Intervention and Theoretical Paper-Middle School Aged Children - Coursework Example

Middle Aged Children Development Issues Normal Developmental issues Faced by Middle Aged Children Conventionally, for individuals tosucceed in life they ought to have achieved academically, flexibility and willingness both in college and in career and a positive behavior. Consequently, school counseling for the middle-aged aims at promoting and enhancing the success of pupils in future by providing them with the necessary support throughout their development. Basically, school counseling incorporates various players who play a part in the development of a child (Santrock, 2012). For instance, it involves partnering with communities and administrators, collaboration with teachers and parents so as to enhance the future success of children through guidance, leadership, advocacy, and counseling. In this regard, this paper presents an intervention for middle-aged children based on their normal development issues. Middle-aged children or children aged between 6 to 11 years undergo various development changes. The development of middle-aged children refers to the various emotional, sexual, mental, physical and moral developments that occur to children at the age of 8-11. The field of child development, in this case, encompasses emotional, physical and intellectual growth. On one hand, the physical growth is easily observable and can be measured on a simple scale like a tape. Contrary, the mental, moral, social and emotional growths are not simply detectable and they reveal themselves in unpredictable and complicated ways. In this consideration, physiologists and child development experts have developed theories that assist them in describing, measuring and discussing the patterns of development that occur in these areas. Generally, the bodies of children change a lot during their middle age. In this stage, children grow at an average of 2-3 inches in a year. Moreover, at the beginning of the period boys are generally taller than the girls but towards the end of the period the trend is reversed and girls are taller than the boys. In addition, permanent adult teeth begin to grow hence pushing out and replacing the baby teeth already in place. Also, in this period both boys grow muscles though girls seem to retain more tissues of fat and hence they look softer than the boys. In this stage, children are confused about their bodies and tend to compare themselves with their friends while at the same time having misconceptions regarding sexuality and puberty. The other physical development is the growth of the motor skills. Motor skills refer to the movement skills for the larger body that include running and walking. Typically, boys grow the motor skills at a faster rate than the girls in this period. In this period, the children learn how to control and coordinate their gross motor skills and hence they can also throw, jump, skip and hop. Contrary, girls in this period develop their fine motor skills faster than the boys. The fine motor skills are distinguished from the motor skills in that they require the coordination of the hand and the eye. In this regard, children in this period develop fine skills which are expressed in the improvements in activities like handwriting, sewing and beading of course under the assistance of an adult. Further, they can use communication tools like cell phones and computers. The cognitive changes that children undergo during this period are more remarkable as compared to the physical changes. Notably, children in this era are able to think objectively and are no longer simply reacting to changes in the environment. Piaget’s theory of Concrete Operations described the mental operations of this age to be guided by reversibility, maintenance, hierarchical classification and spatial reasoning. The first concrete operation is conservation and includes the knowledge that the quantity of something remains constant across different situations even if the thing may appear to have changed across those situations. For instance, Piaget s cited two equal containers with different colors; in this case, the children can notice they hold the same volume of liquid despite the differences in the appearance of the containers. The second phase of cognitive development involves decent ration or the ability to pay attention to going beyond looking for a single attribute of an object or situation before making a decision. For instance, when asked to choose between two different glasses of milk, children in this age can weigh the height and the width of the glasses unlike young children who tend to be locked up in one attribute, say height, when confronted with a similar situation. The last phase of cognitive development includes classification, serration, and spatial reasoning. Classification enables them to group things into more specific groups by making comparisons while seriation enables them to put things in an order that is based on degree or amount. Piaget suggested that in this stage spatial reasoning developed is observed by the ability of the children to draw conclusions based on their understanding of the environment and the information of direction and distance it conveys. According to Santrock (2012), Vygotskys social development theory analyzes the interpersonal, social and linguistic factors that contribute to the mental development of children in this era. According to this theory, the cultural and family environments the children are in shapes their behavior. In the Vygotskys zone of proximal development, children at this age learn cognitive abilities through their interactions with adults or older peers. Conversely, the Information Processing Theory describes how children in this middle age change their cognitive ability to preserve, institute and the use of information in their learning process. Accordingly, the experience taken by children is the intake that is transformed into various outputs in terms of behaviors. This is a personality theory that analyzes the ability of individual children to synthesize information. A new theory of neurobiological effects of trauma attempts also to explain the impact of chronic violence in persons with the development of a child. This field of study combines the knowledge developmental psychopathology, stress and trauma research and developmental neuroscience to explain behaviors due to childs maltreatment experiences. According to this field, the biological processes of the mind are genetically programmed by maltreatment experiences such as, sexual