CAD MATERIALS

Major Child Development Theories and Theorists

Though many scientists and researchers have approached the study of child development over the last hundred or so years, only a few of the theories that have resulted have stood the test of time and have proven to be widely influential. Among this core group of theories are five that will serve as the basis for the documents in this series. These are:

Freud's psychosexual stage theory Erikson's psychosocial stage theory Kohlberg's moral understanding stage theory Piaget's cognitive development stage theory Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Viennese doctor who came to believe that the way parents dealt with children's basic sexual and aggressive desires would determine how their personalities developed and whether or not they would end up well-adjusted as adults. Freud described children as going through multiple stages of sexual development, which he labeled Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital. In Freud's view, each stage focused on sexual activity and the pleasure received from a particular area of the body. In the oral phase, children are focused on the pleasures that they receive from sucking and biting with their mouth. In the Anal phase, this focus shifts to the anus as they begin toilet training and attempt to control their bowels. In the Phallic stage, the focus moves to genital stimulation and the sexual identification that comes with having or not having a penis. During this phase, Freud thought that children turn their interest and love toward their parent of the opposite sex and begin to strongly resent the parent of the same sex. He called this idea the Oedipus Complex as it closely mirrored the events of an ancient Greek tragic play in which a king named Oedipus manages to marry his mother and kill his father. The Phallic/Oedipus stage was thought to be followed by a period of Latency during which sexual urges and interest were temporarily nonexistent. Finally, children were thought to enter and remain in a final Genital stage in which adult sexual interests and activities come to dominate. Another part of Freud's theory focused on identifying the parts of consciousness. Freud thought that all babies are initially dominated by unconscious, instinctual and selfish urges for immediate gratification which he labeled the Id. As babies attempt and fail to get all their whims met, they develop a more realistic appreciation of what is realistic and possible, which Freud called the "Ego". Over time, babies also learn about and come to internalize and represent their parents' values and rules. These internalized rules, which he called the "Super-Ego", are the basis for the the developing child's conscience that struggles with the concepts of right and wrong and works with the Ego to control the immediate gratification urges of the Id.

By today's rigorous scientific standards, Freud's psychosexual theory is not considered to be very accurate. However, it is still important and influential today because it was the first stage development theory that gained real attention, and many other theorists used it as a starting place.
Freud formulated a unique way of thinking about the mind, made up of three parts: Id, Ego, and Superego. These three structures describe the way we think and make decisions on a day-to-day basis. Id, Ego, and Superego Id: The id is the part of the mind that wants what it wants, and wants it now. It is demanding and childish, and operates via the pleasure principle. This simply means that it motivates you to do things that make you happy. This is the structure we were born with, according to Freud. Think about a babyits thoughts arent that complex. It just wants things. Throughout our life there is always a part of our mind that demands we do whatever necessary to make ourselves happy. Superego: Freud said that this structure develops later, when a child starts learning from its parents, teachers, and society what it should and shouldnt do. The superego is our conscience, and tells us what is right and wrong. It wants us to do what is right and avoid what is wrong, and is just as demanding as the id in its own way. If you do something you know you shouldnt do, its the superego that makes you feel guilty. Ego: The ego is the most conscious part of your mind, and it functions via the reality principle. This means that it has to figure out a way to compromise between the demands of the other two structures, to take what the id and superego want into account and chose a realistic course of action. If the id is demanding pizza, and the superego is telling you youre a bad person if you dont go to class, the ego might say lets go to class, then right afterward well go over to the dining center and get some food. Personality Development According to Freud, our personalities and psychological problems are determined when we are very young. By the time we are five or six, weve already encountered many important conflicts that have shaped us into the person we will be for the rest of our life. Freuds theory of personality development is referred to as the Psychosexual Stages, and is comprised of five parts: Oral Stage: This stage takes place until a child is about a year and a half old, and the important event that occurs is being weaned from breastfeeding. It is important that the child is weaned at an appropriate time, not too early or too late. Anal Stage: The child is in this stage from the time they are one and a half years old until they are about 3. The crucial event here is potty training, and again it is important that this event happens at just the right time. Phallic Stage: In this stage, from 3 to 6 years old, the child must deal with the Oedipal Complex. This means they feel a strong attachment to their opposite-sex parent, and hostility towards the same-sex parent. A little boy might be very attached to his mother and see his father as an intruder into this relationship, for example. To successfully resolve this stage, the child must learn to identify with the same-sex parent, thus figuring out what it means to be a girl or a boy. Latency: From the age of 6 to puberty, there is a period of relative calm. There is no special task to learn or conflict to overcome at this time, and the sexual and aggressive drives are subdued. Genital Stage: This stage begins when the child hits puberty. At this point young teenagers begin to find themselves attracted to the opposite sex (this theory doesnt incorporate homosexuality). If they have successfully resolved the

