Child psychology

Child psychology

Child psychology is one of the many branches of psychology and one of the most frequently studied specialty areas. This particular branch focuses on the mind and behavior of children from prenatal development through adolescence. Child psychology deals not only with how children grow physically, but with their mental, emotional, and social development as well.

Historically, children were often viewed simply as smaller versions of adults. When Jean Piaget suggested that children actually think differently than adults, Albert Einstein proclaimed that the discovery was "so simple that only a genius could have thought of it."

Today, psychologists recognize that child psychology is unique and complex, but many differ in terms of the unique perspective they take when approaching development.

Experts differ in their responses to some of the bigger questions in child psychology, such as whether early experiences matter more than later ones or whether nature or nurture plays a greater role in development. Because childhood plays such an important role in the course of the rest of life, it is little wonder why this topic has become such an important one within psychology, sociology, and education.

Experts focus only on the many influences that contribute to normal child development, but also to various factors that might lead to psychological problems during childhood. Self-esteem, school, parenting, social pressures, and other subjects are all of tremendous interest to child psychologists who strive to help kids develop and grow in ways that are healthy and appropriate.

If you are like most people, you probably think about the internal factors that influence how a child grows, such as genetics and personal characteristics. However, development involves much more than the influences that arise from within an individual. Environmental factors such as social relationships and the culture in which we live also play essential roles.

There are three major contexts that we need to consider in our analysis of child psychology.

The culture a child lives in contributes a set of values, customs, shared assumptions and ways of living that influence development throughout the lifespan. Culture may play a role in how children relate to their parents, the type of education they receive and the type of childcare that is provided.

Relationships with peers and adults have an effect on how children think, learn and develop. Families, schools and peer groups all make up an important part of the social context.

Social class can also play a major role in child development. Socioeconomic status (often abbreviated as SES), is based upon a number of different factors including how much education people have, how much money they earn, the job they hold and where they live.

Children raised in households with a high socioeconomic status tend to have greater access to opportunities, while those from households with lower socioeconomic status may have less access to such things as health care, quality nutrition, and education. Such factors can have a major impact on child psychology.

 How Does Your Socioeconomic Level Affect Your Stress Level?

Remember, all three of these contexts are constantly interacting. While a child may have fewer opportunities due to a low socioeconomic status, enriching social relationships and strong cultural ties may help correct this imbalance.

Child psychology encompasses a wide range of topics, from the genetic influences on behavior to the social pressures on development. The following are just some of the major subjects that are essential to the study of child psychology:

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  Cognitive development
  
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  Environmental influences
  
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  Gender Roles
  
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  Genetics
  
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  Language
  
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  Personality development
  
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  Prenatal development
  
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  Social Growth
  
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  Sexual Development
  

Child psychologists, for example, might look at which child care settings and practices lead to the best psychological outcomes or they might work with kids to help them develop growth mindsets. 

Child psychologists may specialize in helping kids cope with specific developmental concerns, or they may take a more general approach. In either case, these professionals strive to help kids overcome potential problems and grow in ways that lead to healthy outcomes.

Understanding what makes kids tick is an enormous task, so the study of child psychology is both wide and deep. The goal is to study the many influences that combine and interact to help make kids who they are and to use that information to improve parenting, education, child care, psychotherapy, and other areas focused on benefiting children.

By having a solid understanding of how children grow, think and behave, parents and professionals working with children can be better prepared to help the kids in their care. Understanding how a child thinks is really the key to making sure that any parent can properly handle their development. Children are going to go through a substantial amount of changes as they get older, and it begins as early as one year of age.

As parents noticed these changes, they need to have strategies that they can implement in order to properly raise their child and avoid strategies that can impede their development. Here are 4 child psychology topics that a parent should understand in order to become the best possible parent that they can become.

One of the first things that a parent should understand are the stages of human development. There are several aspects to the strategies such as understanding physical development, but for parents, they need to be more understanding of cognitive, emotional and psychosocial changes.

Parents should begin studying the development of the human mind first. One of the best resources for this information is the work of Jean Piaget. He was a Swiss clinical psychologist, and then that lived most of his life in Switzerland, and it was his theory of cognitive development that really change the way that psychologists developed their own strategies.

Piaget outlined six specific stages that a child would go through as they were developing through life. It started with the use of reflexes, and was followed by acquired adaptations, visual objectives, and what he called the application of known means. In the later stages, the final two focused upon the discovery of new means which occurred around the second year of life.

At the same time, a child would begin to invent their own schemata for how to process the world. It is very important during these first two years that a parent uses proper strategies for helping a child understand their boundaries. They must not confine them or punish them for doing things wrong, but provide them with alternatives and redirection that can help them understand how to modify their own schemata of the world in a positive way.

Jean Piaget took this a step further in his book on the origins of intelligence in children. He stated that children will go through cognitive development as a natural part of the human process, and their development was not influenced significantly by intervention from either educators or their parents.

However, many other psychologists were not pleased with this concept, believing that your environment literally molds the person that you become. Another psychologist by the name of Vygotsky stated that child development was not just a natural process, but it had more to do with the problem-solving abilities of the child. Despite this support, it was clear to many other psychologists that the environmental situation in which a child is placed can play a large role in how they develop.In contrast to Piaget were the writings of Eric Erickson who developed theories on life stages. Although he used information that he obtained from Piaget to develop these theories, his understanding of life stages went in a completely different direction. He discusses how circumstances and events can affect a child’s life, causing them to react to what is around them.

It was through social interactions, and environmental conditions, that their perception of the world and schemata for reality would be molded as a result of these interactions. He further stated that it was not just environmental conditions that could affect a child’s growth. It could also be personal physical weaknesses such as a disability or chronic illness.

It also had to do with sociocultural factors related to race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and poverty. In addition to this, life-threatening or traumatic situations could also completely rewrite certain parts of their schemata, changing the way that they would see the world and react to certain circumstances.

Therefore, Piaget was not taking into account outside influences, whereas Eric Erickson understood the value of proper parenting. There is one more psychological topic that must be understood by parents that will bring all of these concepts together. Of the 4 child psychology topics that are presented, this is the one that will allow parents to understand how personal development, and response to environmental factors, are constantly molding your child on a daily basis.