling the preschooler’s personality must have:

• the educational body must be first of all a person who likes children. Certainly, not

only in declarations or sentimental effusions towards the children when the parents are

present, but they must like them daily – not the ideal children, but children as they are, with

their way of acting and understand things. The educator bears an important role in the ethic

development of the child and they must not judge in terms of “good child” “bad child”, but

coordinate their efforts with the parents to fight against bad attitudes, if they exist.

• The didactic body must be an adult model both for the child (which, instinctively

searches for a model to imitate), and also for their parents. The children watch the adults,

observe them and listen to what they say. Although the family continues to have the most

powerful influence on the child, during kindergarten parents must accept the fact that other

adults also become important to them and this does not mean that the child’s love for them

is diminished. The child expanded their socializing area, understood and accepted the

existence of other rules than the ones of the family and tries to adjust to them. It would be amistake for the parents, by feeling their authority gapped, to insist in imposing their

opinion against the teacher’s request not to, as they would only decrease her authority in

front of the child, thus creating confusion and tension. Both parents and the teacher

represent models for the child and these models shouldn’t be conflictive.

• the didactic body must have a profound theoretical and practical knowledge of the

child and childhood, using this science to promote the healthy development of the child, to

guide their effort towards their own growing up, to create a favourable environment to

supporting these efforts.

• another quality of the teacher is the positive attitude towards the family: she must

always see the child in the family context, to know the situation of the family and its

influence on the child. This does not signify any intrusion in the family life or critics

brought to one of the members of the child’s family, but her support, expressed through



words and actions, for their needs and their overcoming various obstacles which can occur

due to the physic and mental changes inherent to a normal development.

The practical consequences of these qualities, which, theoretically, any educator must stand

between two extremes: the severe or the kind teacher.

• The severe teacher starts form the following motto: “The children must listen, as they

are children”. And indeed she obtains obedience: the children are still, but their

personality doesn’t manifest. In exchange, the teacher’s personality fully manifests,

and the children are spectators, but they are not attentive, as the teacher inspires fear,

and fear is by its nature unattractive.

• The kind teacher starts from the following motto: “Leave them alone, they’re just

children”, so she leaves the children to behave as they want. As the children grow and

their personality is more and more outlined, the weak authority of the educator will

decrease until it becomes insignificant. The children do as they want, while the

disobedience and lack of self-control, now character traits, will push them towards

bigger and bigger mistakes.

The middle way between the two extremes is the best solution: neither the severity

which suffocates the personality nor the weakness will allow the child to grow

harmoniously.

Besides the role of the didactic frame in secondary socialization, the researches so far have

outlined the intensification of the preschooler child’s tendency to contact other children of

their age and the importance of the peer group, who, at a certain level, becomes

indispensable to the children for their social beginning. Studying a large number of

preschoolers led Şt. Năstăsescu-Cruceru to the conclusion that the frequency of friendship

contacts increases during this period, which results in the spontaneous manifestation of the

social integration tendencies. According to the same author, at this age there are three types

of interpersonal relationships: strictly personal (based on affinity or antipathy), work

relationships and appreciative interpersonal relationships.



The installation and consequence of such connections between children represent the most

meaningful aspect from the point of view of pre-education, as these connections leave their

fingerprints on the child’s success of social integration. Based on this, the preschooler

education must ensure all ways of facilitating the integration of the children in peer groups,

and develop their favourable conditions for building a relationship network with the other

children. Only within a group children are offered the opportunity to compare themselves,

evaluate their capacities and limits, to form their self-image more objectively, important

premises in their ulterior integration in new groups and in society in general.

Limited to the family circle during the first three years of life, the child’s world enlarges

step by step, including the characteristics of the new community in which they live. The

relationships formed during preschooler period, with human beings who do not belong totheir family circle, influence the process of outlining the image and self-conscience: the

positive appreciation of others leads to enriching the self. Some authors consider the

primary sense of the self as being mostly formed of attitudes, words and gestures of others,

which the child perceives and imitates and to which he answers: “the sense of the self is a

product of the behaviour of others towards them”. Because children do not fully hold the

sense of their ego and, especially because fantasy and reality merge and fiction dominates

the game life, they are influenced by every suggestion, meaning that the nature of therelationships with the others must correspond to their needs.

The self-image is still unclearly outlined, gradually forming through a self-other interaction

process, as a result out of which the children get to know what is expected from them. At

the beginning of the preschooler period, a clear tendency of over-appreciation can be

observed – in the absence of reference cases of comparison, the children project themselves

as implicit etalon, making a self-centred appreciation which leads to the expansion of their

self-image. In time, kindergarten offers the social space for comparison through the group

of equals and the common activities, thus reaching knowledge of self and the others,

decreasing the self-appreciation. The integration in this group completes the self-image and

the way they refer to the people surrounding them.



The group of equals is considered a secondary form of socialization as it offers the child

the possibility to manifest spontaneously and naturally: the children interact with the

others, giving birth to friendship feelings and some special emotional connections,

establishing social contacts more than with the adults. From this moment on, the children

separate slowly from the family, getting out of its protective shell in order to perform their

“novitiate” of life in society, by building their own reality.

Together with this group, the preschooler forms a small society, a climate, in which

attitudes and emotional experiences form, with very strong affective connections, sufficient

for realizing the affective balance of the child. Within this group, the affiliation and esteem

necessities are satisfied and the behavioural and affective growth develops. Research

showed that affective immaturity later leads to frustration and affective conflicts whichgenerate confusion.

