Meaning: The period of late childhood/school age begins with the child’s entrance into the formal school i.e. 6 years and ends with the onset of puberty i.e.12 years. (New man & New man, 2003).
Importance of school age or late childhood period:
The beginning of the school age is marked by the child’s adjustment. Dramatic changes occur which form the basis for emergence of competence at school level to think, learn and interact with others. They are responsible for the changes that take place in attitudes, values and behaviour especially in the last two years of this period. These children are very much interested in socializing with peers. Parents, educators and psychologists use various names that reflect the important characteristics of this period.
Kagan & Mass (1993) referred this period as “Crystallization Period” because children crystallize certain behavioural tendencies and maintain throughout the young adulthood. Studies revealed that many traits of elementary school behaviour are better predictors for adult behaviour.
Frued’s Psychoanalytic theory treated these years as “Latency period”, because there are no significant contributions to personality formation. That means child is relatively free to develop social self, more significantly they can learn sex appropriate roles during this period.
Erik Erikson, a psycho social theorist characterizes this period as one bringing out the industriousness in the child and failing he/she faces the danger of feeling of inferiority. He mentioned two characteristics of this period as “Industry Vs. Inferiority”. During this period children should develop fundamental skills of their culture. They spend a great deal of time every day learning the skills that are valued by the society, like reading, writing, arithmetic or hunting, fishing and weaving. As children gain confidence in their abilities, they begin to have more realistic images of their potential contributions to their larger community. The degree of seriousness or a sense of competence and mastery towards certain skills need to be improved during this period, if not they may develop inferiority.
Industry: It is an eagerness to acquire skills and perform meaningful work.
Inferiority: Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy which comes from self and social environment. Jean Piaget called this period as “Concrete operational period”, in which child’s reasoning process improves and children develop logical and rational thinking and are able to apply to their real life situations.
Many Psychologists viewed this period
As gang age, because children in this period are mostly concerned towards their peer acceptance and membership in gang, especially a gang with prestige in the eyes of their age mates. They are also labeled as age of conformity, because children are willing to conform to their age groups approved standards in terms of appearance, speech and behaviour.
Consequently late childhood is regarded by many parents as troublesome age or big in turn age as the child thinks himself as superior and pretends as if they know everything. This in turn makes him to be rebellious and antagonistic towards rules. These children are not willing to do work as assigned by adults and they are more influenced by the peers. They also called this as sloppy age, becausechildren tend to be more careless and slovenly (messy) about their appearance.
As Creative age, the foundations for creative expressions and the abilities to use these foundations for original activities are laid in the preschool period. This period determines whether the children will become producers of new and original work or not.
As Play age: Most of the time is devoted to play during this period than any other stage of life span, so psychologists also called this age as a play age.
Educators called this period aselementary school age.It is the time when the child is expected to acquire rudiments of knowledge that are considered essential for successful adjustment to adult life. They are expected to learn certain essential skills learned through formal and extra curriculum activities provided by the school.
Educators also termed this stage as a Critical period in achievement drive. It is a time when children form the habit of being achievers, under achievers and over achievers. This will persist into adulthood. When the children develop the habit of working up to /under/ above their capacities in school, the habit becomes persistent and tends to spread in all areas of child’s life other than academics.
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