Major Child Development Theories and Theorists

Angela Oswalt, MSW

Though many scientists and researchers have approached the study of child
development over the last hundred or so years, only a few of the theories that have
resulted have stood the test of time and have proven to be widely influential.
Among this core group of theories are five that will serve as the basis for the
documents in this series. These are:

Freud's psychosexual stage theory

Erikson's psychosocial stage theory

Kohlberg's moral understanding stage theory

Piaget's cognitive development stage theory

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory

Sigmund Freud and Child Development

Angela Oswalt, MSW

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Viennese doctor who came to believe that the
way parents dealt with children's basic sexual and aggressive desires would
determine how their personalities developed and whether or not they would end up
well-adjusted as adults. Freud described children as going through multiple stages
of sexual development, which he labeled Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital.

In Freud's view, each stage focused on sexual activity and the pleasure received
from a particular area of the body. In the oral phase, children are focused on the
pleasures that they receive from sucking and biting with their mouth. In the Anal
phase, this focus shifts to the anus as they begin toilet training and attempt to
control their bowels. In the Phallic stage, the focus moves to genital stimulation and
the sexual identification that comes with having or not having a penis. During this
phase, Freud thought that children turn their interest and love toward their parent of
the opposite sex and begin to strongly resent the parent of the same sex. He called
this idea the Oedipus Complex as it closely mirrored the events of an ancient Greek
tragic play in which a king named Oedipus manages to marry his mother and kill his
father. The Phallic/Oedipus stage was thought to be followed by a period of Latency
during which sexual urges and interest were temporarily nonexistent. Finally,
children were thought to enter and remain in a final Genital stage in which adult
sexual interests and activities come to dominate.

Another part of Freud's theory focused on identifying the parts of consciousness.

Freud thought that all babies are initially dominated by unconscious, instinctual and
selfish urges for immediate gratification which he labeled the Id. As babies attempt
and fail to get all their whims met, they develop a more realistic appreciation of
what is realistic and possible, which Freud called the "Ego". Over time, babies also
learn about and come to internalize and represent their parents' values and rules.
These internalized rules, which he called the "Super-Ego", are the basis for the the
developing child's conscience that struggles with the concepts of right and wrong
and works with the Ego to control the immediate gratification urges of the Id.

By today's rigorous scientific standards, Freud's psychosexual theory is not

considered to be very accurate. However, it is still important and influential today
because it was the first stage development theory that gained real attention, and
many other theorists used it as a starting place.
Erik Erikson and Child Development
Angela Oswalt, MSW

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) used Freud's work as a starting place to develop a theory
about human stage development from birth to death. In contrast to Freud's focus on
sexuality, Erikson focused on how peoples' sense of identity develops; how people
develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to
become productive, satisfied members of society. Because Erikson's theory
combines how people develop beliefs psychologically and mentally with how they
learn to exist within a larger community of people, its called a 'psychosocial' theory.

Eriksons stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus
mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus
inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity
versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair. Each stage is associated with a time
of life and a general age span. For each stage, Erikson's theory explains what types
of stimulation children need to master that stage and become productive and welladjusted members of society and explains the types of problems and developmental
delays that can result when this stimulation does not occur.

For example, the first psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrust, and it spans from
birth to about age one year. During this phase, if children are consistently provided
all their basic needs such as food, clean diapers, warmth, and loving affection and
soothing from caregivers, they will learn that they can trust other people in their
environment to love them and to take care of them, and they will believe the world
is good. If infants are neglected and not given these things consistently or if they
are taken care of roughly and unpredictably, they will learn to question their
caretakers and to believe that others will not always be there to support them when
its needed. Learning to trust others is the first necessary step to learning how to
have loving, supportive relationships with others and to have a positive self-image.

The second stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt, spans ages one to three
years. When children are autonomous, they feel confident that they can make their
own choices and decisions and that they will be positive experiences. Young children
become autonomous when caregivers are supportive and give children the safe
space to make their own decisions and to experiment with their bodies and
problem-solving skills without shaming or ridiculing the child. When children feel
shame and doubt, they believe that they are not capable of making valid decisions
and not capable of doing everyday tasks. This will begin stunting a positive selfesteem as these small children start seeing themselves as stupid.

The third stage, initiative versus guilt, spans ages three to six years. When children
develop initiative, they continue to develop their self-concept and gain a desire to
try new things and to learn new things while being responsible for their actions to
some extent. If caregivers continue to give children a safe space to experiment and
appropriate stimuli to learn, the children will continue to find their purpose.
However, if caregivers try to create too many strict boundaries around what children
can do and to force too much responsibility on kids, children will feel extreme guilt
for their inability to complete tasks perfectly.

This is just a taste of Ericksons ideas. Hopefully, these paragraphs will help explain
his way of thinking and organizing development. The rest of Erikson's stages will be
outlined in detail in future documents in this series as they become age-related.
Lawrence Kohlberg and Child Development
Angela Oswalt, MSW

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) described three stages of moral development which

described the process through which people learn to discriminate right from wrong
and to develop increasingly sophisticated appreciations of morality. He believed that
his stages were cumulative; each built off understanding and abilities gained in prior
stages. According to Kohlberg, moral development is a lifelong task, and many
people fail to develop the more advanced stages of moral understanding.

Kohlberg's first 'preconventional' level describes children whose understanding of

morality is essentially only driven by consequences. Essentially, "might makes
right" to a preconventional mind, and they worry about what is right in wrong so
they don't get in trouble. Second stage 'conventional' morality describes people
who act in moral ways because they believe that following the rules is the best way
to promote good personal relationships and a healthy community. A conventional
morality person believes it is wrong to steal not just because he doesn't want to get
punished but also because he doesn't want his friends or family to be harmed. The
final 'postconventional' level describes people whose view of morality transcend
what the rules or laws say. Instead of just following rules without questioning them,
'postconventional' stage people determine what is moral based on a set of values or
beliefs they think are right all the time. For example, during the Vietnam War, many
Americans who were drafted to be soldiers opposed the war on moral grounds and
fled to Canada rather than fight. Even though this behavior was against the law,
these people decided that these particular laws did not follow the higher rules they
believed in, and they chose to follow their higher rules instead of the law.
Jean Piaget and Child Development
Angela Oswalt, MSW

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1990), created a cognitive-developmental

stage theory that described how children's ways of thinking developed as they
interacted with the world around them. Infants and young children understand the
world much differently than adults do, and as they play and explore, their mind
learns how to think in ways that better fit with reality.

Piaget's theory has four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational,

and formal operational. During the sensorimotor stage, which often lasts from birth
to age two, children are just beginning to learn how to learn. Though language
development, and thus thought, does begin during this time, the more major tasks
occurring during this period involve children figuring out how to make use of their
bodies. They do this by experiencing everything with their five senses, hence

"sensory," and by learning to crawl and then walk, point and then grasp, hence,
"motor."

During the preoperational stage, which often lasts from ages two though seven,
children start to use mental symbols to understand and to interact with the world,
and they begin to learn language and to engage in pretend play. In the concrete
operational stage that follows, lasting from ages seven through eleven, children
gain the ability to think logically to solve problems and to organize information they
learn. However, they remain limited to considering only concrete, not abstract,
information because at this stage the capability for abstract thought isn't well
developed yet. Finally, during the formal operational stage, which often lasts from
age eleven on, adolescents learn how to think more abstractly to solve problems
and to think symbolically, e.g., about things that aren't really there concretely in
front of them. As is the case with Erikson and Kohlberg, Piaget's ideas will be
developed in greater depth in future documents.
Urie Bronfenbrenner and Child Development
Angela Oswalt, MSW

One final developmental theory needs to be addressed, even though it's not a stage
theory. Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the ecological systems theory
to explain how everything in a child and the child's environment affects how a child
grows and develops. He labeled different aspects or levels of the environment that
influence children's development, including the microsystem, the mesosystem, the
exosystem, and the macrosystem. The microsystem is the small, immediate
environment the child lives in. Children's microsystems will include any immediate
relationships or organizations they interacts with, such as their immediate family or
caregivers and their school or daycare. How these groups or organizations interact
with the child will have an effect on how the child grows; the more encouraging and
nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child will be able to
grow. Furthermore, how a child acts or reacts to these people in the microsystem
will affect how they treat her in return. Each child's special genetic and biologically
influenced personality traits, what is known as temperament, end up affecting how
others treat them. This idea will be discussed further in a later document about
child temperament.

