In early childhood, feelings and emotions are the primary intellectual puzzles that children are required to solve before they can successfully maneuver through the complicated cognitive tasks of later development.
If the emotional components of learning are improperly laid in the brain’s pathways, a variety of problems may result. Although Eleanor Roosevelt managed, through a loving father, caring teachers, and a privileged social position, to overcome her mother’s put-downs and lead an extraordinarily productive life, she suffered emotional pain and struggled against feelings of insecurity most of her life.
Consistent, small put-downs often have sizable negative emotional and motivational consequences for young children, who, during this period of their lives, need to be acquiring confidence in their own ability to influence the environment.In this revised version of the earlier chapter I wrote on developmental issues in conflict resolution, I have added a section on adult development. Prior to the 1970s, the study of development tended to end in adolescence when the individual is presumed to have substantially “developed” into the adult they will remain for the next fifty or sixty years, with some minor variation. There are also current theorists and researchers who see development as highly stable after the age of thirty (McCrae and Costa, 1990; Block, 1977). Others consider adulthood not as an end state but as a continuation of development occurring over the life span (Erikson, 1963; Kegan, 1994).