3. Development in Early Childhood

The next study unit, unit 2. Not sure if this will also be divided into 2 posts. In this unit, I will be talking about development in children.

Previously I discussed infant development, and there is really so much to explore and learn about them, now we are moving forward to children.

According to Piaget, children go through the pre-operational stage of their cognitive development between 2 to 7, and operations are internalized set of actions that allow children to do what they did before. Pre-operational means they are still unable to do so. The pre-operational thought is divided into 2 sub-stages: Symbolic Function Sub-stage and Intuitive Thought Sub-stage.

In Symbolic Function Sub-stage, children are from 2 to 4 and are starting to mentally represent an object that is not present. But they are in the egocentrism stage, they are unable to see from the perspective of someone else. During our zoom meeting, the children are eating food. In the k1 class, they do not realise that everyone else cannot see what they are eating, because they can only see from their perspective. They also have animism, where they believe objects have lifelike qualities. That they are like living things.

In the Intuitive Thought Sub-stage, children’s thought is intuitive, so they do not know how they know what they know. Their knowledge is also more intuitive and lacks rational thinking.

Centration also happens during pre-operational thought, where children focus solely on one thing and neglect the rest, and this affects them to have a lack of conservation, for instance, if you pour water between a taller container and a shorter container, they will think the water has increased. The truth is, the volume of water remains, but because of their centration on the height, they lack conservation.

Vygotsky believes that knowledge is mutually constructed. The Zone of Proximal Development is a key part of the social constructivist theory, that an adult is crucial in helping the child learn to do a task independently. Scaffolding is used to achieve that, where the adult slowly reduces the amount of help until the child is capable.

When children do things, they might use private speech. They talk to themselves. When adults do that, they might be too stressed. I digress. Vygotsky believes this is crucial and good, it is a transition to when they communicate with adults. Language is a key part of constructing knowledge. However, Piaget believes it is bad because private speech is egocentric and immature. I do agree that, but I don’t think it is bad or immature. It just happens to be what happens along with a child’s development.

Information processing is also crucial in children. 2 aspects are key to their cognitive processes, attention and memory. As for attention, there are 2 further elements: Habituation (lose of attention) and Dishabituation (recovery of attention). The child’s ability to pay attention evolves through 3 ways: Control of attention, salient vs relevant dimensions, ‘planfulness’.

Memory is the retention of information over time. It is further divided into 3 sub-groups. Sensory Memory (SM), Short-Term Memory (STM), and Long-Term Memory (LTM). We know the other two, but the first one is quite interesting. Children are capable of retaining memories, that is why when you teach them something they can remember. They use a technique called “rehearsal”, to ensure they remember.

Language development also occurs, as they understand the different systems of rules. Phonology (sounds of letters), morphonology (forming of words), syntax (forming of sentences), semantics (the meaning of words), and pragmatics (words in context).

As for physical development, children of this age are super active, and that is normal. We shouldn’t label children as being active, because that is who they are. Gross and fine motor skills develop rapidly, as they begin to discover what they can do. Erikson’s psychosocial theory falls in nicely here, where children are in the autonomy vs shame & doubt stage and initiative vs guilt stage. They need to receive affirmation about what they can do, they need time to learn what they can do, and sometimes as adults, the biggest help we can give children is to step back.

What this all means for educators and preschools, is that education must be holistic. While in Primary and Secondary schools, teachers are more specialized, preschool teachers cover everything. Though on a simpler level.

Moving on to socioemotional development in children. In infants, the caregiver is crucial in their socioemotional development, but for children, peers take a more central role than their families. I had a Zoom hang out with the kiddos, and they were all having fun talking to each other about random things. This section will be divided into Emotional and Personality Development, Social Context- Family, and Social Context- Roles of Peers, Play, and TV.

For Emotional and Personality Development, the self is important to know. Children learn to understand themselves more, like in Erikson’s theory. In emotional development, children need support from adults. There are 2 types of role parents play when it comes to emotions: Emotion-coaching and Emotion-dismissing. Emotion-coaching is to acknowledge negative emotions and coach them, while emotion-dismissing is simply rejecting negative emotions. Children need to understand that it is okay to be angry or sad, but it is about what they do with their emotions. I shall move on to moral development. Piaget also talks about moral development, and there are 3 stages. Heteronomous morality (4 to 7), Transition (7 to 10), and Autonomous Morality (10 and above).

