Early Childhood Social and Emotional Development of Field Measurement (Article Critique Sample)

Childhood Development Article Summary
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Institution
Darling-Churchill, K., & Lippman, L. (2016). Early childhood social and emotional development: Advancing the field of measurement. Journal Of Applied Developmental Psychology, 45, 1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2016.02.002
This article analyzes how socioemotional development affects a child's well-being and functioning and how the different social and emotional development tenets can be accurately measured. The authors introduce different subdomains of socioemotional developments, including managing and expressing emotions, self-control, self-confidence, taking perspectives, developing, managing, and supporting relationships, empathy, and inhibitory control (Darling-Churchill & Lippman, 2016). Notably, the article states that socioemotional development is crucial for a child's success in academics, relationships, and even adulthood. The authors agree with other researchers that children require positive social and emotional environments while growing up. It determines their overall well-being and how they deal with issues as children and, importantly, adults. Using different expert commentaries, this article concludes that each subdomain of social and emotional development should be measured within their constructs and matched with different child backgrounds through psychometry to measure the development reliably.
Notably, a psychological theory that applies to socio-emotional development and its measurement, as discussed in this article, is the personality theory which seeks to determine how people develop personalities (Thompson & Virmani, 2012). According to this theory, most personalities are influenced by the environment. This points to how children are raised, including their social and emotional development. For instance, as the article suggests, negative social and emotional settings such as child abuse or neglect affect a child's confidence, emotional control, and developing and maintaining new relationships (Zarra-Nezhad, etal, 2020). Such children develop poor personalities with low self-esteem, uncontrollable tempers, and poor relationships. All these affect their childhood and persist to childhood as they become their personalities. This may explain why one identical twin may be shy while the other is outgoing, depending on the socioemotional environment they were exposed to while growing.
I think this article brings attention to critical issues in measuring child development especially socioemotional development, which is mainly ignored. Many studies focus on physical and cognitive development when determining child well-being and success in academics and other life aspects. However, this article demonstrates that social-emotional development is as important as the other areas of a child's well-being because emotional and social problems such as inability to express or manage emotions, low self-confidence, temper, and poor relationships affect a child's well-being. For instance, a child who cannot express or manage emotions due to exposure to a hostile emotional environment is likely to get into fights with peers, teachers, and even parents affecting their academics and quality of life (Thompson & Virmani, 2012). Similarly, children with low self-esteem are likely to engage in destructive behaviors such as drug abuse and even suicide. By offering solutions and alternatives to measuring socio-emotional development, the article puts across that all aspects of child development are essential for a child's well-being.
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