Being connected to the children of the same age, the entire system of relationships with the

others is modifying. The role of these interactions is very big in regards with a new socio-

emotional climate, favourable to the development of some activities and, more importantly,

is reflected upon the children’s personality, leading either to some positive character traits

or to isolation. Although the relational dynamic, on which friendship and collegiality is based, is supported by an apparently paradoxical motivation, meaning that every child want

only their own affirmation and this generates individualist attitudes and not socialization –

explanation consists in the necessity which the preschooler feels towards the partners with

whom to compare and confront. Children are in the same positions in a group of equals, as

no child dominates, normally, in any aspect. Now everything happens on the principle “you

get what you deserve”, which offers the children the opportunity to learn how to interact

with the others in a cooperative context.

“The children must initiate also in other social relationships than the ones they establish

with their models (...); they must also know equal-to-equal relationships”

The group is organized from the children’s initiative, without the adult’s influence, with

partners being elected by accepting or rejecting them, based on criteria which have as



central element “popularity” or “unpopularity” gained in front of the others through their

personal traits. The lack of these positive appreciations and popularity strongly affects

self-appreciation and self-evaluation.

Collective group life ensures the child individualization through socialization, meaning

their own affirmation in the competition with others like them. A transfer of habits,

feelings, beliefs which represent the quintessence of the collective experience of each and

every one is made by interiorising the child-child attitudes, double, mobile and reversible

behaviours: to give/ to receive, to help/ to be helped.

II.2 Kindergarten Social Skills Activities

After the age of three, the preschooler institution offers the child situations for

learning and cooperating and possibilities of expressing the autonomy. Adapting to life in

the community is not happening by itself, but through activities through which the children

have to refer to one another as all the progressive activities of the children are mediated

through the relationship with one another. The educational objectives aim, substantially, at

the social development of the child, their adjustment and socialization. The pedagogy

specific to this age can only be based on what interests the child, what startle their curiosityand encourage their enthusiasm.

The main education method is game, as natural activity in perfect coherence with the

famous definition of childhood stated by E. Claparede: “childhood is for playing.”

E. Bonchis states that the game can be defined as a volunteer activity with no other purpose

than itself, characterised by four different aspects:

• The attitudes and motivations of the child: the child naturally plays for the pleasure

of playing. He manifests an intrinsic motivation which means they play the game as

the activity is pleasant and offers strengthening by itself, and not by obtaining a

certain thing. No adult can command a child to play as this activity depends only on

the children.



• The child is more interested, in general, in making things rather than in producing

something, thus differentiate work from playtime: work can consists in the same

activities as the game, but it doesn’t aim at pleasure necessarily, but at the results

that can be obtained from the activity.

• The game resembles the daily activities and they’re different from them as they are

not mandatorily related to reality. The child can, for example, play “fighting”, but

by smiling or laughing, they seem to communicate that this behaviour is not what it

seems

Many researchers, with different psychological approaches, were preoccupied with the role

and importance of this activity in the child’s development, thus elaborating several

explanatory theories:

• Psycho-analytical theory – Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, as representatives of

this orientation, outlined the social and emotional importance of the game, which

allows the child to confront with problematic situations, but at the same time to

control them. The purposes of the game would be a better knowledge of the world

through a more adequate control of the problems and fears. The context created by

the game offers the child increased power over the environment, the possibility to

explore and try “small experiments” which they cannot make in reality. Moreover,the game also offers the possibility to satisfy the desires which cannot be fulfilled in

reality, through fantasy, also as an opportunity for catharsis – feelings expressed

freely during the game as they cannot expressed otherwise.

• Behavioural theory – the behaviourist approach aims at the social habits necessary

to the future adult, which the child learns progressively during the game, both by

successive strengthening of the behaviours which resembles more and more with

the adult behaviour, and also by imitation or learning based on models. The game is

an activity during which the child can certainly try new behaviours and social roles.

• Cognitive theory – the game is the expression of the assimilation process during

which the child tries to understand the world around and change it, to correspond to

their own understanding and experience.



With his authority, Jean Piaget imposes the explanations of the game as an

assimilation process with double-function: on one hand, there is the assimilation

through functionality, and on the other hand, assimilation has a mental nature.

The preschooler’s mind gets structured through the appearance of judgement and reasoning

and it develops fundamental operations of thinking which allow the development of some

mental actions which lead to the diversification of practical behaviours. Schemes of mental

and practical action are elaborated during the game, which lead to personality development.

Cognitivism followers investigate the connection between the game evolution and the

reasoning development, identifying four major types of game:

• the functional game, correspondent to the sensorial-motor stage in which the game

is simple, the child being attracted to the shape, aspect and dimension of the toys

• the constructive and dramatic game in the pre-operational period

• games with roles for the operational period, representative for the increasing of the

social interactions and development of different skills.

The cognitive theory of the game claims that the development level of the child can be

deduced form the game activities: the game abilities of the child depend on their ability to

think and solve problems.

Although the theories of different authors related to the significance of the game for

children propose different points of view, all of them bring an interesting contribution

referring to this childhood activity. Basically, the game expresses, the physical and

cognitive development stage and their psycho-emotional competence and satisfies many

needs from the child’s life: the need for stimulation and entertainment, for expressing

exuberance, for experimenting change for the sake of change, for satisfying curiosity, for

experimenting the environment under free of risk conditions.

