A Community Development Process

The purpose of this assignment is to understand the different groups, and how their development change. The lifespan is usually divided into broad age ranges: the prenatal period (the period from conception to birth); infancy and toddlerhood ( birth to age 3); the preschool period ( ages 3 to 6); middle childhood (ages 6 to 12); adolescence (ages to 12 to 20); young adulthood ( ages 20 to 40); middle adulthood ( ages 40 to 65); and late adulthood (ages 65 to death).

The identity of self during middle childhood, children continue their efforts to answer the question “Who am I?” as they seek to understand the nature of the self. Although the question does not yet have the urgency it will assume in adolescence, elementary-school-age children still seek to pin down their place in the world. Children are on a quest for self-understanding during middle childhood. Helped by the cognitive advances, they begin to view themselves less in terms of external, physical attributes and more in terms of psychological traits. For instance, six-year-old Carey describes herself as “a fast runner and good at drawing” both characteristics dependent on skill in external activities relying on motor skills. In contrast, 11-year-old Meiping characterizes herself as “pretty smart, friendly, and helpful to her friends.” Meiping’s view of herself is based on psychological characteristics, inner traits that are more abstract than the younger child’s descriptions.

The use of inner traits to determine self-concept results from the child’s increasing cognitive skills. In addition to shifting focus from external characteristics to internal, psychological traits, children’s views of who they are become less simplistic and have greater complexity. In Erikson’s view, children are seeking endeavors where they can be successfully industrious. As they get older, children discover that they may be good at some things and not so good at others. In adolescence, according to Erik Erikson, the search for identity inevitably lead some adolescents into substantial psychological turmoil as they encounter the adolescent identity crisis (Erikson, 1963). Erikson’s theory regarding this stage, suggests that teenagers try to figure out what is unique and distinctive about themselves something they are able to do which increasing sophistication because of the cognitive gains that occur during adolescence. Erikson argues that adolescents strive to discover their particular strengths and weaknesses and the roles they can best play in their future lives. This discovery process often involves “trying on” different roles or choices to see if they fit an adolescent’s capabilities and views about himself or herself. In Erikson’s view, adolescents who stumble in their efforts to find a suitable identity may go off course in several ways. They may adopt socially unacceptable roles as a way of expressing what they do not want to be, or they may have difficulty forming and maintaining long-lasting close personal relationships. In general, their sense of self-becomes “diffuse,” failing to organize around a central, unified core identity.

According to psychiatrist George Vaillant, young adulthood is marked by a stage of development called career consolidation. During this development, young adults become centered on their careers. This stage begins between the ages of 20 and 40. Based on a comprehensive longitudinal study of a large group of male graduates of Harvard, begun when they were freshmen in the 1930s, Vaillant found a general pattern of psychological development. In their early 20s, the men tended to be influenced by their parents’ authority. But in their late 20s and early 30s, they started to act with greater autonomy. They married and began to have and raise children. At the same time, they began to focus on their careers the period of career consolidation. Based on his data, Vaillant drew a relatively uninspiring portrait of people in the career consolidation stage.

The participants in his study worked very hard because they were working their way up the corporate ladder. They tended to be rule-followers who sought to conform to the norms of their professions. Rather than showing the independence and questioning that they had displayed earlier, while still in college, they threw themselves unquestioningly into their work. Vaillant argues that work played such an important role in the lives of the men he studied that the career consolidation stage should be seen as an addition to Erikson’s intimacy-versus-isolation stage of psychological identity. In Vaillant’s view, career concerns come to supplant the focus on intimacy, and the career consolidation stage marks a bridge between Erikson’s intimacy-versus-isolation stage and Erikson’s next period, that of a generativity-versus-stagnation stage.

Changes have occurred in the structure of the family over the last few decades. With an increase in the number of parents who both work outside of the home, a soaring divorce rate, and a rise in single-parent families, the environment faced by children passing through middle childhood in the twenty-first century is very different from that faced by prior generations. One of the biggest challenges facing children and their parents is the increasing independence that characterizes children’s behavior during middle childhood. During the period, children move from being almost completely controlled by their parents to increasingly controlling their own destinies or at least their everyday conduct. Middle childhood then is a period of co-regulation in which children and parents jointly control behavior. Increasingly, parents provide broad, general guidelines for conduct, while children have control over their everyday. For instance, parents may urge their daughter to buy a balanced, nutritious school lunch each day, but their daughter’s decision to regularly buy pizza and two desserts is very much her own. During the middle years of childhood, children spend significantly less time with their parents. Still, parents remain the major influence in their children’s lives, and they are seen as providing essential assistance, advice, and direction (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992; Parke, 2004). Siblings also have an important influence on children during middle childhood, for good and for bad. Although brothers and sisters can provide support, companionship, and a sense of security, they can also be a source of strife.

