The period of the newborn's growth and development over the first 1-2 months is known as the neonatal period of development. Review the milestones of neonatal development
 Newborn baby: The newborn baby requires a great deal of care to develop. There are five states of arousal in which newborn babies spend their time; these include regular sleep, irregular sleep, drowsiness, quiet alertness, and crying. Most of an infant's time is spent in either regular or irregular sleep (8-9 hours of each); it is during this time that the infant's brain continues to develop the necessary connections for survival and growth. Brain plasticity refers to the idea that the brain is not yet committed to specific functions. If certain areas of the brain are damaged during this sensitive period, other areas of the brain can take over and handle new functions not previously assigned to them. Newborns use crying as a means of communication—there are different cries to elicit various responses from caregivers. Whimpers or weak crying may simply indicate the desire for attention ("pick me up and cuddle me"), whereas intense screaming could mean hunger or some other form of distress. Most parents do well at identifying their newborn's unique cry for each need; however, some infants suffer from colic and/or cry for no apparent reason. Some of the newborn's senses are well developed at birth, whereas others take months to fully develop. For example:
Children's physical development occurs rapidly during the first few years of life as they develop both gross and fine motor skills. Review the milestones of physical development in childhood
Fine motor skills, by contrast, involve the coordination of small muscle movements, usually involving the hands working in coordination with the eyes. Hand-eye coordination allows a child to perform such skills as drawing, using buttons and zippers, eating with utensils, and tying shoes. Children increase their mastery of these skills through practice. For example, at age 2, a child's drawing might be a series of crayon scribbles, but by age 5, he or she might be able to draw a person's face complete with eyes, nose, and mouth. As stated above, children grow very quickly and meet physical milestones rapidly in the first few years of life. The following is a list of the major milestones that occur in children during those first formative years.
Toddler exploring her world: By manipulating the world around them, children learn and grow physically in both gross and fine motor skills. Cognitive development occurs rapidly during childhood as the brain continues to grow and develop. Review the neurological and cognitive milestones of development in childhood
Structure of a nerve cell: Synapses, or the spaces between nerve cells, develop rapidly during childhood. These structures are responsible for releasing neurotransmitters, which are chemical signals that help the brain communicate. Glial cells, which account for half of all brain mass in early childhood, are responsible for a process known as myelination. This process improves message transfer between synapses and assists in brain development. The connection between neighboring neurons (which is made smoother through myelination) allows for advanced brain function, such as planning and implementing behaviors and integrating sensory information from the environment. Due to synaptic pruning, myelination, and a child's environmental experiences, the developing brain will grow from 30 percent of its adult weight at birth to 70 percent by age 2. Neuroplasticity is also an important aspect of early childhood development. Also known as brain plasticity, neuroplasticity is an umbrella term that refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses caused by changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, and emotions—as well as changes resulting from bodily injury. The concept of neuroplasticity explores how the brain changes over the course of a lifetime and how different areas of the brain can evolve and adapt over time. This change occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes (caused by learning) to large-scale changes in response to injury. The role of neuroplasticity is considered important to healthy development, learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage. The Swiss cognitive theorist Jean Piaget was one of the most influential researchers in the field of child development. He developed his four-stage theory of cognitive development based on the idea that children actively construct knowledge as they explore and manipulate the world around them. Two of these stages, the preoperational and concrete operational, are especially important in early childhood development. According to Piaget, each stage of development incorporates previous knowledge; that is, a child needs to go through an earlier stage in order to fully develop in a later stage. Preoperational development allows children to increase their mental representation of objects, generally through make-believe play. Piaget states that language is the most flexible means of mental representation; at the same time, young children do not yet have the capability to use language alone as a means of representation. Rather, children perform actions as a means to master language and symbolic thought. Sociodramatic play, in which children play with others and create elaborate plots and characters, culminates in the understanding of representational thought and activity. Much thought during the preoperational phase