Childcare: Child Psychology - Assignment Example

 Child Psychology Psychology is the science of working with human function, nature and aspect of his soul. In children, psychology involves the extent of interaction between the subconscious and conscious aspects or mental power. Understanding childhood psychology is a crucial way of ensuring that children’s childhood is not complicated and influenced by development complications that transition into adulthood. In most cases, childhood psychological influences determine the kind of person one become. Childhood development complications are well understood through development milestones and behaviors from birth to adolescence. Other areas covered under childhood psychology, emotional, social, and mental well being. This paper focuses on the evaluation of childhood psychology in terms of prominent psychological theories, principles and practices of child psychology, child nurturing practices, and the social and experiential relationship between childhood experiences and psychology. Developmental psychology is an approach aimed at explaining the manner in which children and adults grow with time[Sha10]. However, most of the present theories explain how children grow since this period involves most changes in a person’s lifespan. While developmental psychologists evaluate a wide range of theoretical areas such as cognitive, biological, social, and emotional, this section focuses on emotional and psychological theories. The three main child psychological theorists are Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Bowl by, and Ainsworth. Influenced by the theories and approaches of these theorists, modern day childhood psychologists work with caregivers and children in research, assessment, and healing of developmental issues[Sha10]. The forms of treatments used by child psychologists include therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, and assisting children to learn and solve their problems in a manner that is healthy and productive. Considering that children normally have needs that vary from those of adults, childhood psychologists should seek to adopt can treatment methods that accommodate such needs. Besides working with schools and orphanages, childhood psychologists are also found in institution dealing with children, such as child welfare offices, and health-based organizations such as hospitals, and mental health clinics. Additionally, some child psychologists practice independently, thus allowing them to provide more focus on each patient. Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory is the foundation of theories such as Erik Erikson. According to Freud, childhood psychological development occurs in three stages[Bur]. Each stage represents constant libido and each phase translated as instincts or sex drives on different body areas. Additionally, Freud revealed that as children and adults grow, some parts of their body offer crucial information on a person’s potential sources of frustrations or pleasure. Freud’s argument was that during moments of tension, a person was experiencing accumulated libido while all pleasure came with libido discharge. Consequently, the first five years of a child’s development are crucial in the determination of personality in humans. The three models of Freudian psychosexual theory were ego, identity, and superego. Freud recommended that, the ID stage must be controlled so as to accomplish social demands as they result in conflict between social norms and frustrated wishes. Conversely, the ego and superego stages are said to develop so as to exercise the ID control and focus the gratification need into channels that are socially acceptable. Each stage, then becomes psychosocial as each gratification is experienced in various growth stages. Freud’s psychosexual stages are oral, anal, phallic, and latent phases. During the oral stage, Ego develops between 0 and 1 year, where children satisfy their libido by putting everything into their mouths. Between 1 and 3 years is the anal stages where a child’s pleasure is in defecating and conflict arise as the child understands their wishes that conflict with the outside world demands. Between 4 and 6 years, children enter the phallic stage where their sensitivity can get concentrated in the genitals and masturbation provides pleasure. Conflict arises between awareness of sexual anatomy and erotic resentment, attraction jealousy. Borrowing heavily from Freud, Erikson’s psychosocial development theory today presents the most highly regarded in personality psychology. Erikson believed that there are distinct developmental stages, but unlike Freud, Erikson’s psychosocial stages were defined in terms of the outcomes of lifetime social experiences. Erikson explains psychosocial development through the development of ego identity. Ego identity is the core element of Erickson’s psychosocial theory and presents the conscious sense of self that is acquired from social interaction. However, Erikson is quick to note that ego identity is in constant change given that humans are exposed to novel experiences and information from routine interactions with other people. During such interactions, humans are exposed to situations that promote or hinder development. Erikson’s psychosocial stages of childhood psychology are trust and mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, identity vs. role confusion, and intimacy vs. isolation. The trust vs. mistrust stage occurs during infancy from birth to 18 months. According to Erikson, the most crucial event of this stage is feeding and infants establish trust when provided with care, reliability, and affection by caregivers. However, children can also mistrust some caregivers. In the stage of autonomy vs. shame and doubt, children experience early childhood between 2 and 3 years and consider toilet training to be the most important event. During early childhood, the