Some fact (Yarrow, 1961, as cited in Early Experience, 1967) states that also the first few years of life have crucial effects upon later development and adult characteristics and that the significance of early infantile experience for later life development has been repeated so frequently and so seriously that the general effectiveness of this declaration is now almost unchallenged. Bowlby, 1951, (as cited in Early Experience, 1967) quotes that “the prolonged deprivation of the young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects in his character and so on the whole of his future life.” In comparison to this J.B. Watson (1928) also felt passionately about the first two years of a Childs life. He believed they were the most important and that it is down to the parent to implant such emotional behavior, and by the time the child has reached 3 years old, you can almost be certain to know if the child will grow to be a neurotic or good natured human being. On the contrary this could be argued the nature versus nurture debate that nurture plays an important role such as from peers and social surroundings which even if the child was spoilt, the child may change through their own life experiences later on in life.
Other remarks similar to Watson were made from Storr (1957), where he suggest that if we want our children to grow up happy and content and to have the ability to love others as well as themselves, then there is little doubt that the experiences a child has in the first few months and years of their life is crucial. . (Early Experience, Clarke. A.M & Clarke A.D.B. 1976).
Critical studies in human psychological development comes from the studies of the development of language (Curtiss, 1977, as cited in The development of children, 2nd ed.) where he quotes “ children who for some reason who have not had sufficient exposure to language to acquire one before the age of 6-7 years, may never acquire a language. More evidence to coincide with this theory comes from lenneberg, 1967, (as cited in Early Experience, 1967) where he regards the critical period for primary speech acquisition as lasting until puberty and therefore after puberty, the ability for self-organization and adjustment to the physiological demands of verbal behavior quickly declines. In other words this could suggest that after we reach the age of puberty, an example of this is if we were to learn another language in their native tongue, this would almost be impossible. We would speak their foreign language but with our own native accent.
There are a number of different theories to demonstrate child development through research and practice, namely ‘ the psychoanalytic point of view’ whereby Sigmund Freud was very influential in the making of psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious and conscious development, in which he did pay some substantial attention to the recollection of childhood experiences and development. The psychoanalytical point of view is said to be viewed as a biological theory of personality, although the biological drives are placed within a social context. (As cited in Child development: The emerging self, 1965, pp 24-25,)
Freud suggested a structure made up of three parts- the ‘id’, which is present from birth and is our pleasure principles of wanting and needing satisfaction. Then there is the ‘ego’, where reality is reinforced for reason and common sense to take place, where the ego is said to be giving orders and limiting the pleasure principles of the id. Then thirdly there is the ‘superego’ which is basically our moral conflicts, the authoritative part of our personality. His theory stressed the vital role of early childhood experiences in the formulation of certain patterns of behavior, thus these three structures of an individual that lay in early infancy may play an important role of character building.
Some critical periods of early infancy in relationship to Freuds Psychoanalytical theory can be demonstrated in the research accomplished by ‘The Blocks’ (as cited in Child Psychology, 4th ed), where The Blocks concentrated on the ‘ego control’ and ‘ego resiliency’. The ego control was dictated by individual’s principles, as Freud had also demonstrated this, and this was governed by how we control aggression, how we put caution to ambiguous situations, delay of indulgence and basically control of our impulses. The ego control was then defined by two main parts, ‘over control’ and ‘under control’. The over controllers resulted in the containment of impulses, for example being more self-conscious to control oneselfs actions of impulses, in which case having a high modal threshold for responses. The under controller is more likely to express immediate and direct expressions of motivations and affects therefore having a low modal threshold for responding. It was said that the over controlling male was more likely to have experienced a childhood family environment that was more authoritarian, joyless, and constraining, where parents were more likely to also be very conservative. Most men who are over controlling are also more likely to have been controlled themselves from an early age, where guilt induction was normally the method to impose punishment. Adults who are less in control of there impulses were said to be children coming from families where very little control was enforced, the parents may have not had little time to be so encouraging and family life is more likely to have been frantic and unpredictable. And then there was the blocks study of the ego resiliency which accounted for how the child deals with change of lifestyle and how flexible a child can be, where the term used to describe non-adaptive ness to change or flexibility was known as ‘ego brittleness’. From the blocks study they were not only trying to suggest that parenting requires considerable effort, but that the most crucial element was the timing of the effort parents put into their children, as quoted by the blocks it was said “it is troublesome and onerous to have to discipline a child and to have to invest the time and exhibit the constancy needed to deliver the precepts of self regulation to children. It is much easier to ignore those situations requiring instruction or discipline”. In other words it could be said that it is quite demanding and difficult to discipline a child and to lay down the law without affecting your emotional attachments to the child, when it can be so much easier to let the child learn for themselves, maybe even through trial and error (Thorndike’s theory of learning, Systems & Theories of Psychology, 2nd ed, p. 203.) but then as a parent you have a responsibility to induce self management in the child, so that they learn how to behave morally.
Critical periods of development, could be said to sensitive to how parents influence not only behavior but also making sure during pregnancy they are in good mental and physical health. It could be stressed that mental health is more vital as most of the mothers who were mentioned earlier in Henry David’s research (1981) were in good health but had feelings of unhappiness towards the unborn child, which ib the long term effects were more likely to deliver unhealthy babies and for the children to then have behavioral problems into adulthood. Even the impact of poverty on child rearing can have detrimental effects, where by for an example taken from the development of children, p.408. That chronic poverty such as that experienced by Irish tinkers; (Irish gypsy’s) creates multiple risk factors for children’s development. In which have crucial effects on how the children display social relations and relationships with peers and family.
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