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Understanding Childhood Development Is Essential

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Understanding childhood development is essential because it allows us to fully recognize the cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and educational growth that a child goes through from birth to adulthood. Throughout history, many theorists and researchers have developed and proposed theories that are used today as an attempt to describe each aspect of growth and development. A stage-to-stage approach focuses on the different age groups and what is often to be expected through each phase. Theorist Erik Erikson proposed a theory that outlined an individual’s development from birth to death. Erikson focused on how people’s sense of identity developed, and how the belief of oneself allows him or her to feel like a valuable member …show more content…

I noticed this significantly when the children who finished a question or assignment first would yell out “I’m done!”, while the other children who had not finished yet would hang their heads in disappointment. It was obviously seen that the children who exceed academically and repeatedly finish first were the ones who showed the most confidence. The children who feel incompetent compared to their peers are much quieter; sometimes resulting in tears due to the amount of discouragement they feel. Unfortunately, at times I noticed that this eventually results in the child not even trying, because they have a predetermined notion of themself that they cannot do it. This is an unhealthy behavior of children, as there needs to be a balance between competency and modesty. On the contrary, the comparative group of students that I observed are in grade one, averaging at age five. I would assume they categorize into the end of stage three of Erikson’s theory, named “Initiative vs. Guilty”. This is very much of a play stage, as “the child learns to initiate his or her activities”. In addition, “Children use fantasy and imagination to explore their environment”(Canadian Fundamentals Textbook). When I sat down during the children’s playtime with a five year old girl, she immediately informed me that she was a donut shop worker and I had to buy donuts from her. She managed to envision the toy blocks as donuts, and little plastic circles as coins. She then proceeded

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