Basic characteristics of psychological development of children aged 3-6
Huichang Chen
1.3-6 years old: the first turbulent period of life
There is a folk proverb in China: "Look at the old at the age of three, and look down at the young at the age of seven." This means that the temperament of a child at the age of three can predict his psychological and behavioral performance in his old age; And his behavior characteristics around the age of seven can predict his behavior characteristics in childhood (7 to 8 years old to 1 1 to 12 years old).
This folk proverb is very consistent with the principle of developmental psychology and is a law summed up by thousands of years' experience of our people. Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist who has the greatest influence in the field of psychology so far, divides children's personality development into five stages: (1) oral period, 0- 1 year, and breastfeeding and sucking bring the greatest satisfaction to children; (2) in the anal period, 2-3 years old, excretion brings the greatest happiness to children; (3) Sexual organ stage, 3-6 years old, is an exciting period. Sex organs are the main source of children's happiness and satisfaction. Boys have Oedipus complex and castration anxiety, so they try their best to imitate their fathers and pretend that they are fathers. Girls have Oedipus complex and penis jealousy, want to share their penis with "lovers" and begin to attract the attention of the opposite sex. (4) The incubation period is 7- 1 1 year, and the internal drive is devoted to school study and high-intensity games. (5) During the reproductive period, after 12 years old, the main activities are to establish friendship, seek career, courtship and get married.
Freud thought that 3-6 years old was a turbulent period, which was not unreasonable. As we all know, children will suddenly change a lot when they are 3 years old. Some children become very disobedient and stubborn, and some children suddenly become very unstable. Among children aged 3-4, the Oedipus complex of boys and girls is quite common. Before that, these features were not obvious, and after that, they gradually disappeared. Therefore, in the field of psychology, people call about 3 years old a critical period.
Why do these obvious changes happen around the age of 3? This is because the brain development of 3-year-old children is not fully mature, but it is quite good, the language is close to maturity, life experience has accumulated a lot, and cognitive ability has also made great progress. Especially around the age of 3, children can walk without the help of adults. If no one interferes with him, he can walk a long way. These developments have made children around 3 years old have self-awareness. They began to realize that "I" was different from others. I can do things by myself, control things, eat and take things independently, and have a basic judgment on things. For example, they know that the pot that has just come down from the stove is untouchable. It's dark at night. Just pull the switch and the light will come on. If they are thirsty, they can find something to drink in the refrigerator by themselves. If they are hungry, they will find out what they like to eat from the place where they keep food at home. Lying in bed at night, they will ask their mother to tell them a story before going to bed, and so on.
In short, the ability of 3-year-old children has become much greater than in the past. They will keep making demands on their parents. If these demands are not met, they will cry loudly. For example, in a toy store, they want to buy a favorite toy, and if their mother refuses to buy it, they will lie on the ground and roll regardless of their mother's face color.
3-year-old children are cuter than before, because they always say and do things that surprise adults. A little girl who has never been taught by anyone will sit quietly in front of her mother's dresser and put lipstick on her mouth; A little boy will pick up his father's electric razor and scribble on his face. When they see why his mother is sad, they will hold her tightly and want to comfort her.
The body of a 3-year-old child is changing and improving every day. Their knowledge and experience, ability to understand things, social skills, language and thinking are all improving.
After the critical period of 3 years old passed, the child's psychological development did not calm down immediately. You will find that other problems appear on them one after another. For example, their language develops rapidly, but their thinking develops slowly. They are always self-centered in doing things and thinking about problems; Compared with children aged 8-9, they are still naive and unreasonable; Sometimes I am willful, disobedient and want to do things by myself, but sometimes I rely on adults; They are enthusiastic about what they are interested in, but they are reluctant to do things that they are not interested in but have social significance; Their mood is still very unstable, and they will still cry and make a scene; Their relationship with their friends is still very unstable, and so on.
In short, until primary school, children's psychological development will have such and such problems. 3 ~ 6 years old, it is really a turbulent period.
2. Children's thinking and learning
2. 1 children's thinking
From 2 to 6 years old, the main task of children's intellectual development is to learn and master various symbols. For example, language is a symbol, and the symbol game is also a symbol (this big circle is my father and that small circle is me). I say my dream is still a symbol (there are all kinds of unrealistic fantasies in my dream).
