Child Studies And Child Psychology Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

Child studies and Child Psychology
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Saturday, May 21, 2016
Introduction
Childhood is a period from birth to adolescence of an individual. It has divided into various stages according to biology or developmental psychology, which are early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Childhood is continuously transitional both physically and mentally resulting to adulthood. The major factors that influence the childhood experiences are the society and culture shaping their lives in development, education, health and the welfare of the child, which affects the child thought their lives. Children are diverse. They differ in their social and cultural backgrounds. With such a diversity of children, there is a need to come up with policies and practices that are necessary to offer to children the best at this stage that is sensitive to live. To get along with these plans studies have to be done to understand the right policies and practices to a child. Currently, childhood studies and child psychology have been used. The major features utilized in these two approaches are different thus different results are derived. The formulate policies and practices aimed at protecting children and their rights. Due to the differences in the results realized, it is important to combine the two: childhood studies and child psychology so as to come up with an effective policy and practice.
Childhood studies and child psychology
According to Kehily, (2009), Childhood Studies offers an integrative framework used to elaborate a child-centered research that is holistic in approach and built around the child rights and agency while including all diversities in gender and ethnicity. The childhood studies look much on the social and cultural effects on the developing child. Childhood studies comprise of three key features: childhood, children, and childhood and adulthood. Childhood is socially constructed and reconstructed. Children learn to think, feel act and communicate socially based on cultural their settings. The beliefs that the society has on childhood also primarily affect the child development showing a connection between social, cultural and biological processes of a child. The socio status of a child is a possible consideration in the retraction. The condition affects the child’s activity, and the agency is shaping their childhood. The socio status changes the extent to which the children are social actors making meaning out of the events enabling them to construct cognitive that make sense. There are variant explanations that will, therefore, elucidate the psychology of a child’s actions and mind.
According to Montgomery, different cultures children are viewed in a variety of ways, which affect their perceptions. In the western culture, the children are seen as innocent and dependants whereas in some of the non-western communities they are believed to be spirits who know to communicate. The difference between the cultural beliefs affects the child’s care articulation. In the Western culture cases, the children are provided for whereas in the non-western communities who take the children to be spirits; the children are to participate in the daily activities. This early participation will shape the child in a different way as compared to the child provided with the care. The risks of exposure to the environmental various conditions are therefore different. In children, the effect of early trauma and abuse to the children and how it enables them to create resilience and ways of coping up are a major thing taken into consideration at in childhood studies. The needs of the child attention can be the preliminary articulation alongside their provision. This Inception follows a look at the relationship between the child and adults. The adult has cultural definitions on the expectations of maturity and immaturity. This aspect primarily affects how the children develop as has social constructivism.
Child psychology looks at the child as young learners who are innocent. It looks at the biology, social, emotion and technical cognitive areas to describe, explain and optimize development. It tries to explain the change seen in children over time. Researchers focus on the typical patterns of change that are continual and cumulative and the individual variations in patterns of change. The contributions of both nature (biological maturation) and nurture (impact of the environment) are first considerable to explain development. In nurture, the experiences that the child learns from while developing perceptions of their growth. In developmental psychology, the psychologist will examine the past experiences and their influences to understand how the child is behaving currently. The doctor will then use the current behavior of the child to predict the future behavior of the child. This aspect can help in modifying the various factors that are affecting the child’s life for a better tomorrow. In psychology studies, the genetic makeup of the child are investigated, as the genetic material, and the environment is the major factors that affect how the child develops to maturity. McLeod, S (2009)
The various theories used in the study of the child psychology are Piaget’s cognitive theory which covers the schemas, adoption that enables the transition from one stage to of development to another, sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage and formal operational stage that are biological changes. Piaget seeks to explain the mechanisms by which an infant develops to a child then grows to an individual who can reason. The cognitive development according to Piaget is a continuous reorganization of the mental processes as a result of maturation. The children learn things and relate them to what surrounds them. The Vygotsky’s social developmental theory is a focus on the socio interaction of the child within the proximal zones. This interaction has a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky’s theory suggests that the intellectual evolution of the child is affected by both the biological and the socio-cultural elements. Language and other skills develop as the child interacts with the surrounding. The socio-development comes before the cognitive development. Bowlby’s attachment theory suggests that the child is pre-programmed biologically to form attachments, which leads to the developmental of emotional bond that connects them to others over time and space. The attachment is a set of behaviors that is drawn by how adults and the society treat the child. The child will first attach to their feeders by connecting the feeder with comfort love and care. They will then learn to accept various people at different stages but will have a firm connection to those who treat them well.
The childhood studies look deeply at the social and cultural effects of the environment on a child, which from the external world of a child. Their social aspect affects the childhood of an individual forming the basis of changes that lead to maturity. It does not look at the biological changes that are the physical size and the maturity of the child. In child psychology, the primary concern is in the child development changes that are purely organic and transitional. However, in both cases: childhood studies and child psychology, the changes that occur in a child are the aim of study as they lead to maturity of the child. The child psychology establishes the evidence from a scientific point of view as it looks at the role of genes while the childhood studies look only at the social influence of the child. However, in both cases, the society is a factor that is affecting the development of the child. It shapes the emotions of the child in developmental psychology and childhood studies; it aids in the childhood to adulthood transition. The role of nurture in childhood shapes the child’s life in both cases. In the developmental psychology, a direct research on the child is done based on the ethical issues underlined while childhood studies adopt the history of the children and observations are made then drawing conclusions. The differences in the two studies make it necessary for one to look at both childhood studies and child psychology for proper policy and practice development.
The systems developed on childcare derive their principles from both the child psychology and the youth education. In the early childhood care and teaching system, it is required that all children’s relation is friendly. In this policy, the education program is viewed as a socio intervention whose success depends on particular characteristics of the relationship among children and society over time. Woodhead (2006) states that the improvements seen in the youth have their accounts of explanation by the transition steps that boost the children ability and the motivations they receive from their parents and the teachers raising them up. They should be given equal chances and care despite their background, ethnicity or religion. The policy has its basis both from the child psychology and childhood studies. The childhood studies and developmental psychology offer both scientific argument and socio argument as to why this has adoption as a way of providing care and education to the children. The argument is from various perspectives, which are:
A social and cultural perspective of childhood
It looks at the key themes of diversities of early childhood, the social and cultural development and social construction policy themes. The variation in the healthy growth of a child is different depending on the social status and the culture of the child. Socio status will affect the type of activities the child engages in and the time thus affecting the reasoning and intellectual level of the child. The mother- in...