- Shows wide range of emotions:  Expresses anger verbally rather than physically most of the time.

- Social skills: comforting friends, accepting friends ideas, getting along with others, complementing friends, saying nice things to playmates

- Greater sense of independence
- Plays "Mom" or "Dad" in fantasy play
-  Can distinguish between fantasy and reality
- Enjoy dressing and undressing themselves
- Are aware that they are whole people with minds, bodies, and feelings
- Are aware that they can get hurt and therefore are extra conscious or sensitive of their bodies

 

These stages include developing social role in each stage. Initiative vs guilt stage occurs during the ages 3-5 years old. Preschoolers must learn to engage in their surroundings – including people outside the family- or experience guilt having failed to meet the expectations of parents and others. Erikson’s theory also stresses the importance of adults in understanding and meeting children’s needs in each stage. This affects how the child feels about themselves and interacts with others.

- Lawrence Kohlberg was an American Psychologist 

- His theory was influenced by Jean Piaget’s ideas of moral development

Kohlberg proposed that the development of moral reasoning is characterized by a sequence of six stages clustered into 3 levels of morality: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. In regard to 4-year-olds, they fall under the first stage.

1)Preconventional morality 

-Ages this theory falls under is approximately 3-7 years of age (preschool), but you can also see it in elementary school students and even older (middle and high school). Nevertheless, Kohlberg proposed that a child in this stage has not yet adopted and internalized society’s conventions regarding what is right and wrong. Thus, the child makes decisions based on what is best for oneself, without regarding others needs or feelings. 

 
Stage 1: punishment, avoidance, and obedience

-A child sees rules and fixed and absolute and must be obeyed to avoid punishment.

Example: “A child taking a toy home, as long as he doesn’t get caught”

 Stage 2: Exchange of favors

-A child sees that the right behaviors are those that are in the best interest of oneself,

Example: “What’s in it for me?”

 

Mesosystem: Interconnect relations of the microsystem (Examples: A child’s Birthday or a parent/teacher conference)

Exosystem: indirect influences on a child's development (Examples: extended families, friends of friends, mass medias,etc..)

Macrosystem: Regional differences, ideologies, customs, cultures.

Chronosystem: Socio-historical events/conditions. Life changing effects on an individual due to a certain time period or events that have occured. Depends on the individual. (Examples: natural disasters, 9/11 for some people)

Urie Bronfenbrenner created his Ecological Theory of child's development consisting of five levels. All levels of which directly or indirectly affect a child's physical and mental development. Bronfenbrenner's theory is not entirely dependent on the age of children unlike other theorist we included. It is a continuous theory that cycles and interacts with people's everyday lives from birth to reaching adulthood, and throughout their senior citizenship.  Though the first three levels of his theory are more prominent for four year olds.