Extensive Analysis of Various Theories of Human Development - Essay Example

?Child Development Theories in Focus As evolution progresses, more and more scholars come up with theories of human development. Child development, specifically, is of utmost interest to parents and educators because they want to understand how a child grows in all developmental aspects so they can deal with the changes appropriately and provide the best conditions to meet the growing children’s needs. One implication of having knowledge and understanding of child development is planning the best learning program that is appropriately suited for children in a specific stage of development. This paper will be exploring various child development theories. Focus will be on Brofenbrenner’s Ecological Model which links development to the child’s various factors in the environment that influence the child’s experiences, learning and growth. The selected developmental stage to be discussed in this paper is the early childhood stage (age 2-6 years). In order to have a clearer picture of early child development, other theoretical frameworks by Piaget, Erikson, Freud, Maslow, Vygotsky and Bowlby shall also be referred to in conjunction with Brofenbrenner’s model as the theoretical framework of this paper. If applicable, the significance of the theory to early childhood children shall be discussed especially if the theory describes certain developmental stages. Brofenbrenner’s Ecological Model (1979) explains that the behaviour and development of an individual is an interplay of the individual’s biological and personality factors, his environment and the society and culture he was born into. Brofenbrenner also claims that effects of interactions between the individual and his environment are two-directional or characterized by reciprocity. This means that while a child’s development is influenced and moulded by his family, school and peers, he likewise influences and moulds the behaviour of others. The growing child moves through five systems that inter-relate and affect his development, namely, the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. The most basic ecological level is the microsystem, where direct contacts between the child and his immediate surroundings result in behaviours such as dependence or independence and cooperation or competition. An example of this is the home base of the child and his relationship with his family. The pure culture of the society the family lives in greatly influences how the family lives and how the child imbibes the culture as he expresses it in his developing personality. The microsystem is usually where the child first develops attachments to his significant others like his parents. John Bowlby’s (1982) Attachment theory posit that attachment provides children with a sense of security, promotes communication and the expression of feelings and becomes a secure base for children to discover their world and eventually learn self-regulation and self-control. It is a devise that contributes to children’s developing sense of self. Research done by Rudolph Schaffer (1977) and Jerome Bruner (1977) yielded the concept of ‘joint involvement episodes’ (JIE’s) which may be related to the quality of attachment a child and his or her mother or significant other has. The researchers observed mothers’ and their babies’ behaviour while focused on a potential learning episode. While jointly involved in play, for instance, they fall into a turn-taking pattern of behaviour and such cooperation teaches the child about the rules of their play within a safe and secure environment with a familiar adult. This gives him more courage to explore his world knowing he has a safe base to return to. The next level of Brofenbrenner’s Ecological model is the mesosystem, which comprises the linkages and processes that take place between two or more settings with the child in common. A perfect example is how learning in school is supported by follow up lessons in the home. At this level, the child gets to understand associations between people and things. When the child steps out of the microsystem and into the mesosystem, it is inevitable that he will encounter other people apart from his family. Most likely, he will be influenced by them and learn from them. Vygotsky’s (1978) Sociocultural perspective point to the need of young children to learn from socializing with others. It emphasizes the child’s cultural and social context of learning. Vygotsky speaks of the zone of proximal development, which is the difference between what the child can do with the help and guidance of a supporting adult and what he can do alone. This is related to his theory of scaffolding which offers temporary supports in the process of learning which are gradually taken away when the student is already capable of learning without them. The task would not have been completed without the help of scaffolds. “For example, an adult helping a child learn to cut may hold the scissors with his hand over the child’s hand and help the child move them, pointing out what happens when they are moved in a certain way. As the child becomes more skilled, the adult offers less help and gives more challenging cutting tasks.” (Brewer, 2001, p.27) The third level comprising linkages and processes taking place between two or more settings is the exosystem. This includes at least one setting that does not directly involve the child, but still influences the processes within the immediate setting of the child. An example is the parent’s occupation. The workplace of this parent does not contain the child, but processes at work may affect his development such as the hours spent there by the parent may affect the parent-child bond. The community in which the child belongs to is a big part of his exosystem, as happenings around him may directly or indirectly affect his growth and development. Peace and order in the community, consistent provision of basic needs and services, clean surroundings, etc. all contribute to a child’s optimal development. The fourth system is the macrosystem which includes the customs, values and laws considered important in the child’s culture and upbringing. A child from another culture may celebrate special customs and traditions from his culture apart from the special occasions celebrated in his host country. This feature of Brofenbrenner’s theory is one of few others that consider the influence of culture on child development. The last system in Brofenbrenner’s model is the chronosystem which refers to the time that transpires as the child relates in his various environments. An example is the change that happens to the child while he grows up moving from one system to another, like the westernization of the values of