Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Development of Children Ages 6 To 14
The Development of Children Ages 6 To 14
The Development of
Children Ages 6 to 14
Jacquelynne S. Eccles
Abstract
Jacquelynne S. Eccles,
Ph.D., is professor of psychology, education, and
womens studies at the
University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor.
The years between 6 and 14middle childhood and early adolescenceare a time of
important developmental advances that establish childrens sense of identity. During
these years, children make strides toward adulthood by becoming competent, independent, self-aware, and involved in the world beyond their families. Biological and
cognitive changes transform childrens bodies and minds. Social relationships and roles
change dramatically as children enter school, join programs, and become involved
with peers and adults outside their families. During middle childhood, children
develop a sense of self-esteem and individuality, comparing themselves with their
peers. They come to expect they will succeed or fail at different tasks. They may
develop an orientation toward achievement that will color their response to school
and other challenges for many years. In early adolescence, the tumultuous physical
and social changes that accompany puberty, the desire for autonomy and distance
from the family, and the transition from elementary school to middle school or junior
high can all cause problems for young people. When adolescents are in settings (in
school, at home, or in community programs) that are not attuned to their needs and
emerging independence, they can lose confidence in themselves and slip into negative behavior patterns such as truancy and school dropout. This article examines the
developmental changes that characterize the years from 6 to 14, and it highlights ways
in which the organization of programs, schools, and family life can better support positive outcomes for youths.
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may come to physical harm during the many hours that she is away
from home.
Equally dramatic changes occur in the social contexts where youngsters spend time. A six-year-old boy is likely to be enrolled in a local
neighborhood elementary schoolperhaps within walking distance
from home. By age 14, he will have changed schools at least once,
moving into a junior high school or middle school. He may be looking
forward to his classes, or he may have already psychologically turned his
back on formal schooling. He may have sampled out-of-school activities
from Scouts to basketball to handling a paper route. Because the experiences both boys and girls have in school and other activities will shape
their development through this pivotal age period, efforts should be
made to optimize these experiences, as recommended in the other articles included in this journal issue.
This article provides an overview of the kinds of biological, psychological, and social changes that characterize the years between 6 and 14. To
facilitate the presentation, those years are divided into two broad periods:
middle childhood (approximately ages 6 to 10) and early adolescence
(approximately ages 11 to 14). Childrens development during both periods is driven by basic psychological needs to achieve competence, autonomy, and relatedness. They seek opportunities to master and demonstrate
new skills, to make independent decisions and control their own behavior,
and to form good social relationships with peers and adults outside
the family.1
Each period is marked by basic biological and cognitive changes, as
well as changes in the social surroundings where childrens daily lives
unfold. Exercising their growing autonomy in school and organized programs, children learn about the world outside the family, match themselves against the expectations of others, compare their performance
with that of their peers, and develop customary ways of responding to
challenges and learning opportunities. Through these years, they forge
a personal identity, a self-concept, and an orientation toward achievement that will play a significant role in shaping their success in school,
work, and life. Although researchers and policymakers have focused on
the school as the critical arena in which development occurs and childrens futures are sculpted, out-of-school programs offer alternative
environments in which children can learn about themselves and their
worlds, and can discover opportunities for carving their own versions
of success.
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Middle Childhood
The importance of middle childhood, as a
developmental period, was not always recognized by scholars. The grand theorists Freud
and Piaget saw middle childhood as a
plateau in development, a time when children consolidated the gains they made
during the rapid growth of the preschool
period, and when they prepared for the dramatic changes of adolescence. Erik Erikson,
however, who proposed the eight stages of
man depicted in Table 1, stressed the
importance of middle childhood as a time
when children move from home into wider
social contexts that strongly influence their
development.2 Erikson viewed the years
between 7 and 11 as the time when children
Development Changes in
Researchers have corroborated Eriksons Middle Childhood
notion that feelings of competence and personal esteem are of central importance for a
childs well-being.4,5 For instance, children
who do not see themselves as competent in
academic, social, or other domains (such as
athletics, music, drama, or scouting) during
their elementary school years report depression and social isolation more often than
their peers,6 as well as anger and aggression.7
Frequent feelings of frustration and incompetence early in a childs school career may
coalesce into a negative pattern of adaptation toward schooling. Compared to children who feel competent, those who
experience early learning difficulties in
school are at increased risk for short-term
33
Table 1
Stages of Development According to Erik Erikson
Approximate Age
Birth to 1 year
Trust vs. mistrust: Babies learn either to trust or to mistrust that others will
care for their basic needs, including nourishment, sucking, warmth,
cleanliness, and physical contact.
