Personal Development 12

Module 2: ONE’S HOLISTIC PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Subject Teacher: Mr. Charles Neil C. Pabalate

Lesson Description:
The subject covers holistic personal development which refers to optimal,
integrated development of one's body, mind, heart or emotions, spirit and professional development. In this
session, students and faculty engaged in reflection and action planning to shape a holistic plan that fit their life-
style.
Course Objectives:
By the end of this course, learners are expected to

 discuss the relationship between physiological, cognitive, psychological, spiritual, and social
development to understand his or her thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
 evaluate his or her own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
 show the connections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in actual life situations

Holistic development is the key to learning in the early years of

childhood. Parents, in their role as their children’s primary
educators, can start their children on an early learning path to
success.

ONE'S HOLISTIC PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Holistic development is a process of self-actualization and learning that combines an individual's mental,
physical, social, emotional and spiritual growth. The term can be used to describe forms of alternative education
that are based on the more humanistic and democratic outlooks.
Its premise is that an individual finds purpose and meaning in life through connections to the natural world, the
community and through humanitarian values.
THOUGHTS, FEELINGS AND BEHAVIORS

We’re often not aware of the impact our feelings and behaviors have on each other, and because of this
relationship, changing our behaviors can have a very big effect on our emotions. We can often tackle depression
by changing key behaviors, and for many young people, this is the most direct way to help them improve their
mood.

So where do thoughts fit in? When we talk about thoughts we’re referring to a lot of different mental activities,
including wishes, hopes, plans, predictions, judgments, and memories. Thoughts often include words but
sometimes they can include pictures, speech, or even smells.

Most of the time we don’t notice our thoughts – they go on in the background, helping us make decisions and
carry out many tasks automatically. Sometimes, we become aware of our thoughts - for example when we try to
work out a puzzle, or remember a specific event, or do a specific task, like write a letter to a friend or learn a
new language.

To clarify:

THOUGHTS

Thoughts usually originate from things we have learned both in a

right way and a wrong way. That is why there are terms such as
malcognition and maladaptive mechanisms.

Thoughts are cognitive. These are examples of thoughts:

 I think I’ll have chicken for tea.

 I think planes are scary.
 I think the world is a nice place to live.

You can take off the “I think” and they’d still be thoughts.

 I’ll have chicken for tea.

 Planes are scary.
 This world is a nice place to live.

 
FEELINGS

Feelings are emotions.

There is a model in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy

that stipulates there are only four primary feelings and
that they all have distinct and useful functions:

 Anger. Anger tells us that we want something to

change.
 Sadness. Sadness tells us that we are missing
something or have suffered a loss.
 Fear. Fear tells us that we need to get away from something or prevent something from happening in the
future.
 Happiness. Happiness tells us that we need or would like more of something

BEHAVIORS

Behavior is the primary output of our attitude. Then again, it

also affects our thoughts and feelings, ultimately leading
back to its source- Attitude.

Behaviors can be seen. They look like the following:

 A man giving a woman a bunch of flowers.

 A cat licking his paw.
 A child playing with a toy.
 A person telling another person a secret.
 A teenager having a tantrum.
 A woman having a panic attack.
 Someone shouting

 Someone looking lovingly at another person.

OVERVIEW OF THE ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT

There are many aspects of human development. Holistic development entails the development of these aspects
that include physical and neurobiological, cognitive, moral, and socio-emotional.

PHYSICAL AND NEUROBIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

During the first 12 or so years, rapid
development occurs in the human being's physical and neurobiological aspects. Other than the entirety of the
body, the brain also goes through a heap of processes that allow its optimal function later on in life.

 On the physical aspect, an individual starts growing into a full-fledged mature human being from infancy. The
processes involved are regulated by our genes. Without our unique genetic makeup as human beings, we would
not be what we are right now.

On the other hand, in the neurobiological aspect, the brain grows rapidly but matures slower. There is a reason
why at birth, the human head is disproportionately larger compared to the rest of the body. The brain goes
through various stages of building connections with neurons to allow functionalities in the physical, biological,
and physiological aspects. But it does not end with just building neurons and connections.   It also strengthens
particular connections and circuits and eliminates unused or useless ones. 

COGNITIVE AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT

                 

The 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of
mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge but also on
understanding the nature of intelligence. Piaget's stages are:

 Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years

 Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7
 Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
 Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, acting much like little scientists as they
perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the world. As kids interact with the world around
them, they continually add new knowledge, build upon existing knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to
accommodate new information.

The Stages

Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that
included four distinct stages:

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations
 Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening
 Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence)
 They are separate beings from the people and objects around them
 They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory
experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs
through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids
interact with their environment, they are continually making new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short period of time and
involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and
walking; they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke
this stage down into a number of different sub stages. It is during the final part of the sensorimotor stage that
early representational thought emerges.

Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue
to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development.

By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of
individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

 The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.
 Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.
 While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very
concrete terms.
The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but it is the emergence
of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development.

Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet continue to think very
concretely about the world around them. 

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other
people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.
For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a child the
choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is
smashed into a flat pancake shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose
that piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development in Young Children

 The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 to 11 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes

 During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events
 They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is
equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example
 Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
 Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they become
much more adept at using logic. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become
better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids
at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think
and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them
and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

The Concrete Operational Stage in Cognitive Development

 The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Up

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical
problems
 Abstract thought emerges
 Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require
theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information
The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an
understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to
problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal operational stage of
cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical situations
are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage. 

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a quantitative process; that
is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead,
Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these
four stages. A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than he did at age 2; there is a
fundamental change in how he thinks about the world.

Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through
adulthood. Morality develops across a lifetime and is influenced by an individual's experiences and their
behavior when faced with moral issues through different periods' physical and cognitive development. In short,
morality concerns an individual's growing sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young
children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a
synonym for "rightness" or "goodness". It refers to a certain code of conduct that is derived from one's culture,
religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts. This term is related to
psychology. There are other types of development such as social development, physical development, and
cognitive development.

Notions of morality development have been developed over centuries, the earliest came from philosophers like
Confucius, Aristotle, and Rousseau, who all took a more humanist perspective and focused on the development
of the conscience and sense of virtue. In the modern-day, empirical research has explored morality through a
moral psychology lens by theorists like Sigmund Freud and its relation to cognitive development by theorists
like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, B. F. Skinner, Carol Gilligan, and Judith Smetana.

The interest in morality spans many disciplines (e.g., philosophy, economics, biology, and political science) and
specializations within psychology (e.g., social, cognitive, and cultural). In order to investigate how individuals
understand morality, it is essential to consider their beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors that contribute to
their moral understanding. Additionally, researchers in the field of moral development consider the role of peers
and parents in facilitating moral development, the role of conscience and values, socialization and cultural
influences, empathy and altruism, and positive development, in order to understand what factors impact
morality of an individual more completely.

SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
 

What is Social and

Emotional Development?

Children grow and develop rapidly in their first five years across the four main areas of development. These
areas are motor (physical), communication and language, cognitive, and social and emotional.
 
Social and emotional development means how children start to understand who they are, what they are feeling,
and what to expect when interacting with others. It is the development of being able to:
 

 Form and sustain positive relationships.

 Experience, manage, and express emotions.
 Explore and engage with the environment.

Positive social and emotional development is important. This development influences a child’s self-confidence,
empathy, the ability to develop meaningful and lasting friendships and partnerships, and a sense of importance
and value to those around him/her. Children’s social and emotional development also influences all other areas
of development.

Parents and caregivers play the biggest role in social/emotional development because they offer the most
consistent relationships for their children. Consistent experiences with family members, teachers, and other
adults help children learn about relationships and explore emotions in predictable interactions.

 To nurture your child’s social and emotional development, it is important that you engage in quality
interactions like these on a daily basis, depending on the age of your child:

 Be affectionate and nurturing: hold, comfort, talk, and sing with your baby, toddler and child.
 Help your baby experience joy in “give-and-take” relationships by playing games like “peek-a-boo.”
 Provide your toddler with responsive care, letting them practice new skills while still providing hands-
on help.
 Support your child’s developing skills; help him/her, but don’t do everything for your child, even if it
takes longer or is messy.
 Teach social and emotional skills, such as taking turns, listening, and resolving conflict.
 -The End-

Quiz:
TRUE OR FALSE. Write True on the blank if the statement is true. Write false if the statement is false.
1. The nature aspect of the study of holistic development absolutely overpowers the nurture aspect
2. Thoughts are only relevant to the study of personality development when they are made after
childhood
3.  Cognition is to thoughts as affect is to feelings.
4. Holistic development happens in unique paces- not everyone develops at the same speed as the
majority.
5. The age range of 5-12, according to Freud is the Latency phase in his Psychosexual Theory of
personality.
6. Adolescence does not predispose the individual to any unusual spike of changes. 
7. How an individual handles rejection is an accurate sign of emotional maturity.
8. Being in the Formal Operations Stage mentioned by Piaget, the individual can process
hypothetical scenarios and applications.
9. Neurobiological processes do not hold a significant effect in the shaping of personality. 
10. Childhood cognition can impact an individual even at a very young. 

Activity 1:
1. Write a journal entry that evaluates your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and how it can help in
your holistic development.

FOCUS QUESTION: How does someone achieve holistic personal development?