Stages of personality formation in preschool age
The formation of personality implies the development of cognitive processes and moral qualities, the formation of a worldview and self-awareness, the development of independence in activity and social activity. This is not a complete list of those features that characterize a person’s personality, but they are the main driving forces in the formation of a child’s personality.
The listed components are laid in preschool age. The active start can be considered 3 years of age, when the child’s self awakens. By the beginning of schooling, personality formation goes through two important stages that contribute to the development of basic age-related characteristics:
- Stage of becoming independent
- Stage of formation of personal initiative.
The first stage of a preschooler’s personal development is aimed at gradually reducing physical dependence on an adult and acquiring independence. The baby repeatedly announces to his parents and grandmothers his need to act on his own. “I myself” sounds in those activities that are interesting to the baby.
The child tries his best. Such an understandable action as folding toys does not interest the baby at all, since it is understandable and feasible. But pouring soup into a plate using a ladle or pinning a pin on a blouse is incredibly exciting!
The second stage involves a transition from the choice that an adult offers the child to the manifestation of one’s own initiative. This is a significant expansion of the boundaries of development. “I want to put together this construction set model,” “I will also water the flowers,” “You know what game I came up with...” - the initiative of older preschoolers extends to all types of activities.
At these stages of a preschooler’s personal development, numerous changes occur. Moral judgments and criteria are developed: what is possible, what is not, what is good and what is bad. Emotional and volitional qualities develop. But in the sphere of personality development, the main achievement of preschool age is independence and initiative.
Personal developments of preschool age
Let us consider in more detail what new formations are formed in the personal development of younger preschoolers, and then in older preschool age.
Changes are especially noticeable during critical age periods. There are two of them in preschool childhood: the 3-year-old crisis, which replaces early childhood with preschool, and the 7-year-old crisis, which precedes the school period.
While the preschooler asserts his own independence, another important new formation is formed in his personal field - will.
The child is persistent in order to be allowed to do a certain action on his own. Having received the consent of the elders, the child most often faces a new obstacle - the matter cannot be argued! The button doesn’t fit into the buttonhole, the bag doesn’t rise, the tower of cubes falls apart...
The difficult task ahead is not to give up, but to try again and again until it succeeds. Therefore, such new formations as independence and will appear at the same stage of personal development.
The emergence of personal initiative awakens the formation of such accompanying new formations as determination and purposefulness.
For many children, it is easier to show initiative than determination. This quality is cultivated if adults encourage the cognitive activity of a preschooler. The child became interested in how a sprout emerges from a seed and took the initiative to plant it next to a houseplant. But then you need to water regularly and wait patiently for the sprout to hatch.
In such situations, the preschooler more often needs support in order to keep the goal in the field of his attention and interest. The child needs the same support if actions are unsuccessful. Along with initiative, to support the child’s desire for goals , since this is a valuable personal quality.
Practical situations of humanistic choice.
Preschoolers are faced with a choice : respond to the problems of other children or prefer personal interests and show indifference?
For example, keep the drawing for yourself or include it in a general message to a sick peer; respond to a request for help or ignore it?
The behavior of children in situations of choice helps to better understand the characteristics of their social, moral and emotional development.
2. Practical situations of a problematic nature such as “What to do, what to do?” personality behavior education preschool
These are various difficult situations that we create in order to awaken children’s initiative, independence, intelligence, responsiveness, and willingness to look for the right solutions.
Situations: there are no paints of certain colors, there is not enough plasticine for modeling. Children independently look for solutions and solve problems together.
3. Practical situations “We are the oldest in kindergarten .”
Children learn to take care of children, they develop a sense of self-esteem, a kind attitude towards little ones, and an understanding of their problems.
You can organize the situations “We will delight the kids with gifts made by ourselves”, “We will prepare a concert for the kids”, “We will show a fairy tale”, “We will help make a snow slide”, “We will teach the kids how to dance in circles”.
4. The following situations are like “We are friends with schoolchildren.”
Senior preschoolers gain experience in collaborating with school students: “We are having a sports festival,” “Joint literary quiz in the library,” “We are waiting for our teachers.”
Participation in such situations deepens interest in school and relieves anxiety associated with upcoming schooling. At the same time, valuable experience of inter-age communication is formed, which is important not only for preschoolers, but also for students.
5. Children are very fascinated by situations like “Teach your friend what you can do yourself.”
We encourage children to show attention to each other, mutual assistance and cooperation. Children share their experiences, we help them enter the role of “teacher”, i.e. be patient, attentive and forgiving to the mistakes and difficulties of peers.
6. Children also participate in imitation games : changing emotional and physical states, imitating states of nature, etc.
I would like to emphasize that our constant assistant in the social and personal development of children is the family . Only in cooperation with close adults can high educational results be achieved.
Interaction with family is effective provided there is trust in each other, understanding and acceptance of common goals, methods and means of social and personal development.
It is necessary to instill in a child a love for those closest to him - his home and kindergarten. This is the basis of moral education, the first and important stage.
A child must first of all recognize himself as a member of the family, an integral part of his small homeland, then as a citizen of Russia, and only then as an inhabitant of planet Earth. We go from near to far.
Development of personal characteristics in communication
Communication with adults and peers creates favorable conditions for the development of the personality of preschool children.
Most of all, children are busy with role-playing games, which involve following the rules prescribed by the plot. Before starting the game, preschoolers assign roles and agree on what rules they will follow.
This teaches diplomacy in communication, develops initiative, but at the same time the ability to coordinate one’s opinion with the opinion of others. The preschooler gets used to taking into account the interests of his peer, and in general perceiving him as a person, and not a mechanical partner in play activities.
