PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Developmental Tasks
According to Developmental Stages

Department of Education ● Republic of the Philippine

 Welcome to
PERSONAL
DEVELOPMEN
T

MODULE 3
Developmental
Tasks According to
Developmental
Stages

To the Student of Personal Development:

Hello dear learners. Welcome to the third module.

This module is about the developmental tasks and

challenges being experienced during adolescence.

The main assertion of Havighurst is that development is

continuous throughout a person’s entire lifespan, occurring in
stages. A person moves from one stage to the next by means of
successful resolution of problems or performance of certain
developmental tasks. These tasks are typically encountered by
most people in the culture where that person belongs.

According to Havighurst’s developmental tasks theory,

when people successfully accomplish the developmental tasks at
a stage, they feel pride and satisfaction. They also earn the
approval of their community or society. This success provides a
sound foundation that allow people to accomplish the
developmental tasks that they will encounter at later Havighurst
developmental stages.
Conversely, when people fail to accomplish a developmental task,
they are unhappy and are not accorded the desired approval by society. This
results in the subsequent experience of difficulty when faced with succeeding
developmentaltasks at later Havighurst developmental stage
What This Module is About
For every developmental stage, there is an expected developmental task. What
happens when the expected developmental task is not achieved at the corresponding
developmental stage? How can you achieve these developmental tasks?

This module is focused on the developmental tasks and challenges experienced during
adolescence. It also talks about the skills, tasks and challenges appropriate for middle
and late adolescence, and preparatory to early adulthood.

Lesson Developmental Tasks According to

1 Developmental Stages

JOHN SANTROCK’S 8
What’s In DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES WITH
DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS

According to John Santrock there are 8 developmental stages in a life span

development. His research focuses on family processes and children psychosocial
development. The following are the stages of development:

PRENATAL PERIOD
• Development happens quickly during this
stage (tremendous growth from a single cell
to an organism complete with brain and
behavioral capabilities)
• Time between conception and birth
• Divided into 3 stages: -germinal -embryonic
–fetal

INFANCY
• Birth to 18-24 months Time of extreme dependence on adults
• Many psychological activities are just beginning ( language, symbolic thought,
sensory - motor coordination & social learning)
 EARLY CHILDHOOD
• End of infancy to 5-6 years old
(preschool years-grade 1) Young
children learn to become more self-
sufficient and care for themselves,
develop school readiness skills and
spend many hours in play with peers.

MIDDLE & LATE CHILDHOOD

• 6-11 years old (elementary school years)
• Fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic are mastered.
• Child is formally exposed to larger world and its culture.
• Achievement becomes a more central theme of the child’s world and
self-control increases.

ADOLESCENCE
• 10-12 years old to 18-22 years old
• Begins with rapid physical changes
(dramatic gains in height in weight, changes
in body contour, and development of
sexual characteristics suchas enlargement
of breasts, development of pubic and facial
hair, deepening of voice)
• Pursuit of independence & identity are
prominent
• Thought is more logical, abstract & idealistic
• More time is spent outside family
 EARLY ADULTHOOD
• Late teens or early 20s to 30s
• Time of establishing personal &
economic independence, career
development, selecting a mate,
learning to live with someone in
an intimate way, starting a family
& rearing children.

MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
• 40 to 60 years old time of expanding personal & social involvement &
responsibility
• Assisting next generation in becoming competent & mature individuals,
reaching & maintaining satisfaction in a career

LATE ADULTHOOD
• 60s and above
• Time for adjustment to decreasing
strength and health, life review,
retirement and adjustment to new
social roles
 (ROBERT HAVIGHURST)
6 DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
WITH DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS

On the other hand Robert Havighurst identified six major age periods. Although many
theorists are responsible for contributing to the Developmental Tasks Theory, it was
Robert Havighurst who elaborated on this development theory in the most systematic
and extensive manner.

Robert Havighurst defines developmental tasks as one that arises at certain period
in our life, the successful achievement of which leads to happiness and success
with later tasks while failure leads to unhappiness, social disapproval, and difficulty
with later task.

Infancy and early childhood (birth till 6 years old) .In this stage, the child begins
to learn different physical activities like walking, crawling as well as starting to read
and forming concepts.

Middle childhood (6-12 years old). Middle childhood is the stage when the child
learns different physical skills for simple games as well as developing concepts for
everyday living.

