STAGES DEVELOPMENT: EARLY CHILDHOOD

( Ages 2-6 )
STAGES DEVELOPMENT: EARLY CHILDHOOD
CHILDHOOD
 Childhood begins when the relative
dependency of babyhood is over, approximately
the age of 2 years, and extends to the time when
the child become sexually mature, at
approximately 13 years for the average girl and
14 years for the average boy.
Early childhood extends from 2-6 years, and
late chhildhood extends from 6 to the time the
child becomes sexually mature. Thus early
childhood begins at the conclusion of Babyhood.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
EARLY CHILDHOOD
 Names used by Parents.

• Most parents consider early childhood a problem

age or a troublesome age.
– The reason why behavior problems dominate the
early childhood years is that young children are
developing distinctive personalities and are
demanding an indepence which, in most cases,
they are incapable of handling successfully.
 Names used by Psychologist.

• Psychologists used a number of different names

to describe the outstanding characteristics of te
Psychological development of children during the
early years of childhood.
• One of the most commonly applied names is the
pregang age.
 the time when children are
learning the foundations of
social behavior as a preparation
for the more highly organized
social life they will be required to
when they enter first grade
DEVELOPMENTAL TASK
OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
– Built up a useful vacabulary
– Reasonably correct pronounciation a word
– Comprehend a meaning of simple statements and commands
– Simple concept of social and physical realities
– few babie know
– elementary facts about sex differences
– fewer understand the meaning of sexual modesty
– this is equaly true of concepts of right and wrong
– what knowledge they have is limited to move situations
– broaden to include concepts of right and wrong
– must lay the fundations of a conscience
– learning to relate emotionally to parents, and other people
– babyhood must be replaced by more mature ones
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD
• height - the average annual increase in heights is
3inches
• weight - the average annual increase in weight is 3-5
pounds the average girl weighs 48.5 pounds. and the
average boy weighs 49 pounds.
• body proportion - “baby look” disappears. facial
features remains small but the chin becomes more
pronounced and the neck elongates.
• body build - an endomorphic or flabby, fat body. some
have mesomorphic or sturdy mascular body. some have
an ectomorphic or relatively teen body build
• body and muscles - the bones ossify at different rates
in different parts of the body. the muscles become
larger, stronger and heavier.
• fat - toward endomorphy: have more adipose than
mascular tissues. tend toward mesomorphy: have
more mascular than adipose tissue. an ectomorphic
build have both small muscles and brittle adipose
tissue
• teeth - the first 4-6 months of early childhood, the last
4 baby teeth-- the back molars--erupt. the last half year
of eraly childhood the baby teeth begin to be replaced
by the permanent teeth
SKILLS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

• the ideal age to learn skills

• “teachable moment”
 TYPICAL SKILLS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
 HAND SKILLS
• Self-feeding and dressing skills
• Between the ages of 5 and 6, most children they become proficient in
throwing and catching balls.
 LEG SKILLS
• Learn to hop, skip, gallop, and jump. Climbing skills are likewise well
established in early childhood.
 HANDEDNESS
• A critical period in the statements of handedness
IMPROVEMENTS IN SPEECH DURING EARLY
CHILDHOOD
• Children at 2 years old are using gestures, but mainly as
supplements to speech - to emphasize the meaning of the
words they use - rather than as substitutes for speech.
• Strong motivations plays pivotal part on the part of most
children to learn to speak.
(2 REASONS) :
1. Learning to speak is an essential tool in socialization.
2. Learning to speak is a tool in achieving independence.
IMPROVEMENTS IN COMPREHENSION

• It is important for children to be able to

communicate with others to understand what
others say to them.
• Comprehension is greatly influenced by how
attentively children listen to what is said to
them.
IMPROVEMENT IN SPEECH SKILLS

• A time when rapid strides are made in the

major tasks of learning to speak...
– building up a vocabulary
– mastering pronounciation
– combining words into sentences
TASKS INVOLVED IN LEARNING TO SPEAK IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD

•Pronounciation of words
•Vocabulary building
•Forming sentences
CONTENT OF SPEECH
• The speech of young children is egocentric.
• Socialized speech begins and children talk about
other people as well as about themselves.
• The most frequent topics of conversation among
young children are themselves in their activities.
• Children more often put their words into questions
than into statements of fact.
AMOUNT OF TALKING
• Early childhood is popularly known as chatterbox age.
(FACTORS INFLUENCING HOW MUCH YOUNG CHILDREN TALK)
- Intelligence
- Type of discipline
- Ordinal position
- Family size
- Socio-economic status
- Racial status
- Bilingualism
- Sex-role typing
EMOTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