Oedipal Complex, they can now learn to have relationships with socially acceptable partners, who are seen as substitutes for the childs parents (the original objects of attachment). Fixation The psychosexual theory also accounts for psychological problems and disorders. If the child does not successfully pass through each stage at the right time they are said to be fixated on that stage. For example, a child who is weaned from breastfeeding too late is said to have an oral fixation, and as an adult might have problems with depending too much on other people. The adult might also show signs of an obsession with oral activities, such as overeating or biting his or her nails. Defense Mechanisms According to Freud, another source of our psychological problems is our dependence on defense mechanisms. When we have thoughts or feelings we are uncomfortable with, or things happen to us that we dont want to deal with, we use strategies to defend ourselves from the anxiety caused by those thoughts and experiences. In therapy, Freud would help people identity which defenses they were using and what problems they were trying to avoid. There are many different defense mechanisms, so check with your teacher to find out which ones you need to know. Here are some of the more common and basic ones you might want to be familiar with. Repression: This was the defense mechanism of most interest to Freud. When something is too difficult for us to deal with or think about, sometimes we push it away so hard we literally forget about it. We force it so far down into our unconscious that we dont even remember its there. For example, people who are abused as children sometimes repress the experience and only remember it years later. Vapotherm www.vtherm.com Leaders in High Flow Therapy via Nasal Cannula Ads by Google Denial: Just like it sounds, with this defense we are denying the uncomfortable thought or situation even exists. This doesnt mean youve forgotten about it, just that you are avoiding thinking about it. Projection: Sometimes when we have thoughts we dont want to deal with, we push them onto other people. We project our unwanted feelings and desires onto those around us. For example, if someone is thinking about cheating on her boyfriend she might project that desire onto him and become paranoid that he is cheating on her. Displacement: This is often confused with projection, but is quite different. Here we are taking out our emotions on someone who didnt cause them. If your teacher does something to make you angry, you might take your anger out on your family or your roommate instead. Regression: To regress is to return to an earlier state, to act like you did when you were younger. A new college student who cant handle the responsibility of living on his own might start acting childish by skipping class and playing video games all day. Therapies Because our problems are rooted in our unconscious, where we cant access them easily, Freud couldnt just ask his patients what was wrong. He had to use clever methods to try and get at their unconscious minds, to figure out what thoughts and motivations were really driving a patients behavior. These are some of the most common

