The age between 2-5 years is the pre-school years in which children are developing from awkward toddlers to active discoverers of their world. During the preschool stage, children develop psychosocial skills and patterns of behavior that lasts for long. Children in the preschool years move from being dependent on their parents to being independent. Health care providers should ensure that they shape and monitor the optimal psychosocial development of the preschool child when seeing them during their health checkup visits. Understanding the child during this stage is essential because it assists one to detect any abnormal behavior. The caretaker and parent should show love and affection, teach skills and offer healthy foods to the child at this stage.
Psychosocial development is the advancement of human being’s emotional, cognitive, social and intellectual functioning and capabilities over the course of their lifespan. It involves developmental stages from infancy to adulthood; the stages encompasses gaining of social skills and personality development. Children make advancements in both the recall memory and recognition that assists them to increase their capacity to anticipate and understand their environment (Buss & Plomin, 2014). Psychosocial development in children is mostly influenced by the environment and their physical growth. The child undergoes significant changes in the body and brain that assists him/her to shape their relationship and identity with one another. In the case study, Julie through interaction can communicate her requirements efficiently. The theory of Eric Erickson is significant in understanding the developmental stages of a child, according to Erickson theory human beings encounter crisis that contributes to the psychosocial growth at each stage (Walle, 2016). Failure to solve any crisis may result in a negative impact on the psychosocial development of a child. According to Erikson the aspects of understanding psychosocial development include; cultural and historical factors, physical weakness and strength, life history and the current developmental stages.
The theory of Erikson outlines eight stages that show how children increase brain function, gain psychomotor control and develop physically as they become complex cognitively (Barac, Bialystok, Castro & Sanchez 2014). The physical and cognitive changes facilitate the children to form self-regulating identities, interact effectively with others and progress psychosocially. According to Erikson psychosocial development starts at the stage of trust versus mistrust at this stage the child requires love and security from the initial contact or parent to develop a sense of self-confidence and trust towards oneself and others. Love and security also enable a child to create favorable self-esteem, self-security and avoid emotional turmoil. During the age of 1-3 years, the child undergoes the stage of autonomy versus shame and doubt, at this stage, the child gains automatic response to rules that define his/her environment. The child develops a sense of positive self-governance and a positive self-concept through associations with family members and friends (Illeris, 2014). The importance of developmental stages becomes evident when a child does not satisfactorily master some developmental stages and hence not solving the crisis effectively. According to Erikson, the individual is provided with a period to resolve each stage crisis before a new crisis starts (McLeod, 2013). For instance, a child who receives proper toilet training at the stage of trust versus mistrust during the age of 1-3 years develops a sense of positive self-concept and a sense of self-recognition. Developing a sense of self-recognition assists a child in identifying fully with peer mates, this boosts peer interactions hence reducing embarrassment from the age of 12-18 years. In the absence of embarrassment, the individual will be able to develop a sense of voluntary control of defecation and urination, and satisfaction. When a child does not adequately receive proper toilet training, he/she may show difficulties like growing up to be rigid adults, not developing a sense of self-awareness or mistrust.
Caregivers, peers, and parents play significant roles during the psychosocial development of a child. Through the relations with peers and parents, children can learn characteristics of life like social-emotional skills, language, and problem-solving skills. Through interactions parents and caregivers can detect unusual characters early (Aveling & Jovchelovitch, 2014). For instance, Victoria is able to detect Julie inability to master toilet training skills like her age mates.
There exist psychosocial and environmental factors that influence the psychosocial development of a child. Urie Bronfenbrenner through his theory explains how factors within the child and his/her environment affect the child growth and development. He outlined different levels of the child’s environment that include exosystem, mesosystem, macrosystem and microsystem which influences child development (Ashiabi & O’Neal, 2015). Factors that affect the child psychosocial development include; prenatal care and nutrition, emotional bonds, and physical environment.
