Managing Transition

Implications of managing transition, based on two different childhood theories

Transition is an inevitable process in life that everyone goes through from birth until adulthood. The Oxford Dictionary defines transition as “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another”(Oxford Dictionaries, 2019). Young children experience minor transition such as flexible routines in school leading up to major changes such as graduating from kindergarten and starting primary school. Even adults go through it when they are shifting house, taking on higher education or when they go through a single major life event such as transiting into parenthood or a career switch. We all go through it from birth and we face various challenges along the way, therefore managing transitions is as important as having to go through them. Adopting proper strategies when managing transition promotes a positive experience and helps ease the process, especially for young children(Patel, 2019). There are a few child development theories which have an implication for managing transitions in young children and adults. The two theories which will be discussed in this paper are Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model (Lau & Ng, 2014) and Ryan & Deci’s self-determination theory (Sheldon & Schüler, 2011).

Implications of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model on Child Transition

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model helps us understand the relationship between multiple environments and the people that has an impact on a child going through transition – growing up from adolescent into adulthood. The model is divided into five categories: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem (Lau & Ng, 2014). The microsystem is made up of the people and environment closest to the child such as the parents, siblings and teachers in school and extra-curricular activities such as sports team or music classes (Vélez-Agosto, et al., 2017). The child's roles and interaction in this system have the greatest influence on the child as they spend a lot of time with the people involved here. For example, children trust their immediate family members more than others, therefore when a child who observes his parents showing respect to his teacher, the child will most likely grow to trust and respect his teacher as well. The mesosystem is the relationships between the microsystems, such as parents and teachers or even where they live (Zhang, 2018). An example would be when a child grows up in an unsafe neighbourhood environment, it would affect the set of rules that the parents set for the child to keep them safe, like earlier curfew or to always play indoors. The exosystem is a link between two settings – one is an immediate setting and the other is where the person doesn’t play an active role(Ungar, et al., 2013). It has a direct impact on us even though we do not experience it directly. For example, a child is not physically involved in their parent’s workplace but their parent's workplace does have an impact on the child. If the parent's workplace has a very tight schedule, it will affect the number of times the parents can volunteer at school events because they cannot get time off from work easily. The macrosystem is the layer comprised of socio-cultural values, customs and laws(Zhang, 2018). It reflects the characteristics of the external environment of the child and how it affects his/her development. For example, if the country or city they live in, imposes a mandatory nation curfew for children below a certain age; even though the child does not interact directly with the policymakers or the government, this factor affects the child’s life as well. Finally, the chronosystem is the dynamic of all the systems and the period of time the systems interacts with each other (Hwang, 2014). It holds external factors, for example, the death of a loved one and how it affects the child’s development or internal factors such as going through the transition of puberty. As a child grows older, their interaction and reaction to the transitions in their life changes. However, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory did not mention about a person’s competence and self-motivation when managing transition throughout their entire life from birth to adulthood.