psychoanalytic methods Freud and his followers would use in therapy. None are widely used today, because these methods are too subjective and have not been proven by scientific experimentation. Dream analysis: Because you arent conscious while you are asleep, Freud thought dreams could reveal what is in the unconscious mind. He would ask people about their dreams and try to determine what those dreams really meant. A dream about living in a tiny house might suggest the dreamer feels confined or oppressed by their real life roles, for example. Free association: This is when Freud or his followers would tell a client to just talk, to say anything and everything that came to mind. The hope was that this would get past the persons conscious mind and let their subconscious thoughts come through. The patient would typically lie on a couch while doing thishence the popular image of a psychotherapy session where the patient reclines on a couch and rambles on about his or her thoughts. Transference: Sometimes in a psychotherapy session a patient would start treating the therapist as though he or she were someone from the patients past. For example, if the patient had a rough relationship with her father she might start acting towards the therapist the same way she would have acted towards her father. This is known as transference, and helped the psychoanalyst uncover conflicts in the patients past that might be affecting his or her behavior today. Projective tests: In these tests the therapist would present ambiguous stimuli to the patientpictures that arent supposed to be anything in particular. For example, they might show a serious of inkblots to a patient and ask what the patient thinks the inkblots are. Since they are just random blots of ink, whatever the patient sees is supposed to say something about his or her state of mind and unconscious thoughts. People end up projecting their own thoughts and motivations onto the ambiguous stimuli. If the patient sees a picture involving blood, this might suggest he has issues with violence. Another common projective test involved showing patients pictures of a person or a couple of people, and asking them to make up stories about those people. The content of the story suggests what problems or issues the storyteller might have.

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) used Freud's work as a starting place to develop a theory about human stage development from birth to death. In contrast to Freud's focus on sexuality, Erikson focused on how peoples' sense of identity develops; how people develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to become productive, satisfied members of society. Because Erikson's theory combines how people develop beliefs psychologically and mentally with how they learn to exist within a larger community of people, its called a 'psychosocial' theory. Eriksons stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair. Each stage is associated with a time of life and a general age span. For each stage, Erikson's theory explains what types of stimulation children need to master that stage and become productive and well-adjusted members of society and explains the types of problems and developmental delays that can result when this stimulation does not occur. For example, the first psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrust, and it spans from birth to about age one year. During this phase, if children are consistently provided all their basic needs such as food, clean diapers, warmth, and loving affection and soothing from caregivers, they will learn

that they can trust other people in their environment to love them and to take care of them, and they will believe the world is good. If infants are neglected and not given these things consistently or if they are taken care of roughly and unpredictably, they will learn to question their caretakers and to believe that others will not always be there to support them when its needed. Learning to trust others is the first necessary step to learning how to have loving, supportive relationships with others and to have a positive self-image. The second stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt, spans ages one to three years. When children are autonomous, they feel confident that they can make their own choices and decisions and that they will be positive experiences. Young children become autonomous when caregivers are supportive and give children the safe space to make their own decisions and to experiment with their bodies and problem-solving skills without shaming or ridiculing the child. When children feel shame and doubt, they believe that they are not capable of making valid decisions and not capable of doing everyday tasks. This will begin stunting a positive self-esteem as these small children start seeing themselves as stupid. The third stage, initiative versus guilt, spans ages three to six years. When children develop initiative, they continue to develop their self-concept and gain a desire to try new things and to learn new things while being responsible for their actions to some extent. If caregivers continue to give children a safe space to experiment and appropriate stimuli to learn, the children will continue to find their purpose. However, if caregivers try to create too many strict boundaries around what children can do and to force too much responsibility on kids, children will feel extreme guilt for their inability to complete tasks perfectly. This is just a taste of Ericksons ideas. Hopefully, these paragraphs will help explain his way of thinking and organizing development. The rest of Erikson's stages will be outlined in detail in future documents in this series as they become age-related. Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) described three stages of moral development which described the process through which people learn to discriminate right from wrong and to develop increasingly sophisticated appreciations of morality. He believed that his stages were cumulative; each built off understanding and abilities gained in prior stages. According to Kohlberg, moral development is a lifelong task, and many people fail to develop the more advanced stages of moral understanding. Kohlberg's first 'preconventional' level describes children whose understanding of morality is essentially only driven by consequences. Essentially, "might makes right" to a preconventional mind, and they worry about what is right in wrong so they don't get in trouble. Second stage 'conventional' morality describes people who act in moral ways because they believe that following the rules is the best way to promote good personal relationships and a healthy community. A conventional morality person believes it is wrong to steal not just because he doesn't want to get punished but also because he doesn't want his friends or family to be harmed. The final 'postconventional' level describes people whose view of morality transcend what the rules or laws say. Instead of just following rules without questioning them, 'postconventional' stage people determine what is moral based on a set of values or beliefs they think are right all the time. For example, during the Vietnam War, many Americans who were drafted to be