The methods of organising activities in kindergarten take into account the fact that the

preschooler must have their physical, social and intellectual needs satisfied. Preschooler

age represent a crucial point in the evolution and growing up of the child so that education



becomes an important condition for them, which is fulfilled by: creating an educational

adequate environment for a continuous stimulation of the spontaneous learning of the child

and by introducing the child in the cultural context of the social space to which they

belong, in order for them to develop an autonomous and self-aware personality.

During kindergarten, the instructive tasks harmoniously combine with the fun side,

resulting in learning by playing, by organizing activities created especially for this purpose.

The educational efficiency depends on the correspondence between the theme and subject

of the action and the mental development level, age and internal structure of the

personality. For this reason particularly, the activities organised in kindergarten for

children of 3 to 5 years are thought and developed from the perspective of orientation

towards socialization, while the activities organised for children of 5-7 years aims at preparing for school, both activities having the common target of preparing the child for

the future social life.

The main education methods are: game, as free or guided game, the leisure and common

activities with the entire group or just small children group, in which the essential is to

create a stimulating and interesting environment for the child.

The activities have a specific structure including the didactic task – problem which should

be solved within the game, thus assimilating certain knowledge or habits – and rules and

elements of the game, all in accordance with the need for creation and personal expression.

Preschooler education targets three essential aspects: physical intellectual, and social

development, realized especially through the education of the senses, imagination and

character.

The sensorial education stands on the principle according to which children must have all

their sense practiced, taking into account the fact that their thinking has a global character,

unable to differentiate too much as the representation of the world is just starting to outline

itself. Touching and feeling the concrete objects and “lessons based on stuff” gets the

child closer to the physical world, connecting them and teaching them more things on their



body, senses and surrounding things, teaching them to control these sensorial activities. For

this kind of education the child is situated in real situations, characteristic to games of

perspicacity which include any skills the child is motivated to learn, using sensorial

exercises (which imply memory, judgement and fantasy), games of exploring everything

surrounding them and, on the run, their result is materializing in assimilating, consolidating

and developing the appropriate skills for walking, throwing and catching, coordinating

moves and even training for creative activity.

Not all children acquire or equally develop these skills: every child has an unique

development rhythm and its own aptitudes, which will later manifest in one area or another.

A frequent mistake is comparing the child to other children: this comparison won’t

stimulate the child to acquire certain ability, in any way, but, on the contrary willdiscourage and make him lose self-trust, and this feeling of failure will expand in all

performance areas. At this age, the child is very much concerned with what his body can do

and “negative encouragement” is the less fortunate idea the teacher could have.

Physical development also implies mobility: the children will have their movement need

satisfied through varied activities – outdoor games, activities specific to sport or dance.

The movement game is strongly connected to childhood dynamism and is practiced with pleasure at any age. Dancing, which combines the preschooler’s physical, auditory and

visual activities, is one of the most complete and happiest ways of expressing personality,

especially if the fact that the group feeling appears at this age is taken into account. The

teacher will use the resources of these activities consciously, exclusively in the benefit of

the children, to help them know and control their own body, to discover and practice

certain physical aptitudes, thus enlarging the behavioural sphere.

The physical development implies and ensures opportunities to develop fine muscles, as a

preparation of the future stages, when the child will be initiated in writing and reading.

Drawing and graphics are ways of expression preferred by the child, but at the same time

useful for the didactic body, in the way that the progresses of the child in drawing closely

correspond to those performed by their thinking.



According to M. Debesse intellectual development should be stimulated first of all by

educating the imagination, essentially as imagination represents, by excellence, the human

quality which separates human from animal, more than intelligence does so. The children’s

fantasy has no boundaries: they like extraordinary histories, mingle reality with fiction,

invent and are thrilled of what they’re inventing. In their eyes, wonders become possible in

a minute, simple things open in their soul ecstasy movements so that the frustration of this

activity signifies giving up the improvement of the possibilities it offers. The artistic

activities, the imaginative game presents multiple intellectual and creative values: it

”unchains” the children’s imagination and help them earn specific skills. The imaginative

game (symbolic) offers the opportunity to practice and understand the differences between

the real and the imaginary, as it gives the child the full possibility to internally representand manipulate objects through fantasy.

One of the few variables which predict later creativity is the presence of the imaginary

game partner (with names and personality traits well established), a constant friend of the

majority of the preschooler children.

The reciprocity relationship between the game and the cognitive development is supported

by the activities and games which satisfy the need of the children to express ideas in words.Assimilation of language is made only in society obviously as the preschooler cannot and

must not be held away from the cultural environment which they belong to, which cannot

be conceived outside language. Thus, the task of organising the children’s language

experiences belongs to the kindergarten, as the road to the world of language is an absolute

right of their development phase.

Usually, the children understand (“receptive language”) more than they can express

(expressive language): this is the reason why, most often, they try to say what they know

by using elements from their experience, which is limited at this age. Moreover, the main

characteristic of the age – egocentrism – makes everything for children to refer to their own

being, what they feel, what they know and what they think, not being able to express facts

as they are.



Language will be approached in an integrated vision, simultaneously targeting its two

important aspects: receptive and expressive, and specific activities for educating language

will be used for this such as didactic games and games with pictures. Situations for learning

use the proper articulation of words and stimulation of the linguistic productivity in

didactic games and lessons using images.

