Child Development in Psychology

In the last few decades objective studies have been made regarding the development of social behaviour among children. In the following article we will rely mainly on the observations of Gesell, Shirley, Charlotte Buhler and other pioneers in the study of child development.

The First Six Months of Life:

In the first month of life there are hardly any signs of the infant’s awareness of the social aspects of the environment. By the end of the fourth week the infant stares at the faces of human beings who are close by. If he is crying, he becomes quiet when picked up. Here is the beginning of response to social stimulation. However, this may yet be a response to warmth.

By the end of the eighth week he responds to the adult smile for smile. His interest in people is evident by the way he follows the movement of persons in the room. He enjoys seeing people move about the room. At the end of 16 weeks he shows more definite signs of social awareness. He likes people to speak to him. He likes when the mother or nurse sings to him. By 20 weeks he may cry when people leave him.

At 28 weeks he participates more in social interaction. He likes to be handed back and forth from one person to another. He responds to more than one person at a time. There is now the beginning of discrimination. He differentiates between people. He can recognize the mother who feeds him and looks after him. With discrimination arises a certain awareness of the strangers. He is lively with those whom he knows and reacts with shyness to others, particularly when he meets strangers in new places. He shows signs of fear when he is accosted by strangers.

Thus we find a gradual increase in the infant’s social awareness from the fourth month to sixth month. In the fourth month the infant ceases crying when a person comes, pays attention to the face and the voice, whimpers or cries when a person leaves the room. He smiles in response to another’s gaze. By the fifth month he becomes more active, responds by vocalization and attempts to grasp and to touch.

The Second Half-Year:

The child enjoys the company of other people in the second half of the first year. He may easily become overexcited. The instability of his emotional life is evidenced by quick changes from crying to laughter and from laughter to crying. By 40 weeks he becomes shyer of the strangers. He demands more of his mother or nurse. He enjoys, ‘peek-a- boo’, ‘rock-a-bye’ and other, activities of social interplay. He learns to say ‘bye-bye’.

He also loves the game of being chased while he is creeping. He enjoys hiding behind chairs to play the game of ‘where’s the baby?.’ At the age of one year he likes to walk when his hands are held. Another game that he delights in is to throw the toys on the floor with the expectation that they will be restored to him. He cries when the adult gets tired and does not restore. He whimpers or cries when things are taken from him. He thus gives evidence of some sense of possession.

Another development is the awareness of other children by the age of six months. His interest in other children increases as he grows older. He pays heed to the crying of other children. There may be babbling to gain the attention of other children.

Though before six months the infant is unable to discriminate between the facial expressions and tones of friendliness or anger by 8 months he shows astonishing capacity for interpreting and understanding the gestures of others.

The Second Year of Life:

By 15 months he overcomes the shyness towards strangers. He is now eager to go out. He enjoys imitating others. He may cough, blow the nose, and sneeze in imitation. He may demand anything he sees and puts his parents in an embarrassing situation. By 18 months we find him greatly interested in household activities.

He enjoys sweeping and dusting. He also takes delight in fetching things. At this time he refuses to be held. He wants to be free. He resents even being touched. In these situations he may develop temper tantrums.

At the age of 21 months his awareness of the people is very great compared to what it was when he was one year old. Further he knows what articles belong to whom in the house. He can identify things which belong to his mother, his father and himself. Thus the sense of property right becomes stronger.

His interest in household activities also becomes stronger and he helps his mother in the kitchen. He can now bring things which are in the drawer and put them back again after use. But there is also the beginning of ‘negativism’. He responds less quickly to requests than before. He may do the opposite of what is asked of him.

When he is two years old his property rights become, stronger. He tries to possess as many things as he can. He insists on his rights by asserting ‘it is mine’.

Maudry and Nekula studied the social relations of the children of same age by placing them in standard situations and by observing their reaction to one another. They found that up to the age of nine months there was very little social response to one another. From 9 to 14 months though they paid attention to each other they were more engrossed in their play things than in one another. There were negative responses such as pushing the other child aside. From 14 to 18 months there was a gradual transition. There was the positive response to one another.

Responses became friendly and cooperative. Positive responses predominated over the negative responses by the time the children were two years of age. The cooperative give-and-take between the children at this age was not likely to be of long duration. The authors observed that when many children were together they tended to take notice of one another and make contacts. But their play tended to be more parallel, each child playing the same game like the other children, with only occasional interchanges.

Thus we find a big difference between the social and emotional life of the child in its first year as compared to that in his second year. As we have seen the child does not differentiate much between individuals in the first year except in recognizing the mother and nurse. Otherwise the child smiles, babbles and makes physical contacts with everyone.

Similarly negative responses like fight and defence occur when there is some interference with the freedom of movement of the child or when it encounters strange people or familiar people in strange clothes. But in the second year of life both the positive and the negative social reactions become much stronger. The child manifests its affection by caresses, fond words, by offering assistance and even by giving presents.

Further he change to his mother or other favourite person when there is the prospect of separation. He also shows jealousy when someone else approaches the mother. All these are definite signs of love. Similarly the negative reactions become signs of hatred. The child may show violent negative behaviour by hitting, pushing away, shouting and so on.

