Observation of Early School Child Ages 3-8

Subject: Psychology
Pages: 7
Words: 1758
Reading time:
6 min
Study level: College

Introduction

Development in of child since the moment of conception to the adult age is determined by many factors. To attain full adult stage, many changes occurs in a person which are developed at various period of growth. A fully developed person comprises of three or four main components of development to attain his maturity. These are much categorized to be either biosocial developmental factor, or cognitive developmental factors or psychological developmental factors.

Biosocial development

Before the child enters the age of three years, an infant goes a rapid body changes through genetic process which result from increased cell division. The increase in the body cells through cell division gives a child rapid growth in such a period. Hence, the body size of the child changes dramatically in term of weight. However, this is not always the case as there are some other factors which contribute to the child’s development. The child development is enhanced by the devolvement of brain. Thus, there are close connection of the brain development with the social life of the child. This depends on the genetic back grounds of the child, health care and nutrition that are given to the child. It is observed that a child at the age of around two or three years has a lesser brain weight than that of an adult. The child of three has seventy five percent brain weights as compared to that of adult. It takes a long time thus for Child to have its brain full developed. With the normal conditions of nutrition, health care and normal genetic reaction, a child is expected to attain the fully grown brain by the seventh year, hence his social behavior interaction be of standard.

During the third year of a child, the Child has got a healthy period which is composed of better body size and shape. Many of the children of such an age portray relatively a healthy body. He can do many things by this time making his /her body shape up. Due to the pervious vigorous activities on play regime at the age of two, the child behavior changes with much concern depending on those whom he associates with. Thus in the social ethical realm, the child has to learn from the others due to his premature mind. This implies that, kids at three to seven years entirely do not know much on the point of interacting with the others. He would mostly do things which are not base on moral senses while others would go off the track of morality. When the child attains the third year, it has much increment on the representation of verbal speeches. This speeches are more on personal experiences rather than any thing else. Hence, it can be observed that the child speeches are egocentric. This portrays the beginning of symbolic motor play which is later developed to be simple motor play. When the child reaches the age brackets of four and seven, the child speeches would have amazing changes from self centered talks to other things. This means that the child is becoming more social and diverting from egocentrics issues to public. This means the Child can now focus on objects and others person who surrounds him. The brain of the child would have better development at the second years. This is mostly in the left hemisphere which works on connection to language. Most of the talks which the child would indulge would involve questions which are abstract and difficult to answer.

Cognitive Development

Cognitive development has its roots on the foundations on the cognitive development theory by jeans Piaget. The theory on cognitive development focuses on things which are concerned on the ability to have accurate representation of the world as well as performing the logical functions on the representation of concepts according g to the interaction of the world. This was to delivery the lights on how people perceive the world. In understanding the world, the philosopher would categorize the events in to four periods which are used by many children to understand the world environment in which they live. Thus, children would learn their environment in periods which were classed as: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational periods. The children in the year range of three to eight lies in the period of preoperational period. The child of the age three would largely act on objects which he comes across his way. This working of the child on these objects is without much sophistication on their operations. The child’s mental reasoning is inadequate; hence this is also shown by low capacity to effectively work on the objects. Further the child can work with risky objects without paying much cares on them. Although he can recognize that the objects can do something of amusement, this means inadequate mental operation of the child.

The child uses intuitive mostly rather than logical reasoning when he is in the age of three. For instance, the child would in many cases use certain feature while working with the objects available. It would group a number of objects together depending on object characteristics which may includes color, texture, size and many other characteristic.

It may group those objects with similar color together regardless of shape, size, textures or any other feature. It can perform similar activity with the objects following another feature. The preoperational periods have two stages with preconception stage ranging from 3 to 4 years where the child has egocentric thinking. He does not recognize the difference between the living things and non- living objects; hence it would assign living attributes to inanimate objects. It would say that a glass would feel pain in case it is broken. When the child attains the age of 4 years, the intuitive period evolves and the child begins to have somewhat mental involvement when doing her/his duties. However, there are puzzling reasoning problems which intricate his thinking. If the child is to identify things around him/her would not be puzzled to do so. For example, asking the Child to indicate the dogs and cats which are around, he would do it perfectly. Further if the child is requested to show or say which ones are more than the others, he can also do so. But if the same child is asked whether there are more dogs than animals, the answer would not be adequate. Cognitive development is not adequate to known the world wholly without reasoning application. The age of seven proof thus a more organized child with highly developed recognition and ability of logical thought. This is because the child has the ability to perform multiples classification chores on the objects. This is followed by the ability to order the objects on technical manner which encompasses the use of logical sequence. However, there is a more pronounced fact, that there is tendency to focus attention on one aspects of an item while ignoring others. The ideas formed are rudimentary and irremediable with ease to believe in the acts of magic deceit.

Psychosocial Development

The human behavior is quite often influenced by the interaction of mental state and its immediate environment. Thus the child at the age of three and eight will have to experience the impacts on his social life from the environment where he/she is growing up. This is because the social behavior for any person not only children is the function of the person and his environment. This determines the culture of a child which he develops while he is growing up. The attitude of children of the year of three and eight are influential to the action which they under take. Children at the young age of 3 years would often have their culture which makes them to develop a sense of personal controls over the physical skills. Rather the attitude of the child is to have senses of self independence. The child does whatever he/she get with the feeling that nobody else should intervene in the activities. Thus the child has first to understand that they are social variation. The children are good example who can give better understanding on social variation which people have in life. However, there are social variations in ones life, the issues of children being let to do whatever they want can be eliminated. To do so, tactics which are appropriate must be applied so that the child’s attitude is changed without harmful effects. This because the child of three with the attitude of independence may be very delicate. This means that it is through persuasive ways which could help many children from this feeling situation of highly autonomy independent within them.

The application of these tender ways on young people of three and eight years would probably reduce the adverse effects of social life to them. The understanding of the psychological thoughts, feeling and behaviors of the person of this age is paramount in making them to conform to a consistent social life. This would make them to conform with the social life so that they can have social acceptance. If persuasive and motivational methods are used in the process molding these social attitudes of these young children, it is possible that the interaction of the Child with others is not much affected. As the Child at the age range of three and eight would often understand many activities which are going on around his or her environment, the family would then play a major role on building up the thinking of the child on social matters. When two or more groups interact, they are bound to influence each other. But considering that the level of the child mental reasoning capability and the social experiences, there is little which he can delivery as influential matters to the old generations. Hence the influence is enormously imposed on him. This means a family which forms a core to child growth and developmental environment is very much important in building up the social thinking and social culture as whole. As far as child of 3-5 years are concerned, let them not assert much control power over their environment as by doing so the child is bound to experience an impulse of disapproval that result to a feeling of guilt. Hence his psychosocial development is affected. But on the others hand, do not bully the children, but through innovative persuasive and motivating techniques, it is necessary to encourage the child to cope with new challenges of social life. This leads to the development of the senses of competence while alleviating sense of inferiority.

Reference

Kathleen, S. (2005): the developing person through childhood and adolescence: Worth Publishers.