The Main Stages Of Early Child Development. S. Freud, Piaget

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

- Serious attitude towards anything in this world

is a fatal mistake.

- Is life serious?

- Oh yes, life is serious! But not really …"

Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland"

Childhood is a unique period in the life of every person, and a part of our inner child continues to live inside us all the time. To understand the processes that occur during the development of a child, it is worth paying attention to the main stages of early psychosexual development. Many researchers have studied the development of the child from different angles, namely: Sigmund Freud, Piaget, Melanie Klein, Françoise Dolto and others, let's try to consider the main ones.

Sigmund Freud, a famous psychoanalyst, identified 5 stages of psychosexual personality development:

Oral (0-18 months)

Anal (18 months-3 years)

Phallic (3 - 6 years old)

Latent (6 - 12 years old)

Genital (puberty and up to age 22)

Oral stage

During this period (from birth to one and a half years), the survival of the baby depends entirely on who takes care of him, and the mouth area is most closely related to the satisfaction of biological needs and pleasant sensations.

The main task facing the infant during the oral - dependent period is to establish the basic attitudes: dependence, independence, trust and support in relation to other people. At first, the child is not able to distinguish his own body from the mother's breast and this gives her the opportunity to feel tenderness and love towards herself. But over time, the breast will be replaced with a part of its own body: the baby will suck on its finger or tongue to relieve stress caused by a lack of maternal care. Therefore, it is so important not to interrupt breastfeeding if the mother is able to feed the baby herself.

The fixation of behavior at this stage can occur for two reasons:

• Frustration or blockage of the child's needs.
• Overprotective - the child is not given the opportunity to manage his own internal functions. As a result, the child develops a sense of dependence and incompetence. Subsequently, in adulthood, fixation at this stage can be expressed in the form of "residual" behavior. An adult in a situation of severe stress may regress and this will be accompanied by tears, sucking fingers, and the desire to drink alcohol. The oral stage ends when breastfeeding stops and this deprives the baby of the appropriate pleasure. And, accordingly, long-term breastfeeding, more in time necessary, causes a delay in the child at this stage, correlates with developmental delay.

Freud put forward the postulate that a child who received excessive or insufficient stimulation in childhood is likely to develop an oral-passive personality type in the future.

Its main features are:

* Expects from the world around him a "motherly" attitude towards himself

* Constantly requires approval

* Overly addicted and gullible

* Has a constant need for support and acceptance

* Life passivity.

During the second half of the first year of life, the second phase of the oral stage begins - oral-aggressive. The infant now has teeth, making biting and chewing important means of expressing frustration at the mother's absence or delayed gratification. Fixation at the oral-aggressive stage is expressed in adults in such traits as: love of arguments, pessimism, sarcasm, cynical attitude towards everything around. People with this type of character tend to exploit other people and dominate them in order to satisfy their own needs.

Anal stage

The anal stage begins around 18 months of age and lasts up to three years. During this period, the child learns to go to the toilet on his own. He gets great pleasure from this control, because it is one of the first functions that requires the child to be aware of his actions. Freud was convinced that the way parents train a child to the toilet influences his later personal development. All future forms of self-control and self-regulation originate in the anal stage.

There are 2 main parenting tactics associated with teaching a child to control their internal processes. We will talk in more detail about the first - what compels, since it is this form that brings the most pronounced negative consequences.

Some parents are not flexible and demanding, insisting that the child "immediately go to the potty." In response to this, the child may refuse to follow the orders of the parents and he will become constipated. If this tendency to "contain" becomes excessive and extends to other types of behavior, then the child may develop an anal-inhibiting personality type. Such adults are very stubborn, stingy, methodical and punctual. They find it difficult to tolerate confusion and uncertainty.

The second result of anal fixation, due to parental strictness with the toilet, is the anal-repulsive personality type. Traits of this type include: tendency to destructiveness, anxiety, impulsivity. In close relationships in adulthood, such people most often perceive partners primarily as objects of ownership.

Another category of parents, on the contrary, encourages their children to use the toilet regularly and praises them for it.

