Discuss the importance of knowing the developmental tasks in each period as a future teacher

Yes it really does happen! While a 5-year old's artwork tends to be uninhibited because they are in the 'pre-conventional' stage and unaware of social norms, by 10-11 years children are in the ‘conventional’ stage so start to appreciate social norms and this can lead to a dip  in creativity resulting in artwork that now depicts reality.

So we can support significant dips in children’s self-esteem it is important to understand when they occur:

Self-esteem may decline in 7-11 year olds due to having a more realistic self-understanding and balanced view of self-worth. Also at 11-14 years old self-esteem declines due to puberty, school transitions, increased concern regarding what others think and increased reflection.

Yes they do! At 14-16 years adolescents can struggle  to understand opposing personal characteristics e.g. being extrovert with friends but shy with strangers. This leads to an ‘identity crisis’ and a search for the 'real me'. These contradictions do not pose a problem in early adolescence and is resolved by 19 years old due to cognitive advances. Knowing this we can help young people through this difficult stage.

Yes this is a fact! Children's Understanding of Others improves as they get older due to the development of 'Theory of Mind' (ToM)). With increased ToM, at 8 years old a child may think peers see them negatively if they don't follow social norms. From this age they find ways to 'fit in' to be socially accepted by their peers

This has been observed from a hypothetical experiment when a 4 year old child observes the 'Victimiser Situation' - a scenario in which person A (the Victimiser) performs an action which is beneficial to themselves but involves harming person B ( e.g. pushing a child off the swing to get a go). Often a 4 year old child still reports that the 'Victimiser' feels happy and doesn't consider the harm caused to the ‘Victim’ (person B) and associated negative feelings (e.g. shame). 

Have an increased desire to become more autonomous.

Become more self-focused while having increased cognitive capacity.

Have an increased desire to develop and maintain relationships with their peers.

Experience changes in classroom set up, which include higher levels of teacher control, more public displays of grades, friendship disruption and less personal teacher/pupil relationships.

At 4-7 years a child will make friends with others that show desirable behaviours. At 8-10 years friendships are based on trust and they will consider others personality traits of others, but by 11 years friends are based on bringing psychological benefits eg. having similar interests, making you happy and displaying signs of loyalty. Companionship  alone is no longer sufficient.

The answer to this is  normally no! If you carefully observe boys in rough and tumble play they often do not intend to hurt each other and this can be observed by using open hands movements and having a relaxed facial expression. Rough and tumble play at this age is used to establish leadership and dominance and does not necessarily indicate aggression.

Sadly this is True and means that 40% of children in Developed Countries are INSECURELY ATTACHED, which can lead to  disrupted relationships, cognitive delays and impaired emotional regulation. Interestingly the strongest predictor that a child will be insecurely attached is having a parent that is insecurely attached. It’s about time we broke the cycle and provided the appropriate support for EVERYBODY!

Yes! The choice of coping strategies that adolescent girls and boys choose can be quite different and live up to the stereotypes! Adolescent girls tend to use self-soothing strategies (like taking a bath) & relying on social support, while adolescent boys use physical (walloping a punch bag!) and avoidant strategies (deny a problem exists).

With this in mind teachers should help increase a child’s self-control by ‘scaffolding’ a child’s learning experiences (providing guidance to help develop new skills but letting them feel in control or helping child devise ‘if then’ plans for situations when their self-control may be compromised). These methods should be used rather than using sanctions and punitive controls.

Adolescents between the ages of 14-16 years experience the 'imaginary audience' phenomenon - this is the belief that they are being watched and judged by others. By encouraging self-awareness of this belief confidence can be increased.

In the ‘still-face paradigm' (this is an experimental technique in which an adult interacts with the infant and then stops responding, freezing and looking at the child) it has been demonstrated that infants as young as TWO MONTHS OLD show negative affect when an interactive partner freezes. Social interactions and Language development (in this case Non-Verbal Communication) are linked!