ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the subject of child development from an existentialist point of view. Central to existentialist thought is the critique of "essentialism", the tendency to adopt a view of individuals as relatively fixed entities. Existentialism therefore rejects the idea of child development as the description of a process of maturation that produces a relatively fixed "personality". The chapter reviews the dominant approaches to child development and highlights their often essentialist assumptions. Many approaches to child development have placed considerable emphasis on psychological factors, albeit not without retaining a strong biological focus. A further example of traditional theoretical approaches to child development is attachment theory. A wide range of professional groups work with children and young people and need to have at least a basic understanding of child development. Ageism can be seen to apply to children and young people in relation to loss and grief through the medium of disenfranchised grief.
