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4 Child Psychology Topics That May Help Parents

There are many child psychology topics that can be very beneficial for parents. These individuals may try their best to be good parents but they may often fail. There are times when it becomes very difficult to interact with a child that is going through different stages of development.

Whether they are learning how to walk, write their name, or if they are entering into puberty, these are all transitional periods where it can be hard to properly interact with your child. Here are 4 child psychology topics that you may want to consider reading as they may be able to provide insight into some of these issues.

Child Behavior

This is always a prominent discussion in psychological circles where children are being discussed. There are so many different problems that can arise as a child is growing, and parents need to know how to appropriately deal with each of these issues. For example, a child that is 12 months old is going to start problem-solving behaviors.

By the time they reach 18 months, they will be using information gathered from personal experience and five sensory perception to make choices in their daily lives. It is also during this time that a child’s temperament may become difficult. They are no longer merely relying upon the guidance of the parent.

As they begin to explore their own abilities, they may become frustrated as you try to prevent them from doing certain things. This type of experience will repeat itself when a child first goes to preschool or kindergarten, and graduates from elementary school to middle school. Parents need to be aware of strategies such as providing children with choices, or redirecting their attention if there is a difficult situation.

Although punishment was once used as a primary way of dealing with unruly children, more psychologists and parents today are implementing positive feedback and redirection as their primary strategies for helping their kids during these difficult transitional times.

Anger Management For Children

Children at all ages are going to experience anger management problems. As mentioned before, as they are going through transitional stages of development, this can be a very difficult time for them. They are trying to evolve, either by themselves, or as a result of social cues they are receiving from their peers. They have a much larger sense of self, and as a result of that, they are going to try to force their own agendas.

Dealing with children that are experiencing anger management issues such as tantrums can be very trying for adults. Whether this is happening at home, or if children are doing this at school, strategies must be implemented in order to redirect their anger or help them understand why what they are doing is wrong from a perspective other than their own. Of the 4 child psychology topics, the next one will reference one of the most important psychologists that truly understood these changes that children would experience in life.

Erik Erikson’s Theory

Understanding the teachings of the psychologist are very helpful for both transitional periods and helping children deal with anger management issues. He is the psychologist that coined the phrase identity crisis. Essentially, every imbalance in their personality is typically tied to some type of transitional stage that they are experiencing. Eric Erickson developed an eight stage system for dealing with identity crisis.

He was able to develop this because he received his education from the Sigmund Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute and also was a prominent supporter of the Montessori method. He also understood that human development throughout of a three-part system which was initially promoted by Sigmund Freud which included the id, ego, and the superego.

By understanding that these changes are primarily caused by biological urges and developmental shifts, and that these transitions would lead to a shift in identity, the eight stage system shows you how to deal with identity crises that will come up at these transitional times that children will go through.

Socio-Emotional Development

Finally, a topic that also relates to these stages of a child’s growth includes socio-emotional development. Eric Erickson presented this theory as a type of response against Freud psychosocial theories, realizing that life was nothing more than a series of crises that a person must endure in order to develop and survive. He believed that these changes were not just experienced by children, but would continue on through adulthood.

However, by properly dealing with the early crises of human development, children would be better equipped to handle future situations in which they would need to resolve identity issues. Part of the solution was realizing that this was not a psychosexual problem as Freud introduced, but was a socio-emotional development issue.

Based upon feedback that children would receive from their environment, especially in a social context, this would affect their emotions and therefore the emotions would then drive their decisions on how to deal with conflicts appropriately.

These are 4 child psychology topics that should be studied by every parent. What a parent needs to understand is that children develop and change as a result of changes that must occur. As they are learning how to identify themselves as an individual, use motor skills, and use problem-solving skills even at an early stage in life, they are going to experience crises that are related to developmental change.

Combined, these 4 child psychology topics will help any parent improve their ability to interact with their child when they are suffering from these issues. It also sets a good foundation for your children, making sure that they understand how to properly deal with these changes and crises that will come up.

They can then impart what they have learned from you to their children, helping to perpetuate a much more rational and focused way of dealing with the changes of life. It is so important to understand why these crises occur, and how to deal with them, if you want to be an ideal parent.

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