Child Psychology

I. Purpose of paper: Child Psychology, study of children's behavior-including physical, cognitive, motor, linguistic, perceptual, social, and emotional characteristics-from birth through adolescence. Child psychologists attempt to explain the similarities and differences among children and to describe normal as well as abnormal behavior and development. They also develop methods of treating social, emotional, and learning problems and provide therapy privately and in schools, hospitals, and other institutions. Two critical problems for child psychologists are (1) to determine how environmental variables (such as parental attitudes) and biological characteristics (such as health) interact and influence behavior, and (2) to understand how behavioral changes influence one another. I chose to write about child psychology because thinking of all the subjects we have been introduced to in my psychology class, I have found this to be the most interesting. At first I thought of researching a subject I was not familiar with, but after analyzing many topics I still had the urge to learn more about child psychology. I figure, if I write on a subject I find interesting I should get a decent grade. Child psychology is a very important and vast field in psychology. The more we are able to understand the psychology of children, the better we may understand why people turn out the way they do. Hopefully in doing so, we may have a clearer understanding of what has negative effects on child development. Therefore, we can revolve around the negative and focus more on the positive. Resulting in a better future for everybody. Content: Both Plato and Aristotle wrote about children. Plato believed that children are born with special talents and their training should stress those talents. His views are consistent with modern thinking about individual differences and education. Aristotle proposed methods for observing children's behavior that were forerunners of modern