LATE CHILDHOOD

Submitted to: Dr Sonny Jose

HOD, Dept. of Social Work

Submitted by: Rameez M Sydeek

MSW 1st Year

Submitted on: 18-11-2018

 Ten-year-old Francis has been in and out of various foster homes in England after his mom
abandoned him on the streets. One of the first families he stayed with was the Johnsons. The
Johnsons have a daughter of his same age, Lindy, for whom he started developing a liking to which
Mr Johnson finds out and later punish him for. After displaying violent behaviour multiple times
like dropping the family cat from the terrace and breaking neighbour’s flower pots, he was kicked
out of this foster home. Once he was back in the foster care system, he started to lose weight and
stopped talking to everyone. He was sent to live with an elderly Spanish couple, the Carlos who
already had a fifteen-year-old boy, Ramon staying with them. Ramon started to bully Francis and
forced him to try drugs which lead Francis to lash out against the couple who were beginning to
like him. This behaviour of his made the couple wonder if its right for them to continue allow him to
live with them.

Developmental Themes
 Biophysical Dimension
 Biophysical Growth and Development
 Biophysical Hazard: Growth affected by Environment
 Psychological Dimension
o Cognitive Development and Metacognition
o Emotional Intelligence
o Bilingual Children
o Attitudes and Emotions
o Social Cognition
o Psychological Hazard: Depression
 Socio-Cultural Dimension
 Drug Abuse
 Family Strength
 Social Hazard: Marital conflict and divorce

Late childhood is generally defined as ages 9 through 12. It is the period before adolescence
begins. The first signs of growth appear in this stage which later manifest during adolescence. The
physical changes at the end of this stage generate a disequilibrium resulting in the disruption of
accustomed life style. The above physical developments seen in late childhood is setting the stage
for the upcoming teen years, during which time both girls and boys will complete puberty and
experience significant mental and cognitive development as they mature into full adulthood.
Development psychology is the branch of branch of psychology that studies intraindividual
changes and interindividual change, within these intraindividual changes. Understanding the
developmental psychology of this age group will help to find the changes, the causes of the
changes, when these changes occur, how they influence behaviour, whether they can be predicted
and whether they are individual or universal. (Hurlock E. b., 1975)
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in this theory of psychosexual development describes this stage
as ‘Latency Stage’. There is no sexual or pleasure-seeking growth in this stage, because of which
social skills, peer group interactions etc are developed more.

Erik Erikson (1902-1994), a German-American development psychologist and

psychoanalyst describes this stage of life as ‘Industry vs Inferiority’. Children in this stage of life
cultivate proficiency in intellectual, social and physical skills. Those you fail to gain these
proficiencies usually develop feelings of inferiority. During this stage, children continue to make
stunning cognitive gains in their intellectual functioning which develop more in adolescence. (Jose
b. Ashford, 2003)

Biophysical Dimension
Late childhood is a period when there is a minor but consistent growth in children. This
period is actually sandwiched between two periods, early childhood and prepubertal age where
there is rapid growth seen in children. There would be a small increase in height, weight, body
proportion and number of teeth. There is development in motor skills which sets the children ready
for further growth.
In the above story of Francis, its seen that after he was sent back into the foster system, he
started to lose weight and this clearly illustrate the biophysical hazard of his age group. The
environment he is living or rather was living was hostile to him and thus it affected his growth.
Lack of love, opportunity to learn and understand, lack of rest and sleep, lack of security all took a
toll on his physical development. His volatile behaviour led to him being kicked out of the foster
home. His foster parents started to dislike him and thus devoid him of all basic necessities required
for his age group to grow. He could be suffering from or showing signs of deficiency of vitamins
and minerals in his body which could lead to diseases like dental deformities, skeletal deformities
such as rickets, scurvy, pellagra etc.

