It is Erikson’s idea that there is a task that must be accomplished at each stage of development. Successful resolution of each stage affects the next stage. As people pass through each stage, they form personality strengths or weaknesses based on their development during that stage. (p. 54).

Though it is true that basic trust and independence are formed early and affect later actions and attributes, it is also true that people can choose to work toward a better resolution of any of these developmental tasks at any time throughout their lives. (p. 55)

Holding on can be destructive: controlling, unyielding, and uncooperative behavior. (p. 62)

Letting go can be destructive: tantrums, losing control when angry, hitting, or biting. (p. 62)

Letting go can also be constructive: cooperating in relationships, sharing, or yielding to the plans of others. (pp. 62-63)

Holding on can also be constructive: attachment to special people, courage in the face of adversity, or plain old persistence in getting a task done. (p. 62)

encourage children to be as independent as possible;

set expectations that are in line with children’s individual abilities;

focus curriculum on real things and on doing.

Mistakes can be opportunities to do something new without being actual errors. E.g. "If you spill something, you just grab a paper towel and clean it.

Form ideas based in their perceptions (EGOCENTRISM) and can only focus in one variable at a time. Overgeneralization based on limited experience.

Toward the end of this first stage, Piaget says, object permanence occurs. Object permanence means that the baby has come to realize that something exists even when he can’t see it. This is a very important development for children. Before achieving this milestone, babies only think about what is in their view at the time. For example, if we carefully watch babies, we see that before eight or nine months they drop things from the high chair tray without making a fuss. For a young baby, if things are out of sight, they are literally out of mind. From the baby’s point of view, the things no longer exist. Then suddenly, at eight or nine or ten months, when that spoon drops from the tray, the baby leans over pointing and fussing and wanting it back. (p. 82)

This is also the age at which we see separation anxiety in children. They cry when their parents leave them at child care or when their primary caregiver is not present. Now the baby understands that when his parent or provider is not in sight, that person is somewhere else. The caregiver hasn’t just ceased to exist. So the baby makes attempts to bring that important “other” back into view—by crying. (pp. 82-83)

[H]e thought that children’s interactions with their environment are what create learning. He claimed that children construct their own knowledge by giving meaning to the people, places, and things in their world. (p. 79)

The teacher, aware that she has overestimated the children’s understanding, can ask questions that make them think a little more about irons. “Is the iron you use on clothes hot?” she might ask. “How would you feel if you put it next to your skin? Does a baby have skin? How do you think it would feel to the baby’s skin?” The children would quickly work out for themselves that an iron is not a good way to get rid of a newborn’s wrinkly skin! Piaget’s theory tells us that it will be more effective to ask questions that help children think through the problem on their own than to tell them flat out, “An iron would hurt the baby.” If they construct that knowledge for themselves by puzzling through the teacher’s questions, they are more apt to take it in than if the teacher gives it to them. (p. 89)

When children enter Piaget’s stage of concrete operations at about age seven, many changes in their thought patterns are visible. At this age (usually from about seven through eleven or twelve) children possess the characteristic of reversibility, which allows them to reverse the direction of their thought. (p. 95)

Vygotsky has changed the way educators think about children’s interactions with others. His work shows that social and cognitive development work together and build on each other. For years, early educators, schooled in Piaget’s theories, viewed children’s knowledge as being constructed from personal experiences. Although Vygotsky also believed this, he thought that personal and social experience cannot be separated. (p. 100)

Vygotsky defined this as the distance between the most difficult task a child can do alone and the most difficult task a child can do with help. He believed that a child on the edge of learning a new concept can benefit from the interaction with a teacher or a classmate. (p. 101)

Vygotsky referred to the assistance a teacher or peer offers a child as scaffolding. (p. 101)

Vygotsky believed that language presents the shared experience necessary for building cognitive development. He believed that talking is necessary to clarify important points but also that talking with others helps. (p. 106)