soldiers opposed the war on moral grounds and fled to Canada rather than fight. Even though this behavior was against the law, these people decided that these particular laws did not follow the higher rules they believed in, and they chose to follow their higher rules instead of the law. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1990), created a cognitive-developmental stage theory that described how children's ways of thinking developed as they interacted with the world around them. Infants and young children understand the world much differently than adults do, and as they play and explore, their mind learns how to think in ways that better fit with reality. Piaget's theory has four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. During the sensorimotor stage, which often lasts from birth to age two, children are just beginning to learn how to learn. Though language development, and thus thought, does begin during this time, the more major tasks occurring during this period involve children figuring out how to make use of their bodies. They do this by experiencing everything with their five senses, hence "sensory," and by learning to crawl and then walk, point and then grasp, hence, "motor." During the preoperational stage, which often lasts from ages two though seven, children start to use mental symbols to understand and to interact with the world, and they begin to learn language and to engage in pretend play. In the concrete operational stage that follows, lasting from ages seven through eleven, children gain the ability to think logically to solve problems and to organize information they learn. However, they remain limited to considering only concrete, not abstract, information because at this stage the capability for abstract thought isn't well developed yet. Finally, during the formal operational stage, which often lasts from age eleven on, adolescents learn how to think more abstractly to solve problems and to think symbolically, e.g., about things that aren't really there concretely in front of them. As is the case with Erikson and Kohlberg, Piaget's ideas will be developed in greater depth in future documents. One final developmental theory needs to be addressed, even though it's not a stage theory. Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the ecological systems theory to explain how everything in a child and the child's environment affects how a child grows and develops. He labeled different aspects or levels of the environment that influence children's development, including the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem. The microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in. Children's microsystems will include any immediate relationships or organizations they interacts with, such as their immediate family or caregivers and their school or daycare. How these groups or organizations interact with the child will have an effect on how the child grows; the more encouraging and nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child will be able to grow. Furthermore, how a child acts or reacts to these people in the microsystem will affect how they treat her in return. Each child's special genetic and biologically influenced personality traits, what is known as temperament, end up affecting how others treat them. This idea will be discussed further in a later document about child temperament. Bronfenbrenner's next level, the mesosystem, describes how the different parts of a child's microsystem work together for the sake of the child. For example, if a child's caregivers take an active role in a child's school, such as going to parent-teacher conferences and watching their

child's soccer games, this will help ensure the child's overall growth. In contrast, if the child's two sets of caretakers, mom with step-dad and dad with step-mom, disagree how to best raise the child and give the child conflicting lessons when they see him, this will hinder the child's growth in different channels. The exosystem level includes the other people and places that the child herself may not interact with often herself but that still have a large affect on her, such as parents' workplaces, extended family members, the neighborhood, etc. For example, if a child's parent gets laid off from work, that may have negative affects on the child if her parents are unable to pay rent or to buy groceries; however, if her parent receives a promotion and a raise at work, this may have a positive affect on the child because her parents will be better able to give her her physical needs. Bronfenbrenner's final level is the macrosystem, which is the largest and most remote set of people and things to a child but which still has a great influence over the child. The macrosystem includes things such as the relative freedoms permitted by the national government, cultural values, the economy, wars, etc. These things can also affect a child either positively or negatively. All of these theorists' ideas will influence and inspire the coming articles in this series. The documents in this series will concern child development, both from theoretical perspectives, and also from applied perspectives, in the form of parenting skills coverage. Eight documents cover four stages of child development, defined for the purpose of this document series to be:

Infancy (covering birth to age two) Early Childhood (covering ages two to seven) Middle Childhood (covering ages seven to eleven) Adolescence (covering ages eleven to twenty-two)