Implications of self-determination theory on the adult transition

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a vital theory of motivation and personality which discusses intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in a person’s psychological needs (Lee, et al., 2010). There are three identified needs that are the basis for self-motivation and personality integration – the need for competence (the feeling of being able to do something successfully), autonomy (feeling a sense of self-government and ownership towards something) and relatedness (feeling important social connection with others) and (Sheldon & Schüler, 2011). It also takes into consideration the social environments factors and how it affects a person, which links back to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system. Children are curious and competent learners, they learn and experience new things with or without external rewards. This is an example of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation stems from a person’s cognitive and social development which gives a person a sense of fulfilment and inherent satisfaction throughout their life, as compared to extrinsic motivation where a person’s actions, personality and behaviour relies on external factors such as incentives or rewards (Van Nuland, et al., 2012). As mentioned before, social environment factors play a role in ensuring that a person’s motivation is maintained and remains enhanced from childhood through adulthood, especially their intrinsic motivation. Therefore, a person requires stable and supportive conditions through the different phases in life to ensure that that they remain curious and competent as they were in their childhood rather than have it undermined by negative conditions. For example, a teacher decides to further her studies and juggle work while taking a part-time degree because she is curious and competent, she has to have a strong sense of intrinsic motivation to do it for herself in order to persevere through the challenges that would present itself when juggling her career and part-time studies. A sub-theory called cognitive evaluation theory (CET) focuses on the fundamental needs of the three identified needs (Riley, 2016). CET presents that feedback from others and communication or rewards helps to bring about feelings of competence which can enhance or undermine a person’s intrinsic motivation (Riley, 2016). For example, when a teacher applies for sponsorship for her degree program and her superior questions her capabilities instead of providing encouragement during the sponsorship interview; this will affect how she feels about her decision as compared to if her superior provides her with support and encouragement where she will feel confident with her decision. This example links back to a person’s need to feel competent. This sense of competence must be complemented by the sense of autonomy, the second need to maintain a strong sense of intrinsic motivation in a person. A sense of autonomy allows a person to be in control when it comes to decision making and be more dedicated to the actions that follow. For example, when an adult is given a chance to make decisions for themselves such as when they would like to further their studies or if they should pursue a new career, their intrinsic motivation is enhanced as compared to when there is a reward or incentive offered as the sense of autonomy and self-motivation is now influenced by external motivation factors. The sense of relatedness is a need that is influential to the other two and plays a role in the effective outcome of maintaining a person's intrinsic motivation. Flannery (2017) states that it includes the need for close personal relationships and security. For example, when a student, child or adult feels that their educator is involved in their learning and development, the student will feel a great sense of motivation, in an adult, this will result in the student to be self-directed in their learning because they feel secure.

Extrinsic motivation is the focus of rewards and incentive from others. For example, an educator decides to take on a leadership course because she requires a higher financial income to support her family. The leadership course is a requirement for her to get a promotion to be a principal of the school and earn a higher salary. Therefore, she is motivated by external factors to go through a change in her life. There are certain types of extrinsic motivation which can have undesirable consequences for person well-being. Therefore, meeting the three needs is sufficient for a person to engage in new experiences without undermining their intrinsic motivation.

Conclusion

With the understanding of the two theories and the implications it has when managing transition in both children and adults, it is evident how important it is to understand how to manage the transition at any stage in life. A child's ecological system affects his behaviour and personality right up to adulthood. The relationship of the people in a child's microsystem should be strong, to provide a strong foundation for the child's development. For example, a strong parent-teacher relationship is one strategy to ensure children feel safe and supported. Therefore, as an early childhood educator, taking into consideration of each child’s ecological system, I will be better equipped with the knowledge in supporting the child’s development in school while working closely with their parents. With a strong microsystem, the other systems in the child’s life would be easier to handle as they are confident that the people closest to them are supportive and reliable, linking Bronfenbrenner’s theory to SDT. This will play an impact when a child transits into adulthood because of the relationship of both theories and how they support one another. As an adult, changes occur and it is important to manage it well from the beginning in order to maintain the innate desire for a person to develop positively. The managing of intrinsic motivation does not only start in adulthood but it starts as early as in childhood, especially when a child is in school and their natural curiosity is being fed through new learning experiences and meaningful education. The relationship between the two theories supports each other because of how social environment factors from Bronfenbrenner's theory influences the enhancement and maintenance of a person's intrinsic motivation in the self-determination theory. Recognising the fact that extrinsic motivation does not always yield positive results, providing children a positive social environment and supportive relationship with the people around them, they will grow into a competent and self-motivated adult who is able to manage transition throughout their entire life.

Personal Statement

There were many times that I asked myself if I made the right decision to switch from an outdoor education industry into early childhood. After graduating with my diploma in outdoor education, I worked in the Singapore outdoor education industry for a couple of years before I was recruited by an American company based in Hong Kong to be an outdoor specialist for their youth adventure program. Moving from Singapore where halal food was easily accessible and coming home to my family daily was a privilege taken for granted when I arrived in Hong Kong, the transition required me to adapt quickly to changes. I had to learn to live on my own, this meant I had to stock up on home supplies, food and other necessities. Some of which I was prepared for, others caught me off-guard. I never knew how much was invested in making a house feel like home. I was only able to keep myself together through the challenges because I told myself that I made this decision to gain new experiences and grow as an educator. This intrinsic motivation allowed me to persevere for the first few weeks which was the hardest as the transition was new and the social environment was foreign to me.