From Freud's point of view, this approach supports the child's efforts to control himself, fosters positive self-esteem, and can even contribute to the development of creativity.

Phallic stage.

Between the ages of three and six, the child's interests shift to a new zone, the genital area. During the phallic stage, children can examine and explore their genitals, show interest in issues related to sexual relations.

Although their ideas about adult sexuality are usually indistinguishable, false, and very imprecisely articulated, Freud believed that most children understood the essence of sexual relations more clearly than their parents assumed. Based on what they see on TV, on certain statements of parents or stories of other children, as well as taking into account the relationship between parents, they draw a "primary" scene.

The dominant conflict in the phallic stage is what Freud called the Oedipus complex (a similar conflict in girls was called the Electra complex).

Freud borrowed the description of this complex from the tragedy of Sophocles "King Oedipus", in which Oedipus, the king of Thebes, inadvertently killed his father and entered into an incestuous relationship with his mother. When Oedipus realized what a terrible sin he had committed, he blinded himself. Freud saw this story as a symbolic description of the largest human conflict. From his point of view, this myth symbolizes the unconscious desire of the child to own the parent of the opposite sex and at the same time to eliminate the parent of the same gender.

Moreover, Freud found confirmation of this concept in the family ties and clan relationships that take place in various primitive groups.

Normally, the Oedipus complex develops somewhat differently in boys and girls. At first, the object of love for the boy is the mother or the figure who replaces her. From the moment of birth, she is for him the main source of satisfaction. He wants to express his feelings towards her in the same way that, according to his observations, older people do. This suggests that the boy seeks to play the role of his father and at the same time, he unconsciously perceives his father as a competitor. Freud called the fear of imaginary punishment from his father the fear of castration and, in his opinion, this makes the boy abandon his desire.

At the age of approximately between 5 and 7 years, the Oedipus complex develops: the boy suppresses (displaces from consciousness) his desires for his mother and begins to identify himself with his father (adopts his features). This process performs several functions: firstly, the boy acquires a conglomerate of values, moral norms, attitudes, models of sex-role behavior, describing for him what it means to be a human being. Second, by identifying with the father, the boy can retain his mother as an object of love through substitution, since he now has the same attributes that the mother sees in the father. An even more important aspect of resolving the Oedipus complex is that the child adopts parental prohibitions, those basic moral norms. This sets the stage for the development of the super-ego, that is, the conscience of the child. So the superego is a consequence of the resolution of the Oedipus complex.

Adult males with phallic fixation are cocky, boastful and reckless. The phallic type strives to achieve success (success for them symbolizes victory over the opposite sex) and constantly tries to prove their masculinity and puberty. They convince others that they are "real men." It can also be Don Juan-like behavior.

Phallic stage in girls.

The prototype for the girl in this case is the character of Greek mythology Electra, who persuades her brother Orestes to kill their mother and her lover, and thus avenge the death of her father. Like boys, girls' first object of love is their mother. Over time, the girl loses her Electra complex by suppressing her attraction to her father and identifying with her mother. In other words, the girl becomes more like her mother, gets symbolic access to her father, thus increasing the chances of marrying a man like him in the future.

In women, phallic fixation, as noted by Freud, leads to a tendency to flirt, to seduce, and promiscuous sexual intercourse, although they can sometimes appear naive and sexually innocent. Unresolved problems of the Oedipus complex were regarded by Freud as the main source of subsequent neurotic behaviors, in particular those related to impotence and frigidity.

The next stage of development is the quietest period. In the interval from 6-7 years to the beginning of adolescence, the child's libido is directed outward with the help of sublimation (reorientation to social activity). During this period, the child is interested in various intellectual activities, sports, communication with peers. The latency period can be seen as the preparation time for growing up, which will come in the last psychosexual stage. Structures such as the Ego and the Super-Ego appear in the child's personality.

What it is? If we recall the main provisions of Freud's theory of the structure of personality, then we can imagine a certain scheme of the Super-Ego - this is a system of norms, values, canons, rules, in other words, a person's conscience and his moral consideration. The super-ego is formed when a child interacts with significant figures, primarily with his parents. His responsibility for direct contact with the outside world, this is the adult part of the personality, this is perception, thinking, learning. Id is our aspirations, instincts, innate and unconscious inclinations, it is the boundless unconscious and our childish particle.