a child originally from an Asian culture then moved to an American one during a certain period in his life. This ecological model implies that the interplay and quality of the various systems and environments of the child will play different roles in influencing his development. Likewise, whatever comes out of that development will affect the various environments the child belongs to. For instance, the free expression of his culture may lead to environments being more accepting of it. The levels in Brofenbrenner’s model are not necessarily chronological in sequence. The child may fleet in and out of the various systems unlike other developmental theories that describe growth by stages such as Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development and Freud’s Psychosexual Development. Likewise, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is another sound theory that is explained from one need stage to the other. Maslow (1970) has come up with a hierarchy of needs that must be satisfied in a person’s lifetime, and that as one’s more basic need is fulfilled, he moves on to a higher one. Chronologically, the hierarchy of needs is as follows: physiological needs; safety needs; belongingness and love needs; esteem needs and need for self-actualization. Maslow notes that gratification of needs become as important as deprivation in his motivation theory since it frees the organism from the domination of a more physiological need, and thus allowing the emergence of other more social goals. The new set of needs that emerge upon the gratification of physiological needs are the safety needs for security, stability, dependency, protection, freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos as well as the need for structure, order, law, limits, strength in the protector and so on. Infants and children do not inhibit their responses to threat or danger so they project a clearer manifestation of fear. Adults, on the other hand have been programmed by society to inhibit it, as a more civilized way of dealing with the threat. Thus, even if adults feel that they are endangered, it is not obvious on the surface level (Maslow, 1970). Hence, it is easier to study the need for safety with children. They manifest preference for a predictable, lawful, orderly world, and any inconsistency that disrupts their constant rhythm makes a child feel anxious and unsafe. Children find security in what is routinary to them. In it, they are secured that unexpected, unmanageable, chaotic or other dangerous things will not happen to them, and they can count on their reliable and powerful parents to protect them from harm. This emphasizes the role of parents in their children’s sense of security. If the home environment provided for children is characterized by disruptions to a child’s peace – quarreling family members, physical assault, separation, divorce or death, it can be terrifying for children (Maslow, 1970). That is why children should be ensured of a safe and comfortable microsystem. Once the both physiological and safety needs are met, an individual now experiences a great need for love, affection and belongingness. His goal now is to establish connections to other human beings, hungering for affectionate relationships with people in general and a place in his own group or family. Next in the hierarchy of needs is esteem needs. It is but natural for people to desire a healthy self-respect or self-esteem along with the high regard others accord them. When these needs are gratified, it brings to the individual, feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, capability and adequacy, being a useful contributor to the world. Thwarting these needs produces feelings of inferiority, weakness and helplessness (Maslow, 1970). Again, these love, affection and belongingness needs as well as esteem needs should be met at the basic ecological level of the microsystem and strengthened in the mesosystem in order for the child to be motivated to seek self-actualization. The highest need that an individual can have is that of self-actualization. The term was first coined by Kurt Goldstein, “it refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially” (Maslow, 1970, p. 46). Simply put, a person must do what he has been designed to do, what his talents and potentials have moulded him to be. Maslow eloquently says, “What a man can be, he must be. He must be true to his own nature” (Maslow, p. 46). An individual will desire to be better at what he does well, usually where his gifts lie. That is why it is important that children’s potentials be optimized, and their interests be given consideration and due attention. The emergence of this self-actualization need rests upon a prior gratification of the physiological, safety, love and esteem needs (Maslow, 1970). A significant child development theory that many other theoretical frameworks have been based on is Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory. Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, has been instrumental in eliciting interest in the phenomenon of how children think. He emphasized the use of questioning that lead children to think philosophically and designed tasks that call upon high-level cognition; problem solving, reasoning, and understanding of complex concepts (Siegler & Ellis, 1996). According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory (1969), a child develops his learning abilities that prepare him to survive life’s challenges. Initially, he discovers the world using his senses, and as he grows, learns to form associations and conclusions. With close relationships to significant adults, the child develops a sense of security enabling him to venture into more learning about his world. To Piaget, children’s cognitive behaviour is intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. Even if it is a fact that social interactions and other reinforcements influence how a child thinks, Piaget maintains that children learn and think naturally because they are designed and have been evolved to do so. Piaget came up with the Stages of Cognitive Development because he believed that intellectual development is influenced by both maturation and experience. “Cognitive development is indicated by a growing ability to plan, to employ strategies for remembering and to seek solutions to problems” (Brewer, 2001, p.26). Piaget describes that cognitive development of children progress in stages. The initial stage is the Sensorimotor Stage of babies and toddlers. This period is characterized by interactions with the environment based on the child’s reception of sensory input and muscular reactions. The task of this period is to develop the concept of object permanence, the idea that objects exist even when they cannot be seen or heard. (Brewer, 2001). The Preoperational Period (two to seven years) marks the time when a child becomes able to represent objects and knowledge through imitation, symbolic play, drawing, mental images and spoken language. Lack of conservation skills is also characteristic of this stage. “Conservation is defined as the knowledge that the number, mass, area, length, weight, and volume of objects are not changed by physically rearranging the objects.” (Brewer, 2001) The ages of seven to eleven or twelve years falls under the Concrete Operational Period. Children at this age begin to think more operationally. Piaget and Inhelder (1969) described the operational thinker as one who employs “identity or reversibility by inversion or reciprocity” (p.99) in solving problems. They have moved on from being egocentric and consider that others may come to conclusions that differ from theirs. Going back to the developmental group this paper is discussing, preschool-aged children in the Pre-Operational stage of cognitive development are very open to learning and they are able to express what they learn in a variety of media. They enjoy engaging in magical thinking either by themselves or with peers. However, they can still be very egocentric and have difficulty seeing other people’s perspective. Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development have been controversial in explaining child development. According to his theory, preschool-aged children are in between Freud’s Anal and Phallic Stage of Psychosexual Development. They begin to explore their body and discover that some parts give them pleasure. Also, at this stage when they are mastering their toilet skills, they may sometimes fail to comply with adult rules of going to the bathroom, hence, it is still likely that they may wet or soil their underwear (Brewer, 2001). Psychologically, with regards to the Anal stage, preschool-aged children may be ambivalent in keeping the room orderly and clean, however, there are times when they would just want to mess everything up. Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development contends that “at each stage of life we face the task of establishing equilibrium between ourselves and our social world.” (Corey, 2005, p. 53). This entailed conflicts between two opposing constructs. The individual’s growth throughout his lifetime is fraught with conflicts and crises. At each life stage, there emerges a dilemma that the person struggles with. Crisis, in Eriksonian terms, does not connote a threat of catastrophe but a crucial turning point of “increased vulnerability and heightened potential, and therefore, the ontogenetic source of generational strength and maladjustment” (Erikson, 1968, p. 96). At these turning points an individual may either resolve the conflict or fail to master the developmental task. Whatever comes out of it is the result of choices made at each stage. As a way to deal with a child’s upbringing, Erikson claims that people all over the world have the tendency to introduce to the child the senses of shame, doubt, guilt and fear. These build up the crises the child undergoes in each life stage. However, such conflicts are seen as important because the individual needs to resolve them unceasingly to remain psychologically alive (Erikson, 1959). Thus, his ego integrity is sustained. Children in the early childhood stage belong to Erikson’s Initiative vs. Guilt Stage of Psychosocial Development. These children are into doing things on their own and showing everyone how much they have grown in many ways. Having developed more skills, a child exhibits competence in some tasks more than before. He craves for freedom to make choices to have a positive view of himself and follow through on his projects. However, at this stage, children may be awkward, and their good intentions may backfire as in destroying some things in the process. When this happens, they are overcome with guilt. Not being allowed to make their own decisions makes them develop guilt over taking initiative. Hence, the tendency is to take a passive stance and let others choose for them (Erikson, 1963). Knowledge and understanding of all the human development theories discussed in this paper are essential in helping children grow and develop into intelligent, conscientious, independent contributing adults in society. Brofenbrenner’s Ecological model provided the theoretical scenarios of how various ecological systems affect and influence the learning, growth and development of young children while the other theories discussed in the paper explained other factors perceived to contribute to the formation of the child’s thinking processes, personality and other competencies. Although the various theories may be universally accepted to explain general patterns of child development, Brofenbrenner’s ecological model takes into account various cultural influences in the moulding of the child. Such cultural differences are responsible in certain variations in pre-determined developmental patterns. Teachers of multicultural classes may be able to apply this theory in their practice. They must learn culturally-relevant teaching. Such teaching takes into consideration the cultural background of the students at all times. It also keeps in mind cultural aspects in all interactions with students on both personal and educational levels. (Edwards & Kuhlman, 2007). Students’ cultures, languages and experiences need to be acknowledged, valued and used as important sources of their education because they deserve the best that society can give them. This involves teachers learning about students’ backgrounds and personal experiences to use as tools to make connections with these students. The increased attention child development theories are receiving from educators and others concerned with the welfare of children is evidence that children are valued by society and are worth all the research and effort. They deserve to be raised and educated in the best way possible because they are seen as providers of hope for a better world in the future. References Bowlby, J. (1982, 2nd edn) Attachment and Loss (Volume 1), Harmondsworth, Penguin. Brewer, J.A. (2001) Introduction to Early Childhood Education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1977) ‘Early social interaction and language acquisition’ in Schaffer, H. R. (ed.) 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(1977) Studies in Mother–Infant Interaction, Proceedings of the Loch Lomond Symposium, Ross Priory, University of Strathclyde, September 1975, London, Academic Press. Siegler, R.S. & Ellis, S. (1996) Piaget on Childhood, Psychological Science, Vol. 7, No. 4 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Read More