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Essay / Analysis of different important events in a child's development
The five stages of early childhood development include language expansion, play (social skills), self-identity, gender identity and locomotion. Language development begins with informal and formal education where the child imitates his parents and teachers (those around him). Learning the alphabet and simple words are precious keys that open up the world of communication. As he has already passed the id stage, guided by his instinct and his crying, the child acquires skills in grammar and vocabulary. Play is becoming increasingly crucial for a child to feel at home and bond with peers and family; Additionally, “the playground gives children the freedom to be physically active, but the playground can also be an outdoor learning laboratory with many exciting and stimulating activities” (Alexander 2008). It is these challenges that exercise and push the mind to think about strategies and problem-solving skills. Through play, game development improves a child's ability to think, learn the rules, set goals, and design tactics to win. The playground becomes a field of education where frequent interactions educate him. “Children use their fine and gross motor skills in their play. They react to each other socially. They think about what they are doing or going to do. They use language to speak to each other or to each other and very often react emotionally to the play activity. The integration of these different types of behaviors is essential to the cognitive development of young children” (Fox 2008). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Identity is not only knowing one's name, but also one's race, family, nature, and reality. In early childhood, the child learns from his parents who he is. Gender identity is linked to self-identity. “By age 2, children can usually accurately identify others as male or female, based on their appearance” (Hutchinson 2008). The child understands that gender is based on genitalia, where “genital constancy is associated with an understanding of the relationship between gender and genitalia” (Hutchinson 2008). At this stage, the child is usually aware of their phallus and can distinguish a girl from a boy, based on genitals and physical characteristics. Gender preferences also begin to be shaped in the psyche with regard to clothing, toys, and games, where "existing cultural gender norms are ubiquitously embedded in adults' interactions with young children and in the reward systems that shape behavior” (Hutchinson 2008). Regarding racial identity, “children first learn their own racial identity before they are able to identify the race of others…however identification is limited to skin color” (Hutchinson 2008) . Locomotion is a continuous course of action in which the baby has to be transported, being totally dependent on the adult for transportation from one place to another. Dependence on the parent or guardian for locomotion lasts on average a year, until it learns to move on the ground and crawl on all fours. Children “not only need to develop balance control in a dynamic situation; they must also produce the successive phases of imbalance and balance recovery necessary for walking