Thus, with the age of 6-7 years, the child has already formed all those personality traits and response options that she will use throughout her life. And during the latent period, there is a "hone" and strengthening of her views, convictions, worldview. During this period, the sexual instinct is practically "dormant".

After the end of the latent stage, which lasts until puberty, sexual and aggressive urges begin to recover, and with them interest in the opposite sex and a growing awareness of this interest. The initial phase of the genital stage (the period from maturity to death) is characterized by biochemical and physiological changes in the body. The result of these changes is an increase in excitability and an increase in sexual activity characteristic of adolescents.

The genital character is the ideal personality type in psychoanalytic theory. This person is mature and responsible in social and sexual relations. Freud was convinced: in order for an ideal genital character to form, a person must take an active role in solving life problems, abandon the passivity inherent in early childhood, when love, safety, physical comfort - in fact, all forms of satisfaction, were easily given and nothing was needed in return.

"Children immediately and at ease master with happiness, for they themselves are joy and happiness by their very nature!"

V. Hugo

Piaget was one of the most famous researchers in child development.

Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and philosopher, founder of the Geneva School of Genetic Psychology, was the author of the theory of cognitive development, according to which the development of a child has the following stages:

Sensomotor period (0-2 years)

This stage of child development is characterized by an understanding of the surrounding world through actions through the coordination of sensory (sensory) experience with physical actions. During this period, there is a significant progress in the development of congenital reflexes. As you know, children of this age prefer stimuli of bright color, with the effects of shine, contrast, movement. In addition, children, building their behavioral patterns, try to repeat actions and for this they use their bodies. The child's first contact with the tongue occurs.

Preoperative period (2-7 years)

Starting from the age of 3, important changes take place in the life of the baby. He begins to take the first educational programs outside the home, to participate in the educational process. And this is a very important social component. The child begins to build social relationships with other people, especially in the circle of his peers. This is of particular importance, since by this period, his social relations developed only within the family.

What means of communication do children aged 2 to 7 use? Despite the fact that at the age of 2 to 7 years, the child's vocabulary increases rapidly, children during this period, as a rule, are characterized by "self-centered thinking." This means that the child evaluates everything that happens in accordance with his individual life experience. As a result, his thinking during this period is static, intuitive and often devoid of logic. Therefore, children under the age of 6 can make mistakes both at the moment of interpreting events and at the moment of expressing their opinion about what is happening. During this period, children tend to talk about themselves in the third person, since they do not yet have a clearly defined concept of "I" that separates them from the rest of the world. Children aged 2 to 7 show a pronounced interest and desire for knowledge. At this stage, children have the habit of imparting human feelings or thoughts to inanimate objects, this syndrome is called animism.

3. Period of specific operations (7-14 years)

In this penultimate period of Piaget's theory, children begin to use logical thinking in certain situations. During this period, they can perform tasks of a more complex level, successfully using logical and mathematical operations. However, despite the fact that they make a significant breakthrough relative to the previous period, at this stage of cognitive development they can still apply logic with certain limitations: here and now, which at this stage seems much easier to them. They still don't use abstract thinking.

4. Period of formal operations (children and adolescents from 11 years old)

This last period is characterized by the use of logical thinking under any circumstances, including when it is necessary to think abstractly. The novelty of this stage in the development of the child's intellect, according to Piaget, lies in the fact that children can already make assumptions or hypothesize about unfamiliar objects and phenomena. Starting from this stage, the child perceives the learning process and the knowledge gained as a whole, and not as a list of specific topics, as it was at the previous stage.

Recommended reading for creative parents:

* Françoise DALTA "On the side of the child"

* Donald Winnicott "Little Children and Their Mothers", "Child, Family and the Outside World", "Talking to Parents"

* Alice Miller "In the Beginning Was Parenting", "The Drama of the Gifted Child"

Prepared by the assistant of the Department of Nervous Diseases, Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, psychotherapist, psychiatrist Ivanova Natalya Nikolaevna