• Emotions are especially intense during

early childhood.
• Time of disequilibrium when children
are “out of focus”.
COMMON EMOTIONAL PATTERNS
• Young children experience most of the emotions normally experienced
by adults. However, the stimuli that give rise to them and the ways in
which children express these emotions are markedly different.
(COMMON EMOTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD)
- Anger
- Fear
- Jealousy
- Curiousity
- Envy
- Joy
- Grief
- Affection
VARIATION IN EMOTIONAL PATTERNS
• Emotions are intense at certain ages and less so
at others.
• Young children vary greatly in amount of curiousity
and in the way they express it.
SOCIALIZATION IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
SOCIALIZATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

• One of the important developmental

task of early childhood is acquiring the
preliminary training and experience
needed to become a member of a
“gang”.
• Early childhood is often called the
pregang age.
Patterns of Early Socialization
• Parallel play - play in which young children play
independently beside other children rather than with them.
It is the earliest form of social activity young children have
with their peers.
• Associative play - in which children engage in similar, if
not identical, activities with other children.
• Cooperative play - play in which they are a part of the
group and interact with group numbers.
* Role of onlooker - watching other children at play but making no
real attempt to play with them.
 Early Forms of Behavior in Social Situations
• Most important forms of social behavior
necessary for successful social adjustment
appear and begin to develop at this age.
• This is a crucial stage in development
because it is at this time that the basic social
attitudes and the patterns of social behavior
are established.
(SOCIAL AND UNSOCIAL BEHAVIOR PATTERNS )
Social Patterns UNSOCIAL PATTERNS
IMITATION NEGATIVISM

RIVALRY AGGRESSIVENESS

COOPERATION ASCENDANT BEHAVIOR

SYMPATHY SELFISHNESS

EMPATHY EGOCENTRISM

SOCIAL APPROVAL DESTRUCTIVENESS

SHARING SEX ANTAGONISM

ATTACHMENT BEHAVIOR PREJUDICE

Companions in Early Childhood
• In early childhood, companion may be 3 different kinds
(CATEGORIES OF COMPANIONS)
• Associates
• Playmates
• Friends
*In early childhood, companions are mainly
associates and playmates. While young children may
refer to some of their favorite playmates as their “
friends”.
Substitute Companions

• When companionship needs are not

met, young children often try to fill
their needs by substituting imaginary
playmates or by treating a pet if it
were a real person.
Leaders in Early Childhood

• In early childhood, leaders are characteristically

larger, more intellegent and slightly older than the
other members of the play group.
• Two Types of Leaders in Early Childhood
-Tyrannical Bosses
- Diplomats
* Girls at this age frequently assumed the role of
leadership in group containing boys.
PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

• Early childhood is often called the

toy stage.
 Variations and Play Interests
• The play interest of young children confotm more or less
closely to a pattern which is markedly influenced by their
maturational readiness for certain form of play and byb the
environment in which they are growing up.
• Variation in this pattern
- Highly intelligent children
- Amount of play equipment
- Well-developed motor skills
- Children who are popular
- Creative children
Play Patterns of Early Childhood

• Toy play
• Dramatizations
• Constructions
• Games
• Reading
• Movies, Radio and Television
 Development of Understanding
• Increased intellectual abilities, especially the abililties to
reason and to see relationship
• Increased ability to explore their environments because of
greater motor coordinations and controls
• increased abilities to ask questions in words others can
understand
• understanding of people, objects, and situations increases
rapidly

*Preoperational Stage of Thinking (Piaget)

Common Categories of Concepts
• Children develop manyof the same concepts because of
common learning experience
(COMMON CATEGORIES OF CONCEPTS THAT DEVELOP
DURING EARLY CHILDHOOD)
-Life -Time
-Death -Self
-Bodily Functions -Sex Roles
-Space -Social Awareness
-Weight -Beauty
-Numbers -Comic
Moral Development In Early Childhood

• Is on a low level
• “morality by constraint” (Piaget)
• “preconventional morality” (Kohlberg)
Discipline In Early Childhood

