The early grade-school years are
very exciting yet challenging times for a child. As one writer puts it, “homework, friends,
budding rebellion, curiosity about bodies and gender differences -- these
developmental stages after preschool and before the teen years are
action-packed period of physical and emotional developments.” (Lee, para. 4)
Usually this starts at 5 to 11 years old. This is the time when a child adjusts on spending
more time in school, wanting more independence, becoming aware of his existence
and the world around him, and welcoming hurdles that will ultimately mold his
unique character as he enters adulthood. Generally, female
reaches their physical, cognitive, and social developmental milestones faster than
male. I prepared ten questions to
qualify my argument. To protect the children’s
true identity, I will hide the boy’s name to Arden (not his real name), as my
first case study in comparison with Chelsy, the girl’s name as my second case
study, both 7 years of age. Parents are
college graduates, working from private corporations, and are Catholics. Comparing them, here is what I got. First is Arden: He can ride a scooter with full balance, can
manage to run and walk without stumbling down.
He survived climbing Mt. Pulag in Benquet, Philippines just recently. This is rare for his age. Moreover, he can brush his teeth, take a
bath, and eat by himself quite well enough.
He takes pride of doing his assignments on time and taking orders to get
things done. He is good in Math and can
classify objects according to their shapes and sizes. It is in line with Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development: Concrete
operational (7-11 years), can think
logically about objects and events, achieves conservation of number (age 6),
mass (age 7), and weight (age 9), classifies objects according to several
features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. (Ahterton, 2011) He still
believes in magic although he can already identify whose telling the truth and
not. Arden is quite sociable compared
with other kids his age. His parents are
supportive in giving him more independence with his extra-curricular
activities. He can easily make new
acquaintances though cannot keep hold of them because they live miles away. He loves sports such as basketball and
skiing. His playtime is in the
afternoon. He feels he is accepted by
his peers though sometimes, he feels disappointed. In my opinion, this is because he does not
get things his way. He is more of a
controlling child so I could understand where he is coming from.
My
second subject is Chelsy (not a real name).
She is more of an independent child and makes herself proud by doing
things herself. She can join games in parallel with other kids without any
adult supervision and go to a remote school riding a school service. She is good in language and knows Mandarin
and English. She grew taller but almost
the same height as Arden. She respects
others’ opinions and sometimes acts like her mom. She is smart and very confident. She talks to strangers and answers questions
very coherently, however, sometimes makes mistakes in her sentence
structure. Her social and cognitive
skills, except for physical strength, are more evident compared with Arden.
While
watching them play and work, I can say that there is a very thin line between
boy’s and girl’s developmental stages. As
unique as they can be, each has their own strengths and weaknesses -- although
I can still spot that girl’s genes grow faster than boy’s. In addition, I think, nurture plays an
important role. Early interaction of
parents and/or caregivers to a child’s whims and expressions will be imitated
and carried out as they grow older. It
would depend, however, on a person’s gender, nationality, culture, and religion. Most countries treat women with equal
importance as men but in most Asian Countries, women are inferior. Nevertheless, whatever our nationality, education
and/or traditions are, it is still best to watch-out our responses.
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