Chapter 1, Section 1: Children & You

1. Chapter 1, Section 1: Children & You

2. Chapter 1, Section 1… • Essential Question … • What are the benefits of studying children? • I can statements (targets)… • Evaluate my attitude toward children • Identify benefits of studying children

3. Terms To Know… • Child Development – the study of how children grow in different ways – physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. • Behavior – a way of acting or responding;

4. Understanding how children fit into your life – both now and in the future – can help you understand yourself. You can begin by exploring your attitudes towards children. By doing so, you will discover that parenting skills are needed by almost everyone who comes in contact with children, whether they are parents or not. This understanding can also help you make meaningful plans for your future.

5. How would you describe your relationship with the children in your life today? Do you like children? Do you talk with and enjoy children of all ages? Do you know what to do when you are caring for children of different ages? Just as important – do children like you? • Think about these questions seriously. Your honest answers will tell a great deal about you – the person you are today, the child you once were, and the adult you will become. After you have studied child development, you will have a better understanding of these questions and the meaning of your answers.

6. Perhaps children seem just naturally to enjoy being with you. In that case, you probably enjoy children and feel comfortable with them. On the other hand, perhaps children seem a little uncomfortable around you – and you feel uncomfortable with them. People vary a great deal in the way they feel and act toward children. • Your relationship with young children – brothers, sisters, friends, or babysitting charges – depends on your interest in children. It also depends on your knowledge of their changing stages and needs, and on your skill in applying that knowledge.

7. Why Study Children? • Learning about children is important in more ways than you may realize. Learning about children and their development can improve your understanding both of children and of yourself. It can also help you think about your future in relation to parenthood and career choices.

8. Understanding Children… • As you study children, you will read about them, observe them, talk with them, play with them, and help them. In the process, your understanding of children will grow in many ways: • You will more fully appreciate all characteristics of human development. • Your powers of observation will improve. • You will begin to see why children act, feel, and think as they do. • You will be able to apply your learning to everyday life. • You will learn practical techniques of caring for children. • You will discover tht children are fun.

9. Understanding Yourself… • As you learn to understand children better, you will also come to know yourself better. You will learn more about what makes you the person you are. • You may think of yourself as a different person from the child you were a decade ago. It’s true that you have grown and changed in many ways. However, no one changes entirely. The young man or woman you are right now has developed from the child you once were and will continue to develop into your adult self. Experience, education, and life’s situations help you mature. Still, the self you have already developed will always be a part of you.

10. Understanding Yourself… • You may want to ask family members or older friends what you were like as a young child. Maybe they will recall that you were a “typical kid”-close to average development. Perhaps, though, they will describe you as a “quiet child” or “amazingly independent” or “constantly active.” How closely do those descriptions of your young self correspond to the personality you have today? The similarities may surprise you! • As you study child development, you will discover that all children are similar in some ways. You will also find that every child has characteristics that are unique. In addition, you will see that development continues throughout life. All these insights can help you understand yourself.

11. Thinking About Your Future… • Your increased understanding of children will be valuable not only now, but throughout your lifetime. Today, it may simply help you understand your family or the children in your neighborhood. You may also want to use your knowledge and skills, working as a babysitter, a teacher’s aide, or a playground supervisor. In the future your understanding of children may help you become successful as a parent or as a worker in a career related to child care. • Studying children at this point in your life can help you make decisions about your future career. For example, a high school student was planning to be a nurse at the beginning of a child study course, but by the end of the course had decided to go into teaching. The reason? “Now that I understand them better, I like kids more than I used to. I want to work with a group of children.”

12. Thinking About Your Future… • A classmate expressed a different reaction: “I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but now I’m not so sure. I didn’t have any idea how much responsibility was involved.” • Learning about child development can also help you think about parenthood and prepare for its responsibilities. “It’s made me more aware that having a child is really a lifetime commitment,” one student commented. Another said, I have the feeling I could handle anything now. I’m going to adopt about six children.” • One instructor of a child study class statement “Parenthood is the most important occupation most of us are ever engaged in. Whatever this course may or may not accomplish in helping these students make a choice of occupation, I know it will help them be better parents.”

13. Check Your Understanding… • List the three main benefits of studying children…

14. Check Your Understanding… • List the three main benefits of studying children… • Improve your understanding of children.

15. Check Your Understanding… • List the three main benefits of studying children… • Improve your understanding of children. • Improve your understanding of yourself.