• Discipline is society's way of teaching children the

moral behavior approved by the social group.
Three essentail elements in discipline:
1. Rules and laws which serve as guidelines for
approved behavior
2.Punishment for willful violation of rules and
laws
3. Rewards for behavior or attempts to behave in
a socially approved way.
 TYPES OD DISCIPLINE USED IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD
• Authoritarian Discipline - traditional form of discipline
and is based on the old saying that “to spare the rod
means spoiling the child”
• Permissive Discipline - developed as a revolt againts
the authoritarian discipline many adults had been
subjected to during theoir own childhood
• Democratic Discipline - Emphasize the rights of the
child to know why rules are made and to have an
oppurtunity to express their opinions if they believe a
rule is unfair
Effects of Discipline on Young Children

•Behavior
•Attitudes
•Personality
 Childhood Misdemeanors
• Misdemeanors - mild forms of breaking of rules or
behavior Three common causes of
misdemeanors:
1. Young children may misbehave due to ignorance of
the fact that their behavior is disapproved by the social
group
2. Young children learn that willful disobedience of a
minor sort will generally bring them more attention that
good behavior
3. Boredom
COMMON INTERESTS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

•Interests in Religions
• Interests in Human Body
• Interests in Self
• Interests in Sex
• Interests in Clothes
 Sex-role typing in Early Childhood
• Early childhood is often referred to as a critical age
in sex-one typing.
2 Important aspects of sex-role typing expected
should be mastered:
1.learning how to play the appropriate sex role
and
2. Accepting the fact that they must adopt and
conform to the approved sex-role stereotype
 Learning Sex-Role Stereotypes
• Sex-Role Stereotypes are constellations of meanings
assciated with members of the male and members of
the female sex.
• Traditional sex-role stereotypes - the approved
stereotype for male and female sex roles were clearlyt
defines and not subject to change or modification.
• Egalitarian sex-role stereotypes - members of the two
sexes were more similar that different and, as a
result,s hould play roles that are more similar than
different.
 Agencies of Sex-Role Typing
• Parents and other family members are the main
agencies of sex-role typing.
• Also, teachers at day-re centers and other caretakers
play important roles in sex-role stereotyping.
“Sexism starts with kindergarten activities in which
little girls are directed to the housekeeping corner, while
boys are steered toward blocks and trucks . . . Schools
thus provide a shrinking of alternatives instead of an
expansion” (Bernstein)
 Family Relationship in Early Childhood
• Family remains the most important socializing
influence
• Young children's attitudes toward people, things, life
and in general are patterned by their home life.
• Ordinal position of the child likewise influences the
type of adjustments the child will make
• parent-child relationship, sibling relationships,
relatives relationships, and grandparents relationship
are the most important conditions influencing the
kind of adjustments young children will make.
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

• Personality pattern, foundations of which were laid

in babyhood, begins to take form in early childhood.
• Attitudes of their peers and the way their peers
treat them then begin to have an effect on their
self-concepts, an effect which may reinforce the
effect of family members or may contradict and
counteractt some of the familyinfluences.
Conditions Shaping the Self-Concept in Early
Childhood
• child training
• aspirations
• ordinal positions
• minority-group identification
• “appropriate sex-role identification ibys is
associated with favorable personality
characteristics (Insulberg & Burke)
• Environmental Insecurity
 Increase in Individuality
Individuality, which is apparent at birth and becomes
increasingly ore so in babyhood, is one of the outstanding
characteristics of young children
Thomas etal. have identified three personality syndromes
among young children:
1. “easy children”
2. “difficult children”
3. “slow-to-warm-up children”
Individuality is greatly influenced by early social experinces
outside the home.
HAZARDS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
PHYSICAL HAZARDS PYSCHOLOGICAL HAZARDS
MORTALITY SPEECH HAZARDS
ILLNESS EMOTIONAL HAZARDS
ACCIDENTS SOCIAL HAZARDS
UNATTRACTIVENESS PLAY HAZARDS
AWKWARDNESS HAZARDS IN CONCEPT
DEVELOPMENT
OBESITY MORAL HAZARDS
LEFT-HANDEDNESS HAZARDS IN SEX-ROLE TYPING
FAMILY-RELATIONSHIP HAZARDS
PERSONALITY HAZARDS
SOME IMPORTANT CONDITIONS CONTRIBUTING TO
HAPPINESS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
• good health
• stimulating environment
• parental acceptance
• disciplinary policy or rule
• developmentally appropriate expressions of affection
• realistic aspirations
• encouragement
• acceptance
• atmosphere of cheerfulness and happiness
• achievements