Social and Behavioral Sciences
Thesis Statement: Childhood development from birth to twelve years influenced by psychological, sociological and anthropological perspectives.
Continuity and change in childhood development is a process that involves cognitive and psychosocial development. Psychologists like Erik Ericson and Sigmund Freud took time to write about stages of human growth development, and sought to explain these stages in details. The former identified eight stages while the latter came up with five stages of development, which he called psychosexual stages of development.
Freud’s psychosocial stages of human development
Freud, also known as the father of psychology, strongly believed that there are two drives: life and death (Lenzi, 1999). In his studies, he observed that a child’s human growth starts as early as at birth until death, and he referred to these stages as psychosexual stages (Shaffer, 2002). The first stage is called oral; whereby it is argued that the sexual drive is around the mouth. All energy of the child is located around the mouth and this is demonstrated by the ability of the baby to put objects into the mouth, suckling included. The caregiver’s role in this stage is satisfying the child’s needs like making sure that breastfeeding is done at all times. The greatest challenge is that objects that can cause distraction in the air path of a child must be kept out of their reach since this could be dangerous as it can cause death. The studies showed that this trend is overt from birth to one year.
The second stage is called anal, where the child voluntarily disposes body waste without anytime and anyhow. This is because the child has not gained full control of her body in terms of body waste management. Toilet training and other important lessons of life are much needed at this stage. The caregiver’s role here is to provide the necessary tools and knowledge to them and this will ensure smooth transition to the next stage. Freud observed that this period occurs between one and three years. One challenge for the caregiver is to provide extra care and caution, given that improper training will lead to serious developmental problems like regression.
The third stage is called phallic stage where the child is able to develop either strong or weak attachment with the parents or the caregiver. It is at this stage that boys develop strong attachment with mothers and girls are close to their dads. These are known as Oedipus complex for the boys and Electra complex for the girls (Miller, 2004). Most often, when you ask a girl in this stage who she will get married to, the obvious answer is their dad. This has been reported to cause competition between daughters and mothers as they compete for one male friend within their reach. It is also the stage where a boy is curious to know whether there is any likeness with his father, same as girls to their mothers. It is the responsibility of the father and the mother, respectively, to teach and explain such issues to their children. While this can be challenging for many caregivers and parents to do psycho-education, children are always ready and curious to learn these lessons.
In latency stage, between ages six to 11 years, the children’s energy is directed towards social gathering like in learning institutions. The main task for the children is to assume gender role responsibilities. Male children are more likely to exercise their masculinity in activities like wrestling, while female children are more likely to engage in social activities that provide opportunities for gender role responsibilities like cooking, cleaning and the like. Therefore, caregivers, parents, and guardians must acquire knowledge so that they can provide the necessary support to their children.
Finally, the most critical of the five stages is the genital stage, above 12 years, where teenagers grapple to answer the identity question, who am I? Most of these teenagers are lost in this stage if proper mentorship is unavailable and this is a great dare for parents and guardians. Their assignment therefore, is to be there for these teenagers. It is at this stage care givers may either contain or loose preteens depending with the approach taken in helping.
Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development
Erik Erikson came up with eight stages of human growth and development which cut across the entire life of human being but more emphasis will be laid with the stages that concerns childhood development. Erik acknowledged that children’s curiosity to explore their world could be given more priority, rather than Freud’s view of children being captives of biological energies (Shaffer, 2002). In the first stage, the child is said to develop trust to any act of social responsibility accorded, meaning that absence of protection will create mistrust. In the second stage, the child learns to be independent with the help of the parents. The third stage is where children assume gender the role responsibilities and hence the parents and siblings are supposed to provide mentorship in this stage.
Fourthly, peer effect take toll on a child’s performance at school and if there is disparity with other peers, there will be some sense of subsidiarity. The fifth stage is where the adolescent males and females grapple with identity question. Mentorship programs are required because failure to answer this question will lead to misperception of who they really are. This happens between ages 12 and 20 years. In the next stage, probably the longest of all (20 to 40 years), the main achievement or goal is to form strong relations with the aim of being loved and having a companion(s) like fiancé, spouse and accountability partners. If this is not achieved, the individual results to seclusion.