Didactic game is an activity which action is built in learning purposes: the general

evolution line of the children is taken into account, thus complicating the rules and

complexity of the problems and the requests from children in general. In these types of

activities, the accent is laid on using knowledge in varied contexts, on solving problems

and on getting the habit to assimilate order in judgement, which can influence children on asocial and behavioural plan. Didactic games are games created especially by the adult so

as to “learn through playing”; in this way the accent is laid on the instruction process ran

under the direct supervision of the adult.

Learning through images bears an important role for the preschooler as it requires

perceptive-verbal communication, as a component of the culturalisation process. Learning

through images stimulates the verbal skills and comprises a series of extra-verbal aspects(perception, thinking, imagination and affective unblocking). The way of organising the

activities develops the capacity to bond a narration, logically and verbally and enriches the

content of the experience with new elements. If in the case of the young preschooler the

projective functions are expressed in a simplified manner, as the adults act upon them

through activities meant to develop their language, they will be able to make progress with

the logic narration later on, and during their last period of kindergarten they will be able to

understand the causal mechanism and to confer significance to images, thus increasing the

efficiency of language development and stimulating the cognitive processes.

The children’s incursion in the surrounding world, with objects, beings and different

phenomena, has a well-defined purpose: the acquisition that they make in the context of

language aim at developing their prediction abilities and form their capacity to freely



argument their opinions on the approached aspects. Language and exercising intellectual

operation offers autonomy to the preschooler and the possibility to easily move in the

environment, to experiment events and phenomena which, later on, will bear significance

in one knowledge area or another. Mathematic activities and also activities for knowing

the environment, made through didactic guided games, facilitate the child the

intermediation with the world of science, through intellectual operations, initiating them in

knowing the physical world, the social environment, mathematics, oral communication and

language.

Didactic games aim at moral and civic behaviour aspects and knowledge of the social

environment and at the balanced development of the children’s personality. At this

moment, the education must rely first on the expressed individuality. Each child is anunique being: has specific behaviours, own reactions and the adult teacher has the duty to

respect this individuality. As children grow, it becomes more and more clear how they

develop and get structured as unique individuals: they become more and more independent,

they have their own knowledge baggage, values and beliefs (which evolve and they express

them in a way it belongs to them).

The children’s conception of themselves (they way they evaluate and value themselves) isessential to this road of personality development, conception which has a strong affective

component so that the education must target their emotion and feelings. It is very important

for children to be allowed to freely express both their positive and negative feelings and

their interior tensions, in any situation, instead of being obliged to repress them, in order to

develop into a healthy person.

In kindergarten, this task is eased by the group of children: although at the beginning, there

is the risk of some numerous conflicts due to the egocentric tendency characteristic to this

age, on the run, because of the more and more diversified activities and the stimulation of

the social competencies, the children will learn how to respect other’s feelings and opinions

and how to discover new opportunities for cooperation. The collective game contributes to

the shaping of the incipient personality traits, by establishing game relationships, thus



developing sociability, honesty, courage, organisational spirit and discipline. Exercise

plays an important role to the guided development of these traits, especially when there is a

positive motivation: the child’s wish to become more hard-working and disciplined.

Exercising through activities, which require collaboration, discipline and courage, leads to

the formation of habits, as premises of the ulterior development of positive character traits.

The most powerful “instrument” used by the adult teacher is their own behaviour: children

unconsciously imitate what they see and hear around them, so that, if asked to respect the

feeling of others, they will always watch the adult if they respect these rights and feelings

or not (including those of the child).

The child must permanently look at a positive model, who can understand the unpredictedinfantile mood change (their affections are now exclusivists and passionate) and who can

satisfy their increased sensibility needs. The child who feels rejected risks to develop

character disorder later and their moral education will be hard to realize. The lack of

appreciation and the “preach” like attitude, which involves excessive moralization (the

child does not have the psycho-intellectual maturity to understand it), determine an identity

created by the adult: by constantly reproaching their failures, the child will pick up the

affective negative tone, and if things repeat themselves, they will end up in assimilating the bad child behaviour.

In this process of behavioural traits development, the role playing game has a considerable

influence as it offers the children the possibility to project themselves in other personalities,

to experiment different roles, ideas and feelings.

“Roles represent a happy deviation of the ego effervescence” being bond to the mechanism

of affective identification with persons whose image seems to have a special and durable

prestige: the role represents the model which the child selects to reproduce. The game’s

evolution regarding the role suffers qualitative and quantitative transformations during

preschooler period: as the children develop, so does the number of roles within the game,



passive and secondary roles enrich to become more interesting and the children’s stability

increases in maintaining the role.

These games allow the teacher to know the behavioural attitudes of the children by the way

they choose a certain character, by the attitudes and feeling they attribute to it and, at the

same time, to interfere when they notice susceptible difficulties which could affect the

behaviour.

As what concerns the moral education, the entire surrounding environment represents the

moralizing agent. Although kindergarten is a period for the individuality’s expansion, the

children do not yet reach the level of moral conscience and the recommendations which

shape their behaviour and lead to the development of an ensemble of moral ideas, as primary figure of the social morality. The children acquire an important dimension of the

ethic behaviour: they separate what is good from what is evil, but this dimension is

obtained only from the attitude of their entourage. The children manifest as they know, not

being able yet to judge their own behaviour and to know what is allowed and what is not.

