DOES CHARACTER BUILDING HAVE AN IMPACT
ON KIDS UNDER THE AGE FIVE?
Character building do have a critical impact on children under the age of five. Developmental psychologists place an overarching emphasis on childhood development particularly from the most critical age of infancy up to preschool years or 5 years old. In this paper, we will look into major psychological theories that highlight the crucial development of a child’s character: Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development, Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory on Psychosexual Development, and Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development.
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development provides stark evidences that psychosocial training builds a child’s character at an early age. He gives emphasis on the crucial years from Infancy (0 to 18 months), early childhood (2 to 3 years), and preschool (3 to 5 years). The Infancy stage is when the child masters the ritual of feeding where he or she develops a sense of trust through a reliable and consistent care and affection by caregivers, the lack of which results to mistrust and will have a far-ranging impact on the child’s personality and later development. In early childhood, the child gains control and mastery over his physical skills through toilet training. Success in this stage will develop in the child a sense of autonomy, while failure results to a sense of shame and doubt. In the preschool years, the child explores his or her world, by asserting control and power over his or her environment. Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose or initiative while failure results to a sense of guilt. (Cherry, 2004) It is very crucial in this theory that each child goes through each of the phases successfully to develop a positive attitude of trust, sense of autonomy and initiative. Otherwise the child mal-adjusts and at an early age develops a weak character.
Sigmund Freud, one of the greatest psychologists of all time, ascertained that personality is established at age 5. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory has four major stages: oral, anal, phallic and latent. The child from 0 to five years old comes face to face with the conflicts he or she has to resolve during the oral, anal and phallic stages. In the oral stage the mouth is the child’s source of interaction, the primary conflict of which is when the child is weaned from its caretakers to become a dependent individual. If the child does not successfully solve the conflict, he would have issues with dependency or aggression. In the anal stage, the child primarily masters his bladder and bowel movement with the help of the parents. Overlenient parents could result to a messy, wasteful or destructive personality. Overly strict parents result to a stringent, orderly, rigid and obsessive personality. The primary focus of the phallic stage is on the genitals where the child develops an identity of a boy or a girl. (Cherry, 2011)
A child under the age 5, falls under the preconventional level (up to age 9) of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. In this stage, a child defines morality through the rules set by the parents. And yet generally for a child at the age of 5 what constitutes good or bad is what pleases him or her. (All Psych Online, 2004)
All of these theories point to a crucial fact that character building starts before the age of five as these are the stages crucial in the formation of a character and personality that are necessary for the person to adapt well to his or her environment in the succeeding or later stages of life. The theories presented above also presents us with a clear understanding that a child has to positively resolve the conflicts he or she faces with the help of his environment for him to become a healthy and well-adjusted individual. We can also see that a child with a negative resolution to the challenges in all of the developmental spheres develops a negative personality. A radical example of children who has not had undergone a healthy psychological and social development are feral children, with a more popular example in the cartoon character of Tarzan. Tarzan who was raised in the wilds since childhood developed a character and personality characteristics of the animals in the wild. These are however rare cases, nevertheless a negative personality may likely present the child as a possible target of bullying. Sensitive, socially withdrawn, anxious, passive and depressed personalities are the characteristics traits of bullied children. (Web MD, 2011). Children who have also failed to resolve the conflicts during the foundational stages of development are also like to develop psychological disorder in life.
REFERENCES
Cherry, Kendra, 2005. What is Psychosexual Development? Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development. [online] Available at: <http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/ss/psychosexualdev.htm> [Accessed 25 April 2011].
Cherry, Kendra, 2005. Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages Summary Chart. [online] Available at: < http://psychology.about.com/library/bl_psychosocial_summary.htm> [Accessed 24 April 2011].
All Psych Online, 2004. Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. [online] Updated 21 March. Avaliable at: <http://allpsych.com/psychology101/moral_development.html> [Accessed 25 April 2011].
Web MD, 2011. Bullying – Characteristics of Children Who Are Bullied. [online] Available at: <http://www.webmd.com/parenting/tc/bullying-characteristics-of-children-who-are-bullied> [Accessed 24 April 2011]
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