Childhood Stage (6 to 11/12 years)
Main Characteristics of Childhood
The following are the characteristics of childhood from the viewpoint of their physical, mental, emotional and social development :
1. Stability in Physical Growth: Though the rate of physical development during childhood is very slow as compared to infancy whatever physical development that takes place during this stage firmness, it has The children develop the capability to fight with diseases. The organs of action and perception develop fully and their capability to work and learn increases.
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2. Development of Mental Abilities: During childhood, children inculcate firmness in the mental faculties already developed in fancy, as sensation, perception, imagination and memory. Besides, they develop the abilities of thinking, reasoning, analysis, synthesis and problem solving. As a result, they express curiosity to know even the indirect or abstract and thus they start to form concepts.
3. Change in Interests: During this stage, the interests of children change rapidly. This change occurs according to the environment around them. They have interest in collective tasks and touring.
4. Extrovert Personality : Children in their infant period, are often introvert and they live in their own imaginary world, In childhood they step into the outside world and are acquainted with realities, they start to take interest in them and we say that their personality has become extrovert.
5. Interest in Real World: Children enter the real world during childhood, now they take interest in understanding the reality of the real world, they make effort to understand the real form of each object, person and activity.
6. Self-Dependence : Children are often dependent on others during infancy, in childhood, they start to do their routine works themselves. They become able to do some other tasks themselves and perform them independently. Their self-dependence develops continuously during this stage.
7. Development of Creativity : Children take much interest in creative works during childhood. Sometimes they do these works by imitations and sometimes do them on the basis of their own imagination and insight, and thus their creativity develops.
8. Control Over Emotions : All instincts have developed by the time children enter childhood and their behaviour is influenced by them. Now they start to distinguish between the good and the bad and are influenced by the praise or censure in the society. They adjust themselves in order to get admiration of the society and avoid its censure. Anything that is bad from social viewpoint, they start to give it up. For this, they have to control their emotions, and they start to do so. They display love where they ought to do so, and express enmity where they ought to do so, etc.
9. Social Development : The instinct of gregariousness is very intense in childhood. They start to become members of different (societies) and adopt their behavioural norms in order to adjust with them. At this time, their behaviour is influenced by the praise and censure of the society. Consequently, they adopt the behavioural norms approved by the society. In this process, they are acquainted with their rights and duties also and proceed towards doing their duties. In true sense the Social development of children takes place during childhood.
10. Moral Development : According to Strang, children of 7-8 years start to distinguish between the good and the evil on the basis of social norms, they distinguish between the just and the unjust, the right and the wrong. It is evident that the children who will follow the right from right-wrong, honesty from honesty-dishonesty, just from just unjust, their moral development would take place. Even otherwise, the children during this stage start to adopt their cultural and religious values and their moral development takes place in true sense.
11. Interest in Learning New Things : The scope of children during infancy is very limited, they enter the outside world during childhood, they watch the real world, newer objects, activities and persons, they come across newer incidents and events and it is natural for them to arouse curiosity towards them. They take interest in knowing them. Not only this, they also display interest in knowing the indirect objects, activities and events. This is the most suitable stage for imparting the knowledge of the reality of life.
Physical Development in Childhood
In the first stage of childhood from 6 to 9 years of age, children grow in both height and weight. It has been seen that the girls grow more during this stage as compared to boys. During this stage, the children accumulate physical powers, so it is called the accumulative childhood.
During 9 to 12 years of age, the previously acquired physical development becomes stronger, permanent dentition erupts in place of primary dentition and bones and muscles start to firm up, so it is called the period of maturing childhood.
(b) Mental development :
(1) By age six, a child is ready for school and his brain has attained 80% of its total development, his vocabulary has increased and is able to form simple concepts. He is capable of both inductive and deductive reasoning. There is increased ability to generalize and to explain things in terms of cause and effect relationship.
(2) The instincts of curiosity, constructiveness and acquisition and the innate tendency of play work wonders at this stage. The child is imaginative and interested in both fanciful and factual literature, like stories having a surprise element, interested in comics, excitement, humour, mystery, suspense, creative and productive work.