1 to 3 years
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt: Children learn either to be selfsufficient in many activities, including toileting, feeding, walking, and
talking, or to doubt their own abilities.
3 to 6 years
7 to 11 years
Adolescence
Young adulthood
Intimacy vs. isolation: Young adults seek companionship and love with
another person or become isolated from others.
Adulthood
Generativity vs. stagnation: Middle-age adults are productive, performing meaningful work and raising a family, or become stagnant
and inactive.
Maturity
Integrity vs. despair: Older adults try to make sense out of their lives,
either seeing life as a meaningful whole or despairing at goals never
reached and questions never answered.
Source: Berger, K.S. The developing person through the life span. New York: Worth Publishers, 1988, p. 37.
34
world and of themselves, providing the foundation for important social and emotional
changes that also begin in these years. Along
with their broadened exposure to adults and
peers outside the family, children of these
ages are typically given more freedom, more
responsibilities, and more rights. This
period is therefore marked by tensions
between the new autonomy and the increasing expectations children encounter, which
can either support or hamper the development of self-confidence.
Broadening Social Worlds
In the middle-childhood years, children
spend less time under the supervision of
their parents and come increasingly under
the influence of teachers and activity leaders
such as Sunday school teachers, coaches of
Little League sports, instructors of dance or
35
PHOTO OMITTED
36
their judgments of how useful and important these subjects are also decrease.20
Especially valuable are school activities and
courses that provide children with (1) the
opportunity to learn without continual
social comparison norms, (2) chances to
control their own learning, (3) respect for
all participants, and (4) strong emotional
and social support.
Out-of-School Programs in
Middle Childhood
Middle childhood is an exciting time of
development. Typically, children begin this
period with great optimism and enthusiasm
for learning their place in their culture. It is
often a time of enjoyable and productive
relationships between children and adults,
because children have acquired skills and
knowledge that make them interesting companions to adults. In addition, in this culture
adults may see this period as the calm before
the storm of adolescence.24 Nonetheless,
problems with anxiety, low self-esteem, and
withdrawal in the face of challenges begin
to emerge during this period as children
respond to the new demands placed on
them by the complex social institutions
(school, programs, peer groups) to which
they must adjust.25 These problems can
affect the childrens lives for a very long
time.
Out-of-school programs can play a valuable role in buffering children against some
of these problems. Such programs have
more autonomy than the schools to design
settings that support skill acquisition without emphasizing differences in childrens
abilities and talents. These programs can
allow children to safely explore independence, peer relationships, and leadership.
They can provide opportunities for children
to form long-lasting relationships with
adults outside their families. Programs with
these characteristics will not only support
healthy, positive development during
middle childhood, they will also put in place
the kind of safety net needed to support
healthy, positive passage through early and
middle adolescence.
Early Adolescence
Few developmental periods are characterized by so many changes at so many different
levels as early adolescence, when children
face the biological transformations of
37
Developmental Changes in
Early Adolescence
A central task of adolescence is to develop a
sense of oneself as an autonomous individual. The drive for such autonomy derives
from the internal, biological processes marking the transition to a more adult role
(puberty and increasing cognitive maturity)
and from the shifts in social roles and expectations that accompany these underlying
physiological and cognitive changes. Compared to children under age 10, teenagers
are given new opportunities to experience
independence outside of the home. They
spend much more unsupervised time with
peers which (compared to adult-child relationships) are relatively equal in terms of
interpersonal power and authority.3,29 At the
same time, however, they continue to rely on
the support and guidance offered by adults
38
in the family, in school, and in communitybased programs or activities.