Adolescence (13-18 years old). During the adolescence period, the child achieves
more mature relations with others. The child gets to know oneself and prepares
himself for the coming years.

Early adulthood (18-30 years old). In this stage, one is now ready to settle down
and begin a family as well as a new life. One looks for a career to help in raising
himself and his family as well as practicing socially.

Middle age (30-60 years old). In the middle age, one is able to see clearly to his
future. He is also able to help his children as well as other teenagers to become more
responsible and adapt to everything that is happening to him physically, emotionally
and socially.

Later maturity (60 years old and over). In this stage, one is adjusting to the
happenings of his life. He needs to adjust and understand everything especially in
death.

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/tin072787/module-2-the-stages-of-development-and-
developmental-tasks
 What’s New

DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
(SANTROCK AND HAVIGHURST)
ACTIVITY 1: JOURNAL WRITING

1. How many developmental stages are described?

2. Compare Santrock and Havighurst’s developmental stages?
3. What is an outstanding trait or behaviour for each stage?
4. Why the expected accomplishments are differ from each developmental task age
periods?
5. At what developmental stage do you belong now? What are the accomplishments
you already achieved that are expected of your age now?

ACTIVITY 2: MY DEVELOPMENTAL
STAGES PHOTO GALLERY

Collect photos of your growing up years. If you don’t have pictures on a certain stage,
draw a symbol or a scene that will show your accomplishments on that developmental
stage. Make a gallery of your pictures/drawings according to the 8 stages of
development by Santrock. Label each picture and describe your milestones. You may
ask help from your parents or older family member to write a description in each
picture or drawing.

MY GALLERY

PRENATAL PERIOD INFANCY

EARLY CHILDHOOD MIDDLE & LATE CHILDHOOD

ADOLESCENCE EARLY ADULTHOOD

MIDDLE ADULTHOOD LATE ADULTHOOD

 What’s More

JOHN SANTROCK’S 8
DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES WITH
DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS
ACTIVITY 3: IT’S A MATCH

Match Column A with Column B. Column A is composed of the developmental

stages while Column B is composed of the developmental tasks according to Santrock.

COLUMN A COLUMN B

1. PRENATAL A. Puberty occurs and traumatic life stage

PERIOD for child and parent.
B. Embryonic stage-2 weeks- 2 months-
formation of vital organs and systems.
2. INFANCY C. Beginning psychological activities:
language, symbolic thought, sensory
motor coordination and social learning.
D. Vocabulary and pronunciation continue
3. EARLY
to expand, climbs stairs with alternating
CHILDHOOD
feet and can briefly stand on one foot.
E. Both large and small muscle well-
developed and developed complex
4. MIDDLE & LATE
motor skills.
CHILDHOOD
F. Physical changes begin to occur, hair
begins to thin and gray, wrinkles
appear, hearing and vision decrease
5. ADOLESCENCE and muscle lose tone
6. EARLY
G. Physical deterioration (brittle bones,
ADULTHOOD poor coordination, some memory
problems) and coping with retirement
and forms of entertainment.

7. MIDDLE
ADULTHOOD H. Physical development complete,
emotional maturation continues to
8. LATE ADULTHOOD develop and usually learned to accept
responsibility for actions and accept
criticism
 What’s More

(ROBERT HAVIGHURST)
6 DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES
WITH DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS
ACTIVITY 4: MY LABEL

Identify the group of developmental task according to Robert Havighurst’s 6

developmental stages and developmental tasks described below.

Infancy and Early Childhood Middle Childhood Adolescence

Early Adulthood Middle Adulthood Late Adulthood

1. _
Developmental stage

Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary games

Building a wholesome attitude toward oneself
Learning to get along with age mates
Learning an appropriate sex role
Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing and calculating
Developing concepts necessary for everyday living
Developing conscience, morality, and a scale values
Achieving personal independence
Developing acceptable attitudes towards society

2. _
Developmental stage

Achieving mature relations with both sexes

Achieving masculine or feminine social role
Accepting one’s physique
Achieving emotional independence of adults
Preparing for marriage and family life
Preparing for an economic career
Acquiring values and an ethical system to guide behavior
Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior
 3. _
Developmental stage

Helping teenage children to become happy and responsible adults

Achieving adult and social responsibility
Satisfactory career achievement
Developing adult leisure time activities
Relating to one’s spouse as a person
Accepting the physiological changes of middle age
Adjusting to aging parent

