Child Adolescent Development

One of the most important aspects of a child's physical, cognitive and social development is motor skills development. In this case, an infant is expected to master fine and gross motor skills in order for him/her to effectively explore the surrounding environment/world. Gross motor skills are considered as large muscles movements such as arms and legs whereas fine motor skills are considered are movements of smaller groups of muscles like hand and wrist. Berk & Meyers (2016) have developed a table that provides a list of gross- and fine-motor skills milestones in different stages of an infant's development. As an 11-month old infant, David has relatively developed necessary and anticipated motor skills based on the milestones listed in the table. He has fairly developed nearly all motor skills expected of infants his age and seems to be progressing well in motor skills development. David's parents should be concerned if he does not reach the milestones at the average age provided in the table because that could be an indicator of problems in his development. As a result, Mark and Nicole would need to consult a healthcare provider for evaluation.

Based on Piaget's theory, David is in the coordinating secondary schemes of sensorimotor development because he is within the age of this stage and exhibit its characteristics by engaging in intentional actions. Moreover, he thinks that when the mother disappears out of sight, she is completely gone and no longer there. David is likely to start realizing that when an object is hidden, it still exists despite being out of sight. Therefore, he is likely to start retrieving hidden objects or things that are out of his view. Given his behaviors, David attachment pattern can be classified as secure attachment because of his preference for his mother who acts as a secure base for him. Some of the behaviors I would expect in a securely attached child include preference of a parent over strangers, difficulties in playing when the caregiver or parent is out of sight, and calmness when the parent/caregiver is around. Some of the clues I would look for in an avoidant, resistant and disorganized/disoriented secure attachment include little exploration of the environment, preoccupation with the parents' location, unemotional during separations, focus on toys, and frequent tantrums.

Unit 6 -- Self-understanding and the Influence of Parenting

Parents are major influences on their child's development of self-concept and self-esteem, especially during the period between 2 and 6 years. Parents influence an infant's self-concept and self-esteem development through the parenting styles they utilize. Parenting influences a child's development of self-concept through establishing a warm relationship between the parent and child that in turn creates secure attachment. With regards to self-esteem, parents who encourage their children to succeed enhance their children's self-esteem while those who criticize their performance contribute to a child's low self-esteem. Parenting influences emotional understanding by labeling emotions and recognizing a child's emotional reactions whereas emotional self-regulation is influenced by verbal guidance and expression of emotions by parents. Self-conscious emotions are influenced by providing feedback to children whereas empathy and sympathy is influenced by how parents show concerns to the child's feelings. The patterns of positive development that are linked to positive development include sensitivity to a child's feelings and warm, sensitive parenting (McIntyre, n.d.).

Child-rearing styles i.e. authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved styles affect a child's development through influencing the child's self-understanding. These styles affect important domains of a child's development, especially self-concept and self-esteem depending on the kind of relationship between the parent and child. The child's view of him/herself and understanding of the surrounding world is affected by parent-child relationship, which is influenced by the specific child-rearing style. Authoritative parenting style is linked to positive outcomes because it's the most suitable for developing a healthy self-esteem in children. A healthy self-esteem in turn contributes to positive impacts on the other domains of the child's growth and development. Some of the factors that influence an individual's approach to parenting include family background, social influences, religious beliefs, and the child's temperament and personality.

Unit 7 -- Self-esteem, Peer Groups and Friendships

Peer relationships and friendships play a crucial role in a child's development of self-concept and self-esteem during middle school. A peer is an individual with common characteristics like gender, age, school, and occupation while a friend is a trusted acquaintance who cares about the other. In middle school, peer sociability and friendship change when children share activities and start to appreciate each other's feelings. The level of self-esteem usually fluctuates i.e. increases or decreases during this period as the child begins to compare him/herself with others. The social comparison determines child's view of his/her personal worthiness, which in turn affects his/her self-esteem and self-concept. The main influences of self-esteem during this period include social comparison, appearance, physical abilities, and intelligence. Praise is regarded as one of the measures utilized to promote self-esteem and include person praise and process praise. Person praise does not promote self-esteem since it lessens motivation by encouraging a child to compare him/herself to others while process praise promotes self-esteem by encouraging a child to develop a flexible mindset and deal with his/her challenges and weaknesses (Lowry, n.d.). Some strategies for developing self-esteem include focusing on one's strengths, positive thinking, setting achievable goals, enhancing one's skills, confronting challenges/weaknesses, and being optimistic.

Unit 8 -- Adolescent Thinking and Identity Development

Adolescent cognitive changes play an important role in identity development given that self-concept is more comprehensive and stable by the end of adolescence. Some of the major ways of adolescent thinking include idealism and criticism, imaginary audience and personal fable, and faulty decision making. The benefit or advantage of imaginary audience and personal fable in adolescent thinking include enhanced self-consciousness and self-focusing while idealism and criticism is associated with the benefit of increased independence, personal responsibility, and better decision making. On the other hand, faulty decision making is associated with the benefit of enhanced problem solving and improved reasoning capabilities (Department of Psychology, 2010).

There are four major identity statuses i.e. foreclosure, identity diffusion, identity moratorium, and identity achievement. Foreclosure can be described as handed-down or under pressure identity since the individual makes premature commitment without considering alternatives whereas identity diffusion is a state characterized by lack of commitments or exploration of alternatives in life-defining segments (Tsang, Hui & Law, 2012). On the other hand, identity moratorium is a state in which an individual is in a crisis since while he/she actively explores alternatives, he/she is yet to make commitments. Identity achievement is the final state of identity development that is realized after the individual undergoes the first three statuses and makes commitments. Some of the individual factors that can promote a teenager's identity development include personal values, ideals and choices, sexual orientation, individual uniqueness, strengths and weaknesses, and vocational direction. The contextual factors that can promote a teenager's identity development include ethnicity, race, religion, social interactions and relations, and relationship with parents.