Child Development: Theories of Erikson, Piaget, and Freud

This essay provides an overview of child development, focusing on the theories of Erikson, Piaget, and Freud, and their relevance to children aged 3 to 5 years old. It examines Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, particularly the Initiative vs. Guilt stage, Piaget's theory of cognitive development, specifically the preoperational stage, and Freud's psychosexual stages, with a focus on the phallic stage. The essay highlights developmental milestones for this age group, encompassing motor, cognitive, and social skills. It also discusses the application of these theories in clinical practice, emphasizing how professionals can use them to understand and support children's development, address potential challenges, and guide parents. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the unique developmental characteristics of children in this age group and providing appropriate support to foster their growth.

Running head: DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
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Introduction:
Every child is seen to develop specific motor skills, cognitive skills, social skills and
others at specific ages. Developmental milestones are behaviours and physical skills seen
among children as they grow and develop (Dunken et al. 2017). Several theories have been
put forward by theories that explain such achievements specific to their ages. This would be
discussed in the assignment with specific considerations of children belonging between 3 to 5
years.
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development:
Erikson had proposed eight stages of psychosocial development of human beings.
Each of the stage is mainly built up on the preceding stages and mainly paves the ways for
the following periods of development. During each of the stages, he believed that people
experience a conflict, which helps in serving as a turning point in the development of the
individual. According to this theory, the conflicts are centred in either developing a
psychological quality or facing a failure in developing that quality. During these times, the
potential for personal growth of the individual is quite high but the potential of failure is also
similar in the situations (Cherry 2017). The third stage of the theory is called the Initiative vs.
Guilt that are mainly found across preschoolers from the age of 3 to 6 years, such children are
found to be a lot capable of initiation of activities as well as assessing control that revolves
around the surrounding with the help of the social interactions as well as play. Children who
are found to be successful in this stage often feel capable and can thereby lead others. Those
children who are seen to fail in acquiring these skills are seen to suffer from the sense of
guilt, lack of initiatives and even self-doubt. Studies have found that when an idea balance of
willingness to work and individual initiative is successfully achieved by this stage of
children, the ego quality, which is also called purpose, is seen to emerge (Knight 2017). In

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this stage, the children start asking more questions as their thirst for knowledge grows. When
parents are seen to treat their children as nuisance, trivial as well as embarrassing of others
aspects of their behaviours as threatening, then the children may develop the feelings of guilt
for being a “nuisance”. Studies have found that too much guilt might make a child slow in
interaction with others and might inhibit their creativity. A healthy balance between that of
guilt and initiative is significant in the children in this stage. Success of this stage is believed
to lead to a virtue of purpose while failure would result in a sense of guilt.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development:
The theory of cognitive development put forward by Jean Piaget opines that children
are seen to be moving through five steps of the mental development procedures. This is the
theory that is seen to focus not only on the development of an understanding on how different
children acquire knowledge but is also helps people to understand the nature of intelligence
developed in these four stages. As children are seen to interact continuously with the outer
world, they continually add on the new knowledge and thereby build upon an existing
knowledge and they adapt to previously held ideas for accommodating new information
(Bjorklund 2018). The second stage of this theory is called the preoperational stage and is
mainly found among children of ages 2 to 7. Firstly, children are seen to begin thinking
symbolically and they start learning the ways to use words and pictures in representing an
object. Secondly, children who are seen to belong to this stage are mainly egocentric in their
nature. At the same time, they are also found to be struggling to view different aspects from
that of the perspective of the different people that surround them. Third, such children are
seen to get better gradually with different patterns of the language and even that of the
thinking, yet they are seen to think about different things in very concrete manner (Barrouillet
2015). At this stage, the children are seen to learn things through the help of pretend play but
they cannot still understand the logic as well as taking into of view of that of the people

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surrounding the children, they also face issues in understanding the ideas of constancy. The
foundations of the language development is seen to be laid during that of the previous part
of the step but their emergence of language is seen to be clearer in this stage and marks the
main hallmark of this preoperational stage of development (Emmerink et al. 2016).
Freud's Psychosexual Stages:
The Psychosexual Stages development mainly helps in defining the ways that human
personality develops from the time of birth to that of early adulthood. Freud was of the
opinion that children during this stage experience various types of sexual fixations as they
gradually grow in age. Studies have found that these sexual urges changes individuals
drastically in each of the stages (Carr 2019). It has been found that without proper resolution
following each of the stage, individuals might experience faults in their future personalities.
The third stage of this theory is called the phallic stage. During this time, children are seen to
realise facts about their own genitals and realise that some pleasure can be obtained by
touching them. This is called the first awakening of the sexual desire and is often found to be
directed towards the parent of the opposite sex. The main conflict which a little boy faces
according to Freud is the Oedipal conflict that shows the the unconscious wish of the little
boy to have his mother all to himself and receive all her attention. Here, the father is seen as a
competitor to the boy. This stage shows that the child loves but competes with the parent of
the same sex (Tas et al. 2018).
Developmental milestones:
Development of children within age 3 to 5 years:
As children grow into early childhood during the phase of 3 to 5 years old, their world
gradually begins to gradually widen. Such children also seem to become more independent

