ABSTRACT
Every society creates a period between birth and maturity and consigns to that period persons who have yet to acquire the attributes of adulthood. Such persons may be called small adults, infants, children, adolescents, little people, troublemakers, or simply incompetents. To be defined as a child is to be a child. All social objects, whether ephemeral, like democracy and belief in God, or concrete, like chairs, typewriters, or people, are social products. Their specific meaning arises out of the behaviors people direct toward them. Every social group asserts through its actions toward children what a child is, and this assertion reflects the group's particular place in history. Thus, French peasants view children differently from the way their middle-class and aristocratic counterparts do. In general, it can be said that theories of child development fall into one of three broad categories: structural, psychological, or interactional.