In Heteronomous morality, children perceive rules as unchangeable, that people are not able to control them. I see this all the time, children can articulate rules out to their peers, even to teachers and parents. Immanent Justice occurs here, where children perceive that when they do something wrong, punishment will come. So when something bad happens to someone, they must have done something wrong. I find it hilarious that this is true, as sometimes children will spill things. Everyone gets quiet when I ask who spilt or what spilt. I am not angry, but because I said it out, they think the teacher is angry and is going to scold that child. Not really, sometimes it is an accident.

The Transition stage blends elements from the first and third stage, while the third stage, Autonomous Morality, children understand rules are created by people, and they should not only take note of consequences but also intentions. Crossing the road when the light is red is one such example.

But I do think that educators need to role-model the correct behaviour, instead of talking or scolding. Children imitate. They use the same language adults use. Can you please share? Can you be kind to your friends? I have found that after a while, I have lots of parrots and mimes in my class. They are just a reflection of me. If I don’t show kindness, they will never know what is kindness. It ain’t about scolding or getting angry.

Next, I will talk about Social Context- Family. There are 4 types of parenting styles.

Authoritarian: Strict control, tyrants.
Authoritative: Allows independence in children but still have control, warm and nurturing.
Neglectful: Very uninvolved with children.
Indulgent: Very involved with children, but no control over them.

I have to admit that for myself, I have been in indulgent parenting. It has affected my self-esteem growing up. I have no idea how to defend myself against bullies. That is why I am strict on children who have indulgent parenting. I want to make sure that when they grow up, they can survive by themselves. Mummy and daddy are not going to help you. Who cares if your parents own the kindergarten? Are they going to be with you in Primary school, Secondary school etc?

Often, authoritarian parents use punishment to discipline their children. Children should have clear boundaries, but not punished. Disciplined firmly. Punishment is bad because children will imitate that, so when they feel stressed they will do that behaviour or action. Focusing too much on the negative will only enlarge it, and reduce the positive behaviours. When I give children time-out, I try to speak to them afterwards. Usually, they are remorse, so it is easy to talk to them. Of course, there are a couple who never learn. Those might have been through tough punishment or have no clear boundaries at home. It is always a juggling act between positive reinforcement or discipline.

In families, there may be siblings. These relationships can affect children, even birth order. Being the oldest, youngest, or the middle can affect a child in a big way. Families in our modern society are so different, we have both parents working, so usually, grandparents or helpers will take care of children. Even if one parent is not working, there is a tendency to overdo. The parent might stifle the child’s independence by doing too much for the child until the child is unable to do things by themselves. That can be an indulgent parent.

Then, I shall talk about Social Context- Roles of Peers, Play, and TV. The peer group becomes more prominent in a child’s life as he or she gets older. The family will have a lesser influence over them. This is crucial, as the child might make a poor judgment about friends. The virtue of prudence is key, in ensuring a child can decide to be friends with a good company. Play happens during peer interactions. So much good stuff happens when children play together. I always ensure children are playing with each other, so the activity does not matter. Both Piaget and Vygotsky agree on the importance of play. Play is good for cognitive development.

Mildred Parten categorized play into 6 stages. Unoccupied play, solitary play, onlooker play, parallel play, associative play, and cooperative play. There are also 5 other categories of play. Sensorimotor (infants get pleasure by using their sensorimotor schemes) and practice play (repetition of using skills), Pretense/symbolic play (transforms the physical environment into symbols), Social play (Involves interactions with peers), Constructive play (combines sensorimotor and repetitive activity with the symbolic representation of ideas, and it happens when children engage in self-regulated construction of a product or a problem solution), and Games (Rules, sometimes competition).

Finally, about Television. In our context, that includes electronic devices. Many children spend time on devices than with their families. I have seen so many families leaving children to watch a cartoon. If that is meant to “control” children, that says a lot about your parenting skills, or willingness to be a parent.

References
Kong, G. S. (2020). SWK104 Human Growth and Life-Span Development (Birth to Adolescence) Study Guide (5CU). Singapore.

Santrock, J. W. (2019). Life-span Development (17th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Education.