Late childhood spans ages 6 to puberty. This stage sees significant physical growth as well as cognitive and social-emotional development. Children develop skills in various areas like self-care, social interaction, academics, and play. They spend more time in peer groups and friendships become important. Hazards during late childhood can be physical, psychological, or related to social relationships and development. Effective guidance is needed to help children through this period of transition.

1. Late Childhood:
Meaning,
Characteristics
and hazards
Jammu University
2 Year B.Ed.
Paper 102
Sem: I
Unit: II

2. Late Childhood
6 years-sexual maturity
Parents: troublesome age, fights with siblings
especially with elder sisters, quarrelsome age
Educators: elementary school age, critical
period –habit of being achievers , under
achievers or over achievers, working above or
below their capabilities
Psychologists: gang age, age of conformity,
creative age, play age

3. Developmental tasks
Physical developmental
Height: increase annual 2-3 inches
Weight: more variable than height
Body proportions: mouth and jaw becomes
larger, forehead flattens, nose becomes
larger, chest broadens and abdomen flattens,
arms and legs elongate,
Teeth: at onset of puberty 28-32 permanent
teeth

4. Skills of late childhood
Acquisition of skills is dependent on
environment, opportunities, body build, in
trend in peers, socio-economic class
Sex difference: in play skills also in level of
perfection
Girls surpass boys in fine motor skills-
painting, sewing, weaving
Boys surpass girls in gross muscle: throwing
a basket ball, kicking football, board jumps

5. Upper SES – fewer skills,
4 types of skills: self help skills, social help
skills, school skills, and play skills
Handedness left handed children become
ambidextrous by late childhood
Speech improvement: etiquette vocabulary,
colour vocabulary, number vocabulary,
money vocabulary, time vocabulary, slang
word, content of speech: egocentric to
socialized speech, boasting

6. Emotions and emotional expressions in late
childhood: outbursts and babyish, withdrawal
reactions to fear as cowards, jealousy as poor
sportsmanship, outbursts of temper, anxiety, fear
Discontented when not with friends, interested in
peer activity,
Fun gangs, members are popular, rarely have
members of both sexes, same age same interest,
and same abilities

7. Companions
Boys have more extensive peer
relationship than girls, larger group for
boys, some are just playmates some are
friends, prefer attractive looking
playmates, companions from own
school, grade locality, sex, personality
traits, treatment of companions, girls are
more stable in friendship than boys,
SES,

8. Play interests and activities in late
childhood:
Popularity and belongingness to gang,
sex appropriate play games, bright
students are more solitary in play, avoid
strenuous physical play, type of
neighborhood, in general less active
partly due to increased school work,
household chores

9. Constructive play:
wood work, assembling and tools for boys, fine
type of construction sewing drawing painting clay
modeling and jewelry making for girls,
Explore new unknown places –boys,
Understanding: new meaning to old concepts, new
meaning from mass media, associate cultural stereo
types to people with different race, religion, sex,
socioeconomic groups. Life, death, life after death,
bodily functions, space, numbers, causality, money,
time, self, sex roles, social roles, beauty

10. Hazards
Physical
Illness
Obesity
Sex-inappropriate body build: girls with
masculine body build and boys with girlish
physique
Accidents: scars, cautious behavior,
Physical disabilities: aftereffects of accidents,
more in boys, seriousness, treatment by others ,
Awkwardness: compare with age mates, inferior
to playmates,

11. Psychological
 Speech hazards: small vocabulary; errors e.g.
mispronunciations and grammatical mistakes,
speech defects; school language; egocentric speech,
critical and deregulatory comments and boasting
antagonizing peers
 Emotional hazards: inappropriate emotional
outbursts or expressions
 Social hazards: 1. Children rejected or neglected by
their peers are deprived of opportunities to learn, 2.
Voluntary isolates, 3. Geographically or socially
mobile children, 4. Group prejudice because of race
or religion, 5. Followers who want to be leaders
become resentful and disgruntled.

12. Play hazards: who lack social acceptance are
deprived of opportunities to learn
Conceptual hazards: who have idealized self
concept are dissatisfied with themselves and the way
others treat them
Moral hazards:
1. Morality of gang different from adult morality, 2. Failure
to develop conscience as an inner control over behavior, 3.
Inconsistence discipline, 4. Physical punishment which serves
as model of aggressiveness, 5.finding peer approval of
misbehavior so satisfying that this becomes habitual, 6.
Intolerance of wrong doing of others

13.  Hazards associated with interests: uninterested in things
age mates regard important and developing unfavourable
attitudes towards interests that would be valuable to them-
health or school
 Hazards in sex role typing: failure to learn sex elements of
the sex roles their age mates regard as appropriate, and
unwillingness to play approved sex roles
 Family relationship hazards: weakens family ties and leads
to a habitual unfavourable pattern of adjustment to people
and problems which is carried outside the home
 Hazards in personality development: development of
unfavourable self concept, self rejection, carry over of
egocentrism false sense of importance