Child Development

To understand how someone becomes who they are, one must be able to observe the way they develop their social interactions. Looking back on my own social development creates a realization that without the social interactions and my own reactions I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Humans are social beings, that is why the individuals that make up their social groups, whether it is their parents, siblings, teachers, or school mates, helps create who they become and why they become that. I remember when everything was new and I also remember when I began testing the limitations with my parents and teachers to determine what I could get away with and what I can realistically do. As a toddler I only took the amount of cookies given to me by my mom but as I reached the age of six or so, I began getting my own cookies as a snack after school. Though I knew I was only allowed three, I began taking four or five because I realized I could sneak the extras when my parents weren’t home or not paying attention. I did this until I was caught and I received a punishment. This set a limitation in my mind that I can only take cookies I’m allowed to or else suffer the consequences.

I asked some friends whether this particular experience of testing limitations was common among children of that particular age. A twenty-two year old college student agrees with this occurrence. Not only did he claim to begin questioning authority with small events in his life but he claims he watched his two little sisters have a dramatic transition into this stage. The eldest sister has now reached the age of thirteen and he claims that she has calmed down a lot and has stopped getting into as much trouble. He has also observed she is beginning to worry about socializing within her group of friends, and according to the examples given, she is searching for her social role within the group.

I also spoke with my parents and they seemed to agree with the testing limitations and then the transition into seeking their place within a friend group. They also seemed to feel that both of these transitions wouldn’t be possible without the extensive learning and explorations achieved within the toddler age. I interviewed two graduates in their thirties. I asked them about their social development through their teens and how it affected their development as a college student.

They claimed that through their teen years were exploring different aspects of socializing whether it was introversion or extroverted, they both felt that these transitions influenced the goals they began striving for within their education as well as involvement within their college experience. Though in college social roles are still being changed, as in adolescence, the overall feeling was that they began seeking a new home and new experiences to achieve their overall life goals rather than only finding what creates social comfort.

After interviewing and observing my own experiences of social development I found five distinct stages. The first being observational which is from birth till the age of two. The second stage which consists of the ages of three until five called the explorative stage. The expansion stage follows from ages six to twelve, continued with the determination stage consisting of the ages thirteen to seventeen. Finally the transformative stage, from eighteen to twenty-four, finishes the social developmental stages. These stages highlight and explain the transitions and attitudes that humans experience throughout their childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

The observational stage is a very dependent stage where the child is too young to do much of anything on their own. Their world revolves around their parent or guardian and unless a stimulant is allowed it will not be experienced, unlike the expansion stage where the child begins to test and question what is allowed and what is possible. At this age they are beginning to observe their five senses and respond to these senses. As their cognitive development is not advanced yet, observation is generally the only social experience they can receive. A good example of this is the type of toys babies are most attracted to. Lots of colors, simple shapes, soft and smooth textures, even smell effect babies in dramatic ways.

The explorative stage (ages three to five) is where the child begins to move around and interact at a slightly higher cognitive ability. This is what allows more social interactions thus differentiating itself from the other stages of social developing. They have now achieved a higher understanding of the five senses. The ability to walk and crawl easily creates a wider range of experiences, thus a higher development of cognition and social understanding. This is also the age where they begin to have an understanding that they are an individual separate from others, even if it is a small unexplained understanding. An example of this is the mirror challenge. An adult can put a dot of blue paint on the child’s nose when the child is distracted. Then place them in front of a mirror. The child sees another child that looks like themselves only with a blue dot. They will most likely touch the dot on the mirror before they reach their hand to their own nose. When the paint moves and they can feel it they realize it is themselves they are looking at. Before this age, a child would not cognize this.

The ability to do this is the foundation for the next stage but as the child’s experiences are still extremely new they must still explore their world and interact with others more to truly realize that anything they do has an effect on the world around them. This is usually due to their great dependence on others. This is the age where imaginary friends may begin to appear and they begin interacting with other children in play. Sharing may also become a challenge as before this age they had never experienced much that isn’t only theirs. This is a very important aspect needed to be learned in order to develop the beginnings of healthy relationships outside their parents and siblings.

