Introduction to child development - Essay Example

?Introduction to Child Development Part A Summary of the Informal Observation The first child that I observed was a boy. The boy was aged 8 years,and he lived in a suburban area. The family lived in an apartment, which had a spacious compound used for play and various outdoor activities. The observation took around 10 minutes, and it entailed checking how the child played with his peers and parents. In the first three minutes, the boy was grossly engaged in role-play. In this instance, the boy was pretending to be a pirate who had captured a ship containing treasure loot. The boy together with his friends had turned the table upside-down to be used as the ship. In order to make the event more realistic, he wore costumes that represented a pirate. The ship was captured and all the treasure loot taken by the pirate. After the pirate had taken the loot, he sank the ship using bombshells. The children made the sound of the bombs and the pirate was chanting victory songs. The children in the “captured ship” fell down to symbolize the capsizing of the bombed ship. The “pirate” was seen to be very happy after a successful mission. However, a few seconds later, government authorities appeared and arrested the pirate for causing havoc to sea-travellers. Immediately, the mood of the pirate changed to sadness to illustrate the loss of the treasure loot. In the next three minutes, the boy in a group of others began playing dance revolution. In this game, the boys competed against each other for who could dance better. Each boy was given thirty seconds to show his skills. A popular song was played, and each boy was supposed to dance to the tune of the song. Though sophisticated, each child was seen to be enjoying what was happening. The winner of the event was given a dummy cup. The boy isolated himself from the group designing a house using sticks and pieces of paper. The manner in which the boy designed the house was amazing. He created the blueprint and began putting the sticks in their right place. However, the boy left what he was doing immediately and went to the backyard. In the last two minutes, the boy went to play with his parent (father). The father of the boy was painting a picture in the backyard. The child took his drawing book and crayons and began imitating what the father was doing. It is evident from the observation that the child was particularly keen to what the father was doing. The ease of use of the crayons on the drawing book indicated a considerable growth of the child in terms of fine motor skills. From the observations, it seemed that the child was very comfortable both when playing alone and with others. In all the plays, the boy showed some level of sophistication in the way he played and interacted with the group and his father. The second child was a girl aged six years. The girl also lived in a suburban area and just like the first child; they lived in an apartment that possessed a spacious compound. Like in the first case, the girl was observed for close to ten minutes and it involved checking how the girl played, that is, alone and with others. The girl child was deeply involved in playing with her doll. For a better part of the observation time, the girl remained in one place. At the first, the girl was seen bathing the doll. It is important to state that the girl even checked the temperature of the bath water to see if it was optimal for bathing the doll. Immediately after bath, the girl combed the hair of the doll and made small braids on the doll’s head. Though the braids were not very good, the girl showed some level of skill probably acquired from the parent. The doll was dressed in neat clothes, and it was placed on its beds. After a minute, the girl picked the doll and began cooing the child as if it was crying. After the “supposed child” had slept, the girl was seen making some food for either her or the doll. At this stage, the girl went to pick something (ice cream) from the kitchen. The girl picked the doll and began feeding it with the imaginary food. The girl also took the imaginary food. At one moment, the girl was heard telling the doll that it could not take ice cream because it was extremely cold and not good for toddlers. This statement seems to have stemmed from the girl’s mother or her peers. After the girl fed the doll, she put the doll in a baby carrier and took it around the compound. The girl was heard saying that she is going to an “imaginary” mall to pick clothes for the doll. The girl pretended to be picking some clothes from the cloth line and trying them on the doll. Girls from the neighbouring compound interrupted her shopping spree for the doll. Asked what she was doing, the girl responded by saying that she was shopping for her doll. The girls quickly joined her and assisted her in shopping. From this observation, it is evident that the girl concentrated only one thing, playing with her doll. During the play, the girl showed some level of awareness of what entailed childcare. Unlike the boy, the girl was not engaged in very involving activities. From both cases, it seems like interpersonal relationships played a crucial role in the way the play was conducted. The children become socialized into proper ways of interacting with their culture. For instance, the girl takes the role of caring for a “child”; this is a proper way of interaction in any culture. Imagination and creativity are very evident in both cases. Each child is immersed in its world of fantasy. They are capable of creating real situations from what they have, for instance, a ship from an inverted table. Part 2: A Theoretical Account of the Observations In Relation To Relevant Literature to Enable a Comparison of Similarities and Differences between Children and Of Individual Children The work of a child is play. It is crucial for a child’s development and children to bond or interact. It provides an opportunity to associate with the child. Play assists the child to learn or comprehend the rules of the family and what is anticipated of him or her. As the child develops, play assists him in learning how to act in the society. Play assists a child learn motor and social skills and cognitive thinking. It is important to state that a child learns through playing with others. Play is required for a child’s healthy development. Research suggests that 75% of the brain development happens after birth (Anderson-McNamee and Bailey 2010, p1). Play assists with the development, and this is done by the stimulation of the brain through the creation of links between nerve cells. The process assists with the development of gross and fine motor skills. Fine motor skills involve actions like the ability to hold a pencil or a crayon. On the other hand, motor skills entail actions such as running or jumping. Play also assists in the development of a child’s socialization and language skills. Play permits children to learn how to communicate emotions, to be creative, solve problems and to think (Anderson-McNamee and Bailey 2010, p1). In the present era, children of all ages interact with technology such as videos and computers. It is suggested that a child who spends a majority of his time using technology generally he is not using his imagination or physically active. As the child develops and grows, his play, on the other hand, evolves. Certain categories of play are linked with, but not limited to, particular age groups. These categories include unoccupied play, solitary play, onlooker play, parallel play, associative play, social play, motor-physical play, constructive play, expressive play, fantasy play, and cooperative play (Anderson-McNamee and Bailey 2010, p2-3). Cultural meaning is rooted in interpersonal interactions. Individuals in every society interact based on their understanding of the manner in which the interactions are supposed to be done in activities such as instruction, work, or play. Interpersonal interactions are closely linked to the cultural understanding of certain actions and functions that participants believe to be proper in the assumption of them. Children start participating in activities and interactions with the mature members of the society from the onset of their births. Through the process of interactions, the child is socialized into proper ways of interacting in their culture (Benson and Raeff 2003, p84). The organization of parent and child play varies based on different cultural and parental notions of interpersonal relationships. It is worth noting that play can serve as a way in which, the child’s understanding of the stated relationships is fostered. Play, regarded as communication, can be a very crucial setting for socializing a child into culturally proper ways of relating and interacting with others. Play entails different degrees of communication between the child and the parent. By the age of eighteen months, the child is thought to have taken part in various play practices with their parents. The child also has some anticipation as to what entails play interaction with the parents (Benson and Raeff 2003, p84). It is at this time that the child becomes rather skilled in relating with more than one individual and this makes it probable to study communication patterns within the entire family environment (Benson and Raeff 2003, p85). The establishment of interpersonal relationship is one of the most crucial developmental duties in childhood. It is believed that the first relationship establishes the tone for all the consequent close relationships. It is crucial to state that the differences among children in the form of the ties they create early on can have significant effects for certain developmental pathway that the child embarks on. Relationships create the context in which all the child’s (juvenile’s) psychological functions grow. Under that instance, the child is presented to the outside world, offered with learning constraints and opportunities, discovers what is worth and important attending to, obtains means and labels of communicating, and in that process, cultivates some form of security and personality (Schaffer 2006, p153). In a learner’s environment, imagination is the capability to feel and sense circumstances, which are physically absent, and to discover how they might develop and behave in the mind’s eye. Children are proficient in the world of imagination and the validity and value of imaginary in their young lives is extensively acknowledged (Claxton 2001, p87). Imagination cultivates first as the incorporation of pretend play for the children. At eighteen months, the child starts to participate in pretend play, for instance, a child acting as if “an empty cup contained milk that was too hot to drink” (Claxton 2001, p88). It is important to state that play drives the limits of reality in various ways. To scheme that a banana is a phone or that an upturned desk is a boat, an individual must unreservedly acknowledge some features of metaphor and disregard others. The legs of the table serve as masts, and we tend to ignore that the pretend table does not really move. The banana shape is applicable to its utilization as a phone. Therefore, pretend play assists the practice of deconstructing events and objects into their component characteristics, and this, similarly, assists link different fields together, and increases creativity (Claxton 2001, p88). It is important to note that creative processes are fully manifested in early childhood. Creativity is regarded as one of the most crucial areas of educational and child psychology. In other words, creativity is important in the child’s development and maturation. At very early stages of a child’s life, one can easily identify creative processes, particularly in their play. For instance, a girl child who plays with her doll and imagines to be its mother, or a boy who pretends to be a soldier, a sailor, or a pirate are good examples of the truest and authentic creativity. In this regard, imitation plays an important role in the child’s play (Vygotsky 2004, p11). Play for a child is a replica of what he heard and saw adults do. These previous experiences are not just reproduced exactly in play like the way they happened in reality. In this case, the child’s play is not a reproduction of the previous experiences, but a creative modification of the impressions or imitations acquired. The child combines them and utilizes them to generate a new reality, one that conforms to his desires and needs (Vygotsky 2004, p11). The child’s desire to generate stories is another good example of imagination and play (Vygotsky 2004, p12). Through make-believe and pretend play, children are permitted to try out roles and actions that would be either dangerous or impossible in the actual world. Removing feelers in the future is a method of mapping out an individual’s probable lines of development and setting out ambitions and goals. It does not take a long time for the child to realize the potential of the play in growing their understanding and mastery of the world (Claxton 2001, p88). Imagination is dependent on