1

Theories of Child Development

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course

Instructor

Due Date
 2

Freud’s Psychosocial Stages: Oral Stage (McLeod, 2019)

At the playground, there are a couple of toddlers with varying ages playing various

games. The mother to the youngest toddler sits at a vantage point to observe the child and others

as they play. As the games continue, one of the kids (around 1-year-old) away from the play

group and crawls towards a collection of play toys which include fruit-like plastics and other

items. One the girls aged around 8 tries to stop him and asks him to stay around. The boy

responds with loud cry-the mother asks the girl to let him go. As he reaches the items, he picks

one that looks like a guitar and hits it several times on the ground as he enjoys the games that

others play. He puts the tip of the guitar in his mouth and tries to chew it. It seems hard for him-

he then drops it and goes for another orange like toy. He picks the orange and attempts to bite it.

He finds that also too hard to bite. He continues moving around picking various play items and in

every step, he wants to try to eat them. The mother is keen to ensure that even as he picks items

and tries to eat them up, he does not injure himself or ingest foreign materials.

Erickson’s Psychosocial Stages: Trust and Mistrust (Orenstein & Lewis, 2020)

The boy stops playing and faster crawls towards the mother making sounds of happiness.

The mother kneels down and holds him with the arms and carries him up above her head. The

babe seems to enjoy since he responds by laughing loud. The mother then puts him down to let

him go alone. However, he cries and the mother quickly realizes that he needs to breastfeed. The

mother then sits down still and the babe crawls up and sits on her thighs, she utters, ‘I know you

need milk’. The mother curdles him and breastfeeds him. After the child is satisfied, the mother

says, ‘I know you’re now satisfied’…’you go play with others’. The child crawls over to join the

rest of the children in their play. After a little while of a play, one of the girls try to hold the child
 3

up above the shoulders. However, in a disagreement, the child cries with fear of falling. The

mother asks the girl to stop, and as soon as the girl stops doing so, the child stops crying.

Plaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development: Pre-operational stage (Bashrin, 2015)

As the games continue, two children are seen running after each other with toy guns. One

child is seen escaping and hiding at a corner of the playground. He says, ‘you can’t shoot me,

I’m hiding’. The other one says, ‘I want to shoot you and arrest you’. The game continues as the

children make sounds resembling that of gunfire exchange. They play hide and seek until one

child (posing as police) ‘bursts’ the other. He ‘shoots’ at the children who then makes a false cry

sound and then he falls on the ground and sleeps on his face, uttering faintly, ‘I’m dying’. The

other child, on seeing the fellow, ‘dying’ feels compassion for him, goes ahead to ask for help

from other children playing at the other side of the playground. A girl comes over with a box, in

pretense of a first aid box and pretends to treat the ‘dead’ child. The ‘police’ boy then comes

along with a cloth tied on two woods, looking like a stretcher. He asks the girl to help her carry

the ‘dead’. Immediately, the ‘dead’ child ‘resurrects’ and laughs loudly saying, ‘pranked!’. All

laugh together and the face of the ‘police’ boy seems relieved.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory: ‘Scaffolding’ (Daneshfar, & Moharami, 2018)

After a commercial break, the two boys visit the toys center, where there are many

disassembled pieces of toys. The eldest kid, around 7 years, tells the younger one, about 5 years

that they should go to town in their vehicles. However, with a face of disagreement, the younger

one says, his car is wrecked. The elder boy selected pieces of the damaged toy and asks the you

to ‘now fix the car’. The younger boy starts with fixed the wheels, and the rest of the body parts
 4

before he utters, ‘wow, my car is now working!’. They push their toys towards the other side of

the playground.

LEARNING THEORY:

Operant Conditioning (Bąbel, 2020)

As the boys continue pushing their toys, one of the elder boys comes and snatches the 7-

year-old boy’s toy. They then begin to quarrel over the today and the elder boy pushes the

younger and the younger one gets some bruises. The mother on seeing the incident runs to help.

She seeks to solve the dispute and realizes it’s the eldest boy who wronged the younger one. She

moves forward to ask the elder boy apologize and go open for the dogs as a punishment.
 5

References

Bąbel, P. (2020). Operant conditioning as a new mechanism of placebo effects. European

Journal of Pain, 24(5), 902-908.

Bashrin, S. D. (2015). Piaget’s pre-operational stage in children: a comparative study (Doctoral

dissertation, BRAC University).

Daneshfar, S., & Moharami, M. (2018). Dynamic assessment in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory:

Origins and main concepts. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 9(3), 600-607.

McLeod, S. A. (2019, July 18).  Psychosexual stages. Simply Psychology.

www.simplypsychology.org/psychosexual.html

Orenstein, G. A., & Lewis, L. (2020). Eriksons stages of psychosocial development. StatPearls

[Internet].