What they must become in order to efficiently refer to the situations which they will

confront, depends on the way they acquire moral habits. With the help of the adult, they

will know and understand the signification of good and evil so that, acknowledging theseregulations by which their actions are organised and correlated one with the other, and

complying with the interdictions they receive, they will start to obey more and more

consciously. Some normative parameters of behavioural organisation will appear and

develop by interiorizing moral requests.

The personal example of the adult teacher, conversations on moral themes with the outline

of the correct points of view, familiarising the children with moral values, shaping beliefs

and civilised behaviour habits represent methods of moral education rather than just verbal

moralizing indications and formulating some requests which are not always consistent. If

the parents failed in forming moral values, clearing them up represents the first step to the

child’s education, followed by their transformation in practical habits by constantly

practising them. The collective game develops moral feelings and behaviour: feelings and



moral attitudes towards other children, people and certain tasks develop in concrete

activities and in the process of establishing socio-moral relationships with the others.

Although these habits develop in a prolonged time, the assimilation process is often

rectilinear, with failures, comebacks and sinuosity, the patience and perseverance of the

teacher transforming success from desire into reality.

The tasks regarding the personality development of the child are successfully accomplished

when the entire atmosphere of the kindergarten positively influence them and give them the

strength necessary to their fulfilment. By adapting the activities to the child’s level, the

child switches from game to work.

Education in kindergarten represents a complex approach from the socio-emotional,cognitive, esthetical and psycho-motor points of view, with an accent on the formative

elements, so that the child is able to assimilate the humanist values generally accepted. The

didactic activities and the game are components with formative values which structure the

development directions of the child’s personality, who is offered the chance to optimally

integrate, translated by the possibility to solve tasks which require effort, will, cooperation,

perseverance respecting interests and work of the others, forming positive attitudes towards

work and educating moral and esthetical feelings.

Chapter III

Research on how the sociability of the preschoolers varies over time

We live in a world which puts to the test our capacity to face some social affective impacts,

to manifest behavioural reactions which don’t let us forget the way others perceive us, the



degree in which we could affect them through our decisions. The rapidity and quality of the

decision depend on the education received and on the capacity to relate to others, to be

aware of one’s possibilities, to be able to mobilize in order to overcome a failure, to be able

to accept other’s opinions and the power to be a good person.

All these depend on the socializing degree of each and every one of us. Socialization

represents the evolving process of human individuality as social being and integration of

the child in society. The necessity to transmit means of language communication and

knowledge comes from the fact that the child is a potentially social being, who comes into

life without any cultural experience: they do not posses language, do not have control over

their impulses and have no habits or skills developed.

This is why everything transmitted during the socialization process - social values, habits,

progressive traditions, ideals, attitudes, feelings, behaviours which exist in a human

community - is interiorized by the child, allowing them to internalize a cultural model

which will project itself in open visible behaviours (language, moral behaviour,

demeanour) and also in less visible ones (attitudes, emotional states, opinions).

Children will acquire life rules, habits, ways of thinking, spatial-temporal frames, idealscomplying with the environment where they grow up, capacity to communicate and

interact, competence of filling roles required by society (child, friend and scholar) and also

to become aware of duties and responsibilities. During this entire process of transmitting

and assimilating, the child is not an object on which action is taken upon, because society

acknowledges their active role in it and the veritable universe of childhood as a distinct

phase of life and grants the child a particular social status and specific roles.

Social integration demands that all educational activities account for the child as “social

being”, so that all socializing factors (kindergarten, school) must have the same task of

continuing the socialization process started within the family, and their formative value

must try to be equivalent with the one of the family. It is very true that family, with its

warm and full of affection environment contributes first and decisively to the physical and



mental development of the child, but the human personality is shaped warmly and

humanly, scientifically and methodically during kindergarten. The preparation for entering

the adult life, already realized by the family, will be continued during kindergarten by this

institution. This is now the context in which the child will have to make their first try to

love somebody else than themselves.

The influence of this socializing agent is extremely important as during kindergarten there

is a surprising growth of the physical and mental skills of the child, there is the balance

with the surrounding environment for a proper adjustment. All the events of this period:

more complex relationships with the environment, direct contacts (not mediated by the

parents as before) with their peers, the children’s experiments so as to learn the

surrounding world, their increasing desire to know as many things as possible, the variationof the behavioural repertoire are lived by the children with the serenity, exuberance and joy

of this age, the intense development of which will never be equalled during the following

periods. Thus, this stage is rightfully called “the golden age of childhood” in which “a

human personality takes shape and succeeds to express itself, a soul opens to the world”.

The social environment acts upon the individual so as to shape its personality through

educational components: initially the family, then kindergarten, which continues andenriches the educational content. Taking into account the fact that kindergarten comprises

the most important socio-educational experience from a person’s life and the formative

potential of this age can be successfully enhanced in the educational process during

kindergarten.

The rules regarding game and education must shape the idea of community. The society’s

requests have adjusted the relationships between humans in such a way that they appeared

as an absolute and implicit truth. The child assimilates new strengths by association, their

mental development being impregnated with the conditions of community life, as all their

skills develop on a foundation which bears the influence of social life.

Socialization in kindergarten has a different content from the one in the family (although

kindergarten does not diminish the importance of the education received so far): there is a



change from the direct child-parent interaction to the child’s integration in human and

social relationships. It is an adaptive or integrative socialization, leading to the

development of some personal skills which facilitate social integration.

