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Prevention Solutions - Pre-Teen
[ Page 1 of 8 | print friendly version ]An Overview of the Stages of Development in Children
How Poor Integration Can Lead to Troubled Teens
There has been much written about child development, particularly by Psychiatrist Eric Erickson. His writings and teachings have been used worldwide as models for learning about, and working with development, in children and adults. If you are up and running on the internet, you can go to your favorite search engine and find a large body of information by him on how we as humans develop across a life span. If not, check your local library.
It is wise for parents to understand how their children mature from a developmental perspective. Knowing how children develop and the challenges they face gives parents and caregivers a head start on how to deal with the growing problems that both parents and children face in today’s fast paced world.
This article will not attempt to write about all the stages of development that Erikson has already published. Rather, it will address some of the principles of the first four stages of child development. The reason for this is because when these stages have not been well integrated, children will unconsciously attempt to integrate them into a healthier ego functioning as they mature.
If this attempt at integration goes unnoticed or undeveloped, all aspects of their lives can be affected in an unpleasant manner. This failure to integrate also leaves children vulnerable to addictions, relationship problems, and other types of dysfunctional behaviour as they mature.