After a couple of months, I returned to Singapore and worked in a children’s gym where I was able to work with children and keep active by planning and executing indoor adventure programs for them. It was a great job, however, the salary I was bringing home every month did not make me feel whole about myself. I was not happy and towards the end, the only motivation I had to come to work was to interact with the children. This extrinsic motivation has undermined my need to feel competence since my work was not valued financially. My dissatisfaction affected the people in my microsystem, my parents and close friends were worried that I wasn’t being the best version of myself. I have always been the type of person who believes in lifelong learning and self-improvement, therefore, I enrolled in a professional diploma in early childhood education and started working in the early childhood industry. It took me a while to get used to being indoors for the most of my job, however, the school I was working at, encouraged teachers to plan their own lessons as long as it met the children’s milestone at the end of each academic term. Therefore, most of my lessons were conducted outdoors where children had the opportunities to interact with the natural environment and use it as the third teacher. My principal encouraged me to keep planning meaningful lessons for children and after a couple of years, I got my first class of toddlers. Now, those children are in K1 and I am still their class teacher. For the past four years, I have supported them in the various transition an 18-month-old – five-year-old child goes through. Even though this year is the first year I am taking a group of 21 children, twice as much as I did the past three years; with the support of my principal and colleagues, I believe that I am competent.

As an educator, I understand how a strong parent-teacher relationship helps build a better environment for children’s development therefore, I made sure I established that their involvement is essential with all my class parents at the beginning of the year. They understand that before I develop their child academically, I intend to build children’s confidence and made sure that they were happy in school before I begin teaching them a new topic. I facilitate children to use their intrinsic motivation to learn new things by allowing them to choose from a list of options what lesson they would like to have for the day. When I plan field trips and require parental involvement, I will plan and give them notice a month in advance so that they will be able to adjust their work schedule and be involved in their children’s school life.

References

Flannery, M. (2017) Self-determination theory: intrinsic motivation and behavioural change. Oncology Nursing Forum, 44(2), pp. 155-156.

Hwang, H. (2014) The influence of the ecological contexts of teacher education on South Korean teacher educators’ professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, pp. 1-14.

Lau, J. & Ng, K.-M. (2014) Conceptualizing the couseling training environment using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 36(4), pp. 423-439.

Lee, J. Q., McInerney, D. M., Liem, G. A. D & Ortiga, Y. P. (2010) The relationship between future goals and achievement goal orientations: An intrinsic-extrinsic motivation perspective. Contemporary Educational Pyschology, 35, pp. 264-279.

Oxford Dictionaries (2019) English Oxford Living Dictionaries. Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/transition [Accessed 20 April 2019].

Patel, A. (2019) Supporting transitions in the early years. Available at: https://bit.ly/2W90bOK [Accessed 20 April 2019].

Riley, G. (2016) The role of self-determination theory and cognitive evaluation theory in home education. Cogent Education, 3(1), pp. 1-7.

Sheldon, K. M. & Schüler, J. (2011) Wanting, having and needing: Integrating motive disposition theory and self-determination theory. American Psychological Association, 191(5), pp. 1106-1123.

Ungar, M., Ghazinour, M. & Richter, J. (2013) Annual research review: What is resilience within the social ecology of human development?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), pp. 348-366.

Van Nuland, H. J. C, Taris, T. W., Boekaerts, M. & Martens, R. L. (2012) Testing the hierarchical SDT model: the case of performance-oriented classrooms. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 27(4), pp.467-482.

Vélez-Agosto, N.M., Soto-Crespo, J. G., Vizcarrondo-Oppenheimer, M., Vega-Molina, S., Coll, C. G. (2017) Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory revision: Moving culture from the macro into the micro. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(5), pp. 900-910.

Zhang, Y. L. (2018) Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach to understand academic advising with International Community College students. Journal of International Students, 8(4), pp. 1764-1782.