INTERACTION PROCESSES AND. THE PERSONALITY GROWTH OF CHILDREN

Abstract

The personality growth of children is an intricate process. It is complicated by the fact that a child is not an individual entity but a social being. However, the social proclivity of the human organism is not the complicating factor. The proper development of children's personality is complicated by the diverse implications drawn by those who teach children. One psychologically sound and all-inclusive implication can be drawn: the child as a social being seeks relentlessly to belong. It follows, therefore, that the child can live successfully in school only if he has a place in the group. His place in the group is not assured, to him at least, until he has convinced himself that he has a place in it. By the strivings to belong does the individual child help to create the social atmosphere in which he will function as a learner.