In the academic environment, children spend more of their day in the classroom than anywhere else. It is not surprising, then, that schools have a profound impact on children’s lives, shaping and molding not only their ways of thinking but the ways they view the world. We turn now to a number of aspects of schooling in middle childhood that can have a profound effect on children. In the past, at one time or another, we have done poorly on a test. Thinking back on how it made us feel, we probably felt shamed, showed anger towards the teacher, or fear of the consequences. How we reacted is a reflection of your attributions, the explanations for the reasons behind your behavior. For instance, some people generally react to failure (as well as success) by considering whether the cause is due to dispositional factors (“I’m not such a smart person”) or due to situational factors (“I didn’t get enough sleep last night”). For example, when a success is attributed to internal factors (“I’m smart”), students tend to feel pride; but failure attributed to internal factors (“I’m so stupid”) causes shame.

Relationships with family during adolescents sometimes change. Parents are sometimes angered, and even more frequently puzzled, by adolescents’ conduct. Children who have previously accepted their parents’ judgments, declarations, and guidelines begin to question and sometimes rebel against their parents’ views of the world. These clashes are caused in part by the shifting roles that both children and parents must deal with during adolescence. Adolescents increasingly seek autonomy, independence and a sense of control over their lives. Most parents intellectually realize that this shift is a normal part of adolescence, representing one of the primary developmental tasks of the period, and in many ways, they welcome it as a sign of their children’s growth. However, in many cases, the day-to-day realities of adolescents’ increasing autonomy may prove difficult for them to handle. But understanding this growing independence intellectually and agreeing to allow a teen to attend a party when no parents will be present are two different things. To the adolescent, her parents’ refusal indicates a lack of trust or confidence. To the parent, it’s simply good sense: “I trust you.” they may say. “It’s everyone else who will be there that I worry about.” In the school setting adolescents have to come face to face with popularity and rejection.

Most adolescents have well-tuned antennae when it comes to determining who is popular and who is not. For some teenagers, concerns over popularity or lack of it may be a central focus of their lives. Actually, the social world of adolescents is not divided solely into popular and unpopular individuals; the differentiations are more complex. For instance, some adolescents are controversial; in contrast to popular adolescents, who are most liked, controversial adolescents are liked by some and disliked by others. For example, a controversial adolescent may be highly popular within a particular group such as the string orchestra, but not popular among other classmates. Furthermore, there are rejected adolescents, who are uniformly disliked, and neglected adolescents, who are neither liked or disliked. Neglected adolescents are the forgotten students the ones whose status is so low that they are overlooked by almost everyone. For early adulthood, many students particularly those who are recent high school graduates and who are living away from home for the first, experience difficulties in adjustment during their first year in college. The first-year adjustment reaction is a cluster of psychological symptoms, including loneliness, anxiety, and depression, relating to the college experience.

Although any first-year student may suffer from one or more of the symptoms of first-year adjustment reaction, it is particularly likely to occur among students who have been unusually successful, either academically or socially, in high school. When they begin college, their sudden change in status may cause them distress. First-generation college students, who are the first in their families to attend college, are particularly susceptible to difficulties during their first year. They may arrive at college without a clear understanding of how the demands of college differ from those of high school, and the social support they have from their families may be inadequate. In addition, they may be less well prepared for college work. The availability and use of effective contraceptives have dramatically decreased the number of children in the average American family. Almost 70 percent of Americans polled in the 1930s agreed that the ideal number of children was three or more, but by the 1990s the percentage had shrunk to less than 40 percent. Today, most families seek to have no more than two children, although most say that three or more is ideal if money is no object.