However, children at this stage are still self-centered. For example, they can't tell the difference between words and what they mean, and they can't tell the games they create, fantasy symbols and reality. They think that names are inherent in things, and an object can only have one name. When they know that the barber shop is the place to cut his hair, he will ask, "What is the hair salon for?" ?
Children's egoism is mainly manifested in words and behaviors. For example, when a child tells another child how to use a VCD player, he will use some vague terms, such as "turn forward" and "stop backward". After he finished, another child won't use the VCD player because he left out the most important information. The reason is that at this time, the child is not good at seeing things from the standpoint of others, or he thinks that vocabulary contains more information than it actually does. He believes. So children at this stage can't clearly distinguish between symbols and what symbols represent.
By the age of 5 ~ 6, children's specific computing ability has begun to develop, and they have been able to calculate simple arithmetic and distinguish between symbols and things represented by symbols. For example, 6-year-old children already know that "household appliances" include not only televisions and refrigerators, but also all household appliances such as air conditioners, washing machines and electric fans. It is impossible for a 4-year-old child to know this clearly.
Children aged 5-6 have been able to consider two factors or two relationships at the same time when considering problems. For example, if the water in a tall and thin cup is poured into a short and thick cup, they know that the water has not decreased or increased, which means that they have been able to consider the height of the cup and the diameter of the cup mouth at the same time, and they know that these two elements are mutually compensated. Similarly, they also know that when a piece of dough is rolled into a large area of cake, the noodles in the dough do not increase; When winding a long rope into a ball, the rope does not decrease; When a little boy puts on a girl's clothes and combs her hair, he is still a boy, and so on.
Many parents are more concerned about the intellectual development of children aged 3-4 than their emotions, interests and attitudes. These parents don't understand that forcing a child to learn a special knowledge will make him feel disgusted with learning. This negative emotion is not good for his future study, and its negative effect is much greater than whether he has learned letters, numbers and arithmetic today.
Many adults think that children's thinking is similar to that of adults, but they are far from adults emotionally. This is a serious misunderstanding. The opposite is true. Children are very similar to adults in emotion, but far from adults in thinking.
Occasionally, children learn a dirty word from their peers, and parents conclude that children know the meaning of this dirty word, so they beat and scold them. In fact, the child said this sentence, he may not understand. We should take this opportunity to educate him, and we can tell him that some words are nice and some are annoying. What you said is very annoying. Some children swear just to test their parents' reaction. Once you find that your parents' reaction is unpleasant, you will stop talking in the future.
4-5-year-old children's language has developed quite well, and some children have even reached the point of eloquence, but in fact, their thinking development is still quite immature. You may find that children can recognize dozens of brands of cars and tell stories about kindergartens, but when you pour the water from a short cup into a tall and thin cup intact, children will say that there is too much water. If you spread out the five pieces of sugar together, he will say that there are more sugar than before.
2.2 learning in the game
Children's learning is often carried out in activities, which is different from ours. For an adult, the best time to study is often when sitting quietly and listening to lectures, such as listening to teachers or reading books by yourself. Children can't do mental activities or think in the same way. They can only learn by doing practical things, whether these activities are building blocks, playing with dolls or playing house.
For example, how do children learn to cook in kindergarten? The teacher taught them to peel peas, carrots and potatoes. In the process of doing these jobs, the children learned that potatoes to be fried must be peeled and how to peel them, and peas to be boiled must be peeled. Through observation, they learned how boiled water softens vegetables and cooks them, and how it hardens other foods, such as eggs and meat. They also know that the color and weight of food will change after cooking, and so on. Therefore, cooking is not only a process of processing natural food, but also provides opportunities for concept formation, language enrichment and mathematical practice.
Therefore, children are not passive learners, but active learners. Montessori, an Italian preschool educator, put it well, "Games are children's work". In the game, children carry out various practical activities and slowly internalize them into thinking activities. On the contrary, letting children sit quietly and study will not have a lasting effect on their growth. Only what children get by actively coping with the environment can be maintained for a long time.
2.3 Children are not suitable for learning rules.
Adults often mistakenly believe that children can learn according to the rules. Many parents have the experience of telling their children over and over again not to open toys, not to watch TV while eating, and to say "thank you" when accepting help from others, but the children are always disobedient. What happened?
