After taking the course CFS/PSY 252, also known as Development in Middle Childhood, I have gained so much knowledge on topics from physical development to peer relationships. I have also conducted extensive research on theorists like John Bowlby, and led group discussions on topics such as bilingual children. More importantly, I learned how much of an impact beliefs, values, socioeconomic status, and the environment has on a child. This course has helped prepare me for the future and realize what a complex time middle childhood can be. Because I do not plan to be working with kids, I think this course will help me if I ever decide to have my own kids. Moreover, it will help me guide my parents and my younger siblings who are either in middle …show more content…
With the information I have gained from this course, I plan to use it to the best of my ability.
Contrary to popular belief, middle childhood, which ranges from six to eleven, is a very complex time period. As you can see on the graph on page __, there are three domains of development during this time period: physical, cognitive and social. It is important to know that these domains can overlap at any time. For example, a child could be going through changes in appearance at the same time that they are developing interpersonal skills, hence why this stage is so important. During middle childhood children start to form concrete operations, or in other words, the child begins to use logical thought. Because the child is learning things like social ques, studying habits, eating habits, and how to cope with stress, the skills a child learns while in this stage can make or break them in the future. However, with a good support system children typically can overcome certain issues and improve on those setbacks, that is why it is essential to have a least one person in a child’s life, whether it
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As the theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner states, family, sibling and peer relationships are the basis of a child’s identity, without these people a child wouldn’t know where to take their cues form. These people belong to what Bronfenbrenner called the microsystem. The microsystem is part of a much larger system, as you can see on page ___. Bronfenbrenner calls this the ecological systems theory, this system explains how development is influenced by various forces: the microsystem, mesosystem, exsosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. As stated previously, the microsystem is the most important because it holds the people that have the most influence on the earliest years of a child’s life. The second most important system would be the mesosystem, which you can see consists of people like extended family, the school board, and mass media. Essentially, the mesosystem is an enlarged microsystem, however the mesosystem does not have as much of a direct impact on the child as the microsystem would. The third system is the
The environmental influences must be considered in order to understand the behavioral of a child. Urie Bronfenbrenner was a famous Russian American psychologist who formulated the Ecological Model Systems in 1979. He believed that as a child grow and mature, the way he/she interact with the environment become more complex. The Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model Systems defines how external environments and individuals affect the development of a child. It is made up of four systems that greatly influence the development of a child. The four systems are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old and I grew up in a broken family. My microsystem includes immediate relationship I interact with,
In the ecological systems theory, Brofenbrenner postulated that in order to completely understand development, the entire ecological system must be taken into account. Each level of the system offers a diverse range of options and sources for growth. The microsystem level - which is what we will be focusing on – contains structures with which the child has direct contact. It embodies the relationships and interactions the child has with their immediate surrounding such as family, school, neighbors, and childcare environments. Relationships that are bi-directional tend to have the strongest influence, meaning the interactions have impact in two directions, both toward the individual and away. The microsystem provides the initial set of interrelations a child has and provides the basis for developing trust with their significant people. For this reason, adopting at the earliest age po...
McDevitt, T. M., & Ormrod, J. E. (2010). Child development and education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Middle childhood brings many changes to a child’s life. Middle childhood is the developmental phase that leads from the period before commencement of the physiological processes and changes associated with puberty ...
During middle childhood, children are able to excel in many aspects of development that they could not have obtained before. Children starting around age seven are able to excel in their learning and cognitive development, like being able to read and enjoy going to school to learn something new. They enjoy being able to practice their new knowledge by practicing it until they get it perfect. By this age, middle school age children are able to direct their attention to a particular situation or objective and ignore everything else; this is also called selective attention, “ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring others.” (Berger, 2011, p.305) Another aspect of middle school age children, are seen to be able to control their actions or thoughts and think about the consequences before doing any given action. This can also be seen as middle school age children, who have major advances in controlling their emotions.
