Personality development of children

Personality Development of Children

Personality is the totality of everything about a person his/her physical, emotional, mental, social, ethical and spiritual make-up.

In simple terms, personality consists of the following
1. The way you look.
2. The way you dress.
3. The way you talk.
4. The way you walk.
5. The way you act.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONALITY

1. Personality is what one is: This means that personality traits are developed in each individual upto a stage in life, after that they get established on the other hand one cannot borrow any others persons; whatever is visible is what is inside a person.

2. Personality of each individual is unique: Each individual’s  characteristics are different from other individuals. Even twins are not the same in personality characteristics.

3. Personality is dynamic and not static: Personality traits, though selective present in each individual (due to the interplay of heredity and environment), get brushed up from time to time. Though there cannot be new addition to personality traits, however each trait can be brushed up as per changing times

4. Personality functions as a unified whole: each person’s personality expression is the sum total of what one has- one cannot hide one’s traits in totality while interacting with others

5. Personality is the product of both heredity and environment: An individual inherits personality traits by birth, and simultaneously those traits are nourished through upbringing. Further, the socio-cultural and economic environment ..

DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
The aspects of personality could be developed. These aspects include self-concept, motivation, attitudes, and values

1 SELF – CONCEPT: The development of personality of an individual is to a great extent dependent upon his view about him/herself. The emergence of a positive self-concept is likely to lead to a well-developed, harmoniously developed personality. It is, therefore, important that the children are made to learn from the very beginning to develop positive self-concept which is socially desirable. The child’s perception or view of him/herself is called self-concept. Selfconcept is what the individual thinks of his/her actual self:“It is me”.. As he/she grows up, he begins to differentiate. And reacts to the world which he/she perceives. The perception of oneself changes with maturity. With the change in perception behaviour also changes. Praise and blame, rewards and punishments and the personality of the teacher influence the self-concept of children. Thus, the teacher should guide them to set realistic
goals which are in accordance with their reach to attain them. Setting unrealistic goals is likely to develop frustration and despair.

2 MOTIVATION :The term motivation refers to the “arousal of tendency to act to produce one or more effects.”Motivation is the process of arousing, sustaining and regulating activity.
A)Classroom Motivation: Students in the classroom learning need constant motivation from the teacher so that optimum use of their talents may be made for their development of motivation.Since individual children differ in regard to their specific needs according to their personality patterns and socio-economic back-ground, the teachers will have to vary their motivational techniques and employ them judiciously. In other words, every individual pupil should be led towards goal, goals should be within each pupils’s reach, and should seem attainable to him. Thirdly, he should be able to judge whether or not he is attaining his goals and how he is falling short. Fourthly, a teacher should not rigidly and strictly adhere to one technique of motivation but he should make use of all techniques judiciously and scientifically.
B) Reinforcement: Praise and Blame These may be classified as:
a) Positive Verbal Reinforcement—Following a pupil’s answer, the teacher verbally indicates pleasures at the pupil’s response by the use of words like ‘Good’, ‘Fair’, ‘Excellent’, ‘Correct’, etc.
b) Positive Non-Verbal Reinforcement—That include:  Nods and smiles.  Teacher’s friendly movements towards pupils.  Teacher’s friendly look. Teacher writing student’s response on the blackboard
c) Negative Non-Verbal—This comprises gestures—sneering, frown-ing, expression of annoyance, impatience, etc.
d) Negative Verbal—This includes comments like ‘No’, ‘Wrong’, ‘No good’, ‘poor’, ‘of course not’, etc.

3. ATTITUDES  :One of the chief objectives of education is the development of desirable attitudes in the students. The students must develop several attitudes in the students such as –attitude towards studies, self,friends, certain ideals etc. An attitude is dispositional readiness to certain institutions, persons or objects in a consistent manner which has been learned and has become one’s typical mode of response. For eg,one’s views towards food or drink, sports ,maths or democracy are attitudes. It includes certain aspects of personality such as interests, appreciation and social conduct. An attitude is learnt or adopted.

4 VALUES: A value stands for ideals men live for. They are the guiding principles of life which are conducive to one’s physical, social and mental health. Values may be defined as
What we believe-professed values
What we practice-operational values, and
What we learn from experience in order to adapt and renew traditions received from the past-traditional values. Ways and Means of Inculcating of Values (Role of Education): Relating to the inculcation of values, it would be sufficient to say that values are not taught or made to learn but the students themselves attain them. If we again and again say to the students that they should always speak the truth, telling a lie is a sin it would not make them to learn speaking the truth and not leave telling of lies. But if the teacher instead of giving such types of sermons himself follows the path of truth and the students find a teacher always speaking the truth, it would definitely have some impact on the children and it is possible that they might adopt the path of truth.