A child's growth and development can be divided into four periods:
- Sensory Motor Stage:Birth to 2 years(Children learn to walk, talk, and make sense of the world around them.)
- Preoperational Stage:2-7 years(Language skills develop rapidly, allowing kids to better express themselves. In this stage children are ‘egocentric’, meaning that they believe that everyone sees the world the way that they do)
- Concrete Operations Stage:7 to 11 years(Children gain the ability to solve increasingly complex problems.)
- Formal Operations Stage:11 and beyond(Children hold a much broader understanding of the world around them and are able to think in abstract ways.)
Another psychologist Erikson divided human lifespan into eight categories
1. Trust vs. Mistrust: Birth to 1 year(Baby forms first feelings about the world)
2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt: 1 to 3 Years(Children become more independent)
3. Initiative vs. Guilt: 3 to 6 Years(kids tend to enjoy expressing their assertiveness by choosing activities, inventing their own solutions to problems and approaching others to socialise. )
4. Industry vs. Inferiority: 6 Years to Puberty(children get opportunities to take the initiative in planning)
5. Identity vs. Role Confusion: Adolescence(Teens begin to look at their futures and explore their possibilities)
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation: Young Adulthood(make their first real commitment to someone other than a family member)
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation: Middle Adulthood
8. Ego Integrity vs. Despair: The "Golden Years"
For Attachment Theory,Ainsworth defined three types of attachment.Firstly,theSecure Attachment – child is happy with mother, upset when she is missing and gets no comfort from strangersThe second is the Insecure Attachment (avoidant) – avoids their mother, distress when alone, stranger could comfort them.The last is Insecure Attachment (resistant) – unsure of mother, upset when she is there, resists strangers too.
Another psychologist Bowlby searched the characteristics of attachment theory.Bowlby's attachment theory stresses the following important tenets:
Safe Haven: When the child feel threatened or afraid, he or she can return to the caregiver for comfort and soothing.
Secure Base: The caregiver provides a secure and dependable base for the child to explore the world.
Proximity Maintenance: The child strives to stay near the caregiver, thus keeping the child safe.
Separation Distress: When separated from the caregiver, the child will become upset and distressed.
Vygotsky believed that learning begins at birth and continues throughout all of life. The period of childhood is the most important to form a human’s lifestyle,so the Child Development is a complex and valuable subject to study.
Reference lists
Heird WC. Food insecurity, hunger, and undernutrition. In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 18th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:chap 43.
Feigelman S. The preschool years. In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 18th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:chap 10.
