North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Emotional and Social Development (ESD)

Subdomain: Learning About Feelings

Goal: Children identify, manage, and express their feelings.

Skill Progression: Self-control

Age: 54-60 Months

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Judges right and wrong by what gets punished, refrains from actions that get punished

Situations for Observation of Skill

Read a book about characters who do wrong things and discuss their actions.

Elicitation Strategy

Ask the child how she knows what the characters did was wrong. Ask, “Did kids who got punished always do something wrong?”

Behavior Observed

The child describes the behavior as wrong when it is punished. She may also begin to understand that intentionality is part of wrong-doing.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Help early childhood educators and parents understand that talking to the child about why things are right or wrong is important. Otherwise children may lose the deeper meaning and just avoid bad behaviors to avoid punishment.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.