Prenatal care and its influence on prenatal development can influence the psychosocial development of a child. Adequate maternal nutrition provides the basis for a popular psychosocial development of a child; it helps to prevent complications that may develop from malnutrition hence enabling the child to grow efficiently. Positive psychosocial development of a child is also closely linked to the optimal nutrition the child receives. For the active growth of the nervous system and brain that occurs exponentially during the first years, the child requires adequate nutrition to sustain the rapid growth. Children who get unhealthy nutrition often portray delay in the psychosocial development as compared to their age mates like a delayed motor (Kearney & Fulbrook, 2014).
Since birth, a child requires a strong emotional bond to aid him or her in developing psychosocially effectively. Home is the first environmental setting that the child encounters since birth. Since birth, the emotional state that a child experiences through feeling and seeing help in shaping her personality. Also, the emotional bond between the child and her parents assists him/her in expressing fears and love. Children and parents emotional bond ought to be loving and stable. This will enable the child to feel important, valued and communicate effectively with others. Parents need to show love, spend quality time with their children and to be there always for their children in order to boost their emotional bonds (Schore, 2015).
A conducive and safe environment is a necessary condition for enhancing a child psychosocial development, parents and caregivers should create a desirable environment appropriate to strengthen and ensure the skill development of a child. According to Vygotsky’s theory community setting plays an essential role during social interaction, therefore the community setting should be desirable to enable the child to learn desirable values and cultures (Minick, 2017). In the case study, the nurse referred Victoria to discuss strategies for toilet training to a relaxed and informal environment. Parents should offer opportunities that will encourage their children to explore the environment within the home setting and outside the home. Parents should provide a positive and relaxed home environment to enable the child to concentrate on studies commendably, noisy and crowded environment should be avoided since they influence a child personality negatively.
Psychosocial development knowledge is essential to a nursing student because it provides him/her with strategies to improve the psychosocial development of a child. As in the case study, the nurse through the knowledge of psychosocial development referred Victoria to a mother’s group to learn strategies for toilet training. The experience of psychosocial development is also essential to nurses because it helps him/her to provide sufficient developmental care and creative strategy to a child with developmental challenges (Masten, 2014). It also allows nurses to emphasize on developmental underpinnings of evolving behavioral issues that will assist parents to remain positive and objective about their children in order to avoid misinterpretations that may lead to unnecessary problems and upset. In the case study, the Family Health Nurse reassured Victoria that Julie is meeting all the developmental milestones (Newman & Newman, 2017).
Conclusion
It is evident that psychosocial development is an essential factor as it enables a transition from childhood to adulthood. Psychosocial development enables people to understand who they are and explore their physical environment. As discussed by Erikson psychosocial development is essential because it assists the child to solve a crisis of each stage hence developing psychosocially efficiently. The caretaker and parents require to understand the child community, family and individual setup in order to influence the child development positively.
Reference
Ashiabi, G. S., & O’Neal, K. K. (2015). Child social development in context: An examination of some propositions in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory. Sage Open, 5(2), 2158244015590840.
Aveling, E. L., & Jovchelovitch, S. (2014). Partnerships as knowledge encounters: a psychosocial theory of partnerships for health and community development. Journal of health psychology, 19(1), 34-45.
Barac, R., Bialystok, E., Castro, D. C., & Sanchez, M. (2014). The cognitive development of young dual language learners: A critical review. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29(4), 699-714.
Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (2014). Temperament (PLE: Emotion): Early developing personality traits. Psychology Press.
Illeris, K. (2014). Transformative learning and identity. Journal of Transformative Education, 12(2), 148-163.
Kearney, L., & Fulbrook, P. (2014). The first 18 months: Parental choices regarding their infant’s health care needs. Neonatal, Paediatric & Child Health Nursing, 17(3), 17.
Masten, A. S. (2014). Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. Child development, 85(1), 6-20.
McLeod, S. (2013). Erik Erikson. Retrieved August, 9, 2013
Minick, N. (2017). The development of Vygotsky’s thought: an introduction to Thinking and Speech. In Introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 35-58). Routledge.
Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2017). Development through life: A psychosocial approach. Cengage Learning.
Schore, A. N. (2015). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development. Routledge.
Walle, E. A. (2016). Infant social development across the transition from crawling to walking. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 960.
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