SLK Ch 5 Middle childhood

• Sexuality in Middle Childhood


  Sigmund Freud believed that middle childhood is a period of sexual latency, where children show no or little interest in sexuality. However, today we know that children and their sexual development continue uninterrupted throughout childhood.
• The latency theory was based on the fact that children in middle childhood tend to be more 'under cover' concerning their sexuality in order to meet social expectations, therefore their sexuality is less observable.
• To meet social expectations


  Children choose the same-sex individuals as peers. If they don't do this, it may give the wrong impression that the development of their sexuality has stopped.
• By the end of middle childhood


  • Children usually have a firm and established sense of gender identity and gender constancy
  • They also understand the concept of gender consistency
  • They recognise that gender does not change simply because gender-typed behaviour may change
• At the end of middle childhood

  1. Children start to seek to cement their self-concept as male or female

  2. They also lean towards gender-typed clothing and activities to define themselves
• Many children will also become aware of the issues related to sexual orientation


  They learn that some people are attracted to the opposite sex and others are attracted to the same sex. This learning can happen through many ways: input from parents, media, observing same-sex couples, counselling regarding HIV/AIDS.
• Some children in this age (especially boys) turn to masturbation for pleasure


  This behaviour is not a cause for concern as it is often self-soothing behaviour, especially in emotionally taxing situations such as parental discord and divorce.
• Sex play is not as noticeable in younger children as these acts are more overt, but this does not mean that sex play is not present in middle childhood.
• Children in this age usually conceal these types of sexual activities from adults, hence it is not that noticeable.
• Sex-play in this age group


  Serves much the same function as it did at an earlier age - curiosity and exploration. During early childhood such play does not involve sexual acts.
• Occurrences of sex-play between same-sex and opposite-sex peers is common.
• If a child is involved in some form of sex play with a same-sex child


  It is not necessarily an indication of sexual orientation, as it is mostly rooted more in curiosity than in sexual attraction.
• On the other hand, if there are signs of coercive behaviour and if a child is uncomfortable about sexual behaviour perpetrated by a friend

  It should be investigated as it's a sign of sexual bullying.
• Many children are also in the phase of understanding "how babies are made".
• It is of utmost importance that parents start the sexuality education of their children as early as possible


  In this way, children can obtain the correct information within the parents' value system.
• Some parents are embarrassed by the topic and argue that they will wait until children start asking certain questions, but waiting for the right moment may not be the best thing to do (might be too late).
• This is because some children in this age range, especially girls, start showing signs of puberty.
• Possible problematic sexual behaviours

  • Behaviour that is beyond the child's developmental stage
  • Frequently occurring behaviour
  • Behaviour involving threats, pressure, force, coercion or aggression
  • Behaviour that occurs between children of widely different ages, or cognitive or developmental abilities
  • Behaviour that the child does not stop when redirected by the adult
  • Behaviour that causes strong emotional responses in the child like anger or anxiety
  • Behaviour that causes changes in the child's typical behaviours, interests or activities
  • Behaviour that involves inappropriate or unsafe use of sexual body parts
• Concrete Operational Stage


  During early primary school years, the child enters this stage which signifies that children start using mental operations to solve problems and to reason.
• Mental operations


  Strategies and rules that make thinking more systematic and more powerful.
• Types of mental operations

  • Operations applying to numbers such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
  • Operations applying to categories of objects such as organising objects according to shapes, size
  • Operations applying to spatial relations among objects such as map reading or finding one's way around an unfamiliar environment
• Reversibility


  The understanding that physical actions and mental operations may be reversed. Each operation has an inverse that may undo or reverse the effect of an operation.
• The ability to understand the hierarchies of classes also rests on this ability to move both ways in thinking about relationships.
• Horizontal décalage


  When you transfer what you have learnt about one type of conservation to another type, even though the underlying principle is the same.
• Preoperational children


  • They are egocentric, centred in thinking and confuse appearance with reality. These are the limitations that increasingly diminish during the concrete operational stage.
• Decentre


  Avoiding centring on one aspect only.
• Piaget maintained that the mastery of skills such as conservation depends on neurological maturation and adaptation to the environment and is not tied to cultural experiences.
• Cross-cultural studies support progression from the rigid, illogical thinking of younger children to flexible, logical thinking of older children.
• Piaget's research was mostly done on Swiss children, which begs the question whether it works the same for African children.
• Findings indicate that children in Africa or anywhere else in the world go through the Piagetian tasks in the same sequence (at later stages).
• Factors that play a role in attaining the information

  • Schooling
  • Familiarity with materials being manipulated
  • Education level of the parents
  • The way that the children were reared
• Western children are reared and educated to interact with parents and teachers, which contributes to their better performance in Piagetian cognitive tasks.
• Muthivhi challenges the notion of 'cognitive lag'


  Children's performance on cognitive tasks is connected to the social and cultural context in which they participate. The context for children growing in rural settings is multifaceted and multi-layered, encapsulating schooling and development in traditional and changing contexts.
• Due to this, their explanations may be concrete, functional and mostly linked to everyday activities. Asking children to group things according to specific concepts may sometimes be difficult as many languages don't have generic terms of items.
• Academic achievement


  The performance outcomes that indicate the extent to which a person has accomplished specific goals required by activities in instructional environments such as schools, universities, etc.
• Cognitive goals


  Skills such as critical thinking across multiple subject areas as well as the acquisition of knowledge and understanding of a specific intellectual domain or subject matter.
• In South Africa, students enter school when they turn 7, and their primary school years are filled with tremendous influence on all spheres of development.
• School readiness


  The developmental level a child has reached to meet the demands of formal schooling. The primary purpose of assessing school readiness is to predict the readiness for school entry and to identify preschool children who may benefit from additional stimulation programmes, learning support and retention.
• Dimensions of school readiness

  • Physical level (gross and fine motor functioning)
  • Cognitive level (general knowledge, observation, attention span, memory, fantasising and visualising, basic understanding of time, colour, numbers, letters and adequate language development)
  • Emotional level (ability to appropriately express and control emotions, understand own and others' emotions, take responsibility for actions, be confident and adapt to situations)
  • Social level (ability to interact with others and environment, act in socially acceptable way, follow rules and classroom procedures)
  • Normative level (ability to reflect and display good manners and respect, adhere to classroom procedures, sense of responsibility to accept and complete tasks in time)
• Ready schools


  Schools that supply quality teaching (sufficient time devoted to learning, adequate supply of learning materials, effective teaching and pedagogic practices, teacher's competence), bridge the divide between home and school norms, and are centered on the child and focus on characteristics that are most beneficial for children's holistic development.