Growth & Development
Since conception, the process of growth and development continues it goes on sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly. The single cell grows into a full sized foetus before it is delivered. The process of growth becomes all the more rapid when the child has been born. What are the principles of growth and development, their patterns.
First, we shall see what these two terms Growth and Development connote. The increasing of an organ or limb of the body, in size and weight, is its growth. Division of each cell, and, their growing into thousands in number, or their changing into tissues, blood or bone, is part of the process of development.
The process of growth and development goes on simultaneously for development, growth is also required up to a certain age.
Growth is essential to enable the organism to bear the strain which the process of development causes. After a certain age, the process of growth ceases, but development may continue beyond it. An organism is said to have attained maturity in a certain field where the zenith of growth has been reached.
It is in the nature of the organism to grow and develop, Growth and development are the important characteristics of a living organism. As the baby grows in age, it is expected to perform more and more functions the functions continue to become more and more difficult and complicated.
To be able to do all this, development physical, mental and emotional, is essential the growth of the body, of its different organs or parts, is also essential for the development.
Brekenridge et al. have defined “Development” in the following words: “Development can be defined as the emerging and expanding of capacities of the individual to provide progressively greater facility in functioning.
The child increases in motor skills from his uncertain first steps to a high proficiency in skilled games at adolescence from physiological instability to stability from his first babbling in infancy to manipulation of language in abstract thinking from confusion of self to inanimate objects to a clear realisation of himself as a person from the immature child to the man and woman who is able to reproduce.”
The history of physical growth of human organism begins when it is in the form of a very minute dot which we call Protoplasm, only 13 millimetre in size. When the embryo is a month old, its length becomes 6 millimetre. In the second month, it starts having human shape it grows six times in length and five hundred times in weight.
By about 20th week, the mother starts feeling the movement of the foetus now it weighs nearly one pound.
The gaining in of the embryo/foetus in weight, and, its increase in length, is its “growth” and its ability to make movements, is its “development”, motor development which synchronizes with the physical growth of the foetus. During the first three years of the infant’s life, the growth happens to be very rapid; and so does his development in physical or mental fields.
In the first year, the weight becomes three times than what it was at the time of birth.
When the child of 6 or 7 months, shows the development of eye-hand co-ordination in grasping things, the mother feels happy to see; by one year, he can feed himself with spoon and cup; by 18 months, he can exercise control over anal and ureteral sphincters in due course, the child starts not only running and hopping but doing somersaults and other complicated physical movements which are the sure indicators of rapid physical or motor development,development of balance and co-ordination.
Along with this development, mental development also takes place.
After birth, the child can only gradually develop the function of sensing things or events, as his skeletal-muscular-neurological growth and development take place, so also develops the area of his gaining experiences through his sense organs because with age, increases his mobility and capability to handle things with increasing skill and in varied ways.
Development of language is the most important stage in the process of development. The child’s perception increases, and his mental abilities and expression also increase accordingly.
Maturity is the stage in the process of growth or development, when one is fit or ready to perform some particular function, or to learn some particular thing. Psychologists, through their observations and experiments, have concluded that an attempt made to make the young child learn a thing, for which a stage of maturity or readiness has not been reached by him, will only result in frustration on the part of the trainer.
A baby cannot have control over his anal and ureteral sphincters before he is 18 months old; cannot put one block over the other before he is 2 years old, cannot tell colour effects before the age of 3 to 4 and according to Piaget, “conceptual schemas become organised into interrelated systems” only during the period between two to seven years, which Piaget has called Operational period and the problem solving stage begins by about the age of eleven years only.
These are the stages when the related skeletal- muscular neurological systems achieve the required maturity for different physical and cognitive activities referred to above. If efforts are made to make the child do the activities for which “readiness” (maturity) is not there, the efforts are sure to fail, frustrating the one who expects such a performance, and the child too suffers harassment, with deleterious effects to follow.
Individual differences are there, because of which the elders often complain about their youngsters not showing enough maturity in accordance with their age.
It is to be understood that individuals do not keep the same pace of physical growth and development. The recurring remarks of others regarding their inability, incompetence to do what others of their age can do, develop a self-concept which makes them suffer from inferiority complex and frustration.
Due to rapid changes in all phases of experience, the age-old moral standards no longer hold good now. As a result of the changed situation, even parents, in many cases, cannot be sure of Tightness of an issue; and such an uncertainty makes the moral precepts lose their positiveness.
The desirable condition to develop is that the child must have a sense of honour for himself Self-esteem is essential for a good moral life; no external fear should be goading his behaviour. Superstitious fear in the child and the ‘super-conscientious over analysis’ of his behaviour, are not in the interest of proper emotional growth of the child. He may grow nervous or emotionally unstable because of them.
