Great Expectations is one of the first books to look seriously at a child's experience from a child's direct perspective. What do we learn from...

From Pip we learn that children experience real emotions, and adults are affected by their childhood experiences.

Charles Dickens was very sympathetic to children.  He often includes child narrators in his books, or includes child characters.  Pip is telling his story as an adult looking back on his experiences as a child.  He gives his child self credit for having real emotions and opinions, and acknowledges the emotional scars his childhood left on him.

An example of this is Pip’s guilt.  Pip was a worrier.  As a child, he was often overcome by guilt for even the most minor misdeeds.  Thus when he did something major, like helping the convict or fighting with Herbert Pocket, he was convinced that he was going to be arrested straight away.

I felt that the pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe punishment. (Ch. 7)

Pip’s feelings of guilt are a defining factor.  They are partly due to his youth and lack of understanding of the way the world works, but partly due to his personality.  His adult self does not ignore it.  He dwells on it, because he still suffers from the same self-doubts in some respects that his child self did.  The child we were influences the adult we become.  The nagging worry of Pip’s childhood affected the adult he turned into.

A child’s experiences directly influence his future sometimes.  Pip’s experience with Magwitch was a formative one, and one of chance.  Miss Havisham was a very important part of Pip's childhood.  He was trapped.  She made sure that she had him there as a training device for Estella in his formative years, teaching him how to fall in love.

"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?"

"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham."

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat in the chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?" (Ch. 29)

Pip and Estella learn how to love in a very dysfunctional way.  We see through the child Pip’s eyes what Miss Havisham is doing to him.  His experiences have value.  He is being very poorly treated, and it will affect him for life.