The integration, as a result of the child’s interaction with the kindergarten environment, is

made in three stages:

- accommodation: the action schemes and ways of thinking acquired so far are

changing in contact with the kindergarten environment;

- adjustment: the established complex relationships help the child to assimilate the

necessary knowledge and skills to solve situations imposed by this environment

- participation is equivalent to assuming roles and promoting personal initiatives.

Integration in kindergarten means the child having a new statute, which they haven’t had before and which brings about an ensemble of rights and duties to respect

To this purpose, the role of the preschooler education in children lays its

importance especially on the fundamental expression of human nature, and kindergarten, as

the first stage of education, is actively involved in this social development of the child.

Thus, social integration becomes a finality of education, as a result of which the child will

socially adapt better in spontaneous relationships, will acquire a good self-perception and a

sociable behaviour, actively participating to common activities, all these socio-activefactors being necessary to the ulterior integration.

The socialization in kindergarten includes enrichment of the cognitive contents,

affective moulding and large assimilation of human experience: language, knowledge and

behavioural norms, included in the socialization sphere. During kindergarten, social

learning represents the main mechanism responsible with the psycho-social development,

represented by modalities of interpersonal relationships of the child, by their capacities to

integrate in group activities, by strategies of referring to the norms and values accepted

within the group, by the motivation for the group activities and the desire to cooperate with

the others.

Social learning represents another form of activity, together with didactic learning, which

contributes to the mental development of the child, offering the opportunity to assimilate



new experiences, behaviours, types of accommodation, adjustment and interpersonal

harmonisation. The investigations so far have drawn attention on the priority of

interpersonal relationships among the modalities of influencing the mental development of

the child. P.Osterrieth once asserted that “by relieving the baby from the human

environment, they become animals” and H.Pieron underlines the same idea: “the child is

nothing but a candidate to humanity”.

During kindergarten, social learning is realized as a result of the interpersonal contacts of

the child with the adults, but especially with their peers, in life situational contexts.

Subsequently, the child will acquire all the behaviours which will be necessary for the

ulterior integration, as the child is stimulated by a series of needs such as: the need of

acceptance and appreciation by the group, of integration and participation in the group, of sociability and communication. This system of needs cannot be satisfied other than by

social learning, direct observance of other’s behaviours and by imitating this behaviour.

Kindergarten must exploit this “opening of the entire being to society” and the child’s

desires to establish relationships with the others around, because, as H.Wallon asserts, „the

children mould themselves after their entourage” thus outlining the importance of

interpersonal relationships during the age of 3 to 6 years old for the ulterior evolution of the personality. All the relationships which are established in kindergarten pass from the

imitation phase to the cooperation phase, ending in the development of the sensibility

towards the others and capacity to over cross the boundaries of the self.

Thus, the context in which the socialization of the preschooler takes place is the social one,

which will facilitate the socialization of the behaviour and of the affective experiences

(affectivity is organized in the complexity form of feelings), especially under the

conditions in which the preschooler imitates someone else’s behaviour and transforms it in

their own behaviour.

The enlargement of the relational frame with the objects, the others and themselves, leads

to the discipline of the preschooler’s behaviours. When the child becomes aware of the



attitude “each one for the other” instead of “each on their own”, they will contact others

more frequently and develop relationships for longer periods of time.

At the beginning of kindergarten, the incapacity of the child to participate in correlation

with the others during games is obvious, because their subjective reality is much more

dilated as egocentrism still predominates. This way, the game is poor and the child does not

have the desire to play in group as they hardly understand the games which require

reciprocity, and the conflict appears from the children’s desire to play with the same

objects and another is seen as a threat.

During middle kindergarten, the child knows and applies the rules, but it is not yet the case

for social integration in the game, and although the games are beginning to have a sense of collective character and there is a switch from rivalry and loneliness to competition, as a

natural form of relationships, there is still the tendency to quasi-collaborate in activity

games, the motivation of the conflict being the desire to play the favourite part. .

During advanced kindergarten, we can speak about respecting the rules as an indicator of

intellectual and affective maturation of the children: the big preschooler is characterized by

more adjusted behaviours, making sure that others respect the group norms and the rules of the games, these leading to agreement and game project and conflict appearing as a result

of breaking the rules of the fame.

This evolution of objective sociability, materialized through the child’s interest for the

others with whom they can play, is due to the kind of preschool characteristic activities:

games and learning activities which, handled with psychological strategy by the teachers,

are the most efficient way to mould the socio-affectivity of the preschooler. The education

of the sociability is made by giving some social task and responsibilities to the children and

training them in collective games and activities which have as general objectives to

facilitate the exchanges and communications with the others, the shared game being the

first step of socialization.



Even if at the beginning the psychological connections between the children are

sporadically, generated by the presence of certain toys or similar activities which they

perform next to each other but not together, the rivalry that appears between them –

resulted from egocentrism – demonstrates the acknowledgement of each other’s presence,

although confused and dominated by self-awareness, specific to this age. After the age of

four, the competition gets motivational value: during amusement activities and especially

because of the symbolic game, the presence of the other starts representing an active

stimulant – the child feels the need for this presence, accepts certain rules, but expresses

the latent aggression through competition (the desire to overcome appears).

Starting with the age of 5, when the activities are organized based on rules, conventions

and norms to be met with, the other is perceived as equal activity partner, with its ownindividuality, their desires being taken into consideration: there is the collective game in

which each one plays their game whereas they take into account the desires of the others;

there form relationships of collaboration and, even if there are still some arguing,

exclusion, interruptions and self-exclusions from the activity, these are, generally, signs of

sociability as the social life multiplies conflict reasons. Still, there is the guarantee of an

authentic sociability as the children manage to solve the conflicts on their own, without

asking for the help of the adults.

