Early through Middle Childhood
Roger G. Schoen
Psych 600
April 6 2015
Shawn Davis
Early through Middle Childhood
“Kids don’t remember what you are trying to teach them. They remember what you are. (Jim Hansen) Erikson (1950) “described early childhood as a period of vigorous unfolding” (Berk, 2010). Before we discuss the factors that influence children’s behavior values, or beliefs we must first understand the structure of these teachings and who guides the child. The outside influences are important part of learning and developing these skills. One of the most important influences I believe is your peer’s or friends. Children grow and interact with their peers or friends they get experiences adults can give. Children are not in competition with each other because they have nothing to prove but to gain loyalty, trust, and understanding. They begin to communicate with each other and form a bond that could and will last for a life time. There are at the age some physical changes, however they are not necessary something you can see but the way they act toward others. These changes are understanding their emotions, self-regulation, self-conscious, and empathy. Understanding their emotions are when they, the children have a base line of knowledge to work from. The understanding improves over time with the experience they gain through relationships with others, and at time they know the outcome, and can feel the same pain or emotion. These talents come about because the parents work with, and acknowledge their child’s emotions, feeling so they understand them, and they are better equipped to deal with problem and empathy for others. While the child grows they improve the ability to self-regulate their emotions. They are able to communicate their feeling on a variety of emotions and the can control them better. At this age the boys and girls are looking at life a little differently. While girls are playing with dolls and thinking about reading, art, and housework, boys are playing with their trucks, thinking about sports and climbing. They are building on their social and cognitive behaviors that they have learned from their role models, their parents. During this stage the brain increase in weight but the left side has become more active, the right side is growing consistently during the childhood. Furthermore the child has developed the ability to control their behavior, with language, drawing, and giving direction. The dominant side of the brain has the capacity to do the necessary motor skills. In the developed nations 90% of the population is right handed where 10% is left-hand. I found this interesting; in my family there are two people left-handed out of 10 individuals. The handedness that has been developed involves hours of practice in gaining skills in using that hand weather it is the left or right. The left-handed individuals tend to have some type of mental illness, but this is probably due to some type of injury. The left-hand individual is more likely to develop outstanding mathematical and verbal skills that of the right-handing child. The central nerves system to also growing at this stage. The cerebellum is the part of the brain which controls the movement and your balance. Fibers link both the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex which aids in the motor skills. By the end of the pre-school year, children have well developed movement which enables them to play ball, ride a bike, and print. The other link that is established is the ability to think, and reason. There are four areas that differ between the males and females brain; processing, chemistry, structure, and activity. The male uses more of the gray area where the female uses the white area, giving females the able to concentrate on a task but able to switch to something else, were male focus on a task but have tunnel vision and are slow in responding to anything else. This means females are able to handle more