During the earlier stages of a child’s life they begin by developing the most basic needs like hearing and sight, and they add onto those by becoming physically stronger and learning how to walk, balance, and navigate.

By learning how to talk children learn to socialize and interact. And they spend their early years simply getting acquainted to the world and all its complexes.

After gaining their basic skills they start recognizing more emotional struggles, like being a part of a group, maintaining a certain status at school, and avoiding embarrassing situations.

They learn how to ‘chose’ friends, and prefer certain people over others. They also try out different hobbies for short periods in an attempt to discover what they love.

Their moral sense grows and becomes more informed as they start recognizing right from wrong and feel guilt and shame.

In other words they slowly form their character and identity through a trial-and-error like method.

Then comes ages 10-13 which are considered developmental milestones for children as they start approaching the teen years, where everything moves to a higher level, and

all their emotions and needs start to change rapidly throwing them yet again into new social and emotional challenges which they need to learn how to cope with all over again.

Age 11-12 is when the first of these physical and emotional changes starts to take place, and to be more specific they are split into five different aspects.

• Physical
• Intellectual
• Emotional
• Social
• Moral

Physical Development
This is the age when they become more aware of their bodies, and possibly self conscious of them. They will ask questions about the changes that are happening and it is important that these questions are answered openly.

Their sexual needs become more prominent and that’s when the ‘dating’ stage usually starts. However parents should encourage group activities rather than solo dating because their acting on sexual desires is still new, not very controlled, and probably the child is not yet fully informed about the implications and consequences of sexual acts.

At this stage,  boys’ and girls’ development take different shapes; Boys tend to become stronger and be ahead of girls in endurance and muscular development and their rapid growth may affect other aspects of their bodies, like cause fatigue or increase their appetite.

Girls’ start experiencing their secondary sexual characteristics, that is the development of the breast, and in some cases menstruation. It is important that a girl is well informed about these changes and guided through them by a female figure, as it is usually new and scary and effects self confidence drastically.

Because of all these changes, during this age children avoid learning new activities and skills because of their self –consciousness it is important that parents don’t minimize their lack of confidence and keep encouraging them to do something new.

Intellectual Development
Intellectually, children feel like they know everything, and often stick to what they believe despite advices or being told differently by parents. They challenge any new ideas and are usually good at doing so as their logic is now fully intact and they know how to use it wisely. Parents shouldn’t view this as disrespect to authority, and avoid being defensive. Instead it is important to listen to what they have to say and at times support their points of view to help increase their self-confidence.

As they become more aware of themselves, they become more judgmental to their own abilities, and find it hard to appreciate any work they do, for example their school projects, parents should re-instill this sense of confidence and encourage the work that the kids have done.

Children also become interested in outside the home work, like earning money or even joining community activities as they become more interested in the world outside their own comfort zone.

Emotional Development
During this age, children’s emotions become very unstable, and they show hints of frustration. They can easily become angry especially when told what to do. They have the need to be their own person and resent routines. This is the age when children start to ‘rebel’ against their previously accepted life styles.

Their mood is usually going up and down, and they experience many emotions like depression and worry and fear, which leads them to dramatize and exaggerate their reactions and may say hurtful things like “you’re the worst mother”. Parents should not take such remarks personally or over react as it is common for children to act this way during this age.

Social Development
Unlike younger years when children ‘worship’ adults and model after them, at this age they become resentful of adults’ presence in their life and seek a younger group of peers. This stance usually makes them hard to tolerate at home and requires a huge amount of patience from both parents.

Children will strive for unreasonable independence which in their point of view feels very logical. So parents should set clear limits but also allow opportunities for independence where possible.

Their relationship with their peers becomes competitive they will strive at constantly coming first; something which if achieved can help boost their confidence.

Moral Development
During this age children tend to conform to the morals of the peer group they belong to. And depend on their friends’ idea of right and wrong, rather than their own. They do that to seek social acceptance and parents need to give them the freedom to do so, while still monitoring the groups their children chose to belong to and try to keep a balance between giving children their independence and also keeping them out of harms’ way.

Ultimately this age is a new beginning where things are being formed and developed all over again, just like the first year of a child’s life are difficult and a heavy learning process so are the early years of puberty.

These changes effect children emotionally and can disturb their self confidence drastically therefore it is important for them to have support from parents even when they act like they don’t need it, in order to get through this stage without major negative effects on their personality and character.

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