The expansion stage (age’s six to twelve) is easily the plateau in social development. The limitations and understanding of what is accepted and what is appropriate helps shape the developmental abilities in later stages, whether negatively or positively. This stage consists of the most social changes in the shortest amount of time, even in the transformative stage where they usually move out of the house or begin their careers because they aren’t changing their own ideals as frequently as in this stage. As I explained earlier with the cookie example, there are many important aspects within this development. If a child doesn’t learn to first question the authority then they may never learn to differentiate between good direction and bad directions within authority. They must also learn that certain actions are unacceptable in society, such as biting, hitting, saying mean things, lying and not waiting their turn. Though these lessons may seem obvious to adults, children in this stage are just realizing the differences and how their own actions are decided by themselves. This is also the time they shape their basic personal desires. Such as spinach, many children do not like spinach but they know that to eat desert they need to eat it. This lesson, overtime can change whether they like spinach or not if the adult properly responds. It can also be affected by their social group, because if their friends don’t like it they will decide not to like it either so as they feel accepted within the group they desire to be a part of.

The social group they feel most comfortable in will also change within this because as their desires and cognition of accepted actions develop, they will begin to have the ability to expand their social group along with their own way of decision making. They will begin to realize that they do not necessarily fit in with some groups and this is the reason many children at this age conform to actions and beliefs of their particular social group rather than just their family. That is probably why many children in this stage begin to feel awkward because they do not entirely know where they want to fit in or whether they can. This is why it is called the expansion stage as they are expending their understanding of rules, authority, friends and desires.

The determination stage follows this stage from about thirteen to seventeen. As this stage follows the plateau, it is a stage or slower cognitive social changes in a generally stable direction, considering they have already learned accepted behaviors and began to understand their social status. This stage tends to be fairly confusing for the child because though they have shaped their general desires they are still unsure of what will become of them. As these ages are the last before adulthood, responsibilities are enforced and a lot of pressure is felt by the child to find their goals, but still remain the image they are most comfortable with inside their social group. This is also the age children start striving to create an adult image of themselves whether it is the type of activities they begin trying to experience or the focus on future plans. A couple good example of this is the desire to have later curfews, and independence as they perceive older adults to have.

The final stage of socialization development is the transformative stage. This is roughly from the ages 18 to 24. By this stage most have achieved an understanding of what is socially acceptable and where they fit into the community. This directs them in their adult goals whether it is where they decide to move, go to college, begin a career and even their level of involvement in different activities. By this time, the young adult is beginning to or is free from most adult supervision and though they have tempted many of their limitations, they haven’t been the one’s setting their limitations and responsibilities, as much as they will be required to at this point.

Many may reevaluate their limitations and social status and this directly effects how their goals are transformed during this social stage. This is a journey of exploring and finalizing their social position and life goals whether marriage, a new home, different career goals or even just being a “rebel” to find their own adult limitations. This stage also allows a greater understanding as to who they are thus a new outlook on the people they allow into their social group. All of these stages are dependent on the result of the other stages. It is essential to recognize the importance in developing these aspects of each stage because if any are underdeveloped then other stages may come with greater challenges.

I will be designing an experiment to determine if the expansion stage is accurate among the ages assigned to that stage. It should be an observational experiment where only a few specifically worded questions are asked to the group of children being observed. The group should contain at least 20 children from each age within this developmental stage (6 through 12). This will allow a very accurate observation free from errors due to lack of any particular age group. The individuals should be chosen randomly from schools containing that age group and every child of this age should have an equal chance of participating. I could do this by allowing the questions to be asked online and allow videos to be submitted for observations. Considering this, the researcher conducting the experiment should create a way to eliminate falsely presented answers.

We could set up seven different events, one for each age group, where toys and other play time activities are available. Each child should be presented with an opportunity to take more cookies than allowed as well as situations where level of sharing is measured. The cookies experiment should also be observable by some of the children so as to see if another child doing it would affect the other children’s reactions. For each age group there must be congruence with the setting as to not create a biased reaction. Simple questions such as “do you like sharing?”, “do you think it’s fair that everyone only got 2 cookies?”, and finally, “do you enjoy playing with a small group or did you prefer playing with people who were playing the same thing as you?”. These questions allow for the least influenced answers to receive accurate answers.

The results should show that as the age increases the ability to share is increased and the ability to get away with or not take the extra cookies at all. There should also be an observable difference between the amounts of cliques created during the play time. The younger children would be less conformed to a particular group, while the older children would be more comfortable in clique. All of these results would show that this stage is composed of developing these social abilities and understanding within these social groups.