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Life Events- Lifespan Development One’s personal, physical and emotional development is cumulative. The nature of experiences and development during each state of the life-span will have an impact on how subsequent stages are experienced for better or for worse. The following is a concise overview of the changes and normative patterns relating to the life-span. Thus, the discussion will provide a brief examination of each phase, including the prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood stages. This will contribute to a general understanding of the way that experiences, exposures and environments will impact one throughout one’s life.
Introduction
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Write My Essay For MeThe process of human development is assessed according to multiple phases, each of which carries its own distinct set of expectations in terms of emotional growth, psychological development, physical maturation and social awareness. With each phase will also come a distinct set of life cycle considerations and a set of both socially and self-imposed pressures to participate in certain rites and elements of the life cycle. The intercession of these realities produces what are referred to in psychology and sociology as the stages of development. These will tend to be distinguished from one another in a normally developing individual by an array of physical, mental and sexual changes that will significantly shape the course of one’s life. The concept of emotional development is described in Erik H. Erikson’s 1963 text, Childhood and Society. Here, the sociologist asserts that the ability of one’s parents during the formative stages of life to earn the infant’s trust will impact directly the success of his development. To the point, in elucidating the stages of emotional development which contribute to the mental and psychological growth of a human being, Erikson pays a great focus to the matter of trust and nurturing.
Discussion
Every one goes through many stages in life beginning at the time of conception, throughout life, and finally in death. Human development is important to psychologists because it can provide insight about a person and the stage he or she may be experiencing in life based on age-related changes in behavior, emotions, personality, and thought processes (Boyd & Bee, 2009). The interest of changes throughout a person’s life, from childhood through adulthood, has developed into a psychological area of study called the lifespan perspective. This modern perspective believes that interdisciplinary research is important in the understanding of lifespan development as well as understanding that each individual, of all ages, can change and develop through many different contexts (Boyd & Bee, 2009).
The following stages, according to Annenberg Media Learner (2010), start at birth. Although Boyd & Bee (2010) state that prenatal is the very first stage of development. While going through the website Learner’s (2010) periods, put in parentheses will be the label that Boyd & Bee (2009) give to each stage. The first period is birth to age two (infancy), second is ages two through six (early childhood), third is ages seven to nine (middle childhood), fourth is 10 to 12 (middle childhood), fifth is 13- 15 (adolescence), and sixth is 16 to 19 (early adulthood). These first six stages are all under 20 years of age. A large amount of development is going on during these years.
The seventh period is ages 20 to 40 (emerging adulthood), eighth period is 40 to 65 (middle adulthood), and the last period is 65 and older (late adulthood). Plenty of changes and development are going on in the adult years but not as rapid as in the younger years. Theories within the lifespan perspective arena like Freud’s or Erikson’s psychosocial stages are similar in age ranges but differ slightly. Each category under the lifespan perspective will somewhat vary within each theory and the different domains of physical, cognitive, and social aspects. A key concern in the lifespan perspective is the nature versus nurture debate. In earlier days, many developmentalists only believed in one or the other. It hasn’t been until lately that this perspective has changed and many are considering the factors of both in human development (Boyd & Bee, 2009)
The focus is on concern with standard epidemiology methods that tend to discard the role that genetics play in risk factors for disease as well as genetic studies that ignore environmental risk factors for disease. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has done ongoing studies since the 1970s with adopted children. Although their environments with the adoptive parents could either facilitate or suppress the onset of alcohol abuse. A second area of concern is the context of development. According to Boyd & Bee (2009), it is important to look at the context of change of a child and adult according to the environment he or she is changing in and not solely within the immediate family. This includes the school the child is in, the neighborhood, the types of relationships the parents have with each other and other people, the occupation and attitudes toward these occupations of the parents, and so on. Parenting style also plays a large role in the context of child development.
All interact together with the personality traits of the individual to make each person’s lifespan development unique. In conclusion, the modern theory of human development lies within the lifespan perspective. It integrates all aspects of research coming from different perspectives and their expertise. It also integrates the power of genetics with the power of the environment, which plays a large role in an individual’s progress through different stages in life. The lifespan perspective can be broken down to 10 different stages of life, starting with conception, within three different domains- biological, cognitive, and psychosocial. The context in which a person progresses through life changes assimilates all the aspects of each domain, interdisciplinary research, the multi-contextual nature, and the unique characteristics of the individual.
Prenatal
The womb is this first place that a baby knows. During the later parts of pregnancy, when the cerebral cortex has developed and the fetus begins to gain a sense of awareness, recognition and tactile sensation, the environment provided by the womb is critical to development. The unborn child will be impacted by the safety, health and equanimity of this environment or by any conditions to the contrary. To this end Syncresis (2009) indicates that there is a deep interconnection between the emotional orientation of the mother and the fetus, explaining that the emotionality of the mother carries the implicit potential for a profound influence on the child-to-be. If the mother is constantly anxious, fearful, depressed ” or joyfully ecstatic ” the embryonic child-body will be grown and molded by this prevailing affective environment and will be subtly but inexorably conditioned and programmed to live with and to process in utero, whatever emotional experience passes through the mother. (Syncresis, 2009) This provides a consistent foundation for what is likely to occur during the child’s infancy as well.
Infancy
In infancy, the first crucial human relationship which a person has is that which he shares with his mother, already established in the prenatal stage. It is within the confines of this relationship that a child may be expected to develop feelings of security. In his text, Erikson asserts that the firm establishment of enduring patterns for the solution of the nuclear conflict of basic trust versus basic mistrust in mere existence is the first task of the ego, and thus first of all a task for maternal care. (Erikson, 1963) This, he explains, is what enables the child to begin to experience a sense of comfort even while achieving an awareness of his dependency on others. Constituted by the certainty that though she has left the room, the mother will soon return, a child comes into a sense of himself as he relates to other people according to the parameters of this first relationship. Trust, in this context, may be interchanged with confidence, which the sociologist explains is a virtue gained on the strength of one’s ability to first trust others and then, with maturation, trust himself. As we explore throughout this discussion, the manner in which one experiences each of the stages of development, Erikson believed, will have a cumulative effect on the individual. Thus, in infancy, we find that these issues of trust and comfort are absolutely imperative to the healthy development of the child. The absence of these can have stultifying, even emotionally devastating effects on the development of the individual’s ego-orientation. According to Harder (2002), stated that if one fail to develop trust with persistent frustration due to one needs not met, will end up with a sense of worthlessness and do not feel secure with the environment one is in. However, researchers found that suicides and suicide attempts correlate with the early years in development of simple acceptance that the world is trustworthy and individual are support to be here (Harder, 2002).
Early Childhood
As the extreme consequences potential in this period denote, the rate of early childhood development is impacted as much by its environmental surroundings as by its individual capabilities. With the right framework and support structure, it is possible to facilitate the proper socialization in a child, thus encouraging the appropriate development of physical, emotional and cognitive abilities. Likewise, a suitable setting for these faculties would offer a stable test sample by which to measure individual progress. The home environment is a key role-player in shaping the early capabilities of children toward all manner of induction, socialization and emotional stability as are the first social contexts into which a child is entered. Erikson’s view on early childhood was that this is a period of extremely dynamic integration of stimuli. Erikson formulates that at this stage one will learn to accept and work on master skills themself. Learning to walk, talk and feed one self, they learn finer motor development, in addition, to toilet training. Self-esteem and autonomy develops which will help the individual to learn and gain control over our bodies while acquiring new skills. (Harder, 2002).
Middle Childhood
The effectiveness with which the child is able to navigate this period will lead to the phase known as middle childhood, which is distin…..
