Perspective on children’s development

1. Perspective on children’s development Physical & emotional development

The physical relates to the body or self thus involving the tangible aspect of a person. Emotions are the complex state of feeling which can affect the psychological and physical state. For instance, when emotion is triggered, the brain sends various impulses to the brain and the body in which the physical body senses that there is a change that has occurred.

Attachment is the profound and long-lasting emotional connection between people across time and space. One can be attached to another person, while that person is not attached to them. Therefore, the attachment can be one-sided (Frewen et al. 2015). Attachment tendencies often begin in childhood especially when the child feels threatened, they hold on and attach themselves to a human figure for help. When an adult responds to the child, it is usually as a reflex to respond appropriately to the child’s needs (Young et al. 2019). John Bowlby’s theory highlights the importance of attachment the child to the mother. The child and the mother should have an attachment in terms of emotional, psychological and social development. Bowlby observes that child often develops an innate attachment with the mother because they are biologically programmed to form an attachment with the mother first to survive (Bowlby 2008). Bowlby suggested that the concept of attachment should be understood based on the issue of evolution in that the parent or guardian is seen as the security of the child (Bowlby, 2008).

Harry Harlow’s experiment with the monkey informed that the attachment of the children with their mother is primarily physiological need rather than thirst or hunger. This is evident as the infant monkeys in the experiment were seen to form an attachment with the terry cloth surrogate mother even though the food came from the implanted milk bottles on the bare wire mothers (Suomi and Kolb, 2016). However, Lorenz’s experiment with ducks concluded that child after birth imprints and attaches to the first moving object they encounter which may not always be the mother as a result of natural instinct and they develop attachment for accessing protection along with food. This is because without food and protection they would die (Sluckin, 2017). Bowlby’s study on Juvenile delinquency informs that maternal deprivation leads the children to become affectionless psychopath, develop issues with cognitive development and behavioural problems in adolescence. This is because the mother acts as psychological or emotional figure of support for the child. It is evident from the findings of the Bowbly Juvenile thieves’ study where out of 44 thieves it was found that 17 of them faced prolonged early separation from their mothers which lead them to develop delinquency (Follan and Minnis, 2010). Thus, Harry and Bowbly experiment informs that child attachment for mother develop due to psychological needs whereas Lorenz’s informs that child attachment with mother develops to get protection and food for survival.

Ainsworth was Bowlby’s student and researched further by devising strange situation test to determine quality of attachment. The strange situation test was conducted to observe the way children would respond in temporary absence of their mother to understand the attachment relationship between the mother and the child (Solomon et al. 2018). The test informed that the children who have anxious-avoidant insecure attachment with the mother were less distressed during separation in comparison to the ones with secure attachment. This is because the secured attachment made the children feel vulnerable and experience lack of safety in lack of their mother presence as they are innately depended on them (Young et al. 2019). The criticism of Ainsworth theory was that the concepts are developed artificial experimentation and therefore lacked ecological validity. Moreover, the theory focused to develop more emphasis on the attachment of the child with the mother rather than measuring the general attachment style of the child (Smith et al. 2016). Thus, it may have led to create improper or biased results. However, the strength of the Ainsworth theory developed from strange situation test is that the concept is able to be replicable (Filippello et al. 2015). This is because the factors that are controlled in the experiment to develop the concept are properly mentioned.

2. Social development

Social development is the procedure of growth and development in which a child learns that art of interacting with other children. As a child develops, they gain their own individuality as part of their development (Sluckin, 2017). As s child grows the gain social skills such as speaking and communicating and actions that help them survive in society.

Erikson’s theory states that people develop personalities in eight phases which are determined beforehand through from infancy to adulthood. The Erikson’s theory stated eight key stages of psychosocial development which are trust vs mistrust, autonomy vs shame, initiative vs guilt, industry vs inferiority, identity vs. Role confusion, intimacy vs isolation, generativity vs stagnation and finally integrity vs despair (Pretorius and Van Niekerk, 2015). The first step of this development is the trust v mistrust where in this stage the children are referred not to be sure about anything happening in the world. Therefore, the children depend on a caregiver for protection and safety (Knight, 2017). If the care given at this stage does not provide adequate and consistent care, the child will likely develop mistrust tendencies. A child who receives hope and love at this stage they will develop trust. Erickson's second stage is autonomy vs. shame and doubt, which happens between the ages of 18 months to three years (Knight, 2017). This stage is when the child is developing physically and learning how to move around more. Erikson states that it is imperative for the parents at this stage to let their children explore more and let them fail so that they can learn. The parent should positively reinforce the child by encouraging them to develop self-control and self-esteem (Knight, 2017). When children are overcontrolled at this stage, the often develop feeling inadequate and develop low self-esteem. The strength of the Erickson theory is that it holds account for both the continuity and transition related to personal development. Thus, it is the theory is effective to be implemented to understand psychological develop across time and culture. The weakness of the theory is that it offers an idealised description of each development patterns (Waite-Stupiansky and Jones, 2017). Thus, it cannot be effectively suited to explain the enormous psychological differences exist between the children as well as people.

