Are childhood years the most important in one’s life?
“We become what
we learn and experience”. A lot of people will agree with this statement as what we learn and
experience through our life plays a great role in who we become and how we change our lifestyles and behaviors. However, from the
different stages of our lives, I believe what we learn and experience in the
childhood years has a great impact through our whole life as it prepares us to
the adulthood physically and emotionally. And for this reason I totally agree
that a person’s childhood years are the most important years of one’s life.
According to Erik Erikson (1950),
from the ages 0 to 6, a child develops the basic trust, autonomy or
independence and initiative. Hence, parents and teachers play a significant
role preparing the child through these aspects. The child learns and follows what they see around them
and how they are treated in certain things. Therefore, parents should give
utmost importance to give the child a safe and secure environment to meet their
basic physical needs as a child is fully dependent of the parents on this
stage.
In addition, if the parents
encourage their children to use their own imagination and reassure them when
they make mistakes and help them to know the right way of doing things, by doing
this, the child will grow up to be a confidence and independence persona, who
knows how to make his own choices and how to control future situations. And if
the child lacks the basic trust, independence and initiative, which he needs in
the childhood, he will develop mistrust, shame and guilt while growing up.
Thus, the child will feel ashamed and doubtful which will affect his behavior
and in his abilities too. Therefore, in order to build a confidence and
well-disciplined person, the children must grow in a happy environment which
encourages their development, ensures comfort, health and safety and provide
support with disciplined manners.
Providing such
environment for the
children is to help them to grow up to be a responsible and confidential person. Hence, we see people with
disturbed and troublesome personalities and the first thing we find to blame is
the childhood trauma they had to experience. This affects the person’s way of thinking and how
they behave in times of hardship and difficulties thrown into them through
life. How they deal with the problems they face in a daily life is certainly
different from the people who had experienced a healthy and supportive
childhood.
Moreover, in the
childhood age, the brain develops at a very high rate compared to other stages
of life. In this stage, the child learns appropriate behavior, boundaries,
empathy and other important social skills, that will remain with them for life.
Scholars say that the
first five years of a child are the
most important as this is when a child becomes what they are going to be.
According to Dr. Madeleine Port Wood
(2015), the children of today’s generation are missing out on these vital
skills and the main reason is that the technology is replacing human
interaction. Due to this, children face significant changes in language
development and social skills compared to the children who are more engaged
with human interactions. In addition,
researches show that
the language skills of children of school-starting age have been gradual declining and lessen over the past few years
and children are less well-engaged in the lessons and other activities. It also
shows that the children are becoming more hyperactive and have more behavioral
difficulties.
Thus, it is important to note that
the first five years of a child are crucial to the development of social,
cognitive and thinking skills, the child’s personality and behavior and their
ability to concentrate. Therefore, parents should give the children an
environment with more human interactions rather than a life reliance on
technology.
In accordance with Erik Erikson (1950),
after the first 5 years, at the age of 6 to 12, the child develops competence
and schools or any other educational institutes play an important role at this
stage. Children learn to do things on their own, how to use tools and obtain
different skills which makes them successful in certain fields at a very young
age. Such as, most children who find interest in gymnastic starts their career
at a very young age as of 3 years old and becomes successful in the profession.
As
children need a healthy and balanced diet, they need physical activities too. Nowadays children are actively engaged in
technology, spend most of their time sitting on the sofa or laying on the bed
with a tablet or watching TV. This is the biggest issue that leads weight gain
and different diseases which may last for adulthood as well. In addition, it
also effects child’s social, intellectual and physical development as well as
relationship between family members. As we give importance to our children’s
education and better conduct, in the meantime we must give that much importance
to their physical development by providing safe environment for physical
activities. For example, parents can take them to park, let them involve in
household activities, according to their age level and let them participate in extra-curricular activities held in
school too. In our society majority of parents are unaware of the importance of
physical development. They just believed that participating physical activities
or spending time on playing, lacks time to spend on learning or they may get
less marks. “The executive skills
children acquire on the playground may transfer to academic tasks and
real-world conditions that involve behavior inhibition, working memory, and
strategy”
(Trudeau and
Shepard, 2008) . Therefore, parents must be aware of this matter, the importance of
physical activities during childhood for better tomorrow.
“Children
with divorced parents continued to score significantly lower on measures of
academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and
social relations” (Amato and Keith
1991; Amato and Booth 1997 as quoted in
Amato 2001). Parental separation may ruin a child’s childhood and adulthood as
well. Hence, to shape a productive child, children needs so much love, care and
a safe environment from their parents as well as most importantly parents
togetherness.
Childhood is the Golden time of our
life which flies away without giving any sign and never comes back. However, we
all must be aware of the important realities about the childhood. Because, this
is the period a child is shaped as a different for the rest of his or her life.
Moreover, what the child will acquire and appreciate from his or her family,
teachers, peers as well as neighbors is what he or she will absorb in the
forthcoming. In recent years, researches have showed that the human brain
advances the immense popularity of its neurons, and children are most open to
learn between the first three years of age. In actuality, the opening of
firsthand evidence is acute to the development of self-motivated impartial trails
(Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). So, there is no doubt that the childhood years are the most
important in one’s life.
References
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