development of a sense of personal control occurs coupled with a sense of development. When operating independently, success results in autonomy while failure results in doubt and shame. During the preschool years, children’s most crucial event is exploration and the main conflict is initiated against guilt as the preschooler exerts power and control over their environment. At this point, success results in a sense of purpose while disapproval causes guilt. From 6 to 11 years, the school age child is keen to schooling and conflicts arise between industry and inferiority. Since school presents novel academic and social demands, success causes a sense of competence while failure results in inferiority feelings. Finally, the adolescence age of 12 to 18 years introduces social relationships as the major events that then cause conflict between identity and role confusion. As teenagers grow, they acquire a sense of personal and self-identity. With successful personal and self-identity, teens become true to self while role confusion results from failed personal identity. Unlike Freud and Erikson theories that define the eventualities of different levels of development, Bowlby and Ainsworth focused on psychological development in terms of relationships and bonds between humans. John Bowlby, defined attachment as the eternal psychological connection between human beings and this drove him to the interest of understanding distress and separation anxiety experienced by children in the event of isolation from core caregivers. Unlike previous behavioral theorists, Bowlby realized that attachment was not a learned behavior, but evidenced by clearly defined motivational and behavioral patterns. Like Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth defined three forms of attachment that are ambivalent-insecure attachment, secure attachment, and avoidant-attachment. Additionally, Main and Solomon included the disorganized-insecure attachment to form a third attachment style. Secure attachment occurs when a child is separated from caregivers, yet remains joyful upon the caregiver’s return. This indicates dependency on adult caregivers. However, ambivalent attachment is less common as a child demonstrates distress upon parent’s departure and results from maternal availability. Avoidant attachment results in the tendency to avoid parents and caregivers and treat them all as strangers. This attachment could be due to abusive or neglectful care. As a result, a child prefers avoiding reliance on caregivers and searches for assistance in future. Finally, the disorganized attachment portrays a confused mix of behavior, making it appear disoriented, confused, and dazed. The infant resists and avoids the caregiver in this case. In child psychology, attachment matters since it affects a child’s self-esteem and stronger self-reliance as they get into adulthood. For instance, children in secure attachments become more independent, establish successful relationships, are successful, and are at lower risk of anxiety and stress. Understanding the principles and practices of child psychology is essential in understanding why this branch of psychology is crucial in human life. Child psychology as an independent field makes it possible to understand children’s emotions, behaviors, and perception of things and situations. With such understanding, child psychology field ensures that parents get the right teachings on how to deal with some situations or conducts and offers tools they use to assist their children. For instance, parents can assist their children by identifying and managing their frustrations especially when they fail in their tasks. Although child psychology is more or less similar to adult psychology, there are numerous things that can result in detrimental consequences on the perception of a child. For instance, child abuse and parents’ divorce can cause depression and inferiority in young children unlike adults. Unfortunately, affected parents never tend to figure out the impacts on their children, thus the children grow up psychologically disorganized and even tend to lose trust in their parents. Children dealing with emotional issues or one acting in suspicious ways that demonstrate the need for professional guidance should be assisted. Additionally, child psychology clarifies to the parents that the fact that their children are seeing psychologists does not make them mad or crazy. Instead, it serves well in ensuring that such children have the right assistance and that their parents are nothing less of caring and loving parents. For the psychologists’ child psychology is not just a career, but also a form of rewarding work. When providing therapy to children, psychologists use their expertise to assist individuals and groups to establish associations with others while understand themselves better. Additionally, working with children makes psychologists become self-aware, identify their own thinking, separate personal thinking about their work and only integrate personality where it matters in their careers. Psychologists also learn to empathize with and respect others and their opinions, and remain self-aware while identifying their thinking and focusing on the goal of saving people. However, since child psychologists work with children who may not easily understand the instructions, their job can be stressful and draining. As a psychologist, child psychology principles will be crucial in distinguishing mental and emotional situations so as to guarantee neutral relationships with clients, and ensuring that no client problems are taken in and causing stress. Effective children psychologists must use the best practices to distinguish work from personal life through participation in and implementation of best stress management methods. In addition, upholding the independence of child psychology from general psychology makes it possible to develop specified pedagogical