Social and play skills are important developmental tasks for young children. Typically developing children learn appropriate social skills quite naturally and without specific intervention while interacting with other children in playful environments. Young children with disabilities, however, usually need social skills interventions, and these…

Noting that even one caring adult can help make a child more capable of handling later stressors, this paper lists some strategies for building a sense of specialness in young children in group care contexts. Also presented are ways to enhance optimism and combat attitudes of helplessness and pessimism among children. The paper outlines a pattern…

Overviews the nature of self-esteem and describes various dimensions of self-esteem, including gaining a sense of competency and experiencing acceptance by others. Strategies for camps include establishing goals for camper achievement, creating developmentally appropriate camp activities, and training staff with the necessary skills for enhancing…

Stresses the importance of communicating to parents how camping meets the developmental needs of youth through encouraging positive social interaction with adults and peers, providing a structured environment, promoting physical activity, encouraging creativity, empowering campers to achieve success, providing meaningful participation in the camp…

During the first months after birth, a child's functions begin to emerge. By age three a child is expected to have mastered the basic tasks of (1) good vegetative functioning (management of drives and impulses involved in eating and elimination), (2) perceptual organization and familiarization with the home environment and skills to orient to a…

Six articles focus upon social studies as an essential subject in early childhood education. All articles take an interactionary approach; that is, they view children as acting upon and being acted upon by their environment. "Young Children Growing through Action" presents a developmental approach centered around four themes: (1) growth through…