Latency stage
The latency stage is the fourth stage of Sigmund Freud's model of a child's psychosexual development. Freud believed that the child discharges their libido (sexual energy) through a distinct body area that characterizes each stage. The stages are: the 'oral phase' (first stage) the 'anal phase' (second stage) the 'phallic phase' (third stage) the 'latency phase' (fourth stage) the 'genital phase' (fifth stage). In general The latency stage may begin around the age of 7 (the end of early childhood) and may continue until puberty, which happens around the age of 13. The age range is affected by childrearing practices; mothers in developed countries, during the time when Freud was forming his theories, were more likely to stay at home with young children, and adolescents began puberty on average later than adolescents today. Freud described the latency phase as one of relative stability. No new organization of sexuality develops, and he did not pay a lot of attention to it. For this reason, this phase is not always mentioned in descriptions of his theory as one of the phases, but as a separate period. The latency phase originates during the phallic stage when the child's Oedipus complex begins to dissolve.