Reflection on Middle Childhood
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Reflection on Middle Childhood
While fine motor skills refer to the changes that incorporate adjustments and developments of small movement capabilities, gross motor skills involve larger and more coordinated movements that may include the whole body. One of the fine motor skills that I developed at a young age was clapping. I imitated my nanny and would make the hand movements when I heard a certain song that my mother would sing to me every night. Moving into middle childhood, my parents would take my siblings and I to a local swimming pool. At first, I had a hard time coordinating my hand and leg movements and would get carried away by the water movements. However, with time, I learned, through observations and demonstrations to move my hands and legs, and eventually propel my body forward. One of the primary environmental factors that facilitated my physical development the most was physical activities. I had two elder siblings and cousins who lived in the same neighborhood. They would come around, and we would all play together, including running around, playing hide and seek, or even riding bicycles. These made me more active and stronger. According to Zeng et al. (2017), physical activity is crucial for children as they develop because it impacts their health on both a long and short-term basis. It prevents the development of such conditions as adiposity, low self-esteem, or cardiorespiratory illnesses.
Jean Piaget, a French psychologist, put forward a theory explaining steps into cognitive development. In the third stage, concrete operational thinking, children are around seven to eight years. It includes the development of logical reasoning, including such aspects as inductive reasoning, conservation, and decentration. My mother tells me that when I was about nine years old, we went to visit her friend who had a dog. The dog barked at us fiercely when we approached the house, and I got petrified. I feared to hear the sound of a barking dog, even on the television. When my elder brother got a dog when he turned fifteen, I was so scared, and it took me a while to learn that it was just harmless and an adorable creature. My language skills developed faster because I grew up around many children and played games involving flashcards and many digital creation games. I learned how to distinguish sounds varying from spoken words to others, such as claps. These also impacted my literacy skills positively, and I was able to express myself using drawings and illustrations effectively. According to Miles, McFadden & Ehri (2019), their research showed a relation between language skills and variance in reading function words. I had a hard time with mathematical skills, especially when it came to organization and following through steps and sequences. However, my teachers and tutors taught me to slow down and pay attention to details, remembering figures, and eventually overcame the difficulty.
Erikson’s stage of industry versus inferiority makes up the fourth step in his psychosocial development theory, including crises that could either positively or negatively impact a person’s development. The fourth stage occurs to children between the ages of five and twelve. Children learn from their experiences in school and others who are their peers, thus influencing their self-esteem. They seek approval from their peers, parents, and society by demonstrating competencies (industry) and feel achieved when they accomplish certain tasks. However, when they do not achieve certain tasks or meet restrictions, they may feel inferior and doubt their potential. When I was about ten, I wanted older kids in my neighborhood to notice me and include me in their circle. As a result, I decided to ride my bike one evening near them without any protective gear and without using my hands. I had a terrible accident and dislocated my arm. I did not achieve my intended purpose and even felt worse about trying it in the first place. One of the activities that I experienced and is due to the typical American gender role socialization is my father working in the garage with my brother. At the same time, I was more encouraged to stay in the house. My family was also stricter towards me, including when I wanted to go out with friends and setting time within which I was to come back home. However, this was not the case with my brother, even when he was much younger. This gender socialization exists because of societal minds when it comes to how to treat children or generally people of different genders. It is a flawed mindset, although it is ingrained in most people. I developed socioemotionally through the formation of new friends when we moved to a new neighborhood. However, I also had to make a choice when they suggested doing something that my parents taught me not to do, that is, disrespecting my elders (Sengsavang, Willemsen & Krettenauer, 2015). I also learned from my mother to keep my emotions in check when I encountered a bully at my new school. I had to balance between letting them be to avoid trouble and standing up for myself. In the end, I talked to my teacher, who told the other kids the impacts of bullying by telling them a story about needing each other’s help in the future.
References
Miles, K. P., McFadden, K. E., & Ehri, L. C. (2019). Associations between language and literacy skills and sight word learning for native and nonnative English-speaking kindergarteners. Reading and Writing, 32(7), 1681-1704.
Sengsavang, S., Willemsen, K., & Krettenauer, T. (2015). Why be moral? Children’s explicit motives for prosocial-moral action. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 552.
Zeng, N., Ayyub, M., Sun, H., Wen, X., Xiang, P., & Gao, Z. (2017). Effects of physical activity on motor skills and cognitive development in early childhood: a systematic review. BioMed research international, 2017.