abuses and witnessing communities or domestic violence and the child cannot achieve the appropriate age-associated cognitive, physical and emotions. Intervention for Depression in Middle Aged Children One of the major behavioral issues associated with children in this stage is depression. This is because the differences in physical, cognitive and sociological developments often make the children feel secluded and hence are depressed. This intervention is a one hour presentation for parents of middle-aged children in a seminar. Moreover, the intervention is depended on the development process and presents means for treatment as well as prevention of depression in children. According to Lerner (2015), depression in children may be a result of negative thinking associated with cognitive development according to the cognitive theory of depression. The parent model of parent and child socialization asserts that depression may be caused by the negative evaluative process by the parents which are copied by the child as Vygotskys theory suggests. Consequently, treatment of depression in children can follow a cognitive therapy, family therapy or even medications (Zembar & Blume, 2009). The cognitive therapy is based on cognitive theories that assert that child’s negative perceptions of self-are caused by distortions of self-due to their environment. The Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for depression in children targets cognition, behavioral and the physiology domains. The cognitive domain trains parents on how to handle the negative reasoning of their depressed children. This training may include grateful attitude towards the children as well as encouragement. Secondly, the behavioral domain deals with social skills, assertiveness and scheduling activities. Thirdly, in the physiological domain parents are told on how to guide their children through relaxation, meditating and positive imagination to calm them. However, the purpose of the seminar is to highlight the techniques so that the parents can appreciate them and if unable to apply them they will know the importance of a therapist. In addition, Santrock (2012) suggests another treatment intervention to be family therapy. This intervention is based on the Vygotskys theory that children copy the adults and, in this case, the closest adults often close are the parents. Accordingly, depression of the parents, conflicts within the family and criticizing the child causes depression. In this intervention, parents should apply the cognitive techniques to deal with their stress while at the same time are taught about children depression. Specifically, they are taught the signs, approaches and medication for depression in children with their negative effects. Also, the parents are told on how to identify the stressors in the environments they stay in such as community, school or even at home. Another intervention at the family level is to emphasize on the child-parent relationship and how it can be developed so as to promote attachments between the parents and the child (Howe, Goodman & Cicchetti, 2008). As it regards medication, the parents are highlighted on the various available antidepressants such as Zoloft, desipramine and other tricyclic antidepressants that are used to reduce stress in children. Following the development issues by children, prevention interventions may be identified as Lerner (2015) suggests. One would be reducing the family conflicts that are a major cause of depression for the middle-aged children. Furthermore, research has showed that children for families without conflicts are more likely to respond positively to treatment as compared to their counterparts from unstable families. Another prevention mechanism is for parents to focus on attending psychoeducational sessions that aim at identifying the childs questions that they may want the parents to address. Considerations when Dealing with Trauma in Children In specific, when dealing with maltreatment experiences in middle-aged children, various factors ought to be considered. These factors may increase the risk that a child will experience long-term social, behavioral and emotional consequences after a maltreatment experience. For the individual child, it’s necessary to consider their history of behavioral and emotional difficulties before the event. Further, its necessary to consider the pre-existing family stressors, academic difficulties and any maltreatment experiences they may have encountered before the event. Moreover, one should consider their factors related to the trauma, like the loss of a family member, family evacuation, and threats to life and injuries to life. In addition, one should consider the developmental considerations for the child. In the case of middle-aged children, Piaget suggests that the children have the ability to use reason so as to sort objects. In this regard, when dealing with trauma in children one should consider that the children can solve problems that are associated with actual events or objects but they cannot undertake abstractions or hypothetical tasks. Also, Montessoris theory of how the middle-aged children construct their intelligence through thinking with imagination and logic. In this relation, one should realize that the children want to know about the world and the place around them (Howe, Goodman & Cicchetti, 2008). In conclusion, one should also consider the parents and the environment before and after trauma. These considerations should reveal whether the parents have difficulties in providing for the child especially after trauma and the familiarity with the surroundings of the home. On the other hand, the trauma may too affect the parents so that they unknowingly change their parent-child relationship. Lastly, one should take into account the changes associated with the new society the child or family have moved to in cases of displacements. References Howe, M. L., Goodman, G. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2008). Stress, trauma, and childrens memory development: Neurobiological, cognitive, clinical, and legal perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lerner, R. M. (2015). Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Social, emotional and personality ... development. Place of publication not identified: John Wiley. Santrock, J. W. (2012). Life-span development. New York, London: McGraw-Hill. Zembar, M. J., & Blume, L. B. (2009). Middle childhood development: A contextual approach. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Merrill/Pearson. Read More