The Two-and-Half Year Old:

According to Gesell ritualism is very characteristic of the 30-month child. He knows the position of the various things of the household and insists that they should be kept in their proper places. He resents any rearrangement or alteration. Parents can recall the way in which the child of this age insists upon his father removing his shoes and socks in a particular manner in the particular place.

He will insist upon being put on the cycle or the car when father goes to work or returns home after work. “His imperial domineering ways are sometimes hard for others to accept. He may command one to sit here, another to do something else, and still another to go away. If the parent realizes that the child is only passing through a temporary regal, dictatorial stage he may respond to the child’s orders more graciously, more whimsically”.

At this age the child will do a number of simple household tasks in a systematic manner. He likes to be with other people, adults as well as children. He likes to play with one other child out of doors. Gesell has found that the child who likes to play with the other child in the house will be rather poor in making adjustments to new places. So it is in the interest of healthy development to take the child out to others’ houses or to parks and play centres to play with others at this age.

Three Years:

By three years, the child likes to play outdoors with another child. He will not only play, he will also quarrel. He may attack the other child and scratch, or bite or push or kick him. So the play must be supervised. He is of greater help to his mother in doing household work and in running errands.

He has a new emotional awareness of himself. He enjoys speaking of himself and his mother as ‘we’. He wants to know more about himself and so the mother has to tell him about his earlier experiences and actions. Thus we find around this age, with the growth of language and with the increase in interactional processes a growing awareness of oneself. Some children cling to their past but others will look forward and are planning to go to school or go out for a holiday.

At this age the child is able to make a choice of his food, his clothes, play, toys etc. The child may even learn to play one parent against another. When he wants to go out and knows that the mother will not allow, he gets the consent of the father and later tells the mother that he was asked to go out by the father.

When there is disagreement between the parents, the child makes use of this technique. The best thing is for the parents to give up the appearance of divided authority. The mother must make decisions about food, clothes etc., and the father about other things.

The imaginative life of the child increases. The child of three or three and half-years may speak to and play with imaginary companions. Even when the child is two years old the imaginative play starts. The child of two and a half-year may give tea out of its toy tea-pot and cups with or without water.

The child may also imagine that he is an animal and make the appropriate movements and cries as he perceives them. All these various activities are coincident with the self- discovery of his own identity. The child may also impersonate the postman or the policeman or the doctor or the hawker or the mother at play with other children or with the adults.

Four Years and After:

The four year old child is a social being. He desires to play with other children. His preference for children may be so much that he may even refuse to go to houses where there are no children. He is now so busy with his own play and friends that he loses interest in helping his mother in the household work.

At the same time he will also develop strong family and home ties. He often quotes his father and mother as authorities. He is given to a good deal of boasting about his home and his parents. He makes comparisons and magnifies the things in his house and the attributes of his parents.

His imaginary playmates do not figure much at this age. His imaginative play is more closely related to the social life. Impersonation of animals gives place to impersonation of father, mother, doctor, grocer etc. He likes to go out for a walk with the father or mother and asks no end of questions.

The social development of the individual is a continuous one. There will be always something we learn about ourselves and something about the others right through the years of life. We may now give brief reviews about certain specific social relationships.

Some Specific Social Relationships:

We find that the infant starts his life with no awareness of others nor of his utter dependence on others. With time he not only becomes aware of others, but also of himself. He gradually becomes more and more independent of others. He becomes self-assertive. He may even become defiant. “But whatever front he may assume, he is never completely weaned from his dependence on others; he never becomes so self-sufficient that he is immune to the approval or disapproval of his fellows or free from a desire for affection and security in his relation with his fellow men”.

As we have seen above, according to Charlotte Buhler, there are three phases in the growth of the child with respect to love or positive reactions as she puts it: in the first four to six months the child’s perceptions are not clear and specific. He reacts in a positive way to all human beings. In the second half-year he can distinguish between the familiar persons and the strangers. He reacts positively to the familiar persons and negatively to the strangers. At the third stage from the second to the fourth year the child shows extreme dependence on specific individuals like the mother, father and others in the household.

Charlotte Buhler refers to the study of Amy Daniels who made a study of the far-reaching importance of sympathetic individual care. “Two groups of two-years-old children living in the same institution were segregated from each other and subjected to two divergent types of treatment. One group was given very little tenderness, although adequately cared for in every other respect. In the other group, a nurse was assigned to each child and there was no lack of tenderness and affection. At the end of half a year the first group was mentally and physically retarded, in comparison with the second. In order to effect normal psychic and physical maturity, individual care and devotion are indispensable in the upbringing of small children”.

Thus we find that particularly in the first five years of life the child needs the mother’s affection very greatly. Psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychologists are now convinced that it is essential for mental health that the infant and young child should experience an intimate, warm and continuous relationship with his mother or mother-substitute, in which both the child and the mother find satisfaction and enjoyment.

The ill-effects of ‘maternal deprivation’ are very great. “Partial deprivation brings in its train anxiety, excessive need for love, powerful feelings, of revenge, and, arising from these last, guilt and depression. The young child, still immature in mind and body, cannot cope with all these emotions and drives”. Bowlby shows that complete deprivation of mother love, particularly from two to five years of age, is disastrous to the individual and renders him incapable of making love relationships with others.