Recently, I’ve been reading some manuscripts and have written out this advice–“Make sure that themes and storyline are developmentally appropriate and that you’ve chosen the best form to express your story.” Most of us know what this means. Please don’t try to create a picture book about a 12 year-old girl preparing for her bat mitzvah. However, you could write a picture book about a 12 year-old girl’s five year-old sister watching her older sister prepare. But don’t then write a picture book starring said little sister worrying about whether she is following the latest trend at the mall and whether her posse will approve of her shopping choices. Those are concerns for an older middle grade novel.
I don’t want you to think that I completely get this. I don’t. I have started two books that I thought were YA and they weren’t. The concerns and the voice were very much tween and I transposed everything to make it younger. I have also written a middle grade manuscript and upon reflection about developmental milestones, I transposed the narrative into a chapter book.
It might be interesting to look at what some theorists say about childhood cognitive development and see if that gives you any aha insight about where your character fits on the cognitive timeline.
In the beginning of the 20th century, Jean Piaget, a development biologist, described four stages of intellectual development in children, which can be helpful to consider while developing your characters. Below I will describe the stages and what form/s would be typically the most appropriate to express a story for this age.
• sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2). During this phase, kids use their five senses to understand their world, and see the world from their point of view. In the middle of this period, children understand object permanence. In other words, objects exist even they can’t be seen. Board Books
• Preoperational stage: (ages 2 to 7). During this period, children acquire all sorts of motor skills and their egocentrism begins to diminish. They also may display magical thinking, where they assume if they clapped their ones and it thundered outside, it will happen again. Picture books, easy readers (at upper end), chapter books (at upper end)
• Concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 12). Children are able to see other points of view and think logically, but usually are very concrete. chapter books, middle grade
• Formal operational stage (ages 12 and up). Children think logically and develop abstract thought. Upper middle grade (tween) and Young Adult.
Hope this gets you thinking about what whether your character’s thoughts are developmentally appropriate! Of course, if they aren’t that might be fine too. I mean that in and of itself could generate a story problem. But I think it can interesting to be aware of the rubric.
Yours,
Hillary
Thanks for the valuable advice. I’ve been debating the age of my middle grade main character based on the genre (time travel/fantasy), the point of view (3rd person) and central theme (self-acceptance and family). Still working on that one.
While not as widely referenced as Piaget, Steiner’s Model of the Child is interesting. He divided childhood into three stages that correspond to the developmental levels of the child: 0-7, the body; 7-14, the heart and feelings; 14-21, the intellect. Adolescent attitudes have reached down into preteen years in our day and girls often mature earlier than they did in the 19th century, but humans develop pretty much at the same rate.
Thanks, Jenny, for adding Steiner’s model. I thought I would also add Kohlberg’s six stages of of moral development to the mix.
Level 1. Preconventional Morality
Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey. Kohlberg calls stage 1 thinking “preconventional” because children do not yet speak as members of society. Instead, they see morality as something external to themselves, as that which the grown-ups say they must do.
Stage 2. Individualism and Exchange. At this stage children recognize that there is not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints. At stage 2, in contrast, punishment is simply a risk that one naturally wants to avoid.
Level II. Conventional Morality
Stage 3. Good Interpersonal Relationships. At this stage children–who are by now usually entering their teens–see morality as more than simple deals. They believe that people should live up to the expectations of the family and community and behave in “good” ways. Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and concern for others.
Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order. Stage 3 reasoning works best in two-person relationships with family members or close friends, where one can make a real effort to get to know the other’s feelings and needs and try to help. At stage 4, in contrast, the respondent becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole. Now the emphasis is on obeying laws, respecting authority, and performing one’s duties so that the social order is maintained.
Level III. Postconventional Morality
Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights. At stage 4, people want to keep society functioning. However, a smoothly functioning society is not necessarily a good one. A totalitarian society might be well-organized, but it is hardly the moral ideal. At stage 5, people begin to ask, “What makes for a good society?” They begin to think about society in a very theoretical way, stepping back from their own society and considering the rights and values that a society ought to uphold.
Stage 5 respondents basically believe that a good society is best conceived as a social contract into which people freely enter to work toward the benefit of all They recognize that different social groups within a society will have different values, but they believe that all rational people would agree on two points. First they would all want certain basic rights, such as liberty and life, to be protected Second, they would want some democratic procedures for changing unfair law and for improving society.
Stage 6: Universal Principles. Stage 5 respondents are working toward a conception of the good society. They suggest that we need to (a) protect certain individual rights and (b) settle disputes through democratic processes. However, democratic processes alone do not always result in outcomes that we intuitively sense are just. A majority, for example, may vote for a law that hinders a minority. Thus, Kohlberg believes that there must be a higher stage–stage 6–which defines the principles by which we achieve justice.
This was adapted and shortened from an article in Theories of Development. To see the full article go to http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm