Early Childhood Cognitive, Social and Emotional Analysis

Children constantly grow and evolve with time, and relevant communication, emotional, social, and cognitive changes are experienced. Social and emotional changes are how children start perceiving things around them and respond accordingly. These perceptions can build from the closest relations, like parents and friends. This paper analyzes three developmental domains, cognitive, social, and emotional, of the selected developmental period in my life in relevance to the theories. The practical applications would help gain a deep understanding of the identified stage and theories in the real world.
I interviewed my mother for this paper to get an in-depth analysis of my early childhood stage. She told me that I was kind and empathetic from the beginning, which formed the basis of my upbringing. I was a quick friend-maker during early childhood since I liked to be around people. Making friends gave me confidence that I could adjust to any type of person easily. My mother also told me that I was friends with neighbors and used to visit their home frequently. I liked to invite them over for playing and used to ask my mother to make French fries for all of my group members. I mostly invited my school and neighborhood friends for my birthday gatherings since I liked to be social. I liked having hearty conversations with my friends and waited for them eagerly over the weekend for sleepovers and playing video games. As mentioned earlier, my mother stated I was kind and empathetic initially; she added that I did not like it when any of my friends were in trouble. The same stood true for my family members. She told me an incident when my mother had cut herself with a knife while working in the kitchen, and I was six years old then. I was about to take a glass from the shelf and pour some water for myself when I saw the cut and ran to her with a worried expression. I could not settle down until I was sure that she was no more in pain. I sat with her for 20 minutes or more; although it was a simple knife cut, I could not get over the pain my mother was in. This depicted that I was sensitive to my close ones.
A personal exploration of early childhood (from childbirth to 8 years) is interesting for me as I have many memories from those years. This is the stage when the child is opening his eyes and cognitive abilities to worldly things. Each day, there is a new experience and new things to learn in the class; for example, the digestive system and heart system were new adventures. It was very hard for me to digest in the beginning that our heart can pump blood, take impure blood and purify it, take oxygenated blood to the rest of the body with one inhale or exhale of breath. Complex features of life gave me new horizons to contemplate upon. I started to observe things deeply and felt emotional about them. As far as my relations are concerned, it is true that I was deeply connected with them since some of the childhood friends, who are still here with me today, say that I am kind and empathetic. They comment that it is my upbringing that made me what I am today. I can certify this with an example of my childhood friend who was poor when I was eight years old. He did not come to school for a week, and when I inquired, I came to know that his parent could not pay the school fee, and the school did not allow him to take classes. When I came back home that day, I took my pocket money for that month and the previous savings from my savings pot and gave it to him the next day, thinking that might help him. I still remember his face as he still recalls the incident as proof of my compassion.
My middle childhood (age 6 to 12 years) was the stage where I knew which relationships I had to take along in my adolescence and adulthood. The roles defined by the social relationship were deeply ingrained at that time of my life since I liked to make new friends and kept the old ones protected. I had a healthy relationship with each of my family members and friends, including school and neighborhood ones. I went to local parks to play outdoor games with my neighborhood friends, like football, since the days of playing video games were slowly fading away. I started to enjoy outside walking and running around with my friends. I liked sharing jokes with them and discuss new movies I watched. Sometimes, we watched the movies together, either at my place or any of theirs. With my parents, I was equally participative at home too. As a family, we went out to eat dinners and have picnics sometimes. I liked to help my mother and father with anything they needed, especially for simple chores like bringing a glass of water or arranging plates on the table. At home, chores were not defined gender-wise. Every sibling can do any work; for example, washing plates was not meant for my sister only; I did plates with my mother. This taught me kindness and care. This also brought an emotional side inside me since I realized how much work mothers and sisters do at home since we are out playing and enjoying ourselves. Home-making became another observational learning for me during these years.
Adolescence (10 to 19 years) was a stage where most of my connections were with my friends. Behaviors are changed drastically since the child likes to be outgoing and is starting to be independent. A slight detachment phase from the parents can be experienced as friends become closer. Physical changes bring hormonal changes, and thus, cognitive and behavioral changes were quite evident in me. On a cognitive basis, I became more egotistic as I started taking perspectives in a new way. I reasoned with things on my terms, even with my friends and parents. I wanted things to be done my way and sometimes became stubborn about it. The controlled thoughts and coordination of these with me behavior went on to be observed in my adult life. The increased experience and social changes brought changes in cognitive abilities too. Thus, a major part of character and personality building took place in this very stage. During this stage, new relations like being attracted to the opposite gender were felt by me. Brain processing speed was high as sometimes I sneaked out of the house, and later, if I got caught, I put forth a reasonable pretext for my parents. I knew my parents would have realized that I was not telling the truth, but on the positive side, they did not say anything harsh to me, thinking I would learn from my own experiences.
My adulthood (20 years and above) is the current stage I am going through, and this is the time I think and know I have made most of the stable relationships that I will sustain for the rest of my life. I still have friends that I made during my childhood; some belong to my neighborhood, and some are my school friends with whom I still have contact. However, being kind, caring, and empathetic are still my personality traits due to my parent's upbringing and are incorporated within my personality for the rest of my life. Adulthood denotes the full formation of physical and mental abilities that would stay with me and impact my social relations. I am looking forward to settling myself by choosing a stable career and start my family with good prospects. Being an adult, I have these thoughts in my mind that I am planning for a secure future to support myself and my parents, who have cared for me all their lives. Now, I want to take care of them. Although, during adolescence, I have been somewhat detached from them, now is the time when I realize that they are a true blessing.
According to Piaget's four developmental stages, early childhood (from childbirth to 8 years) reflects sensorimotor and preoperational stages. My mother told me that I was inquisitive about new things when I was born and started to feel things when I touched them. I wanted to feel each new thing that I saw, thus, giving strength to my physical motor skills. However, there was a contradiction in Piaget's preoptional and my adolescent age. Piaget cites the preoptional stage when the child is egocentric and does not like to think out of his viewpoints, but this was the phase experienced by me in my adolescent years. I was more egotistic and wanted things my way. For example, when I wanted to oversleep, and my mother came in to wake me up, I used harsh words to her to have what I wanted. Piaget's concrete operational stage was following my personal life since I wanted to be more aware of the outside world, and I played outside with my friends rather than sitting at home and enjoying video games. I liked to talk about worldly matters like movies and new eating places in the area. Piaget's formal operational stage reflected some areas of my life but negated some others. For instance, Piaget believes that during this stage, an individual makes hypotheses and clenches abstract concepts. Conversely, I was sure about my direction in life, my attitude towards my parents and friends, my career, and my plan for settling down with a family.
Piaget's theory helps developmental psychology since it highlights how children acquire knowledge and use it in every life stage. Educational practitioners can use this information to devise teaching plans according to the interpretation of each developmental stage of children (Cherry, 2019). New information acquisition, such as I mentioned, I acquired about the digestive system, provides new perspectives of life. This theory's weakness is that it is emphasized on a group of children, a small research sample of his own three kids, whereas each child is individually different from one another and can learn new slower or faster according to his cognitive skill speed.
I want to conclude my paper by stating that each developmental stage brings cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes. These changes had an effect on his social and personal relations, which I underwent too. Experiencing and expressing emotions is vital for forming and sustaining life-long positive relationships, along with cognitive exploration.
Reference
Cherry, K. (2019, August 2). Support and criticism of Piaget's stage theory. Very Well Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/support-and-criticism-of-piagets-stage-theory-2795460