Every stage of a child’s development serves as a springboard to the next.
Children make substantial developmental advances that form their sense of self between the ages of 6 and 14, or middle childhood and early adolescence.
During these years, children mature by becoming competent, independent, self-aware, and curious in the world outside of their home. Children’s bodies and minds change as a result of biological and cognitive development. Children’s social interactions and roles change dramatically as they enter school, join programmes, and form relationships with peers and adults outside of their households. During middle childhood, children acquire a sense of self-esteem and uniqueness by comparing themselves to their peers.
They develop the expectation that they will succeed or fail at certain tasks. They may establish a goal-oriented mindset that will influence how they respond to school and other obstacles for years. The dramatic physical and social changes that precede puberty, the desire for autonomy and separation from the family, and the move from elementary to middle or junior high school can all produce problems for young individuals in early adolescence. Adolescents might lose confidence in themselves and fall into bad behaviour patterns such as truancy and school dropout when they are placed in environments (at school, at home, or in community activities) that are unresponsive to their needs and increasing independence.
Our Approach
It is a time during which young people begin to shape their world view. In this moment of opportunity, we support these children in forming healthy behaviors and nurturing positive relationships, putting in place practices that will lead to prosperous adulthood.
TOUCEO’s children and youth programmes are meant to increase economic, physical, and social well-being, establishing the groundwork for children and adolescents to become change agents in their families, communities, and countries in the future. To this purpose, we are concentrating our efforts on
- Partnering with established institution that provide early child development programes.
- We also look forward to establishing a research team that will focus on developing contextual child development programs that are relevant to a given community. These will be conducted through our local community hubs.