Infancy and early childhood Development - Essay Example

Infancy and Childhood Development In understanding the patterns of cognitive development in infants and children and how families affect their development, the contributions of Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and Erik Erikson (1902-1994) hold a very significant importance. Children go through a number of cognitive stages in intellectual development (Piaget, as cited in Coon, 2009, p.112), and they learn to develop emotional attachment right from their infancy with the help of “a number of attributes that help them to maintain contact with others and do elicit caregiving” (Shaffer, 2009, p.142). Caregivers and the family play a very important role in infants’ emotional and cognitive development.

This is because they infants get attached to those people around them who are responsive and provide them comfort. According to Evans and Erikson (1981, p.12), in the first stage of cognitive development in infants, trust versus mistrust, infants get close to and develop trust on their parents and the family members from whom they find reassurance. How the family interacts with an infant or a young child defines how he is going to make a schema of the world inside his mind. If the family is going to offer him warmth and dependable fondness, the child is going to develop a trustworthy relationship not only with the family but with whomever he will meet in his life; whereas, if the family provides him with insecurities and the child does not feel that his basic needs are being fulfilled, he will develop a sense of mistrust with the whole world.

Thus, the active participation of family and how they meet the basic needs (that include food, clothing, comfort, affection) of the infant define if the child is going to trust others and feel them reliable or is going to mistrust others and feel them unreliable and undependable. If the family has been abusive toward the child, he will grow up to be abusive toward the world and will perceive the world as a dangerous place to live in. This is how the family of infants and children affects their cognitive development.

Seifert (2004) asserts that “early childhood education is not about young children as such, but about how teachers and children form relationships that mutually influence each other and that especially influence children.” In infant stage, these teachers will be the primary caregivers or the parents. The form of relationship the parents develop with their children is a very important indicator of what type of early education the children are receiving at their homes when they are in their infancy.

Parents tend to be authoritative, authoritarian or permissive, and each kind tends to educate the child in a totally different way. Very strict standards that leave no room for communication with children, like when the parents tell the child to do something because they want them to do and there is no other reason, will make the child obey but will not enable him to learn the logic and reasoning. Permissive parents have very lenient rules which results in the child getting disobedient and even violent at times.

Hence, for infants and young children, the early education which starts at their homes, is very important for their cognitive development and in defining what sort of individuals they will grow into. References Coon, D. (2009). Cognitive development? How do children learn to think. Psychology: A Journey. USA: Cengage Learning. Evans, R.I., & Erikson, E.H. Dialogue with Erik Erikson. USA: Praeger. Seifert, K.L. (2004). Cognitive Development and the Education of Young Children. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://home.cc.umanitoba.

ca/~seifert/cogchapweb.html Shaffer, D.R. (2009). Social and Personality Development. USA: Cengage Learning.