Social Development in Young Children: A Study of Beginnings

The companion volume to Intellectual Growth in Young Children, dedicated to Joan Riviere. Susan Isaacs draws on her records of thirty-one children at the Malting House School over three and a quarter years, and on more than four hundred letters from mothers and nurses, to describe the beginnings of children's social life. Part I gives the psychological data. The records are arranged under social relations, as love and hate in action, and under the deeper sources of love and hate. The first heading covers egocentric attitudes, individual and group hostility, and friendliness and co-operation. The second covers sexuality, guilt and shame, and the record of a single child. A chapter then sets out the theory of development. Drawing on Melanie Klein's child analysis, Isaacs treats other children as first of all rivals for the love of adults, reads much hostility as projected guilt, and looks to the family rather than the herd to understand social life. She finds guilt arising whatever the upbringing: harsh treatment intensifies it and milder methods lessen its hold. Part II takes up the educational problem. It holds that education and psychoanalysis are distinct processes, and discusses the problems and crises of early social development, arguing that the young child does not learn best by corporal punishment.