This breakdown of ages provides rough correspondence with the stage theories of Piaget, Erikson, and Bronfenbrenner too. Within each stage, a 'theory' document will describe how development typically proceeds through the major developmental channels, including physical, mental, emotional and social, and sexual developments. A second 'applied' document will address appropriate parenting skills in light of what is known about children's development within each stage. It's important to remember that while these documents will make general statements about when developments occur in a child's life, each child will nevertheless develop at his or her own speed, and that even within a given child, certain channels may progress faster than others. For example, a twelve-year-old may have the physical growth and change of an adolescent but mentally still be in the concrete operational stage. This is normal because often one aspect of a child's being will mature faster than another. Most of the time, given the right nurturing and stimuli, everything will catch up in the end. These ages are just an average and should be looked at as a general guide rather than a rule. When babies are in infancy, they are changing from being totally dependent on caregivers to learning to walk, to talk, to play alongside others, and are realizing they are their individual

selves. When children enter early childhood, they continue to improve their large and small motor skills as they run and move more smoothly. They also grow mentally and socially as they enter school and other places where they interact with children. During middle childhood, children continue to grow and improve physically, while also growing mentally as they attend school. They maintain friendships in large same-sex groups and begin forming ideas about gender roles and jobs. During adolescence, people go through puberty as their bodies mature and become capable to reproduce. Teens attempt to assert their individual identity while still needing rules and limits to continue to help them make good life decisions. During later adolescence, young adults begin the tasks of finding a life calling or job and of finding or creating their own next-generation family. Even more milestones and more in-depth information will be explained in future articles. Hopefully, they will give you the tools that as a caregiver you need to give your children the best possible basis to grow and to succeed.
Infants: Parenting and Child Development Infant Development: How Your Baby Grows and Matures Infant Parenting: Keeping Your Baby Healthy and Happy Infant Safety: Keeping Your Baby Safe Infant Enrichment: Stimulating Your Baby Early Childhood: Parenting and Child Development Development During Early Childhood, Toddler, and Preschool Stages Parenting Your Todder, Preschooler, and Young Child Toilet Training Disciplining Your Toddler, Preschooler, and Young Child Nurturing Your Toddler, Preschooler, and Young Child Middle Childhood: Parenting and Child Development Child Development Theory: Middle Childhood Child Development and Parenting: Middle Childhood Child & Adolescent Development: Puberty Childhood Special Education Children and Media Issues Nurturing Children's Self-Esteem Adolescence: Parenting and Child Development Child Development Theory: Adolescence Child Mental Disorders and Illnesses Disorders of Childhoood http://www.gulfbend.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=7929&cn=28

PRINCIPLES OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Growth refers to an increase in some quantity over time. The quantity can be:Physical (e.g., growth in height, growth in an amount of money)Abstract (e.g., a system becoming more complex, an organism becoming more mature)

Development is used to denote an increase in skill or the ability to function (a qualitative change)can measured by the childs ability to perform tasks, recording the parents description of the childs progress or by standardized tests such as Denver II * Psychosexual development* Psychosocial Development* Cognitive Development* Moral Development The Principles of Growth and Development * Continuous processes until death * Orderly sequence * Different children pass through the predictable stages at different rates * All body systems do not develop at the same rate * Cephalocaudal * Proximal body parts to distal * Gross to refined skills * There is an optimum time for initiation of experiences or learning * Neonatal reflexes must be lost before development can proceed * A great deal of skill and behavior is learned by practice FACTORS INFLUENCING GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 1.Genetics 1 . G e n d e r 2 . H e a l t h 3.Intelligence 2.Temperament 1.Activity Levels 2.Approach 3.Rhythmicity 4.Adaptability 5.Distractability 6.Threshold of response 7.Mood quality 8.Intensity of reaction 9.Attention Span 3.Environment 1.Socio Economic level2.Parent Child Relationship 4.Nutrition