Developmental Tasks (1971)

Developmental Tasks of Infancy and Early Childhood:
Ages birth to 6

1. Learning to walk.

2. Learning to take solid foods

3. Learning to talk

4. Learning to control the elimination of body wastes

5. Learning sex differences and sexual modesty

6. Forming concepts and learning language to describe social and physical reality.

7. Getting ready to read

Developmental Tasks of Middle Childhood: Ages 6-12

1. Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary games.

2. Building wholesome attitudes toward oneself as a growing organism

3. Learning to get along with age-mates

4. Learning an appropriate masculine or feminine social role

5. Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing, and calculating

6. Developing concepts necessary for everyday living.

7. Developing conscience, morality, and a scale of values

8. Achieving personal independence

9. Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions

Developmental Tasks of Adolescence: Ages 12-18

1. Achieving new and more mature relations with age-mates of both sexes

2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role

3. Accepting one's physique and using the body effectively

4. Achieving emotional independence of parents and other adults

5. Preparing for marriage and family life

6. Preparing for an economic career

7. Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behavior; developing an ideology

8. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior

Developmental Tasks of Early Adulthood

1. Selecting a mate

2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role

3. Learning to live with a marriage partner

4. Starting a family

5. Rearing children

6. Managing a home

7. Getting started in an occupation

8. Taking on civic responsibility

9. Finding a congenial social group

Developmental Tasks of Middle Age

1. Assisting teen-age children to become responsible and happy adults

2. Achieving adult social and civic responsibility

3. Reaching and maintaining satisfactory performance in one's occupational career

4. Developing adult leisure-time activities

5. Relating oneself to one's spouse as a person

6. To accept and adjust to the physiological changes of middle age

7. Adjusting to aging parents

Developmental Tasks of Later Maturity

1. Adjusting to decreasing physical strength and health

2. Adjustment to retirement and reduced income

3. Adjusting to death of a spouse

4. Establishing an explicit affiliation with one's age group

5. Adopting and adapting social roles in a flexible way

6. Establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements

Robert J. Havighurst (1971) Developmental Tasks and Education, Third Edition. New York. Longman.