the changing relationship between the degrees of neural action in the senses and the muscles (both connected to the brain) and the brain (Claxton 2001, p90). It is worth noting that imagination has the capability of creating substantial and long-lasting learning. In regards to memory and learning, the brain views direct and simulated as similar. Therefore, imagination embodies ideas and fantasies and makes them actual, and through that, it facilitates learning to become more practical and more finely tuned. Various researches have proved that visualization assists in the growth of physical skill. When regular mental rehearsal accompanies physical practice, performance is boosted significantly, than when practice is done alone (Claxton 2001, p91). Imagination establishes the grounds for particularly important form of creativity. Fantasizing that one thing is another assists an individual to associate two separate areas of experience. Pretend or make-believe play is the base of thinking metaphorically (Claxton 2001, p95). A challenging and creative curriculum can include chances for play and use the realities of daily experiences that overflow with chances for learning and teaching. These realistic learning environments make for balance, relevance, and breadth for learning during early education. Balance and breadth in the curriculum are concerned with the content, and the processes of learning. Children are supposed to be offered with time and space for play, imitate, reflect, reason, question, rehearse, and talk as they grow their understanding of things they meet (Nutbrown 2011, p143). As stated earlier, play is very important in a child’s live. Play is regarded as a spontaneous and enjoyable activity for the young children, and it contributes considerably to the psychological development of the child. It is crucial to state that play has been described as a self-initiated, self-regulated, and a spontaneous activity of the young child. This form of play involves less risk and is not essentially goal-oriented. During play, children possess the internal interest and desire to take part in play, and they are actively engaged in developing their play and thus having control of it (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p1). An important feature of child’s play is the notion of pretend, which is an interaction and action in an imaginary situation, which generally contains some rules and roles and the symbolic utilization of items or objects. Classical and modern theories of play have recognized the many forms in which play can influence a child’s wellbeing, and boost their emotional, social, and cognitive development. In classical theories of play, there are two categories, which include surplus energy theory, and relaxation play theory (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p2). Surplus energy theory states that humans possess a limited amount of energy that is utilized mainly for survival and work. In this regard, children play more than adults do, and this is because they are not very much involved in survival and work activity, and hence, possess huge amounts of energy to consume. Through the discharge of this excess energy in play, they are capable of restoring balance to the human body. In the relaxation play theory, energy levels are related to work, and they are seen as considerably separate from play. In this theory, play assists in the restoration of energy that is consumed when working, and engages an individual interest during that time (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p2). The modern theories of play are concerned with the methods in which play benefits a child’s psychological development. Play is viewed as providing a safe environment for expressing emotions and acquiring a sense of control. It lays the grounds for the development of a child’s self-reflection in communication and responsiveness to its strategies and rules. In most of the plays made by children, they are seen taking the roles or duties of other people in their actual lives, for instance, friend, teacher, baby, mother, and father. A child’s role-play is a crucial tool for growing their sense of self (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p3). When talking about children’s play, one can consider of a group of children involved in a sophisticated dramatic role play or imagine a child playing on his own. Play in toddlers differs considerably from that of the pre-schoolers, and as the child grows and acquire experience, their play becomes integrative and complex. Piaget is a play theorist and describes the different stages of a child’s play based on his levels of cognitive development. The first stage is linked with the sensorimotor level, and it is referred to as practice or functional play. This form of play consists of repetitive motor movements in the presence or absence of objects (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p4). In the preoperational phase of development, the child begins to engage in make-believe, pretend, or symbolic play. There are two stages of symbolic play, and they include symbolic play role and a simple action of pretend or play with objects. The function of symbolic play in the growth of symbolic representation like symbolic action and symbolic function puts the foundation for further growth of a child’s abstract thinking. The last level of Piaget’s categorization is the games with rules and it is based on following rules and understanding play activities like cards, board games, or marbles. This form of play can be done in a group or individually (Harris, Lysaght, and Verenikina 2003, p4). References Anderson-McNamee, J. K., & Bailey, S. J. (2010) The importance of play in early childhood development, Bozeman: MSU Extension. Benson, J. B. & Raeff, C. (2003) Social and cognitive development in the context of individual, social, and cultural processes, London: Routledge. Claxton, G. (2001) Wise up, Stafford: Network Educational Press Ltd. Harris, P., Lysaght, P., & Verenikina, I. (2003) Child’s play: Computer games, theories of play and children’s development, In: IFIP Working Group 3.5 Conference: Young Children and Learning Technologies, July 2003 UWS Parramatta: Australian Computer Society, Inc., pp1-8. Nutbrown, C. (2011) Threads of thinking: Schemas and young children’s learning, London: SAGE. Schaffer, H. R. (2006) Key concepts in developmental psychology, London: SAGE. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004) Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), pp7-97. Read More