(3) Imitation and make-believe are also at the climax during this stage. The span of attention becomes longer. The children between nine and twelve years are willing learners (if motivation is stronger or if a reward is announced and enjoy learning.
(4) Interests start widening and go beyond his immediate surroundings, capable of forming concepts (on concrete objects) but difficult in abstract concepts like justice, kindness or honesty. The child is able to see the similarities and differences between objects but children are found to be quite immature and their concepts are native and shallow.
(5) The critical attitude is not yet developed at the age of nine but at about twelve years, child's self-concept starts growing and gradually he comes critical of all his elders. He begins to admire things and peoples around him. He begins to imitate the manners and behaviour of those people whom he admires.
(c) Language Development :
Language is a tool of both thinking and communication. It helps for social communication and for better understanding among individuals and groups. During childhood stage there is rapid increase in vocabulary and words are combined into coherent phases and sentences, and simple thoughts are communicated with ease.
The child shows a keen desire to learn meanings of new words and he tries to use them in his conversation, though often quite awkwardly. Grammatical errors are also slowly eliminated. Studies by Terman, Thorndike and many other investigators have shown that there is a continuous increase in the size of one's vocabulary. It was found out from the findings of Seashore that the child is able to learn 26,000 basic words at the age of eight and 34,000 basic words at the age of ten.
(d) Moral Development
As the child approaches middle childhood his capacity to understand relationship increases. His concepts of right and wrong is different but related situations emerge. By the time a child is eight or nine years old his concept become more generalised.
The child tries to understand his duties and rights as a member of the group or the gang whose member he is. During the last part of this stage, moral behaviour is oriented towards authority, law, duty and maintaining the status quo which is assumed to be a primary value.
(e) Emotional Development
Due to influence of maturation and training the expression of emotions is refined. He does experience intense emotional feeling of love, hate, fear and these endure for long periods of time along with pleasant emotion
Generally, it is at this stage that the sentiments and the complexes are formed. This period is known as a period of stability and control. Emotional behaviour starts getting its rational. Does not like to be kissed at this stage and called by nicknames. Starts telling lie and does not like unfairness of teachers and parents, etc., and express anger or fear in a refined way.
(f) Social Development
During this period the process of socialization takes place as a fast speed and qualities of self-consciousness, socialization and co-ordination, etc., takes place. He becomes well-adjusted, co-operative and stable. The child is no longer in need of close parental supervision. He spends most of his time in playing, exploring his world and learning about people and things. This new challenges and opportunities help him to develop desire of popularity. He is interested in peer group interactions and a sense of belongingness is developed.
It is found out that the child at this stage acts and dresses like rest of the gang, ready for widening of social contacts, have keen sense of right and wrong, want some social approval from parents. try many experiments and want to show their independence. He develops the feelings of sacrifice and co operation and development of team spirit and group-affinity increases in later childhood stage. Gregarious instincts ripens at this stage and the self-centered behaviour sometimes give rise to jealousies, quarrels and aggression. But this period is undoubtedly calm as compared to the storm and stress of adolescence.
Educational Implications of Childhood Stage:
(1) Children between age six and nine years have a keen desire to read and write. But their muscle coordination is still imperfect. Hence, the teacher must not over-emphasize reading and writing but between age nine and twelve reading can be encouraged.
(2) As children between six and nine years have very short span of attention, text books must not have long words. As the child grows older, the span of attention lengthens and longer words can be gradually introduced.
(3) For conceptual clarification of the classroom teaching it is better to use pictures at this stage. Not only it will make the lesson interesting but also it will help the learner to make the concept clear.
(4) During the stage of childhood interests are centered round his close associates and surroundings. Hence, lessons in personal hygiene, cleanliness and behaviour with elders is more meaningful than lessons dealing with the people and customs of a foreign country.
(5) Since abstract reasoning is not developed, teacher should give them enough opportunities to solve problems of a concrete nature. Thus more realistic concept of daily living may be given for better intellectual development.
(6) Since the time concept is of a crude nature, it is of no use of introducing 250 B.C. or 410 B.C. in front of the child. As far as possible teacher should avoid inconsistency in their behaviour, otherwise their image will be devalued.
