Somewhat related to cognition and morality, is a child’s social and emotional development. For example, following social cognitive theory, I started to regulate my own behaviors more frequently in middle childhood, instead of relying on outside punishments and rewards to shape my behavior (Rathus, 2011, p. 220). Nonetheless, my social development was quite poor. The first reason I lagged in social development is that my ADHD caused me to lack social awareness and thus get rejected by my peers, preventing me from learning through socialization. My weight also hindered me, particularly when combined with my social “awkwardness”, which together led to me having very few friends throughout middle childhood. Not surprisingly, having zero friends
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According to Piagetian theory, I’d be in the formal operations stage of cognitive development, and in line with his observations, I frequently demonstrated hypothetical and “what-if” thinking (Rathus, 2011, p. 258). Moreover, I displayed adolescent egocentrism in that I thought everyone was watching me and cared about my appearance and behavior more than they actually did, something termed an imaginary audience (Rathus, 2011, p. 260). Similarly, I showed a belief in a personal fable which meant that I felt as though nobody else, particularly adults, could understand my emotions or what I was going through (Rathus, 2011, p. 260). In terms of my academic skills in cognitive development, I was overall very smart. I was a straight A student in all honors and accelerated classes, and I was particularly strong in the areas of math and science. The biggest influence on my cognitive development, especially in terms of academics, was my personal drive to excel and high expectations for myself. This, alongside the strong academic foundation I was given in previous schooling, helped to prepare me for higher level classes and I was able to do well in them. Another aspect of my cognitive development which I excelled in was my moral development. I had actually reached the post-conventional stage of moral development towards the end of middle childhood and by early adolescence I was fully within stage 5 of moral development. Then, by middle adolescence I had reached Stage 6 of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, which is characterized by universal ethical principles orientation (Rathus, 2011, p. 265). Similarly, I demonstrated moral behaviors as well; I never broke rules, showed disrespect, or bullied and I was always very caring and accepting of
According to Piagetian theory, I’d be in the formal operations stage of cognitive development, and in line with his observations, I frequently demonstrated hypothetical and “what-if” thinking (Rathus, 2011, p. 258). Moreover, I displayed adolescent egocentrism in that I thought everyone was watching me and cared about my appearance and behavior more than they actually did, something termed an imaginary audience (Rathus, 2011, p. 260). Similarly, I showed a belief in a personal fable which meant that I felt as though nobody else, particularly adults, could understand my emotions or what I was going through (Rathus, 2011, p. 260). In terms of my academic skills in cognitive development, I was overall very smart. I was a straight A student in all honors and accelerated classes, and I was particularly strong in the areas of math and science. The biggest influence on my cognitive development, especially in terms of academics, was my personal drive to excel and high expectations for myself. This, alongside the strong academic foundation I was given in previous schooling, helped to prepare me for higher level classes and I was able to do well in them. Another aspect of my cognitive development which I excelled in was my moral development. I had actually reached the post-conventional stage of moral development towards the end of middle childhood and by early adolescence I was fully within stage 5 of moral development. Then, by middle adolescence I had reached Stage 6 of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, which is characterized by universal ethical principles orientation (Rathus, 2011, p. 265). Similarly, I demonstrated moral behaviors as well; I never broke rules, showed disrespect, or bullied and I was always very caring and accepting of