Sigmund Freud believed a child’s progressive evolution had a direct correlation to what he coined psycho sexual development. He observed that children seek pleasure from different parts of their bodies called erogenous zones and related these with specific stages of their development. Freud’s model of psycho sexual development consisted of the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage.

The oral stage he relates to a newborn child until the age two (2).  The erogenous zone linked to this stage is the mouth where children find pleasure in nursing. This time in a child’s life is considered to be nurturing and of close proximity to the mother. When the child moves to try to control the anal sphincter the child has shifted from the oral stage to the anal stage, which occurs between the age of two (2) and three (3), where the erogenous zone is considered to be the bowel and bladder.  Freud considered this stage to be in conflict with the id, the ego and superego as the child has to confront the parent’s demands while toilet training. The third stage occurs during the age of three (3) to six (6) where the child’s erogenous zone is the genital area also known as the phallic stage. Because children at this age are still immature, genital stimulation is pleasurable however not relatable to that of an adult.

The latency stage is viewed more as hidden drives or a period between stages with unresolved issues and dormant sexual feelings. Freud considers this a time of great stability for the child and can occur between the ages of three (3) to seven (7) and can continue through puberty. The final stage or genital stage starts at age twelve (12) when major detachment from the parents begins and leads to mature adult sexuality. The erogenous zone is again the genitals, but unlike the phallic stage, the focus here is sexual gratification.

Freud also discussed adverse consequences to these fixations. In the oral stage if the child is weaned too early or too late from nursing (also considered neglected or over-protected), it may develop oral dependent such as excessive talking, addiction smoking or alcoholism. And can also result in gullibility or immaturity in later years. Excessive or lack of gratification during the anal stage, according to Freud, can lead to anal retentiveness or extremely neat and compulsively clean or lack of self control and messy personalities. The phallic stage was also believed to be the stage where boys struggled with the Oedipus complex (after the Greek tragedy where Oedipus kills his father and sleeps with his mother) describing the feeling of jealousy towards their same sex parent. Although Freud did not believe the Oedipus complex applied to girls Carl Jung coined the equivalent to the Oedipus complex as the Electra complex for girls.

During the latency stage children do not tend to have fixations however, Freud considered it a time of sexual repression and dissatisfaction while fixation during the genital stage can lead to frigidity, impotence and sexual dysfunction.

Freud’s childhood development theory was met with much criticism as scholars claimed he had a tendency to generalize his research and most of his research was based on adult subjects and never observed from the extensive study of children themselves. His studies had very little female subjects as well.