Download Theories Related to Child Guidance

Theories Related to Child Guidance
Erickson’s Eight Stages of Development
The psychiatrist Erik Erickson developed the Eight Stages of Development,
representing the developmental tasks involved in the social and emotional development
of children and teenagers which continues into adulthood. Erickson formulated his eight
stages through wide-ranging experience in psychotherapy, including extensive experience
with children and adolescents from low, middle and upper social classes. Each stage is
regarded as a “psychosocial crisis” which arises and demands resolution before the next
stage can be satisfactorily negotiated. These stages are conceived in an almost
architectural sense: satisfactory learning and resolution of each crisis is necessary if the
child is to manage the next and subsequent ones satisfactorily.
Erickson’s Eight Stages of Development is helpful to the teacher by outlining the
normal development of children. It is very important to be able to recognize the stages
that all children should be progressing. During the Stage of 5-7 Early School, children
reach the development of group play which is the beginning of cooperative learning. This
is valuable knowledge for the teacher to know and utilize in the classroom.
Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory says that people learn from each other through
observation, imitation, and modeling. An example of social learning theory is television
commercials. Man times we buy the product advertise in an effort to receive the benefits
the commercial claims you will get. This is modeling what we see or think we will
receive. An important aspect to the principles of this theory is that people are going to
most likely adopt the behaviors of people that share their values and they admire them.
Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people. Teachers and
parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do not model
inappropriate behaviors. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models.
This technique is especially important to break down traditional stereotypes. Students
must believe that they are capable of accomplishing school tasks. Thus it is very
important to develop a sense of self-efficacy for students. Teachers can promote such
self-efficacy by having students receive confidence-building messages, watch others be
successful, and experience success on their own. Teachers should help students set
realistic expectations for their academic accomplishments. In general, in my class that
means making sure that expectations are not set too low. I want to realistically challenge
my students.
Operant Conditioning (BF Skinner)
BF Skinner claims that consequences play a huge role in the way people behave.
He believes that positive reinforcement will increase the behavior and negative
reinforcement will decrease the behavior. Children will begin to connect the two together
and he believes this is one of the most important steps in development.
I believe that Operant Conditioning is a somewhat limited view. As with all
behaviorists he assumes Man is incapable of responsibility, self-discipline, selfdetermined morality and even autonomous achievement because there is no self in the
first place. To him you simple "react" and "behave" to external forces, and thought and
awareness are nothing more than annoying, meaningless by-products. The result of this
is that the concepts of consciousness, awareness, self-control, will, self-determinism, and
personal responsibility cannot and do not exist within their ideological frameworks.
These are considered minor things and of no meaningful significance. At best all internal
subjective states, including feelings, are nothing more than chemical reactions in the
brain or stimulus-response reactions to evolutionary and immediate environmental forces.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget was a developmental biologist who devoted his life to observing and
recording the intellectual abilities of infants, children, and adolescents. He developed the
stages of intellectual development that appear to be related to major developments in
brain growth. The human brain is not fully developed until late adolescence or in some
cases until early adulthood.
As a teacher is it is very important to understand how the brain develops. If the
brain does not yet have the capabilities, then the teacher should understand what the
students are ready to do. For example, during the Concrete Operations Period students
would not be able to handle abstract reasoning. This type of information is invaluable to
the teacher.
Piaget’s Stages are only broken down into three stages that included school age
children and the final stage is 11 years to adult. There is very little age specific
knowledge to he used.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Lawrence Kohlberg spent years researching how an individual develops their own
moral codes. He studied the differences in children's reasoning about moral dilemmas. He
also helped to clarify the general cognitive-development view of age-related changes.
Kohlberg applied the developmental approach of Piaget to the analysis of changes in
moral reasoning. He used surveys as his main source for research. He presented children
with moral dilemmas and asked them to evaluate the moral conflict; he studied how the
different children responded to these dilemmas.
I believe that all children develop though some moral dilemmas, but Kohlberg
theory was not researched completely. One reason was that he only sampled a small
number of people, and that the group did not represent females. Also that he didn’t do his
tests on several different occasions. His theory conflicts with BF Skinners. Yet even
though he has some holes in his study, I believe moral dilemma is a stronger influence on
a child’s development than consequences.
Maslow’s Theory of Motivation
Abraham Maslow developed a model in which basic, low-level needs such as
physiological requirements and safety must be satisfied before higher-level needs such as
self-fulfillment are pursued. In this hierarchical model, when a need is mostly satisfied it
no longer motivates and the next higher need takes its place. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
is physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization
needs.
While Maslow’s hierarchy makes sense form an intuitive standpoint, there is little
evidence to support its hierarchical aspect. In fact, there is evidence that contradicts the
order of needs specified by the model. For example, some cultures appear to place social
needs before any other. There is little evidence to suggest that people are motivated to
satisfy only one need level at a time, except in situations where there is conflict between
needs.