The seventh stage is where an individual’s productivity is the main goal, which is all about being successful in career, family and society. The last stage involves stock taking as well as reflecting about life and gauging the achievement therein. A sense of fulfillment will be felt if there are achievements, and dissatisfaction will be the end result if there is nothing that has been achieved. The eight psychosocial stages are therefore important in not only helping caregivers and parents to understand the growth trend of a child, but also illustrate the dangers that can arise if they are ignored (Ginsburg, 1992).
Impact of social structures and processes to development
It is important to note that in all the stages discussed above, be it Freud’s or Erik’s stages, there must be a proxy whose role is to help and not intervene in every stage, thus midwifing transition to the next stage. In most countries, children are considered to be adults when they attain the age of 18 years. In formative years, many children rely on the provision and authority of their parents (Lemelin et al, 2006) and thus become watchdogs for character development. Depending with the child’s culture, there are some responsibilities that are undertaken by the child that are meant to aid the process of growth. For instance, it is the responsibility of the child to help in house chores or garden work in most African culture, but this may contrast with the Western culture whereby this is a voluntary exercise to a child.
Religion and faith issues contribute a lot to the development of a child. This can be considered as the canon for moral issues. Any society would wish to see a child grow with strong moral values like integrity, service and honesty. Religion, therefore serves as the best medium in which these important values can be strengthened and shaped in an individual. In addition, learning institutions act as means by which a child gets to engage with others due to the fact that learning occurs during interactions with others. Daily contact between the fast learners or geniuses with slow learners may contribute either positively or negatively to development. The willingness to learn will provide an avenue for learning and change of behavior. Extra-curricular activities like sports are also major contributors to development of artistic students and will also help with physical exercises that a body requires to develop. Therefore, these social structures cannot be ignored towards the development of a child in the formative years.
Culture and development
Culture is a very important factor to consider in human development. In other words, culture has a commanding tone in the raising of children. For instance, an African child is raised in an environment in which cultural ethics are instilled in childhood. In the 20th century, most Africans believed that child rearing was more of communal initiative than parent’s approach. This acted as platform to teach the children what they were expected of them by the community. However, this has since changed and it is considered as a serious crime to discipline a child, even if it is a parent. This is very common in western cultures where a child can take a parent or a teacher to court in case of punishment. On the other hand, gender role responsibilities play a major role in human growth and it has tight connection with culture. For instance, males in African most African cultures believe that house related chores like cooking and washing belong to females while in the west, cooking and washing may not be a big deal to the gender.
Integration
Psychology is very important as it help us to understand how human beings are made and grow. Sociology is also important as it acts as the platform in which individuals can understand how different they are from animals, simply because human beings are social beings. Anthropology, the study of human kind (Webster, 1983), therefore is used in analysis of the same. Therefore, it can be argued that these three disciplines are intertwined and are dependent in each other for existence.
Children are always transiting from one developmental level to another. They require coaching based on cultural, social and social mentorship for them to grow up into maturity. With the knowledge gained in writing this paper, one clarion call can be made which is simply to be there for the children when in season and out of season. Children are important and therefore helping them is a responsibility and a privilege.
References
Ginsburg, H. (1992). Chilhood injuries and Erikson’s Psychosocial stages . Social behaviour and Personality, 95-100.
Lemelin, J. et al. (2006). Predicting preschool cognitive development from infant temparament, Maternal sensitivity, and Psychosocial Risk. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 779-806.
Lenzi, M. (1999). Freud: the mind/body of the eroticist. Psychoanalytic studies, 315-326.
Miller, L. (2004). The Oedipus complex as observed in work with couples and their children. Journal of child Psychotherapy, 39-52.
Shaffer, R. D. (2002). Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. U.S.A.: Wadsworth Thomson learning.
Webster, N. (1983). New Twentieth Century English Dictionary. U.S.A: Simon & Schuster.
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