Early Years Education Foundations

Before we delve into the individual stages of Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development theory it's important to gain an overall understanding of his work, ideas and theory as a whole. In this lesson you will cover overview of Erikson's work, exploring the key findings and fundamental principles of his ideas before going on to explore the individual stages in more detail.

In lesson 2 Ben takes us on a deep dive into Stage 1 of Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory. Stage 1 involves the internal battle of Trust v Mistrust as young children develop attachments with key people within their lives such as parents, family members and care givers such as nursery practitioners and childminders. This first stage of development explores topics similar to that of Emmi Pikler and John Bowlby in how babies form attachments and the importance of these relationships in providing children with the security they need to explore their innate curiosity.

In this lesson you'll explore the stage of autonomy v shame & doubt from Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory. This stage is all about building independence within children to enable them to have the confidence and security to go and independently explore their environments. The key areas of focus from this lesson are establishing independence and clear boundaries within your early years settings.

In this lesson you'll be reviewing the final early years stage as children are starting to explore their own innate curiosity and wonder. So far we've explored topics of attachment and independence and how children have these inner battles in order to achieve these stages. Now it's time to explore curiosity and how we can help children explore their own curiosity confidently without feelings of guilt or shame.

In this final class Ben reviews Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory and explores how it stands up in the modern world we live in today, and how you can best utilise the key messages from his ideas and theory. No theory has all the answers, but Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory provides so many different ideas and strands of thought that you're able to explore within your early years settings.