These preferences have been translated into changes in the actual birth rate. Furthermore, many women who work outside the home are choosing to have children later in their childbearing years in order to develop their careers. Women between the ages of 30 and 34 are the only ones whose rate births has actually increased over earlier decades. Still, because women who have their first children in their 30s have fewer years in which to have children, they ultimately cannot have as many children as women who begin childbearing in their 20s. Research suggesting that there are health benefits for mothers in terms of spacing children further apart may lead families to ultimately have fewer children.

Gender and Friendships in Middle Childhood start off with “Girls rule; boys drool.” “Boys are idiots. Girls have cooties.” At least, those are some of the views of boys and girls regarding members of the other sex during the elementary school years. Avoidance of the other sex becomes quite pronounced during those years, to the degree that the social networks of most boys and girls consist almost entirely of same-sex groupings. When boys and girls make occasional forays into the other gender’s territory, the action often has romantic overtones. For instance, girls may threaten to kiss a boy, or boys might try to lure girls into chasing them. Such behavior, termed “border work,” helps to emphasize the clear boundaries that exist between the two sexes.

In addition, it may pave the way for future interactions that do involve romantic or sexual interests, when school-age children reach adolescence and cross-sex interactions become more socially endorsed. When and how adolescents begin to date is determined by cultural factors that change from one generation to another. Until fairly recently, exclusively dating a single individual was seen as something of a cultural ideal, viewed in the context of romance. Society often encouraged dating in adolescence, in part as a way for adolescents to explore relationships that might eventually lead to marriage. Today, some adolescents believe that the concept of dating is outmoded and limiting, and in some places, the practice of “hooking up” a vague term that covers everything from kissing to sexual intercourse, is viewed as more appropriate.

Despite changing cultural norms, dating remains the dominant form of social interaction that leads to intimacy among adolescents. Erik Erikson regarded young adulthood as the time of the intimacy-versus-isolation stage. This stage spans the period of post-adolescence into the early 30s. During this period, the focus is on developing close, intimate relationships with others. Erikson’s idea of intimacy comprises several aspects. One is a degree of selflessness, involving the sacrifice of one’s own needs to those of another. A further component involves sexuality, the experience of joint pleasure from focusing not just on one’s own gratification but also on that of one’s partner. Finally, there is deep devotion, marked by efforts to fuse one’s identity with the identity of a partner. According to Erik Erikson, those who experience difficulties during this stage are often lonely, isolated, and fearful of relationships with others. Their difficulties may stem from an earlier failure to develop a strong identity.

Compared with the other stages, the physical and cognitive changes that occur in the stages of early and middle adulthood are less dramatic. As individuals pass into their 30s and 40s, their recovery from muscular strain becomes more prolonged, and their sensory abilities may become somewhat diminished, at least when compared with their prime years, during the teens and early 20s. Visual acuity diminishes somewhat, and many people in their late 30s and early 40s begin to notice that their eyes are changing and they need eyeglasses. Adults in their 30s and 40s may also begin to suffer some hearing loss because of damage to the hair cells (cilia) in the inner ear. Consequences of cochlear damage for the detection of interaural phase differences. And it is during middle adulthood that many people first begin to suffer from ailments such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure as well as low bone density. Corresponding to changes in our physical abilities, our cognitive and sensory abilities also seem to show some, but not dramatic, decline during this stage.

The purpose of this assignment is to understand the different groups, and how their development change. The lifespan is usually divided into broad age ranges: the prenatal period (the period from conception to birth); infancy and toddlerhood ( birth to age 3); the preschool period ( ages 3 to 6); middle childhood ( ages 6 to 12); adolescence ( ages to 12 to 20); young adulthood ( ages 20 to 40); middle adulthood ( ages 40 to 65); and late adulthood (ages 65 to death).

The identity of self during middle childhood, children continue their efforts to answer the question “Who am I?” as they seek to understand the nature of the self. Although the question does not yet have the urgency it will assume in adolescence, elementary-school-age children still seek to pin down their place in the world. Children are on a quest for self-understanding during middle childhood. Helped by the cognitive advances, they begin to view themselves less in terms of external, physical attributes and more in terms of psychological traits. For instance, six-year-old Carey describes herself as “a fast runner and good at drawing” both characteristics dependent on skill in external activities relying on motor skills. In contrast, 11-year-old Meiping characterizes herself as “pretty smart, friendly, and helpful to her friends.” Meiping’s view of herself is based on psychological characteristics, inner traits that are more abstract than the younger child’s descriptions. The use of inner traits to determine self-concept results from the child’s increasing cognitive skills. In addition to shifting focus from external characteristics to internal, psychological traits, children’s views of who they are become less simplistic and have greater complexity.

