child development theory

child development theory

Psychologists have come up with several different theories centered on how children develop. These theories explain almost every aspect of how people change and how they grow throughout the childhood stage. They focus much on issues of development. Parents should not take the study of child development for granted. They are supposed to view it as a serious matter since many theories have come along to explain the changes that take place during the early part of life. Some of these theories will be discussed below.

The first child development theory is Freud’s Psychosexual Developmental Theory. With this theory, child development appears in a sequence of stages focused on different pleasure areas of the body. In every scene, many children face some conflicts that play a significant role in the course of their development. The theory of Freud came with a suggestion that says the energy of the libido is mostly focused on different zones at particular stages. It suggests that when a child fails to progress through any specific scene, it can cause a fixation at the stage of development. Successful completion of each step leads to the development of a healthy adult personality. Some other theories believe that characters do continue to change and grow over the entire lifetime. But when it comes to Freud’s theory, he thought that it is an early experience that plays the most significant role in shaping the development of children. According to this theory, personality is set by the age of five years.

The next theory of child development is behavioral child development theory. This theory focuses on how environmental interactions influence behavior, and these behaviors are based on the opinions of other theorists such as John B. Waston. Some methods of child development deal only with observable behaviors. Growth is sometimes considered as a reaction to rewards, punishment, and reinforcement. The theory of behavioral child development is different from other approaches because it does not give any consideration to internal thoughts or feelings. This theory, instead, it focuses on how experiences shape children to become who they are right now.

Children grow and develop rapidly in their first five years across the four main areas of development. These areas include physical and motor development, psychosocial development, cognitive morals, language, and literacy development. Motor development refers to the physical growth and strengthening of children’s bones, muscles, and also the ability to move and touch the environment. When it comes to physical development, the first thing that a parent notices in the early physical growth period of the babies are increasing the size of the body. Different body parts show different growth patterns to the age of the child. The body size category of a child includes the skeleton, muscles, and internal organs. These parts show the rapid growth during the first and the third development period of early life than in middle childhood development. At the age of three, children start losing their baby fat. Due to this, child limbs begin to grow longer, and the abdominal muscles start to tighten the appearance of the stomach.

At this age, children also start growing taller at around 38 inches. But by the age of six, children reach a height of approximately 46 inches and weigh about 46 pounds. The neural system, which is the head, brain, spinal, and the intricate nervous network of a child, becomes fully developed by the age of six years. But when it comes to the reproductive organs, they grow very slowly until a child reaches the adolescence stage. Also, motor development is essential to the educational psychologist because it gives way for the later smooth learning on the part of the child’s life. In early child motor development, the children first show reasonable control over the arm movement. They then try to move the whole hand, and finally, they try to hold something using their hands. The new motor competencies of a child are integrated into more substantial and more coherent whole units of motor behavior. Hence, the process of differentiation shows the process of hierarchic integration, which completes the growth process in motor development.

The second area of childhood development is psychosocial development. In this stage, there are some stages of growth over the lifespan of the infancy to adulthood. One of the steps is trust versus mistrust. In this stage, from the first day a child is born to the 12th month, he must learn that adults can be trusted. He only learns this when an adult provides the basic needs for survival. The caregivers should ensure that the child gains their trust.

On the other hand, if a child does not receive the basic needs he wants, he may develop a feeling of fear and mistrust. The next stage is autonomy versus shame. This stage starts at the age of 1 to 3 years. It is a time when children learn how to control their actions on their own to the environment. They start to play with toys and dressing. Once a child is denied this opportunity by the caregivers to act on her background, he or she may begin to doubt her abilities, which may lead to her low self-esteem. The next stage is Initiative versus guilt. During the age of 3 to 6, children are capable of starting their activities and control their world through social interactions and playing. At this stage, a parent who allows his child to explore within limits and support his child’s choice, such children develop self-confidence and feel a sense of purpose. But for children who do not receive the support of their parents, they do build a feeling of guilt.

The third area of childhood development is cognitive moral language and literacy development. During childhood development, there is a stage of cognitive development. In this stage, children gain abilities to think, solve problems, and teach themselves how to communicate. For example, at the age of 1 to 2, toddlers start to play with some objects, and they also gain the knowledge that when somebody leaves the room, definitely they will come back. They are also able to see the pictures in the books, and they can point at those objects when asked to find them. The preschool-age children, who range at the age of 3 to 5, also have steady progress in cognitive development. At this stage, children can count, name colors, tell their full names, and also they can make some decisions on their own. They even start to enjoy the use of humor in stories that are narrated by their teachers and caregivers. These children also enjoy pretend play and inventing elaborate characters and scenarios.

A child’s social environment impacts their cognitive development and educational attainment. Children who engage themselves in good social relationships do well academically than those children who don’t engage in that relationship. The children who live in a social environment with excellent residential stability are less likely to be absent from school. Children who live in poor quality neighborhoods are more likely to drop out of school. The next impact is that those children who grow up in a positive social environment have less risk-taking behavior. These children are less likely to have accidents compared to those who don’t grow in such situations. In conclusion, children who have an excellent social relationship have more self-esteem compared to those who don’t have. These children do not experience problems like having depression and anxiety. Also, these types of children have more motivation in life compare to the rest of the children. A positive social environment also promotes improved physical health for the children.it reduces the risk of eating disorders, it also increases the likelihood of being immunized and also it minimizes the risk of teenage pregnancy.