L12: Life Cycle II: Childhood

Question 1

Childhood. a.) What is the age of this period? b.) What are the major tasks of this period? c.) What are the parental tasks or challenges during this period? d.) What are the developmental achievements of this period? e.) What are the cognitive achievements of this period? f.) Explain changes to moral development to this period. g.) What changes that occur to gender identity and sex role development in this period?

Answer 1

• A.) Age 5-12, kindergarten to sixth grade - B.) To become capable and competent, consolidate developmental gains, learn a body of knowledge and skill (incl physical) and how to apply them with competence. Develop a core of same-sex peer relationships. Develop a positive self concept. Language development, vocab and expression. Get along with others the same age. Learn gender roles. Develop fundamental skills like reading and writing. Learn habits needed for daily living. Conscience development. Management of personal independence. Friendships based on shared values, loyalty and mutual support vs similar interests. Personal sense of accomplishment. - C.) Let go, be supportive, be neither too involved or under-involved. Meet basic needs. Encourage learning and education. Facilitate development of healthy self-esteem. Nurture peer relationships. Provide harmony / stability and safeness and secureness. Add predictability. Don’t take it personally! - D.) Better able to differentiate between fantasy and reality (shifting out of pre-operational stage). Shifting into stage of concrete operations (need to establish and follow rule, thinking is more logical and organized). Accomplishment becomes important. Begins to look to other adults for praise and guidance. Compare their performance to that of other children. For self-development: able to maintain self-regulation and periods of calmness, conscious control over impulses and verbalizations, attention span increases. Memory ability increases. Concentration gets better. Better control of mental processes. Automatization occurs. - E.) Able to classify objects. Able to consider more than one characteristics of an object at same time. Early problem-solving skills develop. Social cognition: comparing self to others via physical attributes, later emphasis on fairness, generosity and kindness; ego-centrism begins to fade, increased ability to take another’s perspective, emphasis on same-sex peer groups. - F.) Consequences of an act, emphasis on rules, moral judgements are influenced by child’s social interactions and circumstances of a situation. Emotional responses and social judgments influence moral decisions. - G.) Establishment of gender-related behavioral patterns (boy vs girl behaviors). Modesty increases. Some same-sex sexual play is not unusual, but covert – more curious than malevolent. Sense of one’s own sexual orientation may begin to evolve.

Question 2

What are key areas of health risk for the childhood group?

Answer 2

• Chronic medical conditions - Injuries - Learning/attention problems - Anxiety related issues

Question 3

What are common behavioral concerns for the childhood group? How to assess behavioral issues/”disorders”?

Answer 3

• functioning at school and at home - normally this period is period of latency per Freud and therefore calmness, pay attention to emotional disturbances - for developmental task successes, look at school achievements - look at age and see if appropriate, behavior may be stress induced, behavior may reflect parent-child conflict, can be result of maturational changes, lack of information, misinterpretation, behavior of child can reflect emotional state of a parent

Question 4

What are common concerns from infancy to childhood?

Answer 4

• SIDS - Challenging children (intense negative reactions to new situations) - Sleeping difficulties (1-3 yo separation anxiety and over-indulgence; 4-6 years yo nightmares and monsters) - Masturbation - Toilet training (successful at 30 months) - Enuresis (wetting – primary: never sustained dryness; secondary: wetting after sustained dryness) - Encopresis (bowel incontinence, more serious than enuresis) - School phobia - Learning disorders - Bullying - Overeating - Pica (especially 18-24 months) - Autism spectrum disorders - Red flags: setting fires, violent behavior, cruelty to animals

Question 5

What are major red flags during the childhood phase?

Answer 5

• Setting fires, violent behavior and cruelty to animals. Indicates serious problem for which the parents and child need to see professional expertise.