NCERT Book Class 11 Home Science Development and Characteristics of the self

2B.2 Self during early childhood

Since children are able to talk quite fluently by the time they are 3 years old, we need not rely only on self-recognition to know young children’s selfunderstanding. We can use verbal means by involving them in conversations about themselves. Researchers have found that the following are the five main characteristics of young children’s understanding of themselves.

1. They use physical descriptions of their self or material possessions to differentiate themselves from others – they may use descriptive words like ‘tall’, or ‘big’ or refer to the clothes they wear or the toys or objects they have. Their self-descriptions are in absolute terms – this means they do not see themselves in comparison with others. To give an example, instead of saying, “I am taller than Kiran”, the child will say, “I am tall.”

2. They describe themselves in terms of things they can do. For example, in terms of their play activities – “I can ride a cycle”; “I can make a house”; “I can count”. Thus, their self understanding contains active descriptions of themselves.

3. Their self descriptions are in concrete terms – i.e., they define themselves in terms of things they can do or what is visible to them – “I have a television.”

4. They often overestimate themselves. Thus, a child may say, “I am never scared” or “I know all the poems”, but may not remember them completely.

5. Young children are also unable to recognise that they can possess different attributes – that they can be ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘mean’ and ‘nice’ at different points in time. The following is a brief interaction between an adult and Radha, a girl aged 3 years 8 months, which reveals the child’s perception of herself.