Childhood stages and their characteristics

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Childhood stages and their characteristics

Contents

1 stage of childhood

2 The stages of childhood and their characteristics

2.1 Early childhood stage

3 References

Childhood stages

The childhood stage is the main pillar in building an individual’s personality,

As it has great importance in achieving success, or failure;

That is why it was necessary to shed light on this period of an individual’s life,

And a statement of its most important stages, and the characteristics of each stage.

Childhood received several definitions, and among these definitions are the following:

1- The Oxford Dictionary defines childhood as:

“The time when an individual is a child and lives a happy childhood”,

Where he defined the child as: “A newborn person, whether male or female.”

2- The Longman Dictionary defines childhood as:

“The time that a person goes through when they are a child,”

Where he defined the child as: “A person who is young from the time of his birth until he reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen, and he is a son or daughter at any age.”

3- Sociologists believe that childhood is:

“The early period of human life in which a person totally depends on his parents for preserving his life;

In it, he learns and exercises for the next period, which is not important in and of itself.

Rather, it is a bridge across which the child crosses until the physiological, mental, psychological, social, moral and spiritual maturity, during which the human life as a social being is shaped.

Among the definitions that relate to all childhood, we can see that the draft United Nations Convention, in its first article, indicated that childhood is:

“A stage in which a person does not bear the responsibilities of life, relying on parents and kin to satisfy his organic needs,

And the school is in the care of life, extending from birth until near the end of the second decade of life,

It is the first stage in the formation and growth of the personality.

It is a stage of control, control, and educational guidance. “

As for the child, it was defined as: “Every human being under the age of eighteen unless he attained the age of majority prior to that in accordance with the law applicable to him.”

Childhood stages and their characteristics

1- Early childhood stage

This stage extends from the end of the second year of the child’s life, until the beginning of the fifth or sixth year of his life,

It is considered an important stage witnessing rapid growth, especially from the mental aspect,

Where the child has the skill to form social concepts, increase tendencies towards freedom, balance, the emergence of the superego, the growth of the self, language, and other things,

It is worth noting that if this stage is normal and filled with emotional and psychological stability, then the child’s personality will become strong, developing, and open.

The following are the most prominent characteristics of this stage:

First: Characteristics of physical and motor growth:

This growth is evident in several points, the most prominent of which are:

Males gain more weight than females at this stage – despite the fact that the weight increases seven times the birth weight in both -; As a result of their muscle growth.
The temporary teeth fully grow, so the child is able to eat.
The baby’s bone growth increases, and his shape changes from a baby to a young child.
The growth of the child’s nervous system is superior to the rest of the systems in his body.
The temporary teeth begin to fall out at the end of this stage, and permanent teeth begin to replace them.
At the age of three, the child is able to run, jump, and eat without assistance, respond to parents’ directions, and control bowel movement.
A child at the age of five can control the delicate muscles in some way, for example being able to grasp the pen and draw straight lines in all directions.

Second: Characteristics of psychological development:

Where this type of growth is characterized by the development of his sense of initiative,

This depends on the child’s socialization.

Whereas if he was given the freedom to set off his exploration of his

surroundings without restriction, that would help to achieve normality in his growth,

If he is not able to do so, his guilt will develop.

Third: Characteristics of mental development:

Where the following manifestations appear on the child:

1- The child develops various concepts, most of which are sensory, such as:

number, time, place, and others, as for what is abstracted of them, he does not learn it until later.

2- The student is able to learn by trial, error, experience, etc.

Where he grows the ability to generalize within limits,

which means an increase in the growth of his intelligence,

Note that (Piaget) says that intelligence at this stage in which

language is used clearly, and that it is conceptually related to holistic concepts.

3- The child’s imagination becomes more powerful at this stage than reality.

4- The child at this stage is able to remember easy sentences more than vague,

It also develops the ability to remember the names of places, people,

and things. A thinking phase develops, or what is known as

(pre-operations phase), and it is divided into two parts, namely:

A- The pre-concept period:

As this period extends from two to four years,

This stage is characterized by the fact that the child cannot use the viewpoint of others in his perception of things, which is known

as (the self-centered feature).

B – the period of intuitive thinking:

As this period extends from the age of four to seven,

In it, the child depends on his general, unclear intuition, in addition to his imagination and senses, but he is freed from some of the defects that were in the previous stage.

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