4. _
Developmental stage

Adjusting to decreasing strength and health

Adjusting to retirement and reduced income
Adjusting to death of spouse
Establishing relations with one’s own age group
Meeting social and civic obligations
Establishing satisfactory living quarters

5. _
Developmental stage

Learning to walk
Learning to take solid foods
Learning to talk
Learning to control the elimination of body wastes
Learning sex differences and sexual modesty
Acquiring concepts and language to describe social and physical reality
Readiness for reading
Learning to distinguish right from wrong and developing a conscience

6. _
Developmental stage

Selecting a male
Learning to live with a partner
Starting a family
Rearing children
Managing a home
Starting an occupation
Assuming civic responsibility
.

Lesson Developmental Challenges Being Experienced

2 During Adolescence

DEVELOPMENTAL TASK FACING

What’s In ADOLESCENTS

Adolescents have one foot in childhood and one foot in adulthood.

A developmental task represents our culture's definition of normal development

at different points in the life span. By understanding the developmental tasks of an
adolescent, parents and adults are better equipped to give support to adolescents as
they strive to accomplish each developmental task.

The many developmental tasks facing adolescents are challenging. However,

they can be achieved. Adolescents are getting their first taste of independence, yet
they are not and do not want to be totally independent. Parents and adults need to
provide a supportive environment in which adolescents may discover and explore their
identities.
Parents and adults who work with adolescents walk a tightrope. Adolescents
need them to play an active role in their lives. However, adults also need to provide
adolescents space to make decisions and accountable of their actions. When
adolescents make wrong decisions, they need support and guidance of parents and
adults to help them learn. By understanding the developmental tasks of adolescents,
parents and adults can help turn mistakes made by adolescents into educational
opportunities that enhance adolescents' mastery of life skills.
At times, the interaction between parents/adults and adolescents will be
challenging and uncertain, but it is essential that parents and adults remain steadfast
in their commitment to adolescents. Parents and adults have an important role to
play and can give a positive impact on the lives of adolescents.

What Are the Developmental Tasks Faced by Adolescents?

• Achieving mature relations with both sexes

• Achieving masculine or feminine social role
• Accepting one’s physique
• Achieving emotional independence of adults
• Preparing for marriage and family life
• Preparing for an economic career
• Acquiring values and an ethical system to guide behavior
• Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior
 What Is It
Ways to Become a Responsible
Adolescent
Prepared for Life

It is not easy to be a teenager. There will be lot of things going on in various facets of
your lives. The demands and expectations of your parents and other people around
you can also be stressful. The challenges that you will experience make your life
exciting. Having that mindset is also an indication of becoming a responsible and
mentally mature adolescent.

The following are eight (8) simple rules that can help you become a responsible
adolescent:

1. Focus on your studies and do well in all your endeavors.

2. Take care of your health and hygiene. Healthy body and mind are important as you
journey through adolescence.

3. Establish good communication and relation with your parents or guardian. Listen to
them. This may be easier said than done at this stage but creating good relationship
with them will do well to you.

4. Think many times before you act on something. Evaluate probable consequences
before you make decisions. Practice self-control and self-discipline.

5. Choose to do the right thing.

6. Do your best to resist temptations.

7. Respect yourself. If you respect yourself, others will respect you too.

8. Be prepared and accountable for your actions and behavior. It is a part of growing
up and becoming an adult.
 What I Can Do

Ways to Become a Responsible

Adolescent
.
Prepared for Life
ACTIVITY 7: JOURNAL WRITING

List the things that you should do which you believe will help you become a
responsible adolescent.

REFLECTION

Source: https://ourhappyschool.com/social-sciences/ways-become-responsible-
adolescent-prepared-adult-life
 What Is It

10 TASK FOR ADOLESCENT

DEVELOPMENT

During the teen years, adolescents grow in size, sexual maturity, emotional
development, and thinking capacity. The developmental changes during adolescence
rival those of infancy and early childhood. Research indicates that the human brain
does not reach full maturity until at least the mid 20s.

Most milestones occur gradually, with frustrating starts and stops along the way. Each
task depends on others to be fully accomplished and all are part of underlying
developmental forces propelling adolescents toward maturity.

In addition, many researchers see human development as a lifelong process, with

parents developing alongside their adolescents.

