Human Development

Parenting to Children with Different Temperaments

For a parent raising a child with “difficult” temperament, it is important to note that such a child experience irregular body functions. Thomas, Chess & Birch (1970) explained that the children with difficult temperament are intense in their reactions, have negative moods, adapt slowly to environments and they choose to withdraw when faced with new stimuli. Moreover, as infants, these children tend have problems when feeding, sleeping, tend to be slow to adjusting to new routines and they cry a lot. Parents should provide a high degree of consistency and tolerance for such children to have good early childhood.

When raising children with “slow to warm up” temperament”, it is important that they understand that type of children have low activity level, they shy away in face of new stimuli and they respond to new situations with low intensity in reactions. Parents with children fitting these descriptions should respect the child’s initial reluctance to step forward, and be gentle to allow then to gain new experience on their own. More importantly, parents should devote much of their time to make sure that the children feeling comfortable.

Children with “easy” temperament are quick to establish constant feeding and eating schedules, they adapt quickly to new environments, cheerful and friendly to people. Parents raising this type of children may not have a lot of difficulty in care and training. Nevertheless, parents can support the upbringing of such children by engaging them in new activities at home and at schools; which will stimulate their quick learning.

Attachment and Temperament: Both in One Child

I had a neighbor, who was raising child who was shy in attitude, or who can be described to have “slow to warm up” temperament. I noticed that that sometimes the mother forced to child to eat and, when I was in presence, the child felt shy and irritated. As a result, the constant pressure from the mother made the child to feel detached, inadequate and unworthy. After sometimes, I found that the mother’s inadequate attachment to her child had made the child to start staying alone and even, this had a negative influence in the way the child played with others kids. I decided to help the mother express responsive and secure parenting for her child by developing a close and intimate relationship with her child. I was happy to see that the child temperament started improving and he started becoming curious, being self reliant and independent. As such, I noticed that supportive attachment of the parent to the child had a positive impact on his temperament (Hong & Park, 2012).

Cognitive Shifts from Preschool to School Age

By age of five years, the child has almost developed his native language and this stage is referred as the preschool stage. The child is able to corm complex sentences; in addition, play becomes the most important vehicle of the child’s development. However, at this stage, the child develops what Piaget referred as egocentrism; the child is unable to take into account the feelings of others. Through repeated interaction, play and imitation, the child learns about the world. Moreover, the child learns the concept of time and space whereby he shifts from action space to mapped space. However, the child only lives in terms of present but cannot recall yesterday or think of tomorrow. Preoperational stage, child cannot execute mental operations because there are certain blocks to logical thought.

At concrete operational stage, cognitive shifts take place which distinguishes the preschool and school children. The child gradually starts performing mental operations. As children at this stage begin to learn through manipulating and exploring their environment, they also begin to make sense of words and objects they refer in distinct levels of reality. Children also learn space and time and also, the rules that regulate their lives. Preschools differ from school children in the manner that they are egocentric. On the other hand, school children moral judgment changes from being subjective to being objective; which makes them social. These stages make children ready for school. Piaget argues that the consolidated gains from the rapid growth during preschool make the child to be prepared for the wider social contexts such as the school environment. Many scholars such as Bandura have argued that the cognitive shifts are continuous; they have argued the developmental stages are continuous, gradual process of the brain that is influenced by maturation and stimulation of the environment (Kendler, 2013).

Mastery and Competence: Erikson and Bandura

Erik Erikson explained the fourth stage of development (industry and inferiority), that the child social network extended beyond home to the school with the emphasis for academic performance. At this stage, Erikson explained that there was a need for children to move from play to work. As such, children learn how to produce good results by winning recognition from parents, teachers and peers. He further explained that this stage was important when resolving development crisis of initiative verses inferiority.

On the other hand, Albert Bandura focused on self efficacy in a variety of contexts. He explained that self efficacy was self confident that the child gained and also, the ability to succeed. He argued that self efficacy led to persistence and achievement and children always wanted to associate themselves with activities they were successful at since they brought them joy and confidence (Weseley & McEntarffer, 2010).

Erickson’s theory explains that a child gains mastery and competence through successful maturation at each stage while Bandura theory explains the development stages in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction among the environmental, behavioral and cognitive influences. As such, I find the Bandura’s theory to be more complete because it emphasizes that the child development is influenced not only by the cognitive functions, but also, his interaction with the environment and the people surrounding him.

Storm and Stress

Adolescent that is characterized by the changes between onset of puberty and adulthood. During this stage, Adolescents normally experience storm and stress which refer to the challenges that they face and deal with during this stage of growth. Storm can be related to expectation and pressure from the society, peers and media. Stress may not necessary be caused by the process of growth but by the responsibilities that come along with it. Research shows that storm and stress is a period when teenagers engage in conflicts with their parents, engage in risky behaviors and are moody (Casey et al., 2010).

