BOOK TO REFER: The Essentials of LifeSpan Development-Lives in Context by Tara L Kuther Refer chapter 7 and 8

Life at 7 The documentary "Life at 7" follows a group of Australian kids as they navigate both routine and remarkable life experiences at the crucial age of seven. In two episodes, "Life at 7" delves deeper into how our children's personalities have molded their lives and the growing power of friends in their ever-expanding worlds. We struggle with the fundamental substance of what it requires to make us all flourishing, creative, and cheerful human beings as the lives of our kids develop. A child starts to comprehend their identity and their place in the world around the age of seven. We sense from the kids themselves for the very first time in the Life Series how they view their lives in their ever-growing environment. That’s why one of the Jesuits said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the adult” Daniel had an easy temperament, but the hardships had nurtured a sense of sad or cynical temperament. His mother tells that his cheeky, loving, and caring, but the hardships he faced since his birth like the death of his brother Jammie, then the divorce of his parents, and his mother going nearly blind makes his temperament a bit sad, although it was revealed in the emotional video experiment that he is attached more to his mother because he explained the cause of sadness in the video elaborately in a more unique way. However, he kind of hates his father, despite his father saying he is missing. What we can interpret from here is that hardships can alter temperament and some of that may not be reflected in a normal situation, however, it can come out as anger, or anxiety when things go against. Haleema is another child in the longitudinal experiment, she has shown great persistence in her academics. This temperament is the result of the upbringing her mother Batina provided, she made her habit of reading, was confident, and gave value to education she showed Haleema that there are infinite possibilities in the world. So, it is accepted among the experimenters that Haleema has an intrinsic temperament for head-on tackling life’s hardships. She suffered emotional, social, and economic hardship when her father parted away from her mother, but she kept on performing extraordinarily in her capacities and achieving rewards persistently. In one of the experiments Painting Flowers and Flexibility, she very much focused on making the lines more perfect, but suddenly when she found her drawing is spoilt, she felt disappointed but reconciled herself quickly and started painting again. That shows her ability to tackle toughness and move on. But there is a flipside of her persistence that she may not be flexible at times and that may impede her personality. Joshua is another child in the experiment, according to his parents, he is cheeky, funny, and a happy boy. He is a martial art player who always wants to achieve new milestones as he achieved Orange Belt in the Life at 5 episodes. But his mother feels that the boy lacks confidence, and has an easy-going temperament who relies on his parents to motivate him to do things. However, the parents have expectations and they want to encash the opportunities. These expectations are the result of family, relatives, etc. getting exposure from all around the world and discussing. However, these expectations pave the way to achieving more. In one of the experiments at Life Labs to understand how the failure they manage, the children were given the impossible task to propel a heavy car between two tables using the available resources. From the experiment, it was found that temperament of Joshua was not of giving up, instead, he kept on trying and tried to motivate himself by self-talk, which reflects his ability to motivate himself debunking his mother’s apprehension. In another experiment of Ranking Values (kind, rich, clever, good-looking, healthy, famous), almost half of the children gave richness their priority, but the reason given by Joshua reflects his maturity, he says that he wants to be to give money to those who don’t have, showing his bigger vision. So, from the experiments of Life Labs, it is well understood that at the age of 7 children can build an image of themselves, and they start to value that. Parenting plays a crucial role in building the temperament as it is shaped by the environment in which the child is raised.