Why Prenatal Development Is a Delicate Period - Term Paper Example

Development of children Affiliation: Prenatal development Prenatal development is the development of a fetus during the gestation period from the time of conception until the time of delivery. This is a delicate period because any mistakes happening during this period may affect the life of the child to be born forever. During this period, several processes and formations of the body parts and organs of the fetus take place. This include formation of body parts like the hands, legs, head and later on during the prenatal period there is formation of internal organs like the lungs and brains among others. Sensory formations also take place during this prenatal development period. All these formations and developments do not however occur simultaneously but they take place during the entire 36-4- weeks of gestation period (Charlesworth, 2010). Since this is a delicate period and any mistake may render the child to be born disabled forever even die before being born or soon after being born, extreme care should be observed. In order to incorporate this extreme cautious developmental period in my life, I need to get all the facts about this period straight and then start educating the pregnant women and those taking care of them about the importance of eating healthy, exercising a lot, avoiding alcoholic drinks and even smoking or taking drugs if they want to deliver healthy babies. This will make me feel responsible and quite effective in children’s development. Physical development Physical development in children takes place throughout the child’s life until they are adults. Growth is signified by not only growth in both in height and weight but also in development of the motor skills from being gross to fine. The physical growth requires a lot of work, practice and patients before the child is fully developed, and just like in prenatal development, the process does not take place at once but is distributed along several years. Incorporating children’s physical growth first of all requires skills and patience. These are important virtues since the cognitive ability of the children is not s developed as that of adults and hence constant repetition is required. With the physical growth in height, it mostly depends on the genetic makeup of the child which is inherited from parents and other familial relations and hence no one has any upper hand on it. The growth in weight is most often as a result of the nutrition of the child from the moment they are born. Feeding of healthy, balanced diet and nutritious food will therefore lead to growth in weight that is ideal and not obese (though some overweight issues are not always as a result of diet). Teaching the children how to refine their gross motor skills to fine motor skills where they can be able to use their fingers and not their hands and also to start movement with their two feet is also an aspect of incorporating with the physical development of the children. Personality development Development of personality by children is acquired through different ways but the most common according to learning and behavioral theories is through learning by observation and imitation. This therefore necessitates those who are constantly around children to carry themselves with dignity if the personality of the child is to be positive and highly a reflection of themselves and that of their family. As the child develops, his or her personality is shaped by the socialization agents like media, parents, peers and school among others (Meggit, 2006). In order to be involved in the children’s personality development, the socialization agents should be my target points. Constant discussion with the children about emulating the good only and shunning the negatives that are portrayed in the media should be among the key areas of incorporating the personality development strategy. Since the parents also play a big role, discussion with the parents about how they bring up their children from the time they are born and exposing them to some negative behaviors and conditions that may lead to development of a negative personality or an antisocial personality should me my priority. The same priority should be accorded to the teachers who are the second guardians of the children once they start school and they participate also in shaping the personality of the children. Constant monitoring of the children by the parents and teachers should be among those things I insist on during my incorporation of the children development since monitoring from the infancy period is what determines what type of personality the child will eventually have. Psychological development Psychological development according to psychoanalytical theories by Freud and Erikson play a big role in determining what type of an adult the child will turn out to be. The psychological development requires all the other mentioned types of development to be incorporated together since they all combine together to form an individual. If I have to make an impact in children’s lives based on their developmental periods and processes, the psychological development is what I should aim at. By using Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages, I can constantly monitor the children and try to lead them to carry out and complete the tasks required of them at each and every stage. This way, they will avoid fixations in one stage that will prevent them from moving forward. Since the unconscious also plays a big role in determining the individual, trying the find out the unconscious thought patterns of the children and engaging them in small talk about their lives and hopes or wishes will help me gain access to their unconscious and then change the negativity in the unconscious to positivity in order to avoid the child going through psychological problems when they are adults that has its roots in their childhood period. Incorporating all the above discussed developmental periods of a child require being with the child constantly and use psychological theories to try and change the child to be a better and ideal person when they grow up. Some of the theories to use include the behavioral theories, learning theories, psychoanalytic theories, personality theories and even cognitive theories. Most of these theories have been mentioned above (Smith, Cowie and Blades, 2011). References Charlesworth, R. (2010). Understanding Child Development. New York: Cengage Learning. Meggit, C. (2006). Child Development: An Illustrated Guide. New York: Heinemann. Smith, P. K., Cowie, H. and Blades, M. (2011). Understanding Childrens Development. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More