Child and Adolescent Development

DIARY AND LETTERS OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
August 2, 2020
Art History BEFORE 1200 CE
August 2, 2020

Child and Adolescent Development

Biosocial development is the process of growth and development which occur physically, biologically, environmentally and socio-culturally, which rapidly occurs in the initial two years of individual growth or what is called the play years. During this period, physical development is manifested where the body length is proportional to the head. The child attains thinness where girls retain some fats while boys retain some muscles. They have improved posture as well as balance, aiding in motor coordination. There is brain development in capacity and density while the motor ability is developed where the child acquires fine motor skills. During brain development there is transient exuberance, which is development in neural connections and slow down as a child progresses with age as unutilized connections atrophy. Cognitive as well as emotional experience is crucial for this to occur, for optimal connections, which may affect future language development. This is however dependent on the nutritional, healthcare as well as genetic background of a child..Cognitive development involves reason and thoughts and occurs especially during the onset of adolescent. According to Jean Piaget, it involves various stages; sensorimotor (birth- 2years) interprets surrounding as the child engage in learning, remembering and symbolizing information to resolve an issue. Preoperational stage (2-7 years) involves language development and lead to concrete operational stage (7-12 years) which involves developing of abstract, reason, philosophical thoughts and mathematical skills. The child gains a systematic way of thinking to logically resolve an issue. This starts with concrete thoughts toward formal operational stage (12- adulthood) to have a personal view of things, which are manifest in school work as wells their personal lives. The child is able to weigh possibilities in order to come up with an appropriate decision. This stage is critical on quality and quantity of information from various experiences as environmental stimuli is essential to reach optimal cognitive ability. Emotions are however a hindrance to acquire rational thoughts.During the third stage of development according to Erich Erickson, the psychosocial crisis involved is regarded as which occurs during four to six years of age as a child question on whether they are good or bad. Initiative is the potential to move something or establish the first move and have an independent way of doing things (autonomy) as a child acquire control over his or her surroundings and explores it to become adventurous. It involves learning new things to respond to challenges and become responsible as well as purposeful. However, if these efforts are frustrated, they are confronted with a new emotion, which often leads to a feeling of guilt. Accomplishments of the independent task leads to a sense of satisfaction while failure leads to feeling of guilt when desired outcomes are not attained. The feelings of guilt are managed through good parenting and avoiding being overly demanding and over controlling the child. Guilt makes a child to become aggressive and extremely assertive towards older people since they are frustrated over their desires as well as needs.Play enables children to attain optimal cognitive, physical, emotional as well as social development. It is an ideal chance for children to learn as they become creative and imaginative during constructive play. In the process they become happy and enhance their health as well as self-esteem. Moreover, they gain basic trust towards the world around them and this is essential for social development. Play enables a child to have an efficient brain function and aids him or her to acquire important life skills as they encounter various experiences. As children play, they interact socially with others; learn from each other and most importantly, they attain physical health. As infants play, they gain trust and this facilitates them to adventure their environment, while doing so develop their fine and gross motor skills. Additionally, they attain logical thoughts as part of functional play and as they bond, their emotions are developed. They become curious and become more adventurous and this helps them solve various problems. While group play fosters teamwork as well as understanding, solitary play helps a child to attain independent thoughts.