is egocentric—focused only on the child's point of view. During the concrete operational stage, a major turning point in cognition occurs: the appearance of more logical and organized thought. Several key thinking processes emerge during this stage, including reversibility, seriation, and transitive inference. Reversibility is the capacity to go through a series of steps and mentally reverse them, ending up at the beginning. Seriation is the ability to order items by a quantitative dimension, such as height or weight. Transitive inference is a relational concept in which children can understand how objects are related to one another; for example, if a dog is a mammal, and a boxer is a dog, then a boxer must also be a mammal.Childhood is a time of rapid emotional and social development, as children learn to regulate emotions and interact with others. Review the milestones of socioemotional development in childhood
Play and childhood relationships: Associative and cooperative play occurs when children learn to engage with one another, exchanging and sharing toys and creating games together. Intersubjectivity refers to the psychological relation between people; in child development, it refers to the very rapid cultural development of newborn infants. Research suggests that as babies, humans are biologically wired to coordinate their actions with others; this ability to sync with others facilitates cognitive and emotional learning through social interaction. Additionally, the most socially productive relationship between children and adults is bidirectional, where both parties actively define a shared culture. Emphasis is placed on the idea that children are actively involved in how they learn, using intersubjectivity. Between 3 and 5 years old, children come to understand that people have thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that are different from their own. This is known as theory of mind. Children can use this skill to tease others, persuade their parents to purchase a candy bar for them, or understand why a sibling might be angry. When children develop theory of mind, they can recognize that others may have false beliefs (Dennett, 1987; Callaghan et al., 2005).
The "False Belief" Test: Theory of Mind: False-belief tasks are useful in determining a child’s acquisition of theory of mind. Take a look at this video clip showing a false-belief task involving a box of crayons. There are four main parenting styles that most parents fall into: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved/neglectful. Contrast the four main parenting styles
Parenting styles: The way in which a parent interacts with his or her child is an important factor in the child's socioemotional growth. Authoritative parenting is generally regarded as the most successful approach to parenting because of its high level of involvement and balanced levels of control. Authoritative parents set realistic expectations and consistent limits for their children, and provide them with fair or natural consequences. Natural consequences are those that occur as a natural result of the child's behavior (or lack of a particular behavior), with no intervention required; for example, if a child touches a hot stove and is burned by the heat, the burn is a natural consequence. Authoritative parents express warmth and affection, listen to their child's point of view, and provide opportunities for independence. Parents set rules and explain the reasons behind them, and they are also flexible and willing to make exceptions to the rules in certain cases—for example, temporarily relaxing bedtime rules to allow for a nighttime swim during a family vacation. Of the four parenting styles, the authoritative style is the one that is most encouraged in modern American society. American children raised by authoritative parents tend to have high self-esteem and social skills and work well with others. However, effective parenting styles vary as a function of culture, and the authoritative style is not necessarily preferred or appropriate in all cultures. In the authoritarian style, parents put a high value on conformity and obedience. The parents are often strict, tightly monitor their children, and express little warmth. These parents exhibit a large amount of control over their child's decisions and behavior. Authoritarian parents set rigid rules with firm consequences; in contrast to the authoritative style, authoritarian parents probably would not relax bedtime rules during a vacation because they consider the rules to be set, and they expect obedience at all times. Children who grow up in authoritarian homes often become anxious or withdrawn or suffer from self-esteem problems. Due to gender socialization, those raised as male may experience anger problems, while those raised as female may become dependent upon others for approval. Although these children may do poorly in school, they do not tend to engage in antisocial behavior for fear of their parents' reaction. However, it is important to keep in mind cultural differences: different cultures respond better to different parenting styles than others (Russell, Crockett, & Chao, 2010). For instance, first-generation Chinese American children raised by authoritarian parents did just as well in school as peers who were raised by authoritative parents (Russell et al., 2010). Permissive parenting tends to be warm and loving but lacks follow-through on setting limits or rules. Permissive parents tend to be overindulgent, make few demands, rarely