The socio-cultural context has a relationship with the social development of children. For children learning happens when they interact with objects that have distinct uses in the community (Morcillo et. al 2015). As the child develops, the interrelatedness of social and cognitive development becomes more apparent. In the early childhood years, the child begins developing language and is able to speak up to 900 words, the development of language depicts the developing cognitive abilities to recall and store information (Morcillo et al. 2015). The children also develop the art of understanding the environment by discerning the familiar and learn new things every day.

Cognition is the knowledge that one acquires through various experiences and the personal attributes that allow for the integration of the information that is used to interpret the world from personal opinion (Dobson et al. 2017). Therefore, cognition allows people to take in and process data received from various places. Piaget’s proposed that the cognitive development of an infant up to adulthood happens in four distinct stages; which are the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations (Semmar. and Al-Thani 2015). The sensorimotor stage starts from birth to 24 months of the child during which they use their abilities and skill to get informed about objects around the environment. The preoperational stage initiates from 2 and end at 7 years during which the child develop key characteristics to engage in symbolic play and engage to learn to be able to manipulate symbols. The concrete operational stage is from 7 to 11 years of the child during which the child is seen to show the characteristics for the logical development of thought. The formal operation stage initiates from 12 years and it lasts till adulthood and at this point, the child is seen to have become sophisticated where they think deeply about concrete events and are able to reason abstractly (Gray and MacBlain, 2015). The strength of Piaget’s theory is that the ideas are used in educating children as it has emphasised on qualitative development. It has improved communication and better understanding of the children activities in education leading to develop instructional strategies and programs for better personal development of children. The weakness of the theory is that it shows psychological development of child as stages whereas researchers have viewed the psychological development of the children to be continuous process (Singer and Wong, 2018).

Lee Vygotsky gave an alternative to Piaget's theory through his sociocultural theory. Vygotsky believed that people develop through dialogues with one another. Conversations enhance social interaction and culture. Vygotsky focusses on the issue of language development in the sociocultural theory. As a child develops in society, they tend to take up the sociocultural values and begin using them. Language is an essential aspect of the culture and children learn it in the same way they acquire cognitive skills (Holzman, 2016). Vygotsky argues that people have rules, biases, and restrictions about language and its use. The way a child perceives these limitations and other factors about language influence their language development (Rahardjo, 2016). Vygotsky introduced the concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which is the difference between what a learner can do with guidance and what they can undertake without the same. Therefore, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the distance of the between the level of development and the potential development level (Eun, 2017). The strength of Vygotsky’s theory is that it provides an effective foundation to examine the way children learn before they join school and the way it relates to the concepts being later learned at school (Holzman, 2016). Thus, it helps teachers to develop best possible personalised framework of education for the children to accomplish the goal of continuous learning. However, the limitation of the theory is that the development process explained by Vygotsky is speculative and vague as it focused on the process through which child develop psychologically rather than focusing on the way children develop with age (Rahardjo, 2016).

Bruner mentioned the issue of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding although Vygotsky developed them (Semmar and Al-Thani 2015). Scaffolding offers the learner a hint on how to solve a problem, thus allowing for better approaches to solving similar problems in the future. Vygotsky assumes that children have the mental capability to solve problems and thus provides solutions through the scaffolding method. Scaffolding comprises of activities that the educator is given to help a student or learner through the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Semmar and Al-Thani 2015). As such scaffolding happens as support is removed help the learner develop their skills and cognition. Through scaffolding, the learner is able to develop within their own reach. The strength of Bruner scaffolding theory is that its implication helps to provide a welcoming and supportive learning environment for the children. Moreover, it helps in minimising the frustration level of the learner. However, the limitation of the theory is that scaffolding requires increased resources and time for its implementation to ensure development of the learners (Massing, 2018).

The impact of socio-cultural context in relation to cognitive development is profound given the relationship between the two. The teachers require understanding that each of the student or children is an individual who have developed their own sense of relationship and self as per their cultural activities, community and family (Morcillo et al. 2015). The three key socio-cultural aspects which play an important role for cognitive development of the child are activity and values in cultural context, material and symbolic tools and level of social structure that instantiate cultural goals in everyday practices (Sharkins et al. 2017). For instance, Western middle-class society the children are avoided to take part in adult work that is required to be done alone outside the home where it leads the children to develop cognition that they do not need to execute hard work outside the house in their childhood. However, in the Western village the children spend most of their time by executing hard work and participating hard work outside the home alone which led them to develop cognition that they are entrusted to do adult work from lower age.

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that physical development is a tangible aspect where emotional development is intangible. The Harry and Bowbly's theory informs that child develop attachment towards mother due to psychological need whereas Lorenz's theory informs that the child develops an attachment to any moving object that may not be their mother and the reason of the attachment is survival. The Social development in children is explained by using Erikson, Bruner and Vygotsky’s theories.

References

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