Reflective Essay: Personal Development and Human Development Theories

This reflective essay examines a significant event in the author's life: finding and returning a lost pouch at age twelve, and its impact on personal development. The essay uses two key psychological development theories to analyze the event: Piaget's cognitive development theory, focusin...Read More

Running head: REFLECTION
Reflection
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REFLECTION 2
Introduction
In the process of human development, one passes through several scenarios and events that
contribute either positively or negatively in the life of the individual. However, there are many
theories that explain the development process of an individual. In this assignment, I am going to
explain one event that occurred in my life. Apart from that, I will use two theories relating to
human development to explain the scenario.
Life event
When I was 7 years old, we used to live in an estate together with my age mates. We used to do
several things together including playing and going to church. However, when I was ten years
old there was a youth program that came out in our church. We had a youth leader that used to
train us. The purpose of the training was to prepare us to compete with other youths from other
churches. However, the content of the training was so positive that almost all of us started
behaving positively in everything we do. Apart from training us on how to sing and organize
ourselves we were trained on positive living and how to relate with other people. The training
impacted my to an extent when I was growing up I stayed tuned to positivity to the word of God.
At the age of twelve years something happened to me that let an impact in my life.
One early morning, when I was on my way to school, a taxi rider passed by me carrying woman
who was heading to the market. However, the woman’s pouch accidently dropped on the way. I
got confused on what I should do next. However, when I remembered the teachings that I got
from the youth program, I chose to be positive. I picked the pouch and took it the nearest police
station. I explained everything to the police and left address of our school together with my
details. After going to school I kept on wondering whether that woman will get her pouch given

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the way society viewed police. Consequently, at around eleven in the morning I was called in the
office. I was worried, however, the woman had come to thank me on what I did. She explained
that she found everything safe. I explained to the woman on how I was brought up and trained at
the church. The woman wanted to offer me a scholarship but everything was well with me. At
this moment, I realized that everything that happens in life has an impact on the future of the
individual.
Reflection using two development theories.
Cognitive development theory
Cognitive development theory explains that children have different stages of development. Lind,
(2017) said that the mental development of a child undergoes four different stages. These include
sensorimotor stage which begins from the time of birth to around two years, preoperational stage
which begins from two years up to seven years of age, according to Meadows, (2017) concrete
operation stage starts from seven years to around eleven and lastly when one is twelve years he
or she begins the formal operational stage.
Piaget illustrated that children always take a center stage in the learning process according to
McLeod, (2018). They learn through actions and observations on what happens around them
every time. Every time there is the process of interaction, children gain some knowledge which
they use in future. There are four stages for the cognitive development theory but for the sake of
the event that happened to me, I will dwell on the third stage. The third stage comprises of
children from the age of seven to around eleven years.
At the age of seven to eleven years, many children always begin to develop a concrete thinking
about any event in their lives according to Ahmad et al, (2016). For example in my case, I started

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thinking logically concerning the youth program that we had in the church. The youth program
had multiple lessons which had a positive reflection in my life. For example, it taught me the
way I needed to behave and relate with other people. These lessons could sink in my mind and
every time I encountered an event, I could first reflect on the lessons I learned. The lessons were
the once providing me the best way to act.
The cognitive development theory explains that when an individual reaches at this stage, he or
she starts forgetting about the previous stage according to Mooney, (2016). The child starts
developing new experiences that will determine his or her response to the future activities. For
instance, in my case every program I took part in was preparing me for the future. Apart from
that, people around me were mainly positive and that could reflect in my behavior too according
to Henning, (2018). There is another unique behavior at the stage three of development. Every
child start realizing that he or she is unique from the rest of the children. Taking example of my
case, we were many in the youth program, however, every youth could react different when he or
she could have encountered the same event.
Erikson’s theory of psychological development.
Erikson’s theory emphasizes on ego as a result of child development according to Dunkel &
Harbke, (2017). When one have a sense of ego in life he or she is able to make visible
development in the society. The ego helps the person in understanding ideas, skills and attitudes.
The ability to master the skills is what assist the children to develop positive attitude in
everything and contribute positively to the society. However, Erikson outline eight psychosocial
development. The main idea that drive all these three stages include the urge to obtain
competency in one or two areas of our lives according to Kose & Arslan, (2017). Every stage of
development pose a challenge to the child and the child need to respond to some extent

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according to Houdé, (2019). When the child solve the challenge successfully, it becomes a clear
indication of healthy living and competency.
Taking example of my event, it happened when I was between six to twelve years old. Erikson
explains that at this age children mainly try to different between inferiority and industry. There is
a lot of comparison in children that takes place at this stage. It comes as result of trying to prove
a sense of children between different individuals. For example, Morgan et al, (2020) stated that
children want to be seen by others when they shine in areas such as schoolwork, family life,
sports and other social activities. In my case, I was also trying to justify that I am the one who
understood my mentor better than others. The recognition lead to a reward that could make me
stand out. Our mentor could promise us biblical blessings and other physical goods. The stage is
a transformation from childhood to adulthood.
In conclusion, children pass various stages from childhood to adulthood. However, these stages
are characterized by events that influence the life of the child. Things such as environment,
activities around the child and people around influence the growth. Children learn and code
event that happen to them every time. The activities act as lesion to the children. It is the same
thing that happened to me and it changed my life. The period of transition from child to
adulthood was marked with positivity due to the positive lessons that I have undergone. The
theories have different explanation on everything that takes place around people during
development.

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References
Ahmad, S., Ch, A. H., Batool, A., Sittar, K., & Malik, M. (2016). Play and Cognitive
Development: Formal Operational Perspective of Piaget's Theory. Journal of Education
and Practice, 7(28), 72-79.
Dunkel, C. S., & 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), 58-76.
Henning, D. (2018). Psychological development and meaningful faith: when faith works. Pursuit
of Truth. A Journal of Christian Scholarship, accessed, 7.
Houdé, O. (2019). 3-system Theory of the Cognitive Brain: A Post-Piagetian Approach to
Cognitive Development. Routledge.
Kose, U., & Arslan, A. (2017). Realizing an optimization approach inspired from Piagets theory
on cognitive development. arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.05904.
Lind, G. (2017). The theory of moral-cognitive development a socio-psychological assessment.
In Moral Judgments and Social Education (pp. 25-48). Routledge.
McLeod, S. (2018). Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Simply Psychology.
Meadows, S. (2017). An assessment of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. In Developing
Thinking (pp. 7-25). Routledge.
Mooney, E. F. (2016). Erik Erikson: Artist of moral development. In Volume 13: Kierkegaard's
Influence on the Social Sciences (pp. 101-114). Routledge.

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Morgan, G., Jones, A., & Botting, N. (2020). Links between language and cognitive
development of deaf children. Understanding Deafness, Language and Cognitive
Development: Essays in honour of Bencie Woll, 25, 115.