For children 7-11 years old, a decrease in the egocentric and an increase in the sociocentric orientation of the personality is characteristic. From 6-7 years old the child goes to school. The social position of the student imposes on him a sense of responsibility, duty, obligation, and this contributes to a more active development of the moral aspects of the individual.
The sociocentric orientation of the personality, the increased sense of responsibility are also manifested in a noticeable predominance of the fear of the death of parents in relation to the «egocentric» fear of the death of oneself. The fears of attack, fire and war associated with the fear of death continue to be expressed, as in the older preschool age.
By the time children enter school, there is a decrease in fears, which is precisely due to the new social position of the student, which reduces both the egocentric orientation of the personality and instinctively mediated forms of fear. However, this does not mean that we can finally «bury» all fears, and in particular the fear of death. It transforms into the fear of the death of parents, and in adolescence — into the fear of war.
If in preschool age fears predominate due to the instinct of self-preservation, then in adolescence social fears prevail as a threat to the well-being of the individual in the context of his relations with other people.
Primary school age is the age when instinctive and socially mediated fears intersect. Let’s consider this in more detail.
Instinctive, predominantly emotional, forms of fear are fear itself as an affectively perceived threat to life, while social forms of fear are its intellectual processing, a kind of rationalization of fear. A long-term, stable state of fear is defined as fear.
In turn, anxiety, unlike anxiety manifested depending on the situation, as well as fear, is a more stable mental state that underlies fears. If fear and fear are predominantly preschool, then anxiety and fear are adolescence. In the primary school age of interest to us, fear and fear, anxiety and apprehension can be represented to the same degree.
The leading fear at this age is the fear of not being the one who is well spoken of, respected, appreciated and understood. In other words, it is the fear of not meeting the social requirements of the immediate environment, be it school, peers or family.
Specific forms of the fear of “being wrong” are fears of doing something wrong, not right, wrong, not the way it should be, the way it should be. They talk about the growing social activity, about the strengthening of the sense of responsibility, duty, obligation, that is, about what is united in the concept of «conscience», as the central psychological formation of this age.
Conscience is inseparable from the feeling of guilt as a regulator of moral and ethical relations even in senior preschool age. The previously considered fears of “not being on time”, “to be late” will be a reflection of an exaggerated sense of guilt due to the possible commission of wrong actions condemned by adults, especially parents.
The experience of inconsistency with the requirements and expectations of others among schoolchildren is also a kind of guilt, but in a broader social context than a family one.
If at primary school age the ability to evaluate one’s actions from the point of view of social prescriptions is not formed, then in the future it will be very difficult to do this, since the most favorable time for the formation of a social sense of responsibility has been missed.
It does not at all follow from this that the fear of inconsistency is the lot of every schoolchild. Here, much depends on the attitudes of parents and teachers, their moral, ethical and socially adaptive qualities of the individual. It is possible, again, to “go too far” and bind children with so many rules and conventions, prohibitions and threats that they will be afraid, like punishment from heaven, of any innocent for age, especially accidental, violation of behavior, receiving the wrong grade and, more wide, any failure.
Encoded in this way, younger students will be in a state of constant mental stress, stiffness and, often, indecision due to the difficulties of timely, independent decision-making, not regulated from above.
The sense of responsibility is not sufficiently developed in children of «careless», sliding on the surface of parents, who «everything is fine» and «no problems». A complete lack of a sense of responsibility is typical for children of parents with chronic alcoholism, leading to the same antisocial lifestyle. Here, not only the instinct of self-preservation is genetically weakened, but also the social and legal foundations of life in society are psychologically damaged.
There is also a delay in the development of a sense of responsibility in cases of mental infantilism and hysteria, when the child, due to excessive guardianship and the absence of restrictions, is so weaned from independence and responsibility that any attempt to make him think independently, act proactively and decisively immediately reveals reactions of protest and negativism.
A frequently encountered type of fear of “being the wrong one” will be the fear of being late for school, that is, again the fear of not being on time, of being reprimanded, more broadly, this is the fear of social inadequacy and rejection.
The greater severity of this fear in girls is not accidental, since they learn social norms earlier than boys, are more prone to feelings of guilt and perceive deviations of their behavior from generally accepted norms more critically (fundamentally).