In Erikson’s view, children are seeking endeavors where they can be successfully industrious. As they get older, children discover that they may be good at some things and not so good at others. In adolescence, according to Erik Erikson, the search for identity inevitably lead some adolescents into substantial psychological turmoil as they encounter the adolescent identity crisis. Erikson’s theory regarding this stage, suggests that teenagers try to figure out what is unique and distinctive about themselves something they are able to do which increasing sophistication because of the cognitive gains that occur during adolescence. Erikson argues that adolescents strive to discover their particular strengths and weaknesses and the roles they can best play in their future lives. This discovery process often involves “trying on” different roles or choices to see if they fit an adolescent’s capabilities and views about himself or herself. In Erikson’s view, adolescents who stumble in their efforts to find a suitable identity may go off course in several ways. They may adopt socially unacceptable roles as a way of expressing what they do not want to be, or they may have difficulty forming and maintaining long-lasting close personal relationships. In general, their sense of self-becomes “diffuse,” failing to organize around a central, unified core identity. According to psychiatrist George Vaillant, young adulthood is marked by a stage of development called career consolidation.

During this development, young adults become centered on their careers. This stage begins between the ages of 20 and 40. Based on a comprehensive longitudinal study of a large group of male graduates of Harvard, begun when they were freshmen in the 1930s, Vaillant found a general pattern of psychological development. In their early 20s, the men tended to be influenced by their parents’ authority. But in their late 20s and early 30s, they started to act with greater autonomy. They married and began to have and raise children. At the same time, they began to focus on their careers the period of career consolidation. Based on his data, Vaillant drew a relatively uninspiring portrait of people in the career consolidation stage. The participants in his study worked very hard because they were working their way up the corporate ladder. They tended to be rule-followers who sought to conform to the norms of their professions. Rather than showing the independence and questioning that they had displayed earlier, while still in college, they threw themselves unquestioningly into their work. Vaillant argues that work played such an important role in the lives of the men he studied that the career consolidation stage should be seen as an addition to Erikson’s intimacy-versus-isolation stage of psychological identity. In Vaillant’s view, career concerns come to supplant the focus on intimacy, and the career consolidation stage marks a bridge between Erikson’s intimacy-versus-isolation stage and Erikson’s next period, that of a generativity-versus-stagnation stage.

Changes have occurred in the structure of the family over the last few decades. With an increase in the number of parents who both work outside of the home, a soaring divorce rate, and a rise in single-parent families, the environment faced by children passing through middle childhood in the twenty-first century is very different from that faced by prior generations. One of the biggest challenges facing children and their parents is the increasing independence that characterizes children’s behavior during middle childhood. During the period, children move from being almost completely controlled by their parents to increasingly controlling their own destinies or at least their everyday conduct. Middle childhood then is a period of co-regulation in which children and parents jointly control behavior. Increasingly, parents provide broad, general guidelines for conduct, while children have control over their everyday. For instance, parents may urge their daughter to buy a balanced, nutritious school lunch each day, but their daughter’s decision to regularly buy pizza and two desserts is very much her own.

During the middle years of childhood, children spend significantly less time with their parents. Still, parents remain the major influence in their children’s lives, and they are seen as providing essential assistance, advice, and direction (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992; Parke, 2004). Siblings also have an important influence on children during middle childhood, for good and for bad. Although brothers and sisters can provide support, companionship, and a sense of security, they can also be a source of strife. In the academic environment, children spend more of their day in the classroom than anywhere else. It is not surprising, then, that schools have a profound impact on children’s lives, shaping and molding not only their ways of thinking but the ways they view the world. We turn now to a number of aspects of schooling in middle childhood that can have a profound effect on children. In the past, at one time or another, we have done poorly on a test.