Papalia, Diane E, Sally W. Olds, and Ruth D. Feldman. A Child's World: Infancy Through Adolescence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print. The author is a child development and psychology professor. This is an anthology with strictly objective information. The content is broken down into physical, cognitive, and psychosocial developments of different stages of childhood.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory will be applied throughout this essay to delve into the reasoning behind particular behavioural issues. According to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, an individual has multiple environments known as their ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Bronfenbrenner (1994) suggests that a developing child is influenced by the relationships surrounding them and the best way to understand a child’s behaviour is to look at the numerous aspects of the child’s environment and how they interact with each other. The relationships and environments that the child interacts with have been separated into layers known as the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the overarching chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The microsystem is the environment where the child has direct face-to-face relationships such as at home, day care and school (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The relationships formed within the microsystem directly impact the development of a child (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). It is through the processes of repeated interactions with people, objects and symbols that the human develops (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The second layer in the ecological model is the mesosystem, which is the interaction between two of the microsystems such as the relationship between a parent and a teacher (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The exosystem is an external environment, with which the
In this stage, cultural or values of the family members give children an important impact for their growth. Children are actively in different kind of physical activities, their muscle movement and perception is getting stable, they know how to use language and create creativity. They like to copy others as well as feel curious about all the things around them and started to ask lots of questions. In this stable stage, children started know how to use their physical ability to do many things such as hit their friends or scold people. Children will aways ask: Is it okay for me to do what i do? If they encouraged to do, and adult give them lots of chances to engage activity with freedom they will feel happy and initiative to explore the environment around them. In the meantimes, their language ability will improve speedy, they use language to get new information and the initiative stimulate children's sense of communication or
Middle childhood is the time where children start to fully develop their skills. They develop their comprehension skills, communication skills, and many more. In order to get a better look into the life of children during this stage, I decided to observe my niece’s friend, Ryan, who is almost at the end of her middle childhood stage. Ryan is an eleven year old girl who attends Bassett Elementary. I choose to observe Ryan because, she is a very unique girl who does not always fit into what the average girl her age is like.
Children in middle childhood are growing psychosocially at a quick rate. During middle childhood they become industrious, develop a self-concept, and learn how to be friends, amongst other things.
Middle childhood is defined a number of ways, but perhaps best defined as the ages 6 to 12 years of age or prepubescent to pubescence Middle childhood is a challenging time and a major challenge is social constructs, as this is the earliest time when children begin to move away from parental influences and establish more meaningful peer and other adult relationships. It signifies a new set of social contacts with adults and other children as well as a wider variety of settings than those that characterize early childhood. Children begin to see themselves as a part of a bigger whole. Peer influences can become more powerful than the adults in the children’s life and impact their sense of self. Grouping is established and teasing of others groups and children begins to take hold in establishing social ranking. This can be a critical time for children and a great time for a social work practitioner to implement interventions to assist vulnerable children. However, a child who has one or two adults or trustworthy peers to whom she may turn may learn that peers cannot necessarily be trusted to give her good feedback. (website) Providing a setting were children could expand their ideas, make like minded friends and have the mentoring of trustworthy adults can transition children into the next developmental phase. They begin to look at different perspectives and can see another point of view. The world opens up before them, while this is an exciting time; it is also perhaps the most turbulent.
The four learning goals are: knowledge (consists of facts, concepts, ideas, and vocabulary), skills ( small units of action that occur in short period of time), disposition ( respond to certain situations), and feelings ( emotional states) ( Katz 2003). With an successful care giving and early education, it can bring an positive outcome to a child’s life. What a child learns in their early years are things that will continue to helps them along in their future in school and in the real world. When a child is introduced to early childhood education, they can enhance many benefits from it. The benefits that a child will encounter when set into an early education program are: they are less likely to be antisocial and repeat a grade, achieve higher levels of achievement, are more likely to graduate from high school, be more prepared to enter school, and have higher IQ’s (CPPP1999). Early education can help a child show their abilities from learning to their parent and teacher which will help the parent and teacher have positive expectations for the child. In an personal interview with five year old Cochran (2003) said, “ I like showing my mom what I learn. My favorite thing that I have learned is the alphabet in sign language. I have twenty new friends.” As a child starts to grow in life, their first three years is when their brain development increases most. By the age two, the brain has grown about 75 % of it’s adults weight, and by the age five it has reached to 90% (Steinberg 1995). Interaction is a go...
The preschooler child displays a variety of physical, cognitive, and social abilities that are quite unlike any other age group. To understand this development fully one must first understand how humans come into being. All human life begins with the single interaction of sperm and ovum. This simple collision springs forth new life. One cell becomes two, two cells become four, and so on throughout the organism’s life span. The human life experience is broken down into nine periods of development. These include: the Prenatal Period ranging from conception to birth, Infancy and Toddlerhood ranging from birth to three years, Early Childhood or Preschool ranging from three to six years, Middle Childhood ranging from six to 12 years, Adolescence
Before learning about early childhood in this class I never realized all the way children at such a young age are developing. From the second part of this course I learned how much children are developing at the early childhood stage. I never realized children learn how about their emotions, having empathy, and self-concept at such a young age. I thought children had it easy. They play with friends, start school, and just be kids. One important thing that stood out to me in this chapter is that children’s self-esteem starts at this stage. According to Berk (2012), “self-esteem is the judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments (p. 366)”. Self-esteem is very important for a child to have and it can
In electing to observe a kindergarten class, I was hoping to see ‘real world’ examples of the social development, personality types and cognitive variation found within the beginning stages of “Middle Childhood” as discussed within our text.