A New Stage of Life between Adolescence and Early Adulthood

Munsey (2006) has explained that there is a new stage between the adolescents and adults which he has referred as “Emerging Adults”. The stage had been coined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor as Clark University who interviewed more than 300 youths in different cities in Denmark and found that many young adults were assuming responsibilities of adults. Munsey describes that emerging adulthood commenced at the end of adolescent when the young-adults started looking for stable jobs, marriages and parenthood. Munsey used the age and role identity criteria to distinguish the stage from both adolescent and earl adolescent stages. He explained that unlike this stage distinctively started at the age of 30 when young adults had lived in romantic relationships for long duration (in colleges) and, started their families due through the family and working relationships. The stage is different from the early adolescent since due to the bigger responsibilities such as it an age of focus, possibilities and identity exploration.

Is the Path to Intimacy Through Identity?

According to Beyers (2010), she explains that Erikson postulation that healthy identity during adolescent as precursor to intimacy during relationship showed that there was strict ordering in development. As a result, I agree with Erikson argument that identity influences adolescents’ intimacy in relationships. Research findings revealed that identity achievement was a transition to adulthood and intimacy in relationships. Beyers explained that identity was an integrative function of relational identity that led to later mature intimacy. In addition, the study revealed that early ego development of teenagers aged 15 year led to intimacy in their relationships when they reached the age of 25. I think that intimacy also leads to identity formation and well-functioning of the individuals. I think that intimacy allows a person to relate with others either as a neighbor, a family member, a friend or as a lover. Intimacy provides people with the opportunity to interact and share feeling that leads to improved behavior, possible good marriages and even enduring friendships. However, I do not think that identity formation can lead to intimacy because; intimacy is a stage that precedes the identity formation in human development. Moreover, the two cannot be separated since learning intimacy and identity formation are interrelated stages that the teenagers must successfully pass in order to move to the next stage-learning generativity as opposed to self-absorption.

Mid-life, Prime-of-Life, Your Life

I think the mid-life crisis varies from one person to the other. However, it has been common that men found themselves at mid-life crisis when they are at the age of 40 year while women at the age of 35 years. Most of the women who find themselves grappled in the mid-life crisis are single. As a result, they start making drastic changes in their appearances in an effort to look for a marriage partner. Nevertheless, that is not to say that this stage affects only single women, men too, fall victims of mid-life crisis. Most men who experience the crisis struggle with unaccomplished plans such as the need to build a house of their own, or the need to buy a car. However, the mid-life crisis affects people differently according to their socioeconomic statuses. For instance, most people who are in the middle-status can experiences crises such as the inability to advance their careers because they feel that they performance is not worthy their jobs. For the rich and affluent class, women often face challenges such as the desire to get validity through relationships. As a result, research has shown that the crisis tends to occur at significant life events such as the fear of entering “zero” birth decade after the parents’ youngest children finish their education. Mid-life crisis has pushed the age of adulthoods for most of the American since history. According to Richard Easterlin, an economist who started gauging happiness of different people in different countries in 1970s, he found that people did not celebrate happiness as they got richer. However, in the recent trends, getting richer has been the mainstream of extended adulthood. Most Americans are considering adulthood as an age when they have succeeded to acquire adequate wealth (Cohen, 2012). At my age, I do not belief that I have reached mid-life and nor do I belief that it is a prime life. Instead, I belief mid-life depends on my life priorities. I consider mid-life to a time I will be late in accomplishing things that I have planned such as building a house. When I fail to get a house of my own, then I will consider that to be the prime life.

Ego-Integrity vs. Despair

 

 

 

 

References

Beyers, W. (2010). Does Identity Precede Intimacy? Testing Erikson’s Theory on Romantic

Development in Emerging Adults of the 21st Century. Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(3), 387-415

Casey, B.J., Jones, R.M., Levita, L., Libby, V., Pattwell, S., Ruberry, E., Soliman, F., &

Somerville, L.H. (2010). The Storm and Stress of Adolescence: Insights from Human Imaging and Mouse Genetics. Dev Psychobiol, 52(3), 225–235.

Cohen, P. (2012). In our prime: The invention of middle age. New York, NY: Simon and

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Hong, Y.R., & Park, J.S. (2012). Impact of attachment, temperament and parenting on human

development. Korean Journal of Pediatrics, 55(12), 449-454

Kendler, T.S. (2013). Levels of cognitive development. New Jersey: Psychology Press.

Weseley, A.J., & McEntarffer, R. (2010). Barron’s AP Psychology. New York, NY: Barron’s

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Munsey, C. (2006). Emerging adults: The in-between age. American Psychological Association,

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Thomas, A., Chess, S., & Birch, H.G. (1970). The origin of personality. Scientific American,

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