Middle Childhood &

Adolescence
Middle Childhood- 6 to 11 years
• Over the next few years, children add about 2 to 3 inches in height and 5 pounds in weight each year (see
Figure 9.1). Between ages 6 and 8, girls are slightly shorter and lighter than boys.
• By age 9, this trend reverses as girls approach the dramatic adolescent growth spurt, which occurs two years
earlier in girls than in boys.

• Fast growing lower body – legs

• During middle childhood, the bones of the body lengthen and broaden.
• But ligaments weakly attached to bones.
• Nighttime “growing pains”—stiffness and aches in the legs—are common as muscles adapt to an enlarging
skeleton (Evans, 2008).
• Between ages 6 and 12, all 20 primary teeth are lost and replaced by permanent ones, with girls losing their
teeth slightly earlier than boys. For a while, the permanent teeth seem much too large. Gradually, growth of
facial bones, especially the jaw and chin, causes the child’s face to lengthen and mouth to widen,
accommodating the newly erupting teeth.
Concerns
• Overweight and Obesity (A BMI above the 85th percentile for a child’s age and sex is considered overweight,
• a BMI above the 95th percentile obese.)
• Myopia: The most common vision problem in middle childhood is myopia,or nearsightedness. By the end of
the school years, it affects nearly 25 percent of children.
• middle‐ear infections, common in infancy and early childhood, become less frequent.
• Asthma:- Most common chronic illness of this phase
Gross Motor Skills- Well
accentuated capacities

• More pliable &

Flexibility • Elastic movements

• Navigate space & directions better

Balance • More athletic skills

• Quicker movements
Agility • Nimble on the foot

• Muscular & skeletal strength

Force • Hit and kick harder
Fine-motor skills- more fine-tuned
• Better writing skills
• Better drawing skills
Play- Games with rules
• Name the games with rules which children in this phase often play.
• Why rules become important?
Games with rules- Only physical
development??
Fine-motor Gross Motor
Play-Recess importance?

• Why is recess important?

• Do you have memories of recess
in your middle school days?
• How did your recess period
impact you?
Cognitive Development

• Piaget’s phase of Concrete Operational skills

• Conservation skills: decentration, focusing on several aspects of a
problem and relating them, rather than centering on just one. the
capacity to think through a series of steps and then mentally reverse
direction, returning to the starting point
• Classification Skills: Better seriation skills
• Seriation- arranging objects in a sequence
• Transitive inference- arranging concepts in an order mentally (mental
math)
• Spatial Reasoning: Use more direction cues (and not just landmarks).
• Better Information Processing- attention, working memory, executive
functioning skills, memory storage strategies.
• Better metacognition – why
• Cognitive self regulation in progress: still learning to monitor
progress of goal acquisition
Cultural differences in Spatial Reasoning
Culture influence in memory of scholastic
tasks Additional assignment topic: Write a short review of
movie /book that talks about how deprivation
impacts childhood, impact of school life/parenting
Cultural influences in conservation skills

• Some cultures promote conservation

skills at an earlier age.
• Some cultures have later acquisition of
conservation skills.
• Schooling quality also has a role to
play.
• Engaging everyday activities are
helpful.
A note about Intelligence
Social Emotional Development
• According to Erickson, industry versus
inferiority, which is resolved positively
when children develop a sense of
competence at useful skills and tasks.
• Self-concept: Real Self Vs Ideal Self
(Reading self from feedback of others)
• Self Esteem: More multidimensional and
competency oriented.
Theory of mind
Metacognition- awareness of thought
Beginning pf understanding others’
perspectives- empathy development
A False Belief Task-
Emotional Development – influence of social
comparisons
• Self‐Conscious Emotions In middle childhood, the self‐conscious emotions of pride and guilt become clearly
governed by personal responsibility.
• Children experience pride in a new accomplishment and guilt over a transgression, even when no adult is
present (Harter & Whitesell, 1989).
• Now report guilt for intentional wrongdoing, such as ignoring responsibilities, cheating, or lying (Ferguson,
• Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991).
• Pride motivates children to take on further challenges, whereas guilt prompts them to make amends and to
strive for self‐improvement.
• Excessive guilt-depressive symptoms connection.

• “Everyone else can, why can’t you?”

Better Emotional Regulation
• Stress appraisal begin
• Stress management strategies outlined and adopted
• Problem focussed coping vs Emotion focussed coping
• Problem focussed coping: analyze and utilize support system and
resources available in a logical way – when outcome can be in control
• Emotion focussed coping: Used not much can be done about outcome
but still to get relief from the situation
Role of Peer Acceptance (Bullying vs
friendships)
• Peer acceptance refers to likability—the extent to which a child is viewed by a group of agemates, such as
classmates, as a worthy social partner. Unlike friendship, likability is not a mutual relationship but a one‐
sided perspective, involving the group’s view of an individual.
• Children’s self‐reports yield four general categories of peer acceptance:
• ● Popular children, who get many positive votes (are wellliked)
• ● Rejected children, who get many negative votes (are disliked)
• ● Controversial children, who get a large number of positive
• and negative votes (are both liked and disliked)
• ● Neglected children, who are seldom mentioned, either
• positively or negatively

• The Invisible Child

 • G Stanley Hall
Period of Storm and
Adolescence
Biological perspective

Stress

– Physical
growth • Margaret Mead
– Cultural
influence- Not
Social Perspective
that stormy as
believed to be
– FUN &
HAPPY
TIME!
Adolescence- span

