Age-related crises represent natural changes in the human psyche depending on the stage of development. They manifest themselves in changes in worldview, the nature of the reaction to familiar things and the basic line of behavior.
At each age, a person performs certain social roles and tasks. With age they also change, which can cause a crisis.
L. Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who studied the cognitive development of a child, defined a crisis as a turning point in the normal course of mental development, when changes in the personality structure accumulate, age-related neoplasms appear and lead to sharp shifts in development.
L. Vygotsky called a new formation a qualitatively new type of personality and human interaction with reality, which was absent as a whole at the previous stages of its development. At each age stage, he identified a central neoplasm, which characterizes the restructuring of a person’s entire personality on a new basis, and private neoplasms related to individual aspects of the personality.
Also, a person’s needs and motivations change, which shape their behavior.
According to L. Vygotsky, it is possible to determine the signs of “normal childhood development” and stable stages. Normal development begins at the time of birth and ends at age 17.
Any transition period is accompanied by a stress reaction of the body, against the background of which increased personal irritability develops from misunderstanding and lack of adaptation. This is considered normal. But if the social environment exerts pressure and does not contribute to a smooth passage of the transition stage, then the crisis may drag on or transform into more serious conditions.
At what age do crises occur?
The most common information is about how age-related crises manifest themselves in children. This is due to the fact that it is at an early age that the formation of the psyche and frequent changes in physiological processes occur against the background of growing up. How a person overcomes the very first transitional states largely determines her character. That is why maximum attention is paid to studying and overcoming early crises.
Childhood crises
Psychology has developed a classification of life crises depending on the age stage:
- Newborn. It is considered the most difficult crisis for the body, since it requires the maximum level of adaptation - from the conditions of intrauterine stay to the specifics of the surrounding world. Despite the fact that the child is not fully aware of what exactly happened, this state is equated to the experience of death. The depth of stress is aggravated by the fact that the baby himself does not have any skills or abilities to somehow change the situation.
The first 3 months of a child’s life are considered by many experts to be the fourth trimester of pregnancy. In fact, the mother “bears” the child from the outside, but during this period the “psychological umbilical cord” is still very strong. The child develops inseparably from his mother, he begins to form basic trust in the world (which will form the basis for the development of his personality). This is why it is important that the first 3 months go well so that all the needs of the newborn are met on time.
To successfully overcome the newborn crisis and create a sense of security, you need to take care of the child on time, feed him on demand, give him enough attention to both mom and dad (parents carry the child in their arms, warmth, love and calm emanate from them). The result of successfully overcoming the neonatal crisis is adaptation to new living conditions.
- First year of life. It is considered a period of acquiring autonomy - the child eats himself, takes his first steps, speaks his first words, learns to control the urges of his bladder and intestines. For each child, this crisis period may shift. On average it lasts from 1 to 2 years. Also at this stage, the development of the communicative function occurs, and it becomes possible to verbalize one’s demands and grievances. That is, the child no longer simply reacts to the chaos of the environment with the help of emotions, but also gains the opportunity to control it, albeit to a small extent. In order for a child to successfully pass this stage, you need to be close to him, but not impose. For example, give a spoon so that the child eats himself, give the opportunity to choose clothes for a walk, praise, help if he cannot cope on his own. In this case, it is recommended to do without evaluative vocabulary, encouraging correct actions, but without commenting on what kind of child he is.
- 3 years. Its second title is “I myself!” The child develops an inner “I”, a sense of self-identity, awareness of himself as a separate subject of relationships and interaction. The first independent actions and decisions appear, new systems of communication with significant adults are built. At this age stage, the child gains access to active exploration of the world, which simultaneously leads to the development of personality and to a lot of stress from contact with reality, the rules of which have not yet been fully studied. Conflicts arise due to the child’s desire to demonstrate independence (often stubbornness and disobedience) and the parents’ desire to protect him from danger. Adults should be calm, patient and understanding so that the child successfully overcomes this stage. Under no circumstances should you compare him with other children, succumb to manipulation and take it out on him.
- School (7 years). Associated with the need to master new social skills and norms, be able to concentrate on tasks, build interaction with peers, accept someone else’s position and defend your own. This is a period of gaining knowledge and developing willpower. If parents, instead of helping to overcome, teach the child and tighten the rules in the family in relation to him, this may entail consequences in the form of the development of complexes.
The education system in our country is still built on assessment and comparison, which can ultimately reduce a child’s self-esteem and motivation. On the other hand, it is inclusion in a social group that forms a person’s true will, and not just the ability to voice his desires - at this stage one has to really take into account the current situation and people’s opinions. Old patterns of interaction with other people (manipulation, affection, obedience) may no longer work, so there is a need to look for new ones.
The danger of this crisis is that if a child does not adapt well at school, i.e. If this crisis does not go well, he may have conflicts with peers or develop complexes such as lack of self-confidence and reluctance to learn. At this age, it is important for a child that parents take his future adaptation at school seriously. You can first take him to training courses so that he understands what the regime and tasks will be, how school differs from kindergarten, etc.
The new formation that is born in this crisis is the arbitrariness and awareness of mental processes and their intellectualization.