Within the context of the game and mandatory activities, where interpersonal and group

relationships are the only way to relate, the first behavioural traits which will be condensed

in the child’s behaviour start to form. The requests expressed by the adult teacher must

comply with the manner in which the child can satisfy these requests: the contradiction

between the extended desires and aspirations of the child and the limited possibilities of

satisfying them could lead to either some positive or negative traits or a civilised or less

civilised behaviour. The educational activities from kindergarten, balanced with gradual

requests and which take into account the individual particularities of the children can

prevent the crisis of infantile negativism, associated with selfishness, lack of sensibility

towards the others and dysfunctional relationships with them, encouraging the development

of initiative, personal involvement and balance.



Socializing the behaviour and the evolution of sociability of the preschooler end with their

social adjustment, which refer to the general possibilities of children to overcome

difficulties and requests within social environment. Social adjustment can only be made by

successively win some concentric circles which increase progressively, as Alfred Adler

asserted: “intelligence developed in the core of understanding the others, meaning to get

close to your peers, to identify with them, to see through their eyes, to hear with their ears

and feel with their heart.

During kindergarten, the children’s socialization appears as a continuous process of

structuring, restructuring and incorporation of the behaviours and adult - child and child

-child socio-affective relationships. Only by effectively participating to the collectiveactivity, accepting norms will egocentrism be eliminated – understanding and accepting the

points of view of others and appreciating situations more and more objectively, so that the

preschooler develop the authentic psychological foundation of subordinating the individual

interest to the collective one.

When entering this environment, the child is a psycho-physiological individual so that the

kindergarten must offer the opportunity to live positive emotions and satisfaction generated by participating to common successes, to build a real environment where social attitudes

could manifest. During kindergarten, children pass from emotions to feelings, as stable

affective states, process facilitated by new situations in which the child is trained by the

different requests expressed by the adult and the occupational activities in which they are

involved. The group offers the opportunity to extend the spectrum of affective experiences

from family to the teacher and children with whom they make contact.

On the background of the new context and current relationships a multitude of affective

states appear: guilt (at the age of 3), pride (at the age of 4) and prestige (at the age of 6).

Although the preschooler’s affectivity is still pretty unstable, meaning that there are a lot of

affective explosions, quickly passing from crying to a state of joy, resulted from the

development of their intellectual capacities, the preschooler can induce some states while



they can delay others. During this entire process of development of the affection,

kindergarten has an important role as, at this age, the desire for identification is more

powerful, the child searching for close human patterns, and in this space the identification

enlarges due to social and cultural contacts (in stories and narrations), the content of the

activities allowing the extension of the search area for patterns.

The child interiorise the rules transmitted in this frame, their affectivity becoming more and

more controlled, leading to the apparition and development of intellectual and aesthetic

feelings, which submit to rules related to knowledge, observing the surrounding

environment, satisfying curiosity, the need to appreciate and adopt attitudes towards

activity and others around.

Also under the impact of life lived in community, which generates security, common

feelings of joy, enthusiasm, pride, states of guilt (resulted from breaking the rules) forms of

moral consciousness and self-image develop. J.Piaget analyzed the development of moral

schemes, paying special attention to the role of rules by anticipating the consequences of

either submitting them or not. The child succeeds in referring to the modalities of being of

the adult, interiorises rewards or punishments and becomes aware of breaking the rules

inside the collective, so that they will be capable of referring more and more adequately tonew and difficult situations, to answer efficiently to the social exigencies and to adapt to

communitarian life.

Research has shed light upon the presence of an interesting syndrome: the bitter candy

syndrome, as an affective state of shame which arises from an unworthy reward, the joy of

the reward being accompanied by uneasiness, syndrome which outlines the socialization of

the affective processes, the existence of some critical attitudes towards the self behaviour.

One of the ways to develop the moral consciousness of the preschooler, the primitive

moral consciousness, controlled by feelings and not ration, by value systems borrowed

from the adults and not personal or collective values, is by developing feelings of love, of

attachment to adults, development which implicitly leads to accepting all their requests. As



adhesion to moral norms is thus much more emotional than rational, the preschooler does

not yet dispose of the capacity to generalise social-moral deeds between people, the moral

appreciations and behaviours will be assimilated from the teacher during kindergarten,

which will lead to the development of some normative indicators of organising the

behaviour and to the appearance of some appreciation criteria of the “other” and self-

appreciation.

“Children are great sensorial organs, which unconsciously absorb not only what there is

under the physical aspect around them but also the emotional climate, the character and

feelings of the persons around them”

The apparition of children’s moral consciousness is linked tightly to their self-image

developed so far by taking it over from the parents, so that it includes their attitudes,exigencies, interdictions and expectations. The interiorized parental images offer them

security, increase their independence and trust in themselves and the others (by

interiorizing the value judgements formulated by their parents at their address). Preschooler

starts to realize what others are expecting from them and due to some beginnings of

reciprocity which allow them to understand the points of view of the others (overcoming

egocentrism), but the process of building their self image is just beginning. During this

period there are two important aspects which increase individuality: the extension of theself, aspect related to the development of the security sense, which accompanies the

competition spirit, due to the extension of their knowledge sphere and their self image,

which materialises in children by knowing what the adults are expecting from them and try

to compare these expectation with what they can offer.