It turns out that children's thinking has not been internalized, and it is difficult for them to internalize external rules into their own needs. Therefore, they may say "thank you" when they accept others' help today and forget it tomorrow.
Children cannot master the rules imposed by the outside world. For them, the best way to learn is through games, so it is not appropriate to give children formal education such as grammar and mathematics. Because reading, learning pinyin or learning mathematics are all based on mastering certain laws, which is not suitable for preschool children.
However, other learning activities may be suitable for young children, such as learning to write, knowing pinyin letters, and learning to type. These studies can lay a foundation for future rule learning.
2.4 Fast learning and mastery.
Some parents mistakenly believe that it is more important for children to accelerate their learning vertically than to achieve mastery horizontally. For example, when learning to count, they hope that their children can count quickly from 1 to 10000 and learn to read. They hope that their children can read books with many words as soon as possible. Why is this wish unrealistic? Because, if learning is not fun for children, children's enthusiasm for learning will not be high and their emotions will be hurt.
When you spend a lot of money to enroll your children in piano classes, calligraphy classes and dance classes, you should first consider whether your children are interested in learning these things. It is true that children can greatly improve their specialties through long-term efforts. However, if children don't like these things, they are forced to study. They are under great pressure to study, and may lose a lot of things, and their mood may be negatively affected. These, he paid too much.
The so-called horizontal mastery means that we don't ask children to make great progress in one or several specialized skills, but provide them with enough and varied materials to expand their knowledge and master all kinds of knowledge. For example, if you know a circle or a square, don't let him learn anything new in the future, but let him be familiar with all kinds of circles and squares he sees. Doing so will help to establish the concepts of circle and square in children's minds and prepare for learning more advanced geometry in the future.
Children can compare, classify and sort out all kinds of knowledge materials horizontally when learning them. For example, let them sort dogs, grass, tables, elephants, Chinese rose and cabinets according to their categories and sizes. If they do well, it shows that they are ready for future study, which may be better than those children who only learn to count and calculate.
Students who are busy reciting exams are similar to those who often read extracurricular books for regular study. There may not be much difference between the test scores of the two students, but the student who reads extracurricular books extensively and has a comprehensive knowledge may have an easier study in the future, because he is more fully prepared for the next study. Parents who try their best to teach their children a special skill and knowledge objectively seem to be memorizing a course. Therefore, this knowledge is likely to be short-lived for preschool children.
3. The main task of personality development in early childhood
As we have mentioned in the introduction, the intellectual development in early childhood can't predict whether children will be happy when they grow up, but the personality development of children can. It can be said that it is more important and effective to cultivate children's good personality characteristics from the age of 3 to 6 than to pay attention to children's intellectual development all day.
Then, the most important thing for preschool children's family education is not to let them master the knowledge of primary school preparation, such as counting, adding and subtracting within 5, memorizing multiplication formulas, knowing how many Chinese characters and so on. Nor is it like what most parents think now, to cultivate children to be disciplined, obedient and good, but to develop healthily in personality and sociality.
A famous psychologist believes that the main task of children aged 3-6 is to experience what kind of person they want to be in the future through game activities, and to cultivate a sense of purpose, autonomy and creativity. For example, when you tell a story to your child and teach him to learn a number or Chinese characters, and he hears you say that learning these things will be useful later, children with a sense of purpose will listen to you very curiously and carefully, and learn to master them seriously, while children without a sense of purpose will be more indifferent; For another example, the kindergarten teacher took out a warship model to explain in class, and the children's reactions were different. Children with a sense of purpose and direction will be very interested and pay attention to the teacher's explanation. After class, he may tell other children that I want to be a navy and sail a warship when I grow up, just like the one that the teacher took out in class just now. Children who lack a sense of direction may not be interested in warship models and have nothing to share with you. As parents, we should discover and grasp this sense of purpose and direction in children in time, and give them timely reinforcement and encouragement. This sense of purpose and direction is very important, because it is the basis of ambition, ambition and initiative. Teachers with many years of preschool education experience generally reflect that those children who later enter famous universities and become talents are often those who show this budding ambition in early childhood. They show higher initiative and creativity than others in kindergarten.