Personality development is an integral part of the growing process. While babies develop fine motor skills and speaking abilities, they also develop a personality. According to the Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis, all human beings possess a natural drive to define themselves within the context of their environment. Included in that development are the tools and thinking that frame the way a person handles change.
Identification
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, babies are born with an individual temperament that anchors the core of the personality. That temperament, combined with early experiences, shapes the personality and its ability to cope with change. Adaptability is one aspect of the innate temperament with which babies are born. As they grow, children who adapt easily to change do not require as much guidance in how to deal with change as those with more fearful temperaments.
Expert Insight
Psychiatrist Erik Ericson, a forerunner in personality development, found that children develop coping strategies following a natural set of psychosocial events. With each new crisis, children learn how to react to the changes and develop a personality they carry into adulthood. In infancy, babies learn about trust when the mother leaves for the first time. Toddlers learn about boundaries and try various responses such as temper tantrums and crying to get their way. Play and imagination are important skills developed in preschool years that help them develop healthy coping skills to adapt to change. In early school years, children learn more about how to cooperate with others. Through adolescence, self-confidence or self-doubt emerges as the guiding personality trait for future coping.
Function
The first step in the personality development process involves discovering your relationship with your immediate environment, including parents, siblings, caregivers and other children. This process continues through life as more people enter, from teachers and authority figures to co-workers and romantic relationships. Each individual then must integrate his own inner drives for love, acceptance and purpose with those outer elements to successfully make necessary changes and mature in a healthy manner.
Features
As children grow and become more independent, they are faced with more choices and begin to develop free will. No longer under the total guidance of a caregiver, children begin to discover the consequences of their actions and develop power and responsibility over their own responses. The personality develops often through trial and error, and various coping mechanisms are set in motion.
Potential
With proper guidance, children learn how to interact with the outside world and other people. They begin to understand the concept of change and how it is an integral part of existence. When taught how to handle change, how to deal with disappointment and how to exert their own personal power over their reactions, children usually grow up with healthy coping skills when change occurs. Those who are left to their own devices or who have poor role models may require intervention later in life to learn how to manage their emotional responses to change that is inevitable.
