Child Development Theories: A Comprehensive Overview, Slides of Childhood Development

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Jean Piaget • Lev Vygotsky

Abraham Maslow • B.F. Skinner •

Erik Erickson • Howard Gardner

Why Study Child & Parenting

Development Theories?

Theories help people:

• Organize their ideas about raising children.
• Understand influences on parenting.
• Discover more than one way to interact with children.
• Analyze the benefits and consequences of using more than one theory.

Child Development

• Definition:
  • Change in the child that occurs over time. Changes follow an orderly pattern that moves toward greater complexity and enhances survival.
• Periods of development:
  • Prenatal period: from conception to birth
  • Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years
  • Early childhood: 2-6 years old
  • Middle childhood: 6-12 years old
  • Adolescence: 12-19 years old

Domains of Development

Development is described in three domains, but growth in one domain influences the other domains.

• Physical Domain:
  • body size, body proportions, appearance, brain development, motor development, perception capacities, physical health.
• Cognitive Domain:
  • thought processes and intellectual abilities including attention, memory, problem solving, imagination, creativity, academic and everyday knowledge, metacognition, and language.
• Social/Emotional Domain:
  • self-knowledge (self-esteem, metacognition, sexual identity, ethnic identity), moral reasoning, understanding and expression of emotions, self-regulation, temperament, understanding others, interpersonal skills, and friendships.

16th Century

Reformation period

• Puritan religion influenced how children were

viewed.

• Children were born evil, and must be civilized.
• A goal emerged to raise children effectively.
• Special books were designed for children.

17th Century

Age of Enlightenment

• John Locke believed in tabula rasa
• Children develop in response to nurturing.
• Forerunner of behaviorism

www.cooperativeindividualism.org/ locke-john.jpg

19th Century

Industrial Revolution

• Charles Darwin
  • theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest
• Darwin made parallels between human prenatal growth and other animals.
• Forerunner of ethology

20th Century

Theories about children's development

expanded around the world.

• Childhood was seen as worthy of special

attention.

• Laws were passed to protect children,

Sigmund Freud

Psychosexual Theory

• Was based on his therapy with troubled adults.
• He emphasized that a child's personality is formed by the ways which his parents managed his sexual and aggressive drives.

Psychoanalytic Theories:

• Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
  • Personality has 3 parts
  • There are 5 stages of psychosexual development
  • Oedipus complex allows child to identify with same-sex parent
  • Fixation is an unresolved conflict during a stage of development

Erik Erikson

Psychosocial Theory

• Expanded on Freud's theories.
• Believed that development is

life-long.

• Emphasized that at each stage,

the child acquires attitudes and skills resulting from the successful negotiation of the psychological conflict.

Life is a series of stages. Each individual must pass through each stage. The way in which a person handles each of these stages affects the person’s identity and self-concept. These psychosocial stages are:

1. Trust vs. mistrust (birth to 1 year)
2. Autonomy vs. shame & doubt (2 to 3 years)
3. Initiative vs. guilt (4 to 5 years)
4. Industry vs. inferiority (6 to 11 years)
5. Identity vs. role confusion (12 to 18 years)
6. Intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood)
7. Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood)
8. Integrity vs. despair (older adulthood)

Psychosocial Theory of Human

Development – Erik Erikson

Critique of Erik Erikson

• Supporters of this Eriksonian theory, suggest that those best equipped to resolve the crisis of early adulthood are those who have most successfully resolved the crisis of adolescence.
• On the other hand, Erikson's theory may be questioned as to whether his stages must be regarded as sequential, and only occurring within the age ranges he suggests. There is debate as to whether people only search for identity during the adolescent years or if one stage needs to happen before other stages can be completed.

Cognitive Theories

Beliefs that describe how children learn