|
Age
Level
|
Moral
Development
|
Spiritual
Development
|
Intellectual
Development
|
|
Birth
to
5 or 6
|
No sense of right/wrong.
Totally self-centered.
Avoids behavior that makes
caregiver anxious.
Learning to obey rules – consistency important.
|
Learns to trust self/others.
Learns that self is separate from parents, resulting in self-assertion and
need for self-control. Senses love.
Imitates adult participation in religious activity. Accepts religious images and fantasies.
|
Reflex
action becomes coordinated muscle response.
Searches, imitates, recalls and invents. Begins forming mental images.
Confusion of real and imaginary. Engages in fantasy play, not reality
based.
|
|
Grades
1 – 5
|
Conforms in order to be rewarded,
have favors returned. Fairness is
very important. Feelings of others become
important. Acts in ways to please others,
to be liked, or to gain attention.
|
Learns Bible stories and key
people. Enjoys successful learning,
builds self-esteem. Takes stories and myth literally. Concepts are
concrete: God is like a person.
Likely to follow adult authority.
|
Learns best from varied, active,
concrete activities: touching and manipulating. Decline of fantasy play. Reasons
logically with present and concrete objects, but can’t see all theoretical
possibilities.
|
|
Grades
6 - 8
|
Peer acceptance increases in
importance. Behavior copies that of peers. Avoidance of guilt by obeying
social and ethical rules and authority figures.
|
Begins to develop a clearer sense
of “who I am” and “what I stand for.”
May experience a sense of relationship with God. May be confirmed within local church.
|
Begins to think abstractly. Builds concepts out of facts. Begins to
consider and test range of possibilities.
|
|
Grades
9 - 12
|
Right or wrong is a matter of
personal opinion and value. Community is expected to obey laws or help
change them.
|
Puts together a belief system based
on many authorities, adults and peers.
May abandon earlier conventional faith and shape one’s own special
version based on worldview and multiple faith traditions.
|
Uses varied thought processes. More
flexible and versatile. Speculates
about and is motivated by abstract ideals: justice, freedom.
|
|
Ages
18 - 25
|
Decisions of conscience based on
self-chosen ethical principles.
|
Learns to love and care intimately
for others. May affirm beliefs, symbols
and rituals of church as one’s own.
May acknowledge traditions of other cultures.
|
More able to apply intellectual
skill in intensive, goal-directed study, work, social participation
|