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and they start focusing more of adults as well as children outside that of their families. They
are found to be exquisite about different things that are revolving around them. Studies have
found that during this age, interactions of the children with that of their families and even
with the people who are around them mainly helps in shaping not only their personality also
their own methods of moving and thinking. During the particular step, these cohorts of
children are seen to enjoy riding a tricycle as well as using scissors, noticing differences
between girls and boys (Dobinson et al. 2016). They can participate in dressing and
undressing themselves and even playing with other children. They are found to be capable of
recalling a part of a story and even singing different songs. It has been found that
preschoolers are not logical thinkers and they mainly believe what their eyes tell them even
when it makes no sense to them. Some of the cognitive skills that they develop are counting
to ten, matching pictures, completing 3 to 10 pieces of interlocking puzzles. They are seen to
be attracted towards the parents of opposite sex and enjoy spending time with them.
Help in clinical practice:
During the developmental stages, children might face issues with their psychosocial
development feeling guilty or submissive. In such situation, the professional can apply the
Erikson’s theory to understand the psychology and social surrounding of the children and
educate parents in ways by which the child can overcome the barriers and become confident
and start taking initiatives (Cherry et al. 2017). The children might also face issues in
cognitive development like lack of intelligence as well as inability to develop effective
cognition and others. This theory of Piaget would help the professional to identify the failure
in achieving the cognitive developmental millstones and understand whether the children
need interventions or he has time to develop the skills in future. Accordingly, they can help
the parents to understand their children’s growth and educate them the ways to handle the
situation for helping the children to overcome the cognitive barriers. Similarly, Freud’s’

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theory would help the professional to understand that whether the child is going through
proper stages of psychosocial development or not.
Conclusion:
From this discussion, it can be seen that children from three to 5 years old have
specific forms of cognitive, psychosocial as well as psychosexual development. Parents
should encourage children during this time rather than scolding of demeaning them. They
should also understand the intelligence level of their child and should not force them to look
at things logically as they cannot develop logical thinking at this age. Processionals should be
also assessing the psychosexual development of children to ensure that they are developing as
better individuals with no psychosexual defects for the future.

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References:
Barrouillet, P. 2015. Theories of cognitive development: From Piaget to today.
Bjorklund, D.F., 2018. A metatheory for cognitive development (or “Piaget is dead”
revisited). Child development, 89(6), pp.2288-2302.
Carr, S.V., 2019. Psychosexual Aspects of Sexual Preference and Gender Identity
Issues. Introduction to Psychosexual Medicine.
Cherry, K. 2017. Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. Psychology.
Psychosocial Theories. Päivitetty, 14, 2017.
Dobinson, K.A., Hoyt, M.A., Seidler, Z.E., Beaumont, A.L., Hullmann, S.E. and Lawsin,
C.R., 2016. A grounded theory investigation into the psychosexual unmet needs of adolescent
and young adult cancer survivors. Journal of adolescent and young adult oncology, 5(2),
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Dunkel, C.S. and Harbke, C., 2017. A review of measures of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial
development: Evidence for a general factor. Journal of Adult Development, 24(1), pp.58-76.
Emmerink, P.M., Vanwesenbeeck, I., van den Eijnden, R.J. and ter Bogt, T.F., 2016.
Psychosexual correlates of sexual double standard endorsement in adolescent sexuality. The
Journal of Sex Research, 53(3), pp.286-297.
Knight, Z. G. 2017. A proposed model of psychodynamic psychotherapy linked to Erik
Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development. Clinical psychology &
psychotherapy, 24(5), 1047-1058.

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Lind, G. 2017. The theory of moral-cognitive development a socio-psychological assessment.
In Moral Judgments and Social Education (pp. 25-48). Routledge.
Tas, B., Kulacaoglu, F., Belli, H. and Altuntas, M., 2018. The tendency towards the
development of psychosexual disorders in androgenetic alopecia according to the different
stages of hair loss: a cross-sectional study. Anais brasileiros de dermatologia, 93(2), pp.185-
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