My theory on child and adolescent development has evolved throughout my time as an education major and the many different elements have formed my theory. Another aspect to developing a theory on this subject is very complicated and vast, so for me to speak on this theory I need to use what I have experienced when growing up and seen as an educator.
Parts of my theory would be some of the ideas we have discussed in class and the frameworks that have been created. In the frameworks, there are stages to each part of a child’s life and they go through different stages such as puberty and their identity development. I think identity development is a major part of a child’s life because it develops their social skills, interests, career, etc… Puberty is another very important part of the development of a child because this is where you start to change in multiple ways. There are physical, cognitive, and many different ways a child changes during this stage in their life.
By understanding these important parts of a child’s development I can develop principles of my understanding. I believe that helping curate a healthy and positive environment is crucial for a child’s identity development when they are developing. Children and adolescents take so many impressions and influences from other people it has a major impact on them. To ensure it is a healthy development, maintaining a safe and positive classroom ensures that a child is free to develop self-identity without these negative influences that could hurt them in the future.
Helping maintain a healthy classroom is also very important in the context of puberty. As we have discussed in class, we have to ensure that they understand the changes they are going through and that is normal for every child. This is part of my principles because at this time this is where a child will go through the most important psychological/cognitive developments which will most likely affect them for the rest of their life. That is why educators need to approach this part of development very seriously. These changes start the development of their adult self identity which will be formed throughout their adolescent years.
This theory that I am starting to develop as I am learning about development mostly develops around the idea of identity and maintaining a safe environment for a child to develop and learn. There are many different ideas about development and it is hard to talk about all the different factors that go into it, but by bringing in one part of my theory I can build off these ideas.
A thoughtful reflection.