Outside Influence with Significant Impact on Middle Childhood Development

Middle Childhood Influences Essay
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Introduction to Selected Influence and Rationale
Middle childhood brings tremendous changes to a child's life. At this developmental stage, a child can feed and dress themselves, tie their shoes, and catch a ball easily using solely their hands. One important goal of a child in this developmental phase is achieving independence from parents or family members. By this time, a child starts school and thus gets into regular contact with the larger world (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). In this context, the social world, especially their school friends' attitudes and behaviors, is an important outside influence that impacts children's middle childhood development. I chose the influences of school peers' behaviors and attitudes because children's behavior patterns, including temperamental attributes, significantly influence peer perception in crucial ways and could help identify the social processes and individuals that operate within peer influence (Martin & Lease, 2022). In addition, I chose this influence because friendships are an important construct that the child achieves in middle childhood. Physical, mental, and social skills quickly develop during this developmental phase (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Therefore, children must learn to interact effectively with their peers, which could help develop confidence in other life areas, including schoolwork and sports.
Research Article 1 Summary
Martin and Lease's (2022) article indicates that the multifaceted social environment of friends' influences requires that a child learns to embrace the shifting array of individual discrepancies in expectations, perspectives, as well as behaviors. The current study investigated children's temperamental profiles as evaluated by teachers and parents as meaningfully associated with how children influence one another within the elementary school. The purpose was to refine previous studies' arguments on the influence of school colleagues' social world on children's development during middle childhood. The researchers employed an experimental quantitative approach to investigate the research question and achieve the study's purpose. The participants included children attending elementary schools in rural as well as semi-rural counties. The authors obtained approval from the school district superintendent, after which the school staff and principals were contacted. A university Institutional Review Board approved all the procedures encompassing the research methodology. Results established temperamental profiles were meaningfully and substantially linked to peer social status and influence perceptions. In addition, the two groups of schools' demographic differences mediated the impact of temperature profiles on peer influence. It was established that the learning institution's social milieu substantially impacted the social influence demonstrated by the most prominent clusters of peers (Martin & Lease, 2022).
Research Article 2 Summary
The art...