Chapter-3 Child Development and Theories

Child Development:

In modern parenting, child
development has become a very
important subject hence a need to
understand child development
theories. This is in contrast with
ancient times where children were
seen as small adult version and
therefore parents paid very little
attention on their advances in
language usage, physical growth
and cognitive abilities during their
childhood as well as adolescent
stages. Understanding child
development theories is important
for it allows one to appreciate
emotional, cognitive, social,
educational physical and social
growth that they undergo from
birth up to early adulthood. These
child development theories are
mainly categorized as grand
theories which describe all aspects
of development in each stage and
mini-theories which focus on one
aspect of progress.

Psychoanalytic Child
Development Theories:

These theories were authored by
Sigmund Freud. They emphasize
the significance of childhood
experiences and events but more
weight is put on mental disorders
instead of normal functioning.
Freud says that, child development
theories, consists of several of
'psychosexual stages' which are
oral, phallic, latency, and anal as
well as genital stage in their order
of occurrence. He hypothesizes
that, each of the stage has
satisfaction of the libido and plays
a role later in adult personality.
These child development theories
postulates that, if the completion
of the stage does not occur
successfully, the child gets fixated
in that stage which later influences
their adult behavior and
personality.
Erik Erikson proposed several child
development theories which
described human growth all
through the human life. According
to him, each stage in human life is
aimed at solving a conflict. For
instance, in adolescent stage the
primary conflict is to get a sense of
identity. These child development
theories postulate that, failure or
success to resolve the conflict at
every stage affects one overall
functioning. For instance, in
adolescent stage failure to attain
identity results in confusion of
roles. However, the Cognitive child
development theories proposed by
Jean Piaget Postulates that,
children and adults think
differently and that why he came
up with cognitive theory. According
to him, Children play a very active
role to gain world's knowledge
compared to adults. He says that,
children are "little scientists" who
play a very great role in
constructing and understanding
world knowledge.

Behavioral Child Development
Theories:

The idea of these child
development theories focus on
behavior in regard to
environmental interaction and are
based on child development
theories philosophers such as B.F
skinner, Ivan Pavlov and John B.
Watson. They deal with only
observable behavior. In this case
development is measured as a
reaction of punishments, rewards,
reinforcement and stimuli. These
child development theories are
considered different from others
because it does not consider
internal feelings and thoughts but
instead focusses on how knowledge
shapes an individual.

Social Child Development
Theories:

The social child development
theories proposed by John Bowlby
were first theory of social
development. According to him,
relationships at early ages with
care giver play a great role in
development of the child and
continue to affect their relationship
socially throughout their life.
Another sociologist by the name
Albert Bandura also suggested one
of the child development theories
called social education theory. In
his own perspective, children
usually acquire new behaviors by
observing from other people. In
contrast with child development
theories of behavior, he believed
that learning new things was
achieved not only in external
reinforcement but also intrinsic
reinforcements like sense of sense
of satisfaction, accomplishment
and pride may lead to learning.
Children acquire information and
new skills by looking at the actions
of those around them such as
peers, parents, caregivers among
others.