Early adolescence (11–12 to 14 years): This is a period of

rapid pubertal change.
2. Middle adolescence (14 to 16 years): Pubertal changes are
now nearly complete.
3. Late adolescence (16 to 18 years): The young person
achieves full adult appearance and anticipates assumption
of adult roles.
Role of hormones- Androgen and Estrogen
• Responsible for puberty
• Androgen- testosterone-released by testes – muscle growth, body and facial hair, and
other male sex characteristics.
• Androgens (especially testosterone for boys) exert a GH‑enhancing effect, contributing greatly to gains in
body size. Because the testes secrete small amounts of estrogen as well, 50 percent of boys experience
temporary breast enlargement.
• Estrogen: In both sexes, estrogens also increase GH secretion, adding to the growth spurt and, in combination
with androgens, stimulating gains in bone density, which continue into early adulthood (Cooper, Sayer, &
Dennison, 2006; Styne, 2003).
• Estrogens released by girls’ ovaries cause the breasts, uterus, and vagina to mature, the body to take on
feminine proportions, and fat to accumulate. Estrogens also contribute to regulation of the menstrual cycle.
• Adrenal androgens, released from the adrenal glands on top of each kidney, influence girls’ height spurt and
stimulate growth of underarm and pubic hair. They have little impact on boys, whose physical characteristics
are influenced mainly by androgen and estrogen secretions from the testes
Pubertal changes
Body Growth
• Altogether, adolescents add 10 to 11 inches in height and 50 to 75
pounds—nearly 50 percent of adult body weight.
• Growth spurt: Rapid increase in body size-height and weight. For girls it
starts at 10 years and finishes by 16 years of age. For boys it starts later –
at 12 years of age and is complete by 17.5 years of age.
Body proportions
• Cephalocaudal trend reverses: The hands, legs, and feet accelerate first,
followed by the torso, which accounts for most of the adolescent height
gain. This pattern helps explain why early adolescents often appear
awkward and out of proportion—long-legged, with giant feet and hands.
• Boys’ shoulders broaden relative to the hips, whereas girls’ hips broaden
relative to the shoulders and waist. Of course, boys also end up larger
than girls, and their legs are longer in relation to the rest of the body—
mainly because boys have two extra years of preadolescent growth,
when the legs are growing the fastest.
Body fat, Skeletal and Musclular strength, Gross
motor skills

More fat accumulation in girls’ bodies than in boys’.

Cardiovascular strength relatively better in boys than

in girls as heart muscles grow stronger for the former.
Sexual Maturation

Primary sexual characteristics in Secondary Sexual

girls and boys Characteristics

External- not linked with reproduction but

Internal- linked with reproduction
signal sexual maturity

Production of reproductive organs-

ovaries, uterus, Breasts, pubic hair, Adam’s apple, facial
and vagina in females; penis, scrotum, hair, facial acne, etc
and testes in males
Tanner’s stages of Puberty- child development expert who
studied what happens to a child just before and during
puberty
Tanner’s stages for males
Individual & Collective Differences in
Puberty
• Individual differences in puberty
• Generational effect on puberty- earlier onset of menarche- pressure to act older.
• Brain development: prefrontal cortex still in progress while the emotional networks of the
brain quite active.
• Threats to emotional health accelerate puberty, whereas threats to physical health delay it.
• Disturbed arousal states: sleep awake cycle due to hectic schedule and over relaxed weekends.
• Gender Dysphoria- dissatisfaction with gender due to secondary sexual characteristics.- Peer acceptance- Bullying
(victimization)
• Nutritional deficiencies- iron deficiency in girls during menstruation leading to reduced stamina, disturbed metabolism due to
vitamin B ad calcium deficiency- improper family meals- eating disorders- bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.
• Gender Differences in social support and education- girls get more support and education about menarche than boys would get
about spermache or pubertal changes associated with adolescence.
• Lack of support in boys (and also sometimes in case of girls) lead to engagement in risky behaviour- drugs, unsafe sex,
pregnancies,smoking, etc.
• Moodiness
 Cognitive Development in Adolescence- Formal Operations Stage as per Piaget’s theory – Logical thinking

• Capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. They test a hypothesis by logically

analyzing individual and collective effect of all variables.

Height from which object is

released
Weight of
the object
Force with which
object is pushed
Length of
the string
Cognitive Development in Adolescence- Formal Operations Stage
as per Piaget’s theory – abstract thinking

• Capable of Propositional Thought: propositional thought—adolescents’ ability to

evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-
world circumstances. In contrast, children can evaluate the logic of statements
only by considering them against concrete evidence in the real world.
• Can answer what if questions better in this stage.
• Capable of complex abstract reasoning in geometry, alegebra, physics- based on
propositions/laws.
• Capable of verbal reasoning- language development plays a role!
Other cognitive skills during adolescence
• Better attention- more selective, focussed & adaptive.
• Knowledge increases thereby improving use of problem solving
strategies.
• Better Memory Strategies for recall, retrieval and rehearsal of
information- mnemonics, mind map, etc.
• Metacognition is better- awareness of thought- better insight
• Better cognitive self regulation- develop better ways of goal setting
and evaluation.
 • New form of
egocentrism appears
which makes it difficult
Cognitive for them to understand
other people’s
development perspectives.
• Inflated Self
in adolescents Consciousness:
Imaginary audience (all
eyes on me)& personal
fable (I am the centre of
attraction).
Check out the Worry Tree
(CBT based) Activity

Effectiveness of
CBT (cognitive
behavioural
therapy) for
social-emotional
problems in teens
Social-Emotional Development in adolescence
– Erickson- Identity Vs Role Confusion

John Marcia, 1980

Social-Emotional Development in
Adolescence
• Identity status and psychological wellbeing
• Resilience- Risk Vs Protective factors
• Family Relations
• Peer Relations
• Friendships
• Dating/crushes/first love
• Self Harm- suicide
What are the different causes of teen suicide in India- additional assignment topic