Psychological Dimensions
Jean Piaget (1896-1916), a Swiss psychologist has classified children of this age group as
operating from ‘Concrete Operational Thought’. Children in this age group understand concepts
attached to concrete situations. Time, space and quantity are understood and can be applied, but not
as independent concepts. The cognitive thinking of Francis is not like other children of his age. He
is not able to understand why the people who are taking care of him is now throwing him out of the
house. He is not able to understand why everyone including his mother is abandoning him. His
metacognition has deemed himself as a useless person in the society, an undesirable one. He
mistook the affection of Lindy for something more because he has never received affection from
anyone including his mother. So, the care showered by Lindy was over appreciated by him.
When Francis was sent to the home of the elderly Spanish couple, he had to face bilingual
issues. The couple didn’t know to speak English fluently, while Francis didn’t know to speak
Spanish fluently. Researches have found that there can be both negative and positive outcomes for
bilingual children. For children whose first language is a minority, learning a second language is a
disadvantage for them. However, when a child’s first language is the majority language, learning a
second language can be advantageous for them. (Lefrancois, 1994)Francis falls under the category
of first language being the minority one. He had to live in an environment where the majority
language was Spanish and all he could say was ‘Hola’ and ‘Si’. He was not able to express properly
what he really wants and though the couple tried hard, they found it difficult to understand the
young child.
When children enter this stage of life, they begin to understand themselves based on how
they perceive other’s understanding of themselves. More than gaining the ability of self-concept,
children are able to have a more individuated view of themselves and their self-concept becomes
easily stable. (Santrock, 1996)Francis started to see himself as undesirable when he found himself
unloved by almost everyone. This describes his Social cognition levels as well. Social cognition is
the level of awareness one has regarding other people’s feelings, thoughts and intentions. While
Lindy, who is staying in the same house, is treated with more care and love by the Johnsons, he is
unable to understand its his behaviour as well as the fact that Lindy is Johnsons’ own daughter and
not a foster child, is making them treat him differently. Because of all this, his ‘Self-Perception
Profile for Children’, a unique measure of self-concept by Harter (1985) is quite low. In this
measure, four major areas of competence are measured. (Jose b. Ashford, 2003)
 Cognitive competence (Being good in school, remembering things etc)
 Social competence (Having a lot of friends, having other people like you etc)
 Physical competence (Doing well in sports, being chosen for team games etc)
 General self-worth (Being sure of self, feeling happy the way I am etc)
Francis’ profile is quite low as he is not getting enough care and love in the foster homes
and because of which he withdrew into his own shell in school too.
Disorders found during late childhood can be classified into one of two categories: problems
of undercontrol and problems of overcontrol. While undercontrol problems are referred to as
externalizing problems, overcontrol problems are referred to as internalizing problems. (Edelbrock,
1983)Two of the most common problems of late childhood are Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), an externalizing problem and depression, an internalizing problem. Francis has
been showing signs of depression after he was thrown out of the first foster home as well as
aggressive behaviour which is a sign of externalizing problems. After he was taken back into the
social care system, he stopped speaking to anyone and became more and more violent. This
behaviour of his cooled down a bit when he was taken to the second foster home.

Socio-Cultural Dimensions
When Francis was shifted to the second foster home, he had to face a lot of problems there
also. The elder boy already living there, Ramon, made his life difficult there. Ramon started to bully
Francis consistently and even started to persuade him to take drugs. The ten-year old Francis
couldn’t understand what Ramon is making him do is bad. In order to make Ramon like him, he
started doing whatever the bully asked him to do. This lead to his behaviour being more violent and
rash which eventually made the elderly couple rethink their decision of taking him in. They didn’t
understand the influence of Ramon on Francis. Francis didn’t have a proper family life as his
mother abandoned him at a young age. He was never able to experience family strength. A family
is important for all children to unlock a child’s capacity to grow and develop in healthy manner.
Even though he moved from one foster family to another, he could not get the real love every child
deserves.
Marital conflict and divorce constitute major impediments to the adjustment of children of
all ages. (Jose b. Ashford, 2003) Though it can’t be said that his parent’s separation (one of the
predicted reasons which lead to his abandonment) has affected him, he hasn’t yet connected it to be
why his whole life changed. In a long run, it can be noted that if his mother hasn’t abandoned him,
he would not have gone through such drastic changes in all aspects of life.

Social Worker’s Intervention

Thinking from a social worker’s perspective, Francis’ case is quite a unique one. He has
been through a lot of hardship in life at such a young age. Before shifting him to another foster
home, there are some things to be done first. The main purpose of this intervention is to aid him to
alleviate his problems and improve his well being. He has to be fist taken out of the foster system.
Getting back into the system was a dreadful experience for him. He needs rigorous counselling to
let out his hidden emotions and pains. Its through the counselling that his own reasons and
justifications can be heard before charting out a treatment plan.
He should be bought into a different setting, where the environment is much friendly for
him. Its only when he realises he is getting enough care, love and security that he will start focusing
on his own health. Then, the social worker can advice him on how to regain his health and set him
up with a diet after consulting with a nutritionist. He needs to be shown how children of his age
who have been through similar situations are happy in much better surrounding and he needs to be
instilled with hope that his life is also going to be better. He should be then taught about the ill
effects of bullying and taking drugs, preferably with charts and pictures as children of his age often
learn better when there are lots of pictures and charts involved.
Instead of setting him with anti-depressants, all that is needed to be done is to change his
environment into a much happier one. Everyone has untapped and hidden potential in this world
and its only through a social worker’s intervention can that be released. His self-esteem and
confidence need to be bought up so that he can learn to tackle his own problems.

Bibliography

Edelbrock, A. &. (1983). Child Behaviour Checklist.

Hurlock, E. b. (1975). Developmental Psychology: Life Span Approach. USA: McGraw Hill Education.

Jose b. Ashford, C. W. (2003). Human Behaviour in the Social Environment. CA: Brooks/Cole.

Lefrancois, G. R. (1994). Psychological Theories of Learning. CA: Wadsworth.

Santrock, J. W. (1996). Child Development. USA: Brown & Benchmarkers Publishers.