Puberty
The biological changes associated with the
transition of early adolescence are marked.
When the hormones controlling physical
development are activated in early puberty,
most children undergo a growth spurt,
develop primary and secondary sex characteristics, become fertile, and experience
increased sexual libido. Girls begin to experience these pubertal changes earlier than
boys (by approximately 18 months), so girls
and boys of the same chronological age are
likely to be at quite different points in physical and social development between the ages
and marry.33 Despite the intensity and universality of changes associated with puberty,
however, school activities and out-of-school
programs seldom focus explicitly on helping
adolescents adjust to their changing bodies
and relationships without losing sight of
their goals.
Changes in Cognition
The most important cognitive changes
during early adolescence relate to the increasing ability of children to think abstractly, consider the hypothetical as well as the real,
consider multiple dimensions of a problem at
the same time, and reflect on themselves and
on complicated problems.34,35 There is also a
steady increase in the sophistication of childrens information-processing and learning
skills, their knowledge of different subjects,
their ability to apply their knowledge to new
learning situations, and their awareness of
their own strengths and weaknesses as learners.36,37 These higher-order cognitive abilities
help adolescents regulate their learning and
behavior better to accomplish more complicated and elaborate tasks.
The same cognitive changes can also
affect childrens self-concepts, thoughts
about their future, and understanding of
others. During early adolescence, young
people focus more on understanding the
internal psychological characteristics of
others, and they increasingly base their
friendships on perceived compatibility in
such personal characteristics.14 The middlechildhood and early-adolescent years are
viewed by developmental psychologists as a
time of change in the way children view
themselves, as they consider what possibilities are available to them and try to come to
a deeper understanding of themselves and
others around them.5,38
39
PHOTO OMITTED
40
children to get in with a bad peer group,
rather than the peer group pulling a good
child into difficulties.15 The peer group acts
more to reinforce existing strengths and
weaknesses than to change adolescents
characteristics.
Family Support for Growing Autonomy
In thinking about how the family environment shapes early-adolescent development,
it is useful to recall that the key task confronting the adolescent is to develop a sense
of self as an autonomous individual. The
accelerating effort by youths to control their
own lives is accompanied by pressure on the
family to renegotiate the power balance
Conclusion
This article summarized the major developmental changes that take place from age 6
to age 14 and reviewed transformations in
childrens reasoning during middle childhood and in physical development during
puberty. It discussed the dramatic shifts in
childrens participation in the world
beyond the family. In addition, it examined
the key psychological challenges that mark
the middle-childhood years (self-awareness,
social comparison, and self-esteem) and
the early-adolescent years (a drive for
autonomy paired with a continuing need
for close, trusting relationships with
adults).
For most children this is an exciting time
of positive growth and development, but for
some (estimates range as high as 25% to
40%),27 it is a time of declining motivation,
mental health, and involvement with
41
schools and organized activity programs.
The fit between the individuals psychological needs and the opportunities provided by
the family, the school, and other programs
contributes significantly to an individual
childs response to the pressures of this
period. For example, if there is a mismatch
between the young persons desire for
autonomy and the amount of independence offered at school or in other program
settings, children and young adolescents are
likely to develop a more negative view of
these contexts and of themselves as participants. Similarly, if these settings produce
stressful or superficial social relationships
between youths and adults, children and
young adolescents will not look to the adults
in these settings as a source of emotional
support and guidance.
There are clear implications of these
findings for out-of-school programs. First,
such programs provide a major nonfamilial
42
children and early adolescents a chance to
discuss the issues that concern them while
allowing significant adults to learn about
their lives. Opportunities to engage in com-
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