Theories of Childhood and Adolescent Development

Introduction 

There are a variety of development theories that relate to an individual’s personal life. There are different schools of thought that are instrumental in explaining some of the successes and challenges in a person’s life. Therefore, exploring these theories creates a better personal understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to improve and grow. This approach requires an in-depth analysis and comparison between actual experiences and those explained by authorities in the field of child development. This analysis will help understand the younger generation and how their community and families impact their childhood experience. Therefore, this research is an honest attempt at self-reflection and self-awareness. 

Personal Introduction of Childhood-Adolescence 

Growing up, some children are very active with big dreams. They are determined children purposed to let everyone hear their voice at every opportunity. They would tire their parents and their teachers with stories for as long as they would listen. Of course, this traits irritated their elder siblings and they did their best to frustrate me or avoid the younger ones. Their parents were very accommodative and channeled their excessive energy towards positive school activities. In their opinion, these different tasks were important to understanding the child and becoming a better individual. 

Consequently, these children are often involved in sporting activities in most of their high school days. Specifically, they played demanding sports such as basketball and were avid swimmers. Often, it is believed that these activities help their social lives because they interact with both students and teachers on a regular basis. Notably, they may not be the school basketball star but their position on the team gave them an opportunity to interact with others who felt being on the team was a major accomplishment. Needless to say, there was pressure to keep their grades up, maintain their social life and honor their parent’s rules as well. Therefore, through their childhood to adolescence, their main focus was keeping a balanced life or maintaining the image. 

Stage of Development according to Freud 

According to Sigmund Freud, every child has energy or libido that must be channeled towards positive activities (Trawick-Smith, & Smith, 2014). Notably, a child’s well-being depends on how effectively they are releasing their energy. The five psychosexual stages reflect accurately with their life. At the first stage referred to as the oral stage, mothers recall that their children were intent on sucking on everything they could get their hands on. According to Freud, this is healthy behavior for a one-year-old. 

In the anal stage, their parents may recall how long the child took to properly potty train. Apparently, all they did was probably run around without their pants on and finish their business where it felt convenient. Freud concludes that this behavior leads to lack of self-control, carelessness and messy behavior. Unfortunately, this is traits that are part of the young ones in their adulthood today. In the phallic stage, this development theory explains the erogenous zones develop. True to the theory, the children suffered from penis envy because they felt their brothers got all the best toys. Therefore, the jealous child often makes an attempt to destroy them at every opportunity. Notably, the mother and children are very close since they bonded as the only two girls in the house. This is contrary to the theory that assumes children despise same-sex parents at this stage. 

At the latency stage, the children are focused on sports such as basketball and loved to spend time in the mall with their friends. This agrees with the psychosexual activity that suggests children in puberty suppress sexual feelings at this stage through such activities. Finally, in the genital stage where children are expected to explore their sexuality, they may have the earliest memories of their celebrity crushes which included cartoon characters on Disney channel. Consequently, the psychosexual theory is mostly accurate except in some instances where there were notable differences. 

Stage of Development According to Erikson 

According to this development theory, there are sociocultural determinants that influence an individual’s character in the eight defined stages of development (Boyd, Bee, & Johnson, 2014). In the Trust versus Mistrust stage, children learned how to trust people because their parents were a great support system. Notably, this is a weakness because people take advantage of their trust on a regular basis. In the second stage, they developed autonomy over shame and doubt because their parents were involved in teaching them how to take care of themselves which is a strength that they maximize on today. They probably developed weakness of guilt over initiative because their parents intervened on their behalf in many cases including with their homework and chores. In the fourth stage, they gained an industrious trait instead of inferiority because they are in constant competition with their older siblings to remain better at school. 

Unfortunately, they may go through a phase of role confusion in place of identity in the fifth stage because they were overwhelmed by the pressure of pleasing their parents, excelling in schoolwork and sports. They may believe that intimacy is their strengths because they interacted with many people especially in the adolescent age where they were good at basketball. In the seventh stage, they earned generativity because they got a well-paying job that gave me purpose instead of stagnating in their life. This is vital in their life because their work has always been a big part of who they are. These stages are mostly accurate except in some cases where they fell into both categories because life is not fully segmented into groups. Sometimes there are blurred lines in the equation. 