work used in training specialists such that there is common and universal acceptance of the right psychologists’ qualifications and the universal literature written for children[San67]. For children from birth to adulthood, child psychology branch provides crucial information to guide the various transformations undergone to see infants become adults. During infancy, children are helpless and parents, caregivers, and guardians must seek to assist children transform into independent society members. Children should also be assisted to grow into full society members whose reality is more accurate and complex. Besides ensuring that child psychological development occurs within age-related changes, child psychology field offers a way of explaining the means by which all such changes are founded, and building their law like reliance on the conditions of the child’s life and activity, and his contact with others. In addition to having childhood psychology as an independent field, there are legislations and policies associated with child rearing practices at regional, local, and national levels in nations including American and the United Kingdom[You10]. For local authorities in the UK, are guided by the legislation of family and friends care. Since not all children manage to be raised up by their parents, the UK government offers guidance on what family or friends caring for such children. This legislation also ensures that guardians have the right guidance regarding the implementation of the Children Act 1989. In addition, this legislation ensures that children and young persons living with friends or families are supervised by local authorities and partners. Additionally, the United Kingdom Labor law evaluates shapes the relationships between employers and employees, and trade unions. This labor law defines the minimum age for any employer to avoid any form of childcare. Additionally, the law forbids employers from denying flexible working hours or firing employees who need time for child care[Roy11]. Instead, employers are required to offer flexible working hours to such parents as provided in the employment rights Act 1996. Additionally, when an employee takes child care leave, UK employers are refunded the government in case the leave is paid. Additionally, the UK’s Children Act 1989 requires that the local authorities promote children welfare within their region. For instance, it is the role of local authorities to enquire and identify needy children in their area and promote their welfare while living in the area[Lon141]. The Children and young person’s Act of 1933 also forbids any form of cruelty to persons less than 16 years. Cruel acts against children include neglect, abandonment, ill-treatments, deliberate assaults, or exposed to assaults, abandonment, and negligence. Using the right expertise and putting in place the right legislation guarantees positive relationship between childhood experiences and psychology. In their development, children normally bond with nature. Additionally, children have their distinct needs, capabilities, and interests that cause them to form outstanding theories regarding the world[Joh03]. The development of such theories occurs as children interact with life, biological, and cultural experiences that reshape and impact their social, cognitive, and emotional development. During their interaction with others, children’s social learning and development are impacted by the influences that come from within them and those that come from family and friends. Internal influences resulting from temperaments, health, genetic inheritance, and gender. External influences arise from their relationships with family, parenting styles; can family monetary situation and values[Hur94]. Socially, children are also influenced by their community and cultural beliefs, values, and views on children’s rights. Through positive caring relationships between children and family, community and culture, the child’s learning is supported. In children, experiential learning allows instructors to interact with students’ direct experiences and reflection to improve knowledge, clarify values, and establish skills. During early childhood, allowing children to learn from through action, involvement, or doing, and finding makes them gain more skills, obtain higher knowledge and clarify values[Cor08]. In the course of experiential learning, the instructor must ensure that students manage to go through experiences of success, adventure, failure, risk-taking, and uncertainty in the most positive way possible. In the long run, childhood experiences affect a person’s personality and learning. For instance, children from very abusive families will prefer avoidant attachments with others coupled with fear. Additionally, childhood experiences influence a child’s social emotional functioning, thus affecting their coping capabilities. Strong coping capabilities in children demonstrate strong balance between independence and social connection. In conclusion, the discussion in the paper has focused on the evaluation of childhood psychology in terms of prominent psychological theories, principles and practices of child psychology, child nurturing practices, and the social and experiential relationship between childhood experiences and psychology. The discussion reveals that throughout life, humans are subjected to learning that commences upon birth and the early years are the most crucial. Bibliography Sha10: , (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010, pp. 41-42), Sha10: , (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010, p. 42), Bur: , (Burman, 1994), San67: , (Sandres, 1967, p. 1), You10: , (Young Minds, 2010, pp. 5-10), Roy11: , (Royal College of General Practitioners, 2011, pp. 12-14), Lon141: , (Long, 2014, pp. 3-5), Joh03: , (Johnson, 2003), Hur94: , (Hurrelmann & Nestmann, 1994, p. 30), Cor08: , (Corsini, et al., 2008, p. 356), Read More