In addition to business, moral qualities are laid in communication with peers. The preschooler shows sympathy if another is in pain and seeks to justify a friend if he is threatened with punishment.
The adults with whom the preschooler interacts show him an example of evaluating everything that happens around him. They approve, condemn, simply express their attitude. A child, like a sponge, absorbs such statements and forms his own value guidelines. For example, the only child in the family, who has all the toys at his disposal, will ask permission from a peer to take his car or doll only if adults explain to him.
It is impossible to foresee all situations that are important to teach a child. Therefore, the more a child is included in communication, the more fully his experience and system of moral guidelines will accumulate.
The development of a preschooler’s personality in social terms occurs due to the formation of a system of value orientations and norms of behavior. Internal positions and attitudes are formed. An older preschooler is already guessing how other people will treat him if he does this or that, acts this way or that way.
The Negative Impact of Negative Evaluation
Communication is unthinkable without evaluation. And the statements of adults also help the child form ideas about his capabilities. “You can’t jump off this ladder yet, I’ll help you,” “You can’t take a car from a boy. You will offend him,” “You can’t say that, it’s a bad word.” Such statements include prohibitions and denials, but they indicate important limitations to the preschooler.
Unfortunately, adults use many other types of negative assessments that emphasize the child’s inability and shortcomings. They can be divided into two types:
- Negative assessment of what was done (badly folded the toys, drew them unsightly, spilled the soup again).
- A predictive statement of a negative nature (don’t take it, otherwise you’ll break it; you won’t be able to; you’ll fall again).
Negative assessments of any kind inhibit the activity of a preschooler, distort the child’s opinion about his capabilities, harm the formation of self-esteem and limit personal development.
Game as the main method of personality development of a preschooler
The development of a child is carried out in the course of his upbringing and the various activities that he performs. Among them the following main ones can be distinguished:
- Game activity.
- Household work. This includes a variety of household operations that can be performed by a child.
- Activities between an adult and a child. Teachers and parents organize special activities, exercises and tasks for children to complete, focused on their learning and development.
- Maintaining a daily routine. The child performs certain actions during the day that reflect routine moments: washing in the morning, brushing teeth, eating, sleeping.
Other methods for studying the level of development of young children
It is worth noting that the above-described method of assessing training is screening (quick, superficial). It allows you to examine a large number of children at once. If learning disabilities are identified, the patient needs a more in-depth examination and consultation with specialists such as a neurologist, psychologist, etc.
Along with this technique, in 2006 the World Health Organization proposed the use of the so-called “Windows of Achievement for 6 stages of motor development.” The disadvantage of this technique is that the level of speech formation, emotional and sensory formation of the baby is not taken into account and ignored. There are other methods that allow you to assess psychomotor education. One of the promising foreign methods is the Griffiths Mental Development Scale. Centile graphs, which are quite easy to use, have also become widely used for assessing learning.
What is early child development
Early development is the natural improvement of a child between the ages of 1 and 3 years. This term can be interpreted in another way. For example, when using this term, parents mean the child’s accelerated learning in relation to his peers. We will consider this concept from the point of view of pediatrics. In pediatrics, there is the concept of neuropsychic development, which includes the psychomotor and speech education of the baby. Complex names that are quite easy to understand. These terms are inextricably linked with the early formation of skills and psyche. Therefore, further consideration of the topic will be inextricably linked with these concepts.
Early development is the natural improvement of a child between the ages of 1 and 3 years.
The nervous system and its role in child development
The baby’s nervous system regulates the vital functions of the small organism, ensuring the coordinated functioning of the whole organism. Its main function is the integration and regulation of various processes in connection with changes in the internal and environmental conditions of the baby. The improvement of the nervous system is gradual. In pediatrics, there are different periods. Each of these periods is characterized by its own characteristics. There are certain criteria for the formation of a baby in each period, which make it possible to distinguish between normal and pathological conditions.
Child development delay
Early education of a child is gaining enormous popularity from the point of view of early development and acquisition of certain skills that are ahead of the age of a child prodigy. Parents try to impose early childhood education methods on their children, without thinking about the problems associated with advancing children's early education. But few people think about what number and what percentage are those children who are lagging behind in education.
Parents try to impose early childhood education methods on their children, without thinking about the problems associated with advancing children's early education.
If a child is behind in education by one epicrisis period, then this is considered a variant of the norm. A delay in education up to 2 epicrisis periods is regarded as developmental delay . If there is a delay of 2 to 3 epicrisis periods, this condition is regarded as a developmental delay. In more severe cases, a profound developmental delay , when the deviation is more than 3 epicrisis periods.
It is worth noting that the baby will not necessarily have deviations in all areas of education . At the same time, he may have a delay in speech formation against the background of normal motor learning. If a child has a severe pathology and has deviations in almost all areas of learning, then in this case the term “delayed neuropsychic development” . In the case of a combination of delayed neuropsychic development and delayed physical development, the diagnosis “delay of all types of development” is valid.
Psychomotor and speech development are one of the main indicators characterizing the baby’s health status. Despite the fact that each person is unique and inimitable in his own way, there are general criteria that characterize the level of education of a child. It is during early childhood that the final formation of individual brain structures, the formation of the auditory and visual analyzers, occurs. Therefore, it is during early childhood that the pediatrician intensively and carefully examines the level of the child’s neuropsychic education. It is worth noting that the cognitive development of a child in early childhood has enormous plasticity and is subject to pronounced influence from the environment. The main task of parents is to provide favorable conditions and create an atmosphere that will allow the child to develop according to his age abilities.
