Essay On The Development Of Self In Children: Understanding Self-Awareness And Self-Recognition

Changes in the developing self: children’s increasing ability to understand things provides them with every deepening insights into themselves.

More abstract ideas of happiness, friendship, and protecting others concepts.

Children gradually learn that forms of self-awareness other than physical recognition exist. Eg: verbal labelling becomes more important, conscience assumes a more compelling role, self control steadily emerges.

Core self development is a sense of subjective self awareness that reflects ‘I’m the one acting, thinking,’ etc.

Self representation: that is you think you are. As cognitive development continues, self recognition deepens and becomes the basis for distinguishing oneself from others.  

Changes in the developing self: children’s increasing ability to understand things provides them with every deepening insights into themselves.

More abstract ideas of happiness, friendship, and protecting others concepts.

Children gradually learn that forms of self-awareness other than physical recognition exist. Eg: verbal labelling becomes more important, conscience assumes a more compelling role, self control steadily emerges.

Core self development is a sense of subjective self awareness that reflects ‘I’m the one acting, thinking,’ etc.

Self representation: that is you think you are. As cognitive development continues, self recognition deepens and becomes the basis for distinguishing oneself from others.  

Young pre-schoolers want separations to be predictable and controllable and will negotiate with their parents to make sure that certain rituals such as the reading of a favourite book occur before bedtime or before parents go out for the evening (Mercer, 2006).

Children continues to seek for approval and attention from their parents, and they rush to their parents for safety when they are hurt or frightened, but they also become increasingly dependent on peers for social and emotional support.

Egocentrism: Involves a tendency to view the world solely from one’s own perspective and to have difficulty recognising other points of view.

Young children often chose to view that corresponded to their own position.

Reporting

This assessment, a reflective journal, will discuss and analyse the learning procedure starting from week 1 to 10 and further report the outcome of the study. The central idea of the subject revolves around human development since the beginning of a child’s ability to learn new things.

On the first week, the teachers segregated the students into two groups to brainstorm questions on basic ideas, various stages and components of human development. The stages of life span has been explained with the gain stability loss model. The socio cultural perspective has been explained with different examples from various continents and we were taught the impacts of cultural differences. In addition, the teachers taught us the influences of nature and nurture process in human development precisely with modern people’s perspective of development through lifespan.

The second week was dedicated for learning development theories and understand the issue which raise while development. Among them, theory of Freud and Erikson have been considered. A reading of Svetina, (2014) can help to perceive better idea about the philosophical theory of Erikson regarding the subject. It mainly deals with cognitive development and various psychological stages of learning resistance were taught to us.

Third week dealt with development on biological basis, which means the process of pregnancy and birth of child. The class was based on a group activity of researching on various topics related to genetic coding and environmental influence on genetic improvement.

In week 4, during infancy children’s physical, cognitive and psychosocial growth have been discussed in detail, whereas week 5 gave us the idea about the nature of these three development in early childhood.

On the beginning of the 6th week, we came to know various principles of growth in middle childhood. Brain and perpetual developments are important stages of this stage.

Week 7 was all about learning the development of human brain and transformation which human body experiences during the adolescent age. The week 8^th, 9^th and 10^th discusses the development process of early, middle and late adulthood respectively.

I have learnt how human beings go through such a process throughout their lifespan. The first week was an introductory session in between students and teachers to have an understanding on student’s perception regarding human development. With the help of gain stability model I have understood that it is true that aging is losing physical capability yet gaining more knowledge and experience depends on old age. In addition, I have understood the entire development process and stages that I have to explore in future.

Second week was critical enough, as I have gained valid information regarding various theories given by philosophers like Freud and Erikson. I have learnt, birth, gene combination, complexities to gene development and every biological aspects of forming a human life in third week. Teachers presented all the materials through digital mode and explained orally with further clarifications.  In the fourth, fifth and sixth week, I have understood the stages and various categories of development in infancy, early childhood and mid childhood respectively. Seventh week was interesting, as I have learnt the stages of gradual transformation of human body and its reasons. Eighth and ninth week curriculum was immensely helpful in terms of gaining knowledge how development process undergoes through adolescent, early and late adulthood period. People get irritated while such changes happening in their body and mind. A reading of Yeager, Trzesniewski & Dweck, (2013) will be supportive enough address those issues. The entire learning procedure was highly interactive and teachers help us to understand and clarify queries regarding the doubts with the lessons spending a different schedule for that.

I have realized gradually that the understanding of development theory is not only important for my education curriculum but also helpful for making myself a better person.

• According to Karmiloff-Smith (2018), I will be able to solve various small issues within myself that would assist me to achieve a better personality. It has given me additional insight into how I can develop myself into a better person and future decisions have become easier to take.
• Prediction does not work all the time but there is nothing wrong to say, better understanding of the development process will help to raise my children in a better way. Having a detail knowledge of the human development according to the age and social scale, I will be able to interact more appropriately with people and understand the psychology of them.
• Occasionally, as per the study of Maratos (2017), children have a difficult time while expressing their views and feelings. A good knowledge of development theory will help me to solve these kind of problems and it will be crucial in terms of detecting abnormality in human physique and character as well.

In order to answer why I should engage myself in this study, I can say it will be immensely helpful for assisting individuals, families or ethnic groups to understand specific health or psychological problems while growing up across the lifespan irrespective of contexts and dynamic atmosphere. Understanding of various theories will be helpful for me if I engage myself in practicing as a teacher, social worker or counsellor. After learning the physical and psychosocial development process, it would be reasonable enough if I can improve my skills towards leadership and administrative career (Moss, Gibson & Dollarhide, 2014). In addition, I can become school psychologist as well. Teaching and education sector is the most promising area to explore, as the role of psychology is evident in a teaching and learning scenario. In addition, as described in Lent and Brown (2013), business sector needs individuals with strong personality and power of analysis. Therefore, in depth perceptions of Psychology will help to be a corporate trainer, public relation executives and HR professionals. Research field has various scopes after learning such development theories in bachelor level. Options of becoming survey researchers, psychologist or sociologist or teaching as a college professor will justify the requirements of studying the subject.

Conclusion

Therefore, it has been understood after learning the development theories throughout the lifespan is going to open up so many job and career opportunities. In addition to that, it is helpful to address the childhood issues. I can improve myself into a better person and acknowledge the abnormalities if anything occurs.

References

Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2018). Development itself is the key to understanding developmental disorders. In Thinking Developmentally from Constructivism to Neuroconstructivism(pp. 97-117). Routledge.

Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2013). Social cognitive model of career self-management: Toward a unifying view of adaptive career behavior across the life span. Journal of counseling psychology, 60(4), 557.

Maratos, O. (2017). Trends in the development of imitation in early infancy. In Regressions in mental development (pp. 81-102). Routledge.

Moss, J. M., Gibson, D. M., & Dollarhide, C. T. (2014). Professional identity development: A grounded theory of transformational tasks of counselors. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92(1), 3-12.

Svetina, M. (2014). Resilience in the context of Erikson’s theory of human development. Current Psychology, 33(3), 393-404.

Yeager, D. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2013). An implicit theories of personality intervention reduces adolescent aggression in response to victimization and exclusion. Child development, 84(3), 970-988.