In order to help parents influence healthy adolescent growth, the Raising Teens Project
identified 10 critical developmental tasks that teenagers need to undertake to make a
successful transition to adulthood:
Adjust to sexually maturing bodies and feelings
Teens are faced with adjusting to growing bodies and newly acquired sexual
characteristics. They must learn to manage sexual feelings and to engage in
healthy sexual behaviors. This task includes establishing a sexual identity and
developing the skills for romantic relationships.
Develop and apply abstract thinking skills
Teens typically undergo profound changes in their way of thinking during
adolescence, allowing them more effectively to understand and coordinate abstract
ideas. They begin to think about possibilities, try out hypotheses, plan ahead, think
about thinking, and construct philosophies.
Develop and apply new perspective on human relationships
Teens typically acquire a powerful new ability to understand human relationships.
Having learned to “put themselves in another person’s shoes,” they begin to take
into account both their perspective and another person’s at the same time. They
learn to use this new ability to resolve problems and conflicts in relationships.
Develop and apply new coping skills in areas such as decision making,
problem solving, and conflict resolution
Teens begin to acquire new abilities to think about and plan for the future, to engage
in more sophisticated strategies for decision-making, problem solving, and conflict
resolution, and to moderate their risk-taking to serve goals rather thanjeopardize
them.
Identify meaningful moral standards, values, and belief systems
Teens typically develop a more complex understanding of moral behavior and
underlying principles of justice and caring for others. They question beliefs from
childhood and adopt more personally meaningful values, religious views, and
belief systems to guide their decisions and behavior.
Understand and express more complex emotional experiences
Teens shift toward an ability to identify and communicate more complex
emotions, to understand the emotions of others in more sophisticated ways,
and to think about emotions in abstract ways.

Form friendships that are mutually close and supportive

Teens develop peer relationships that play powerful roles in providing support
and connection in their lives. They tend to shift from friendships based largely
on shared interests and activities to those based on sharing ideas and
feelings, mutual trust, and understanding.

Establish key aspects of identity

Forming an identity is a lifelong process, but crucial aspects of identity are
typically forged during adolescence, including developing an identity that
reflects a sense of individuality as well as connection to valued people and
groups. Another part of this task is developing a positive identity around gender,
physical attributes, sexuality, ethnicity, and (if appropriate) having been
adopted—as well as sensitivity to the diversity of groups that make up American
society.
Meet the demands of increasingly mature roles and responsibilities
Teens gradually take on the roles that will be expected of them in adulthood.
They learn to acquire the skills and manage the multiple demands that allow
them to move into the labor market as well as meet expectations regarding
commitment to family, community, and citizenship.
Renegotiate relationships with adults in parenting roles
Although the task of adolescence has sometimes been described as
“separating” from parents and other caregivers, it is more widely seen now as
adults and teens working together to negotiate a change in the relationship that
balances autonomy and ongoing connection. The emphasis on each depends
in part on the family’s ethnic background

Source: https://hr.mit.edu/static/worklife/raising-teens/ten-tasks.html
 What I Have Learned

GENERALIZATION
Developmental Task Nature of Task
1. Learning to get along with To learn to look upon girls as women and boys as men; to
friends of both sexes. become an adult among adults; to learn to work with others for
a common purpose, disregarding personal feelings; to
lead without dominating.
2. Accepting one's physical To accept one's body; to keep it healthy through good nutrition,
body and keeping it healthy. exercise, disease prevention, and other health practices.

3. Becoming more self- To develop affection for parents without dependence upon
sufficient. them; to develop respect for older adults without dependence
upon them.
4. Making decisions about To explore attitudes toward family life and having children; to
marriage and family life. acquire the knowledge necessary for home management
and, if desired, child rearing.
5 Preparing for a job or To develop career/vocational goals and ways to reach these
career. goals; to be able to make a living.
6. Acquiring a set of values To develop an outlook toward life based on what is important.
to guide behavior.
7. Becoming socially To participate as a responsible person with friends at home,
responsible. and in the community; to develop personal moral values to
guide behavior.
 MY PERSONAL TIMELINE

ACTIVITY 9: JOURNAL WRITING

REFLECTION

Reflect on your early childhood, middle and late childhood days. Were you able to
acquire the developmental tasks expected of early, childhood, middle and late
childhood and adolescence? What facilitated you in the acquisitions of the ability to
perform such task? Write your reflection.
18