My little one’s imagination while playing made me to pen this blog. I was wondering how their world is different from adults. He does monoact, symbolic play (using Comb as Sword, sofa as helicopter, plate as captain America shield, tea coaster as dosa, donuts etc.,) Henceforth it’s obvious children observes the world around them and nurture their intelligence in the given atmosphere. I realised what they Sense,Observe, Feel, Hear makes them grow beyond. This is the beauty of Nature imbibed in everyone is just towards higher possibility.
And a theory called Cognitive Development theory of Jean Piaget completely talks about it. And he says the Children intellectual Development moves through 4 different phases. And all of us experienced these 4 stages in our life, but we do not remember the days of the past..but what we learnt deep within us. Let’s see the 4 stages and how to nurture these phases in our children intellectual development.
- Sensorimotor Stage
- Pre-operational Stage
- Concrete Operational Stage
- Formal Operational Stage
Sensorimotor Stage lasts from Birth to approximately age 2. It is through Senses and Motor abilities the infants gain a basic understanding of the world around them. The 5 Senses helps them to learn things around them where they quickly give response to the stimuli.
- Sight: when they expose to unfamiliar place, person or object they learnt to give response like smile, Surprise, Fear, Sad, frowning etc., That’s why they wonder about peekaboo game.
- Hearing the voice of a person or sounds of an object they immediately respond by turning head towards the sound. Fr eg., they learn that rattle will make a sound when it is shaken.
- Smell: child learns to show comfort and Discomfort for certain odour of a person, object etc.,
- Taste: learning through taste makes them to express new facial reactions when they taste something different.
- Touch: plays a vital role where they involve their motor skill abilities by Grabbing to take the toy improves the interaction that helps them to be aware of themselves and the world around. And also exhibit the reflexes (which is immediate response)
Sensorimotor Stage is a stage of enormous growth and change where the infants learnt to combine both mental and physical abilities.
The next intellectual development stage is Preoperational Stage where learning Language is the hallmark of this period. And this stage is from 2 to 7 where the Child continue learning by using Symbolic Play e.g. chair as a car and try to manipulate the symbols they perceive around them. And during this stage they don’t find logical reasoning. So when you say something playfully for example, “if you do this, the monster will come in the night”. And they believe it.
And I have observed this in my child that when he observes the Pooja room doors shut heavily on its own by the blow of wind, he went quickly assumed God closed the door and I observed he was telling to Lord Shiva that “you should not close the door making noise” And he felt so great to put things in order. This illustration is a typical example of not having any logical reasoning but still they learnt to differentiate what is good and not good.
But later the age of 4 to 7 Children begin to rely more on logic than just perception alone in this substage. Their ability to solve problems is more logical, but they may not be capable of explaining how they think or why they think that way.
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL period spans the time of middle childhood—it begins around age 7 and continues until approximately age 11—and is characterized by the development of logical thought. I remember, couple of decades ago I was playing with a 7yr old girl Poornima who was my neighbor. While playing to avoid insects bite, I told in a dramatic way to Poornima not to touch the plants in the night as God is residing there. After few minutes she came to me asking that “won’t the plants get hurt?” I was perplexed and asked her to explain. And she asked me “if God lives there on the plants and as God is Big and Plants are small in nature, it gives pain to the plants right? So doesn’t hurts the plants? I was astonished by the way she could think. So here in this stage Children could understand the logical connection but find strange to abstract ideas.
And also fairly good at the use of inductive logic reasoning where they understand through specific experience they understand the general principle. For example, noticing that every time you are around a cat, you have itchy eyes, a runny nose, and a swollen throat. You might then reason from that experience that you are allergic to cats. But kids of this stage have difficulty to involves using a general principle to determine the outcome of a specific event. For example, a child might learn that A=B, and B=C, but might still struggle to understand that A=C. Hence they find difficulty in understanding Mathematics. Science and mathematics often require this type of thinking about hypothetical situations and concepts where they gradually develop during the next phase of intellectual development.
The phase of Formal Operational begins at approximately age 12 and lasts into adulthood. This is the stage they develop skills such creative imagination, logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning.
During this phase, as a parent we have to nurture their creativity skills. Encouraging their independent learning, clarifying their doubts, understanding their trial and error learning skills would boost up their confidence.
- Children learn to develop systematic planning to solve the problems
- Teens become capable of thinking about abstract and hypothetical ideas
- Ponder “what-if” type situations and questions. Always curious to know the otherside of the concepts. For instance, they don’t like hidden statements.
- Ability to think about their thoughts as well as the ideas of others.
Henceforth, this is the period to encourage them. Discouraging comments would burry their curiosity to learn new things. Doubts are good at this stage when we allow them to explore their quest. Trial and Error learning will polish them gradually. Hypothetical intelligence would help them to reach the world beyond the limits.
🌿Nourish Them Soon!! Cherish the Boon!!🌿
