s they get older, children discover that they may be good at some things and not so good at others. Children's self- concepts become divided into personal and academic spheres. During middle childhood children begin social comparison. Social comparison is the desire to evaluate one's own behavior, abilities, expertise, and opinions by comparing them to those of others. During middle childhood children deal with the crisis industry versus inferiority stage. The stage is characterized by a focus on efforts to attain competence in meeting the challenges presented by parents, peers, school, and other complexities of the modern world. This is a time of their life where the child develops a self esteem. Self-esteem in an individual's overall and specific positive and negative self-evaluation. Self concept reflects beliefs and cognitions about the self, self-esteem is more emotionally oriented. The self-esteem of most children tends to increase during middle childhood with a brief decline around age of 12. Some evidence shows that members of minority groups have lower self-esteem then those of the majority group. Children build a sense of self efficacy during their elementary years. Self efficacy refers to learned expectations that one is capable of carrying out a behavior or producing a desired outcome in a particular situation. Self efficacy is critical to children's success because it motivates greater effort and persistence in the face of a challenging task. Issues of identity take importance during adolescence. One reason is because adolescents intellectual capacities become more adult like. They can now understand the importance of establishing their position in society and the need to form a sense of themselves as individuals. Another reason is the dramatic physical changes during puberty which make adolescents acutely aware of their own bodies and the ways others may react to them. During adolescence, children begin t...