Stage of Development According to Piaget 

Piaget's theory of cognitive development explains the four stages that children develop intelligence and acquire knowledge (Crain, 2015). In the first stage known as the sensorimotor stage, children know their world through movement, through basic actions such as sucking and they exist without being seen. These traits are similar to various children’s upbringing and their mothers remember they did not do much but wiggle around and breastfeed. In the preoperational stage, they used few words in their vocabulary and associated them with pictures. Their fathers may recall how they would point at pictures and mispronounce words as they read their bedtime stories. They were also fussy and did not like to share which is explained in this theory as being egocentric and unable to see things from others perspective. During the concrete operational stage, the child’s thinking becomes more logic and they have the concept of conservation. The best recollection their parents may have was the fact that they were fascinated by their chocolate milk cup and would refuse to drink if they did not fill it up each time. Therefore, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development remains unchallenged. 

Nature versus Nurture 

The nature versus nurture theory explains how behavior and character development from two different perspectives. Nature indicates that some traits are inbuilt or passed down genetically. Most people agree with this to a biological extent that their father’s physique and their mother’s facial features. Also, other children inherited their mother’s social character thus they are very accommodative and interact openly with people. However, they also advocate for the nurture concept that suggests an individual learns from their environment. Frequently, they agree with this analysis because they have always strived to emulate their father. Consequently, when they are younger they may have copied his walking style when he was not looking or when sought his advice at every opportunity because they wanted to make wise decisions as he did. Consequently, many children have become cautious decision makers and very tenacious person. As a result, they believe that there is a balance in nature versus nurture debate and no argument takes priority (Messer, 2016). 

Bowlby’s Attachment 

Attachment is primarily the deep emotional bond that connects one person to another (Peet, & Hartwick, 2015). According to John Bowlby, attachment occurs in four stages. First, is the Asocial stage where stimuli of a social and non-social nature produce a favorable reaction. Then, the indiscriminate attachment stage where babies enjoy human company. This is followed by specific attachments where children are secure with specific attachment and lastly the multiple attachments form in that children from more relationships and become more independent. This theory explains how a child’s life advanced from an infant who was peaceful when held by all people, to a toddler who loved sitting next to their mother’s feet as she cooked, or hide behind her as she talked to her friends at the supermarket to a child who made long-term friends in the sandbox and basketball team in high school. Consequently, most people agree with Bowlby’s theory that everybody forms an initial attachment that acts a basis for forming other attachments. For me, this foundation has always been their mother. 

Faith Development 

Children who grew up in a Catholic household and in retaining their faith witnessed the reality of Fowler’s Stages of Faith and Identity. They may vaguely remember the pre-stage of undifferentiated faith where they simply followed their mother to bible study and church or sit with her as she said the rosary. As Fowler explained faith was a connection to their caregiver. In the intuitive-projective faith stage, they experienced faith by participating in family rituals such as Sunday mass, saying grace before meals and Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter which were very involving in our home. In this setting, they learned to say grace and fulfill other religious duties. In the second stage of mythic-literal faith, they learned about the concept of faith in Sunday school and through the stories in the children’s Bible. Fowler explains that this is when a child starts learning faith from external sources. Finally in the final stage of their adolescence named the synthetic-conventional faith, where religious authorities in their life were significant in the form of the church and the priests that said mass. 

Challenges and Success 

Growing up, many children feel the greatest challenge were their teenage years where they struggled to understand their identity. Their classmates and friends probably made jokes that they were awkward. Often, they did not think they completely fit in any social group and people interacted with me out of convenience. It was an extremely hard time because of their thoughts of self-doubt and negativity that they carried around. This challenge made them feel out of place regardless of where they were. In relation to this, their greatest success was creating their identity and being patient enough to find their place. They actively worked to define themselves in the way they dressed, engaging in sports and reading different literature to help with the personal crisis they were going through. Eventually, they created personal happiness and validation which improved the way they interact with people. They no longer carried the fear of judgment from others because they knew who they are and what they are capable of. Their parents became their personal support system and are still their greatest motivator today. 

References 

Peet, R., & Hartwick, E. (2015).  Theories of development: Contentions, arguments, alternatives . Guilford Publications. 

Messer, D. J. (Ed.). (2016).  Mastery motivation in early childhood: Development, measurement and social processes . Routledge. 

Crain, W. (2015).  Theories of development: Concepts and applications . Psychology Press. 

Boyd, D. R., Bee, H. L., & Johnson, P. A. (2014).  Lifespan development . Pearson. 

Trawick-Smith, J. W., & Smith, T. (2014).  Early childhood development: A multicultural perspective . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. 

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