Childhood

John Bowlby Attachment Theory and Its Impact on Child Development

John Bowlby, the British psychiatrist, developed a well-known theory of attachment. Bowlby emphasized the indisputable importance of a mother or primary caregiver in the life of a child. In his study, Bowlby highly recommended that any child develop and maintain a warm and intimate relationship with his or her mother, or a mother substitute because chronic maternal deprivation can lead to serious mental health problems in children later in life. Doctors from around the world have recommended breastfeeding as an important vehicle for nurturing the physical closeness between mother and child. According to Bowlby, when the child is released from the womb, the first emotion is overwhelming fear. In a safely attached relationship, the child will develop a continued confidence in the physical proximity of his or her mother and this will instill a sense of security and safety in the child. A secure relationship between a maternal figure and a child is so important that orphans or children separated from their mothers at birth require a maternal replacement or their physical and psychological development can be severally stunted.

Jean Piaget The Cognitive Development of Children

Jean Piaget, a very well-known Swiss-French philosopher, established the theory of cognitive development in children and its impact on their perceptual learning abilities. He presented four stages of cognitive development. The first stage is known as the sensorimotor period, the second stage is the pre-operational stage, the third stage is the concrete operational stage and the fourth, the formal operational stage. The first stage is when children develop spatial skills and come to terms with the world through their senses during the first two years of life. The second stage is when children begin to use concepts that enable them to understand the meaning of things. This stage continues until a child is seven years old. During the concrete operational stage that occurs when a child is seven to eleven years old, a child can sort and classify objects and can use logic to solve problems. The formal operational stage begins around age twelve. In this stage, children are able to understand abstract thoughts, hidden meanings and so on. A childs educational tasks are most successful when they match a childs particular cognitive developmental stage.

Lawrence Kohlberg The Moral Development of Children

Kohlbergs theory of the moral development of children goes through six stages. These six stages cover the developmental stages of the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional levels. These stages are related to a childs concerns about penalties and rewards for various behaviors, as well as the inner need for conformity and the struggle for social order. Included in these stages is an burgeoning awareness on the part of the child of the importance of the maintenance of universal ethical principles. These stages of moral development grow from a belief system about what is right and wrong, along the lines of universally acceptable ethical and social behavior principals. Many of these principals are universal, others are culturally determined. The bottom line is that the adolescent begins to be very concerned about just rewards and punishment for various behaviors, both on the part of themselves and the people within the students world.