Middle Childhood and Adolescence

Middle Childhood and Adolescence









Middle Childhood and Adolescence
PSY/280 Human Growth and Development

Middle Childhood and Adolescence
Middle Childhood is the period of life between ages six through 12 years when children attend school. The child is making friends outside the immediate family, master new physical, mental skills, and is becoming more individual. However, this opens the door for a new set of challenges, both for the child and the parent, and often can lead to stressful situations that can have a negative effect on the child’s development. During middle childhood, children grow at a slow consistent rate before reaching a large growth spurt during adolescence.
The average height increase is two to three inches a year. The average weight increase during middle childhood is five to seven pounds a year. Muscle mass increases as baby fat decreases, although the legs become longer, and the body trunk becomes slimmer. Strength gradually increases because of their heredity and exercise, doubling their strength, during these years. Because of a greater number of muscle cells boys are usually stronger than girls.
Children’s motor skills become smoother and more coordinated than in early childhood, for example, they can master running, skipping, bicycling, and skating. Gross motor skills involve mastery of large muscle movements. Fine motor skills are those dealing with dexterity. Boys will usually outperform girls in gross motor skills, whereas girls typically perform better than boys in fine motor skills. As children become older they become more aware of their bodies, and more able to control their physical movements (Mesa Community College).
Children can keep their attention longer, and have less distracting body movement. A common misperception of dysfunctional children is the mistaken belief that the parents are on the verge of divorce. Although this is true in some cases, often the marriage bond is strong as the parents' faults complement...

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