School Age & Adolescence
The School-Aged Child – middle childhood (elementary school-age, 6-7 yrs); child is:
- Educable- high focus on education; easy to teach
- Pliable- easily influenced by the external environment
- Well-behaved
- Learns roles & roles of society- right/wrong and appropriate/inappropriate behavior
- Freud – latency stage; a time of relative stability, tranquility in development
o Child not very self-reflective- not much time spent analyzing or introspecting; thinking here and now
o Play & activity orientated – social play (same sex grps); psychosocial development in place; reflect feeling in their playing that they struggle with
- Erikson – “Industry vs. inferiority” – 1o task is mastery of environment and growth; needs encouragement in their strengths; child is: willing to learn, curious, able to function in grps
o Time of intellectual & physical growth & mastery- help child to identify strengths
o Child who doesn’t succeed feels inferiority-
- Piaget – “Concrete operations”; cognitive development develop how you feel about the world; NO ABSTRACT THINKING
o Reversibility – can see relationship in different views, “I am your brother, she is my sister”
o Conservation- beakers same water amt even though different heights
o Numerical concepts – can start adding & subtracting
o Time
o Generalizes from one situation to another- apply knowledge in different situations
o Free from egocentrism – can consider other’s perspectives
- Other issues
o Developmental changes are uneven & lengthy, not sharp & clear-cut
Child inconsistent – external structure is important (consistent praise/punishment); limit testing continues; fears being overwhelmed; mature one day but not the next
Use new skills better on familiar rather than unfamiliar tasks; not innovative
Skills change is less obvious
o Doesn’t grasp abstract concepts
o Language development continues- expanding vocab, increase grammar complexity
o Greater attention to tasks- focus on “doing things right” and in the “right order”
o Ideas about death – hazy, concrete, may think it’s reversible until age 9
o Social & moral understanding – rule-bound, “all or none”; example of breaking dishes
Social development
- Focus shifts toward peers; socializing influences (from outside home) for parent & teachers, books, media
- Self concept based on relative standing in reference grp
o Fairly concrete- eagle vs turtle reading group; must be careful because kids overvalure ranking
- Friendships now based on preference, interests, gender, age – “best friend”
- Normative expectations for age & sex very important to self-esteem
o Powerful sanctions against deviance for boys – boys feel they need “boys things”
o Less so for girls
- Peer grp
o Organized into grps, excluded adults; “No grown-ups allowed”
o Play emphasizes learning, mastering new functions, trying out new roles, secrecy
o More aware of privacy
o Grp activities tend to have rules reflecting need for control & structure
o Secret clubs often formed (“No girls allowed”)
- Play
o Team sports
o Ritualistic games – jump rope, hopscotch (repetitive)
o Sophisticated pretend play – imaginary friend
o Hobbies, collections – another way to organize/categorize
- Psychological problems w/grp
o ADHD
o LD (around 3rd grade) – learning disorder
o Anxiety d/os (overly shy, OCD) social phobia
o School avoidance
o Depressive d/os
Pre-adolescence – time of awareness & anticipation
- May become interested in adolescent peers
- Beginning to discuss maturation & sexual questions in peer grps- not related to level of knowledge
- Initial opposite sex interest
Adolescence – begins w/puberty & ends when independence has attained a reasonable degree of psychological congruence; multiple areas of development (physical/endocrine, social, psychological, etc)
- Freud – “Genital phase” – reawakening of sexual interest
o Sexual drives directed toward opposite sex peer- think about sex like an adult; experiment with close ones
o Development of love relationships- not sexual
o Need to relinquish parental ties
- Erikson – “Identity vs. identity diffusion” – establishing identity in several areas
o Sexual- identity development
o Social-including political & religious views- increased susceptibility to cults and exploitation
o Occupational
o ‘Trial identities’
Tags: Educable, Erikson, Freud, Industry vs. inferiority, language development, peer group, Ritualistic games, Sophisticated pretend play