Thinking back on how it made us feel, we probably felt shamed, showed anger towards the teacher, or fear of the consequences. How we reacted is a reflection of your attributions, the explanations for the reasons behind your behavior. For instance, some people generally react to failure (as well as success) by considering whether the cause is due to dispositional factors (“I’m not such a smart person”) or due to situational factors (“I didn’t get enough sleep last night”). For example, when a success is attributed to internal factors (“I’m smart”), students tend to feel pride; but failure attributed to internal factors (“I’m so stupid”) causes shame. Relationships with family during adolescents sometimes change. Parents are sometimes angered, and even more frequently puzzled, by adolescents’ conduct. Children who have previously accepted their parents’ judgments, declarations, and guidelines begin to question and sometimes rebel against their parents’ views of the world. These clashes are caused in part by the shifting roles that both children and parents must deal with during adolescence. Adolescents increasingly seek autonomy, independence and a sense of control over their lives. Most parents intellectually realize that this shift is a normal part of adolescence, representing one of the primary developmental tasks of the period, and in many ways, they welcome it as a sign of their children’s growth.

However, in many cases, the day-to-day realities of adolescents’ increasing autonomy may prove difficult for them to handle. But understanding this growing independence intellectually and agreeing to allow a teen to attend a party when no parents will be present are two different things. To the adolescent, her parents’ refusal indicates a lack of trust or confidence. To the parent, it’s simply good sense: “I trust you.” they may say. “It’s everyone else who will be there that I worry about.” In the school setting adolescents have to come face to face with popularity and rejection. Most adolescents have well-tuned antennae when it comes to determining who is popular and who is not. For some teenagers, concerns over popularity or lack of it may be a central focus of their lives. Actually, the social world of adolescents is not divided solely into popular and unpopular individuals; the differentiations are more complex. For instance, some adolescents are controversial; in contrast to popular adolescents, who are most liked, controversial adolescents are liked by some and disliked by others. For example, a controversial adolescent may be highly popular within a particular group such as the string orchestra, but not popular among other classmates.

Furthermore, there are rejected adolescents, who are uniformly disliked, and neglected adolescents, who are neither liked or disliked. Neglected adolescents are the forgotten students the ones whose status is so low that they are overlooked by almost everyone. For early adulthood, many students particularly those who are recent high school graduates and who are living away from home for the first, experience difficulties in adjustment during their first year in college. The first-year adjustment reaction is a cluster of psychological symptoms, including loneliness, anxiety, and depression, relating to the college experience. Although any first-year student may suffer from one or more of the symptoms of first-year adjustment reaction, it is particularly likely to occur among students who have been unusually successful, either academically or socially, in high school. When they begin college, their sudden change in status may cause them distress. First-generation college students, who are the first in their families to attend college, are particularly susceptible to difficulties during their first year. They may arrive at college without a clear understanding of how the demands of college differ from those of high school, and the social support they have from their families may be inadequate.

In addition, they may be less well prepared for college work. The availability and use of effective contraceptives have dramatically decreased the number of children in the average American family. Almost 70 percent of Americans polled in the 1930s agreed that the ideal number of children was three or more, but by the 1990s the percentage had shrunk to less than 40 percent. Today, most families seek to have no more than two children, although most say that three or more is ideal if money is no object. These preferences have been translated into changes in the actual birth rate. Furthermore, many women who work outside the home are choosing to have children later in their childbearing years in order to develop their careers. Women between the ages of 30 and 34 are the only ones whose rate births has actually increased over earlier decades. Still, because women who have their first children in their 30s have fewer years in which to have children, they ultimately cannot have as many children as women who begin childbearing in their 20s. Research suggesting that there are health benefits for mothers in terms of spacing children further apart may lead families to ultimately have fewer children.

Gender and Friendships in Middle Childhood start off with “Girls rule; boys drool.” “Boys are idiots. Girls have cooties.” At least, those are some of the views of boys and girls regarding members of the other sex during the elementary school years. Avoidance of the other sex becomes quite pronounced during those years, to the degree that the social networks of most boys and girls consist almost entirely of same-sex groupings. When boys and girls make occasional forays into the other gender’s territory, the action often has romantic overtones. For instance, girls may threaten to kiss a boy, or boys might try to lure girls into chasing them. Such behavior, termed “border work,” helps to emphasize the clear boundaries that exist between the two sexes. In addition, it may pave the way for future interactions that do involve romantic or sexual interests, when school-age children reach adolescence and cross-sex interactions become more socially endorsed (Beal, 1994). When and how adolescents begin to date is determined by cultural factors that change from one generation to another. Until fairly recently, exclusively dating a single individual was seen as something of a cultural ideal, viewed in the context of romance.

