ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the two major conflicts that emerge during the years of early childhood, how these are perceived and experienced from the child's point of view, and how the developing self is shaped by their resolution. The two major themes, each characterized by conflict between newly developing capacities of the child and opposing social forces. These themes are emerging autonomy and the clash with authority and desire and its renunciation. The first—the conflict between the child's new sense of aggressive independence and the imposition of social restraints —is characteristic of very early childhood, of the period from one and a half to three or four. The second theme, desire and its renunciation, comes to prominence during the years from three or four to six. As the child's intelligence grows, he begins to form a rudimentary sense of his own sexual identity. The mind of the child undergoes a tremendous development during the early childhood years.