Development of self

The development of self refers to the ideas that each child develops about who they are and their place in the world.

It’s during the 2 to 5 year old age range that a child will move from an understanding that they are independent from others, through to an awareness of who they are, their preferences, and how they interact with the world.

Many people describe themselves in relation to what they look like. People also describe social roles and personality traits. For example; mother, father, student, kind, tall.

Children in the 2 to 5 age group will start to develop an understanding of all of these and develop the ability to describe themselves in terms of their favourite activities, hair colour and possessions, and will start to refer to themselves in the first person.

For example "I’ve got brown eyes". From 2 years old, a child will also be able to label others based on observable characteristics such as age, skin colour, as well as interaction based characteristics. They will also be able to identify if they are a little boy or girl or a big boy or girl.