- Teenage. It has more blurred time boundaries - from 11 to 15 years, which is due to physiological changes due to puberty. This is a real transitional age from childhood to adulthood, when the difference between the sexes is noticeable not only at the level of understanding, but also feelings. Sexual desire provides a new vector and energy for action and development, and acts as a powerful motive for life changes. It changes the sphere of interests and shifts the emphasis in behavior. Girls begin to devote more time to their appearance, boys work on their reputation. At the same time, the desire to seem like an adult often conflicts with the inability to bear the required level of responsibility and cope with all tasks. In adolescence, the person himself does not quite understand what is happening to him, he only notices that the world is changing irreversibly, and now he needs to adapt again. Some fall into stupor from stress, others become agitated and develop vigorous activity, and the number of conflicts with elders increases.
Adult crises
In adulthood, people also experience a reassessment of life’s meanings, which does not always go smoothly. Having successfully passed all the childhood stages of formation, adult life continues to require changes and transformations from a person.
Types of adult crises:
- Youth - begins at the time of graduation from school and the first years of college and ends at 21-25 years of age, depending on the development of the individual. It is associated with the transition to adulthood, when, thanks to teenage mistakes, enough experience has already been gained, a profession and an approximate life plan have been chosen. Stress and fear are generated by the steps that determine future life - choosing a partner, getting an education, joining the army, moving, etc. The stage of making fateful decisions with rather little practical experience is always a crisis.
- Middle age crisis. Depending on living conditions and the maturity of the individual, it lasts for 30-40 years and even later. For example, if a person lives with his parents at the age of 30, this crisis may occur at the age of 45. It all depends on the individual, his intelligence, and personal development. At this stage, the correctness of the choice of fateful decisions is assessed: profession, work, place of residence, partner, as well as a reassessment of the chosen landmarks. True personal maturity comes precisely during this period.
Courageous people who are in a resourceful state, if necessary, are able at this age to radically change their lives towards conscious choices and harmonious decisions. There are also those who go deeper into depression, continue to endure and pretend that everything is fine, but meanwhile their internal tension grows. If the midlife crisis is ignored, severe affective disorders occur, addictions and destructive hobbies appear as ways to turn away from reality.
- The crisis of awareness of aging and retirement is associated with a feeling of one’s own uselessness and lack of demand. A large amount of freed up time, deteriorating health and awareness of the finiteness of life drive melancholy and anxiety, because, having become accustomed to constant employment, a person suddenly faces himself and discovers emptiness. To get out of this state, you need to figure it out and listen to yourself, understand what you like, what you have long wanted to do, what you have resources for, how a person would like to spend the time allotted to him.
The Science of Social Change
Sociology is the science of society, which was born out of the need to explain and interpret profound social changes, especially during periods of crisis caused by the transition from traditional to modern society.
Although some sociologists postulated the "axiological neutrality of sociology and the sociologist", in most cases sociologists did not go beyond their subject, but still took a direct part in reforming and transforming modern society.
Emile Durkheim, the father of scientific sociology, expressed the opinion in this regard that “sociology is not worth the effort if it does not involve itself in the evolution of human society.”
Due to these traditions, modern sociology cannot remain neutral in relation to what is happening in the society it studies, especially since, thanks to the media, many phenomena and social processes are experienced and felt simultaneously and in the most direct way by the majority of the world's citizens.
Features of crises
The peculiarities of each crisis lie in the vividness of their experience. Let us consider separately the features of crises for children and adults.
For children
Childhood crises manifest themselves as emotional outbursts, disobedience, and protest behavior. All this is not his personal attitude towards people. This is how the child shows misunderstanding and resistance to the changes taking place; he undergoes a mental restructuring and adaptation to a new social role. As soon as the child acquires the necessary skills and develops the mental neoplasms necessary for his age, the crisis ends.
Critical periods
Crises are discovered empirically, and not in sequence, but in a random order: 7, 3, 13, 1, 0. During critical periods, the child changes in a very short time as a whole, in the main personality traits. This is a revolutionary, stormy, rapid flow of events both in pace and in the meaning of the changes taking place. The following features are characteristic of critical periods:
- The boundaries separating the beginning and end of the crisis from adjacent periods are extremely unclear. A crisis occurs unnoticed; it is very difficult to determine the moment of its onset and end. A sharp escalation (climax) is observed in the middle of the crisis. At this time the crisis reaches its climax.
- The difficulty of raising children during critical periods at one time served as the starting point for their empirical study. Obstinacy, a drop in academic performance and performance, and an increase in the number of conflicts with others are observed. The child’s inner life at this time is associated with painful experiences.
- Negative nature of development. It is noted that during crises, in contrast to stable periods, destructive rather than creative work is done. The child does not gain as much as he loses what he previously acquired. However, the emergence of something new in development certainly means the death of the old. At the same time, constructive development processes are observed during critical periods.
New formations of critical periods are transitional in nature, that is, they are not preserved in the form in which, for example, autonomous speech appears in one-year-old children (see below).
Sensitive periods
During certain periods of exposure, the child is most sensitive to certain influences and to the development of certain abilities. Sensitive periods are associated, firstly, with leading activity, and secondly, with the actualization at each age of certain basal needs.
The boundaries of sensitive periods are not precise: they can be shifted by several months. Nevertheless, it is extremely important to use sensitive periods for a child’s education - it is during this period of time that he is most easily able to learn new skills.
