Question

Social Work with Children and Family

Children and Adolescents 1: Counseling Children and Adolescents

Please provide a 5-page paper by answering the following questions. One page per question.

1. Discuss the preoperational stage in Piaget’s Theory: Discuss the challenges and opportunities children have during this stage.
2. Erik Erickson’s stages of development centers around a series of psychological crisis. Please list these stages and briefly discuss each stage has on childhood development.
3. Adolescence is referred to as the time of storm and stress because this stage of life is often emotionally turbulent for many individuals.

Answer 1

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational stage is the second stage. This stage starts near the age of two and continues till age seven. During this period, children’s thinking

is before operations, which means the child cannot use logic in their way of thinking. The child's development comprises gaining experiences in the world by accepting and working towards that stage when they can use logic in their thinking. At the end of this stage, a child gains the capacity to mentally represent events and things and perform symbolic play.

Here are some of the main features of this stage:

Centration

Centration refers to the inclination to aim at only one part of a situation at one time. However, when a child has the ability to focus one more than one, they gain the ability to decenter.

Egocentrism

In this period, a child’s thinking is mostly egocentric, which means they keep it to themselves. This quality stops them from viewing any situation from someone else’s point of view.

Play

At the initial part of this stage, children will perform parallel play. This means that most of the time they play in a similar room as other children but they don’t play with others. next to others.

Some of the challenges that children face in this stage are:

In the preoperational stage, children mostly use symbols to mean words, images, and even ideas, that is why they act as if they are playing.

Children gain the skills to use language in this stage, however they fail to understand adult logic. So, children at this stage are considered pre-operational. Their logic is based on the knowledge that they have about the world so far.

Egocentrism in this stage refers to the likeliness of children not to understand the views and opinions of someone else and instead the child has the perception that everyone views and opinions are just like them.

An egocentric child is not able to understand the perspective of other people and instead puts his own reasoning to situations.

Classification Errors:

Children in this age face difficulty to understand that an object can be classified in more than one way.

Erik Erickson’s stages of development centers around a series of psychological crisis are:

Trust vs. Mistrust

In this age, children must be taught to trust adults. This happens when adults fulfil a child’s basic survival needs. Thus, caregivers and parents need to help their baby to develop a sense of trust. If you don’t meet the baby’s needs, they might feel anxiety, fear, and mistrust.

Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt

Children learn that they can have control over their actions.

Initiative vs. Guilt

In the age from 3 to 6 years, they can initiate activities and have control over their world through various communications and play.

Industry vs. Inferiority

During the ages 6–12, children start to compare themselves with their friends to see how they measure up.

Identity vs. Role Confusion

In adolescence, children face developing a sense of self. Adolescents face questions like “Who am I?” and “What do I want to do with my life?”

Intimacy vs. Isolation

People in early adulthood developed a sense of self in adolescence. They feel they are ready to share their lives with others.  

Generativity vs. Stagnation

In the 40s, people involve searching their life’s work and help to the development of other people by performing tasks like mentoring and volunteering.

Integrity vs. Despair

People in late adulthood look at their lives and feel either satisfied or failure.

Adolescence is referred to as the time of storm and stress because this stage of life is often emotionally turbulent for many individuals.

The period of adolescence is referred to as a time of “storm and stress”. Children often face a lot of emotional and physical turmoil during this period. The rates of suicide and accidental death during this time of life is just increasing. Although, there are some children who emerge from adolescence with less turmoil.

There are many environmental factors such as stress and early adversity on the brain and behaviour that causes impact adolescents. Sometimes children even face anxiety and depression.  

Physical maturation of the brain and body, a rise of intense psychological and physical change are some of the characteristics of adolescents. One main type of psychological change that happens during adolescents is an intensification of emotional experiences.