Therefore, the child lives new experiences in relationship with the others, experiences to

which they must adapt and act not only according to their desire but also those of the

others. In kindergarten, the child will learn how to cooperate, to comply with the group’s

rules and act accordingly. These sort of inter-relational behaviours bear the significance of

children’s socialization and the potential of their personality, which is in continuous

development and expansion. In order to integrate and efficiently cooperate with the ones



around, the child must reach a certain level of socialization, which pre-supposes a modality

of perception and consideration of the qualities of the others.

Socialization is much more advanced when self identification and self image are correct,

when it is made by referring to the others and, while in a relationship with them, it is

motivated for the activities performed and for a clear, concise communication, without

tensions and with a certain affective charge. Thus, a series of personality traits are formed

and developed, which will be found in the child’s behaviour: sensibility, initiative,

selfishness and altruism and the parental models and their styles and behaviours are ways

of children to refer to themselves and the others, to understand their place within the family

of group.

III.1 Methods and techniques

We suppose there is a sensitive increase from one year to another of the children’s

sensitivity under the influence of the activities performed in kindergarten.

In the case of preschool child, this hypothesis aims at the relationship between sociability

and age under the influence of the activities performed in kindergarten. This can lead to

certain problems of methodology as an evolution of the sociability can be produced evenwithout the intervention of the activities within kindergarten. And this is normal as long as

preschoolers who don’t go to kindergarten don’t live in isolation. They enter into contact

with adults and other children, thus developing sociability. This is why, in this context, it is

important to establish the contribution that kindergarten makes to the sociability

development, supposing the specific of the activities in kindergarten and the way they are

projected contributes to the sociability development more than the social environment of a

child that doesn’t go to kindergarten, environment which, in most cases, lacks a scheduled

and organized stimulation of their sociability. Subsequently, there is the need to also check

if the fact that preschoolers are involved in different types of activities specific to

kindergarten leads to significant changes on the degree and forms of sociability in

comparison to the preschoolers which don’t go to kindergarten.



We suppose there are differences between girls and boys regarding the manifestation forms

of sociability.

Many of the social phenomena manifest differently for the representatives of the two

genders. Under these conditions, it is normal to ask ourselves if there are differences

between boys and girls regarding the degree manifestation forms of sociability, even for the

preschoolers. We are interested in checking through this hypothesis if the tendency of the

girls to mature faster is manifested at the age of pre-school. We still suppose that if the

significant differences between boys and girls exist, they manifest mostly within groups of

middle and big preschoolers.

The activities within kindergarten are different because of their degree of contributing tosociability.

The activities performed in kindergarten are classified in two big categories: (1) activities

for intellectual education and (2) activities for moral education. The activities in the first

category are oriented towards a series of cognitive objects which aim at preschoolers to:

• Acquire knowledge;

• To form mental operations or intellectual procedures which can help them

to process, operate and interpret the gathered information;

• To form the capacity to know, observe, think, pay attention, memorise and

imagine.

Unlike the activities in the first category, the activities in the second are conceived

to reach some affective, moral and psycho-social objectives. These aim at preschoolers to:

• Know the commandments of social morality in order to adjust to the right behaviour;

• Form beliefs, moral feelings and behaviour oriented towards certain

principles and moral norms;



• To form their affective beliefs: the perception of emotional experiences, of

the altruist feelings of others towards them and vice-versa.

Chapter IV

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The objective of this paperwork was to outline the way in which the sociability of

preschooler child varies in time and is influenced by the activities performed during

kindergarten, using methods and techniques selected in compliance with the psycho-

physiological particularities of the small, medium and big preschooler’s age. Concluding

on the experimental research we could assert that the methodology which was based on

methods and techniques of processing the complementary data, allowed obtaining the

following information on:

• The contribution which kindergarten has on the development of sociability

due to the specific of the activities projected for this age;

• The different manifestation of sociability for the two genders

• The contribution each type of activity in kindergarten has on the

development of some aspects from the child’s personality.

The fact that kindergarten influences the preschooler’s mental development, through its

action exerted on them, was confirmed. A series of particular considerations resulted from

the research data collected, referring to the degree and forms of manifestation of the

sociability for each age group, so that we recommend drafting a schedule of activities

which should be varied, flexible and permanently adapted to the requests of the

preschoolers. The idea of flexibility and variety of activities which focus on the

development of the children, results also from the practical particularities of working with

preschoolers, being necessary to attentively schedule and organize the activities in

kindergarten to draw the preschoolers’ attention and get them involved. At the same time,

the teacher must train every child in the educational process, to involve them in the task



and, if the case, redirect their negative behaviours towards positive behaviours, so that they

develop personality traits necessary to their ulterior involvement in a collective system.

We consider that it is adequate to perform chosen activities, guided by moral, affective and

psycho-social objectives, resulting in important benefits in the personal and relational

sphere, with effects in the development and optimisation of the children’s behaviour. The

chosen activities offer the preschooler the possibility to experiment feelings along with the

others, to discover themselves and the others, the joy of being together with the others, in

the advantage of harmonious and positive interrelations.

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THE INFLUENCE OF KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES ON THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD’S SOCIAL SKILLS

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THE INFLUENCE OF KINDERGARTEN ACTIVITIES ON THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD’S SOCIAL SKILLS