Religious training is good, if it can help make Love the governing principle of life; make life serene and bring about “peace within.”
First, we shall see what these two terms Growth and Development connote. The increasing of an organ or limb of the body, in size and weight, is its growth. Division of each cell, and, their growing into thousands in number, or their changing into tissues, blood or bone, is part of the process of development.
The process of growth and development goes on simultaneously for development, growth is also required up to a certain age.
Growth is essential to enable the organism to bear the strain which the process of development causes. After a certain age, the process of growth ceases, but development may continue beyond it. An organism is said to have attained maturity in a certain field where the zenith of growth has been reached.
It is in the nature of the organism to grow and develop, Growth and development are the important characteristics of a living organism. As the baby grows in age, it is expected to perform more and more functions the functions continue to become more and more difficult and complicated.
To be able to do all this, development physical, mental and emotional, is essential the growth of the body, of its different organs or parts, is also essential for the development.
Brekenridge et al. have defined “Development” in the following words: “Development can be defined as the emerging and expanding of capacities of the individual to provide progressively greater facility in functioning.
The child increases in motor skills from his uncertain first steps to a high proficiency in skilled games at adolescence from physiological instability to stability from his first babbling in infancy to manipulation of language in abstract thinking from confusion of self to inanimate objects to a clear realisation of himself as a person from the immature child to the man and woman who is able to reproduce.”
The history of physical growth of human organism begins when it is in the form of a very minute dot which we call Protoplasm, only 13 millimetre in size. When the embryo is a month old, its length becomes 6 millimetre. In the second month, it starts having human shape it grows six times in length and five hundred times in weight.
By about 20th week, the mother starts feeling the movement of the foetus now it weighs nearly one pound.
The gaining in of the embryo/foetus in weight, and, its increase in length, is its “growth” and its ability to make movements, is its “development”, motor development which synchronizes with the physical growth of the foetus. During the first three years of the infant’s life, the growth happens to be very rapid; and so does his development in physical or mental fields.
In the first year, the weight becomes three times than what it was at the time of birth.
When the child of 6 or 7 months, shows the development of eye-hand co-ordination in grasping things, the mother feels happy to see; by one year, he can feed himself with spoon and cup; by 18 months, he can exercise control over anal and ureteral sphincters in due course, the child starts not only running and hopping but doing somersaults and other complicated physical movements which are the sure indicators of rapid physical or motor development,development of balance and co-ordination.
Along with this development, mental development also takes place.
After birth, the child can only gradually develop the function of sensing things or events, as his skeletal-muscular-neurological growth and development take place, so also develops the area of his gaining experiences through his sense organs because with age, increases his mobility and capability to handle things with increasing skill and in varied ways.
Development of language is the most important stage in the process of development. The child’s perception increases, and his mental abilities and expression also increase accordingly.
Maturity is the stage in the process of growth or development, when one is fit or ready to perform some particular function, or to learn some particular thing. Psychologists, through their observations and experiments, have concluded that an attempt made to make the young child learn a thing, for which a stage of maturity or readiness has not been reached by him, will only result in frustration on the part of the trainer.
A baby cannot have control over his anal and ureteral sphincters before he is 18 months old; cannot put one block over the other before he is 2 years old, cannot tell colour effects before the age of 3 to 4 and according to Piaget, “conceptual schemas become organised into interrelated systems” only during the period between two to seven years, which Piaget has called Operational period and the problem solving stage begins by about the age of eleven years only.
These are the stages when the related skeletal- muscular neurological systems achieve the required maturity for different physical and cognitive activities referred to above. If efforts are made to make the child do the activities for which “readiness” (maturity) is not there, the efforts are sure to fail, frustrating the one who expects such a performance, and the child too suffers harassment, with deleterious effects to follow.
Individual differences are there, because of which the elders often complain about their youngsters not showing enough maturity in accordance with their age.
It is to be understood that individuals do not keep the same pace of physical growth and development. The recurring remarks of others regarding their inability, incompetence to do what others of their age can do, develop a self-concept which makes them suffer from inferiority complex and frustration.
Due to rapid changes in all phases of experience, the age-old moral standards no longer hold good now. As a result of the changed situation, even parents, in many cases, cannot be sure of Tightness of an issue; and such an uncertainty makes the moral precepts lose their positiveness.
The desirable condition to develop is that the child must have a sense of honour for himself Self-esteem is essential for a good moral life; no external fear should be goading his behaviour. Superstitious fear in the child and the ‘super-conscientious over analysis’ of his behaviour, are not in the interest of proper emotional growth of the child. He may grow nervous or emotionally unstable because of them.
Religious training is good, if it can help make Love the governing principle of life; make life serene and bring about “peace within.”
