1. Different Kinds of Development
Different theories tell us different things about how our children are developing. Some focus on intellectual or cognitive development, some on moral development and some on social-emotional or psychological development. These and other areas of developmental endeavor dance around each other throughout life. This article will focus on moral and psychological development for middle childhood.
2. Moral Development
Most parents are concerned about turning out "good kids." Lawrence Kohlberg discovered 6 stages of development in which he thought our morals transition from a punitive base in early childhood toward a more individualized ethical stand in adulthood. He taught that each stage built on the previous one and grew based not on whether parents taught specified morals, but on whether the child faced and dealt effectively with dilemmas that created ethical uncertainty. According to Kohlberg, until age 9, children are mostly egocentric and their moral responses are based on avoidance of punishment. And between the age of 9 and adolescence, they begin to focus on achieving the expectations of others. But psychological development is going to impact moral development.
3. Psychological Development
Erik Erikson discovered 8 stages of social-emotional or psychological development in which at each stage the child must overcome a particular challenge in order to develop into a well-adjusted adult. In middle childhood, the challenge is industry vs. inferiority. The child will either develop competency through skill-building and working toward his own goals or he will not. If not he may see himself as inferior.
4. Challenges
However, it is crucial to understand two things about psychological development: Erickson believed that the conflict of each stage must be successfully overcome in order to build toward a successful outcome at the next stage; and it is never too late to develop psychologically. According to Erikson, the primary challenge for infants is trust vs. mistrust; for toddlers, autonomy vs. shame and doubt; and for preschoolers, initiative vs. guilt. You can see that in order for a middle child to overcome inferiority with industry she has also to have overcome mistrust, shame, doubt and guilt.
5. How Does It Work?
Infants must come to trust others to respond to them appropriately. But the child who is inconsistently responded to learns mistrust. The toddler is trying to explore his world and needs some regulated autonomy to do that. But if he is overly restrained, he learns that his natural exploratory urges are wrong or bad, thus developing shame and doubt. And if the preschooler, who has previously only imitated, is chastised when she initiates; she begins to feel guilty about such initiations. But even if a child has learned mistrust, shame, doubt and guilt; in middle childhood all of that can begin to change if he finds that people can now be trusted, that he can explore his world and initiate projects and that he can now work towards his own goals, developing competence and confidence.