Bronfenbrenner's next level, the mesosystem, describes how the different parts of a
child's microsystem work together for the sake of the child. For example, if a child's
caregivers take an active role in a child's school, such as going to parent-teacher

conferences and watching their child's soccer games, this will help ensure the
child's overall growth. In contrast, if the child's two sets of caretakers, mom with
step-dad and dad with step-mom, disagree how to best raise the child and give the
child conflicting lessons when they see him, this will hinder the child's growth in
different channels.

The exosystem level includes the other people and places that the child herself may
not interact with often herself but that still have a large affect on her, such as
parents' workplaces, extended family members, the neighborhood, etc. For
example, if a child's parent gets laid off from work, that may have negative affects
on the child if her parents are unable to pay rent or to buy groceries; however, if her
parent receives a promotion and a raise at work, this may have a positive affect on
the child because her parents will be better able to give her her physical needs.

Bronfenbrenner's final level is the macrosystem, which is the largest and most
remote set of people and things to a child but which still has a great influence over
the child. The macrosystem includes things such as the relative freedoms permitted
by the national government, cultural values, the economy, wars, etc. These things
can also affect a child either positively or negatively.
Child Development Overview Summary
Angela Oswalt, MSW

All of these theorists' ideas will influence and inspire the coming articles in this
series. The documents in this series will concern child development, both from
theoretical perspectives, and also from applied perspectives, in the form of
parenting skills coverage. Eight documents cover four stages of child development,
defined for the purpose of this document series to be:

Infancy (covering birth to age two)

Early Childhood (covering ages two to seven)
Middle Childhood (covering ages seven to eleven)
Adolescence (covering ages eleven to twenty-two)

This breakdown of ages provides rough correspondence with the stage theories of
Piaget, Erikson, and Bronfenbrenner too. Within each stage, a 'theory' document will
describe how development typically proceeds through the major developmental
channels, including physical, mental, emotional and social, and sexual
developments. A second 'applied' document will address appropriate parenting skills
in light of what is known about children's development within each stage.

It's important to remember that while these documents will make general
statements about when developments occur in a child's life, each child will
nevertheless develop at his or her own speed, and that even within a given child,
certain channels may progress faster than others. For example, a twelve-year-old
may have the physical growth and change of an adolescent but mentally still be in
the concrete operational stage. This is normal because often one aspect of a child's
being will mature faster than another. Most of the time, given the right nurturing
and stimuli, everything will catch up in the end. These ages are just an average and
should be looked at as a general guide rather than a rule.

When babies are in infancy, they are changing from being totally dependent on
caregivers to learning to walk, to talk, to play alongside others, and are realizing
they are their individual selves. When children enter early childhood, they continue
to improve their large and small motor skills as they run and move more smoothly.
They also grow mentally and socially as they enter school and other places where
they interact with children. During middle childhood, children continue to grow and
improve physically, while also growing mentally as they attend school. They
maintain friendships in large same-sex groups and begin forming ideas about
gender roles and jobs. During adolescence, people go through puberty as their
bodies mature and become capable to reproduce. Teens attempt to assert their
individual identity while still needing rules and limits to continue to help them make
good life decisions. During later adolescence, young adults begin the tasks of
finding a life calling or job and of finding or creating their own next-generation
family.

Even more milestones and more in-depth information will be explained in future
articles. Hopefully, they will give you the tools that as a caregiver you need to give
your children the best possible basis to grow and to succeed.