Vicarious Learning Blog

Social Learning and the importance of Routine

Routine allows people to establish expected patterns, predictable behaviours and a repertoire of responses. For young people routine can be essential to their emotional and social development, as it allows them to interact in a controlled way with complex social situations. One of the starting points of observational, social and vicarious learning is an ability to extract an understanding of a situation or behaviour. A person is then able to select from their past experience - from themselves or as viewed in others - the most appropriate course of action. What then about markedly novel situations, ones in which ones previous experience provides little guidance on how to behave? This opens up a vast array of questions, but one can at least say that confidence and ones sense of self-efficacy will play an important part in how we act. For younger people, those that lack confidence and those with behavioural problems (such as Asperger's) novelty will be extremely stressful. It is important that patterns of routine are built up. That people are guided in many situations, to allow them the time to build up their confidence, to watch others and to get an understanding of the predictable pattern and responses of the social context. At this time of the year, when we all go a little crazy, when patterns of behaviour are disrupted for the manic holiday season it is worth reading the brief article on why "Kids need holiday routine".

Posted at 05:01PM Jun 24, 2008 by Finbar Dineen in General  |  Comments[0]