What Six- to Eight-Year Olds Are Like

"I'm beginning to wonder who my child has become. One minute he's friendly and enthusiastic and the next, he's arguing with me about everything or whining like a baby."

"I can't keep up with who her best friend is because it changes daily."

"He's so critical of himself. He erases with such intensity, he makes holes in the paper."

"She can really be interesting to be around. You can have a real conversation and talk about opinions."

Have you every felt this way? These observations by parents capture many of the contradictions and growing pains of six- to eight-year olds who are trying to figure out who they are and how they appear to others. The psychologist Erik Erikson described children between six and eight as being in the "Stage of Industry." They like to create projects and want to do a job well. If they have opportunities to apply the skills they are developing, they feel competent--sure enough of themselves to take risks and to struggle with challenges to reach a goal, solve a problem, or complete a task. Children who don't have a sense of their own competence tend to feel inferior. "I can't do it" becomes their refrain. Erikson's theories explain why appropriate challenges are important for children to feel successful. The classroom practices we advocate do indeed promote exploration and make striving toward a goal intrinsically satisfying.

Stanley Greenspan, a noted child psychiatrist, describes these years as the time when children move beyond viewing themselves as the center of the universe and enter the "rough-and-tumble world of peer relationships." They view themselves in relation to others--primarily their peer group. Greenspan's theories demonstrate the importance of providing time for children to practice the skills of working with others and of being independent. These skills promote the higher levels of social and emotional development children need as they grow older and must face new challenges and make intelligent decisions.