use punishment, and allow their children to make their own decisions, regardless of the consequences. They tend to be very nurturing and loving and may play the role of friend rather than parent. These parents might be caught up in their own lives and therefore inattentive (although not neglectful) and exhibit little control over their children. Children raised by permissive parents tend to lack self-discipline, and the permissive parenting style is negatively associated with grades (Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987). The permissive style may also contribute to other risky or impulsive behaviors such as alcohol abuse (Bahr & Hoffman, 2010), risky sexual behavior, especially among female children (Donenberg, Wilson, Emerson, & Bryant, 2002), and increased display of disruptive behaviors by male children (Parent et al., 2011). However, there are some positive outcomes associated with children raised by permissive parents: many tend to have higher self-esteem, better social skills, and report lower levels of depression (Darling, 1999). With the uninvolved style of parenting, the parents are indifferent and sometimes referred to as neglectful. They don’t respond to their child’s needs and make relatively few demands. This could be because of severe depression, substance abuse, or other factors such as the parents’ extreme focus on work. Neglectful parents may look to their children for support and guidance, and these children often end up "parenting their parents." These parents may provide for the child’s basic needs, but little else; in more extreme forms of neglect, basic needs may not be cared for at all or children may be placed in harmful situations. These children, much like those raised in permissive homes, tend to have myriad problems, but often the problems are often much more serious. Children raised in this parenting style are usually emotionally withdrawn, fearful, and anxious; perform poorly in school; and are at an increased risk of substance abuse (Darling, 1999).Culture plays an important role in influencing childhood development, and what is considered "normal" varies greatly from one culture to the next. Examine the influence of culture on childhood development
The effects of parenting style: Different parenting styles influence children differently depending on cultural norms and standards. Race and other identities are often sites of discrimination and oppression in societies; as such, they can have a tremendous impact on childhood development. The United States is a very racialized society, and children—especially children of color—often become aware of the dynamics of racism at a very young age. Children are taught the stereotypes that go along with their particular race(s), as well as the races of others, and these stereotypes can have a strong influence on their development. Stereotypes and racialized expectations often contribute to stereotype threat , in which a child experiences anxiety or concern in a situation that has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about his or her social group. For example, if an African-American child is given the message that black people are not as "smart" as white people, she may worry if she is not doing well in school because it will, she fears, confirm the negative stereotype. Importantly, stereotype threat has been shown to be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy—not because the negative stereotype is accurate, but because fear of fulfilling that stereotype can lead to additional anxiety, which in turn can reduce performance. For example, stereotype threat can lower the intellectual performance of black students taking the SAT, due to the stereotype that they are less intelligent than other groups, which may cause them to feel additional pressure and anxiety. Intersectionality is the study of the intersections, or the relationships, between different forms or systems of discrimination or oppression. This theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social, and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, and other areas of identity interact and contribute to various forms of social inequality. Intersectionality holds that different forms of discrimination—such as racism, sexism, biphobia, ableism, transphobia, and classism—do not act independently of one another; instead, they interrelate and create a system based on multiple forms of discrimination.All of these factors are important to keep in mind when examining the cultural influences of such discrimination on child development. For example, the experience of growing up as an African-American girl in the United States cannot be understood only in terms of being black or of being female; instead, the ways in which these identities interact and frequently reinforce each other must be examined. Race is also closely linked to class, and people of color are still statistically much more likely to lack access to basic resources and experience economic hardship. These resources include everything from proper nutrition and healthcare to good education systems and neighborhood parks. All of these societal factors intersect and interact to influence a child's development, so much so that a child from a middle-class white family has many more opportunities than a child from a lower-income family of color. CC licensed content, Shared previously
|
About _____% of the human life cycle is taken up by infancy and childhood.
Postagens relacionadas
direito autoral © 2024 EstudaremCasa Inc.