Society often encouraged dating in adolescence, in part as a way for adolescents to explore relationships that might eventually lead to marriage. Today, some adolescents believe that the concept of dating is outmoded and limiting, and in some places, the practice of “hooking up” a vague term that covers everything from kissing to sexual intercourse, is viewed as more appropriate. Despite changing cultural norms, dating remains the dominant form of social interaction that leads to intimacy among adolescents. Erik Erikson regarded young adulthood as the time of the intimacy-versus-isolation stage. This stage spans the period of post-adolescence into the early 30s. During this period, the focus is on developing close, intimate relationships with others. Erikson’s idea of intimacy comprises several aspects. One is a degree of selflessness, involving the sacrifice of one’s own needs to those of another. A further component involves sexuality, the experience of joint pleasure from focusing not just on one’s own gratification but also on that of one’s partner. Finally, there is deep devotion, marked by efforts to fuse one’s identity with the identity of a partner. According to Erik Erikson, those who experience difficulties during this stage are often lonely, isolated, and fearful of relationships with others. Their difficulties may stem from an earlier failure to develop a strong identity.

Compared with the other stages, the physical and cognitive changes that occur in the stages of early and middle adulthood are less dramatic. As individuals pass into their 30s and 40s, their recovery from muscular strain becomes more prolonged, and their sensory abilities may become somewhat diminished, at least when compared with their prime years, during the teens and early 20s. Visual acuity diminishes somewhat, and many people in their late 30s and early 40s begin to notice that their eyes are changing and they need eyeglasses. Adults in their 30s and 40s may also begin to suffer some hearing loss because of damage to the hair cells (cilia) in the inner ear. Consequences of cochlear damage for the detection of interaural phase differences. And it is during middle adulthood that many people first begin to suffer from ailments such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure as well as low bone density (Shelton, 2006). Corresponding to changes in our physical abilities, our cognitive and sensory abilities also seem to show some, but not dramatic, decline during this stage.

The purpose of this assignment was to get a better understanding of the three main age groups, and also focus on the each as it relates to the lifespan development. When discussing the three main age groups I learned that in Middle Childhood children can dress themselves, catch a ball more easily using only their hands, and tie their shoes. Having independence from family becomes more important now. Events such as starting school bring children this age into regular contact with the larger world. Friendships become more and more important. Physical, social, and mental skills develop quickly at this time. This is a critical time for children to develop confidence in all areas of life, such as through friends, schoolwork, and sports.

In adolescence is a time of great change for young people when physical changes are happening at an accelerated rate. But adolescence is not just marked by physical changes -- young people are also experiencing cognitive, social/emotional and interpersonal changes as well. As they grow and develop, young people are influenced by outside factors, such as their environment, culture, religion, school, and the media. A number of different theories or ways of looking at adolescent development have been proposed. There are biological views (G. Stanley Hall), psychological views (Freud), psychosocial views (Erikson), cognitive views (Piaget), ecological views (Bronfenbrenner), social cognitive learning views (Bandura), and cultural views (Mead). Each theory has a unique focus, but there are many similar elements. While it is true that each teenager is an individual with a unique personality, special interests, and likes and dislikes, there are also numerous developmental issues that everyone faces during the early, middle and late adolescent years. Lastly, with Early adulthood defines individuals between the ages of 20 and 35, who are typically vibrant, active and healthy, and are focused on friendships, romance, childbearing, and careers. This information has aided me in thoroughly understanding of how people grow and change throughout life.

The different lifespan overtime has helped me to understand myself. I was a kid once, so getting them in depth background about how children develop and grow, gave me additional insight into how I have become the person I am today. I also have a better understanding of how children learn. Development is a complex process, so learning more about how kids grow physically, socially, emotionally, and cognitively can lead to a deeper understanding of kids of all ages. Lastly, these topics have helped me to gain a greater appreciation of human development throughout life. Often times we connect human development with a process that is normally complete once we hit adulthood. However, we have to realize that development is a process that is ongoing and it will continue throughout our lives. Knowing how individuals change throughout life as they get older helps me appreciate and manage the stages of my own life. 

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