16. Check Your Understanding… • List the three main benefits of studying children… • Improve your understanding of children. • Improve your understanding of yourself. • Helps you think about your future in relation to parenthood and career choices.

17. Check Your Understanding… • What is child development?

18. Check Your Understanding… • What is child development? • The study of how children grow in different ways… • Physically • Mentally • Emotionally • Socially

19. Check Your Understanding… • What is behavior?

20. Check Your Understanding… • What is behavior? • A way of acting or responding – for every stage of life.

21. Check Your Understanding… • List two benefits of learning practical techniques of caring for children.

22. Check Your Understanding… • List two benefits of learning practical techniques of caring for children. • You will understand a child’s behavior • You will be able to get along with them better

23. Check Your Understanding… • During which stages of life does development continue?

24. Check Your Understanding… • During which stages of life does development continue? • Development continues throughout one’s lifetime.

25. Check Your Understanding… • How can studying child development help students plan their future?

26. Check Your Understanding… • How can studying child development help students plan their future? • It may help students make decisions about parenthood as well as about careers that involve working with children.

27. End of Chapter 1, Section 1: Children and You

28. Chapter 1, Section 2: Childhood:A Time for Development

29. Objectives… • Compare childhood in the past and in the present • Give examples of progress in understanding how and why children develop as they do. • Describe five characteristics of development. • Explain influences on development.

30. Terms to Learn… • Environment • Formula • Heredity • Nutrition • Sequence

31. Childhood A Time For Development • What does childhood mean to you? • Do you picture a baby taking a few stumbling steps? • A four-year old playing on a swing? • A classroom of fifth-graders? • What makes children different from adults?

32. Childhood A Time For Development • What is childhood… • However you respond to the question above, you probably think of childhood as a period of life separate from adulthood. During this separate period, development occurs very rapidly. Human beings begin childhood almost completely dependent on adults for every need. By the time childhood ends, most people have become mature and ready for independence.

33. Childhood A Time For Development • You probably also agree that children have special needs as they grow and learn. Imagine you were preparing to spend a day with a five-year-old. You would not plan the same activities you would plan for spending the day with someone your own age, and you wouldn’t expect to talk about the same things you discuss with people your own age. You wouldn’t expect the five-year-old to think, feel, or behave exactly as you do.

34. Childhood A Time For Development • We now consider childhood a distinct period of life, and many people have made a special study of this period. They have devoted time and effort to find out more about how children develop, what their special needs are, and how those needs can best be met. Many important concepts have emerged from this kind of study; perhaps the most important is that childhood has a significant influence on later life. Those who study children and human development believe that every child has a right to a happy, healthy, loving childhood.

35. Childhood A Time For Development • However… • Childhood has not always been considered a separate, important stage of life. • In fact, childhood • – as we know it – • is a fairly recent “discovery.”

36. Childhood: Past & Present • Before beginning the twentieth century, few people in Western civilization believed that there was anything unusual or important about the early years of life. During the Middle Ages and the centuries that followed, European adults were almost totally unaware of the special needs of children. They did not recognize the importance of providing children with sunshine wholesome food, protection, loving care, and a variety of learning experiences.

37. Childhood: Past & Present • Artworks created in these earlier centuries reflect society’s attitude toward children. In paintings and statues, children appeared as miniature adults. They had the proportions, expressions, and clothing of grown-ups. • During the colonial period in America, people believed that children differed from adults only in size, experience, and abilities. Children were dressed, fed and doctored just as adults were.

38. Childhood: Past & Present • These ideas persisted into the nineteenth century. An example is Louisa May Alcott’s famous novel, Little Women. The book’s central character, Jo, is constantly in trouble because she acts like the exuberant child she is rather than the little lady that girls of her time were expected to be. • Some of the differences between childhood in the past and childhood in the present are the result of changing attitudes toward children. Others are the result of advances in technology.

39. Childhood: Past & Present • Work: • In the past, children were expected to work hard at an early age. In American pioneer families, children were expected to take care of many farming and household tasks. During the Industrial Revolution, many children worked as laborers in factories. • Today, most children in our society are not thrown into the world of adult work so abruptly. The “job” of young children is simply to grow, learn, and play. Children assume responsibility gradually by helping with household tasks and, later, by taking part-time jobs.

40. Childhood: Past & Present • Health & Nutrition: • Before beginning the twentieth century, parents could not hope to raise every child born to them. Diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid fever, and smallpox caused the death of children in almost every family. • Today, in the United States and other developed countries, these and many other diseases have been controlled by medical advances, personal cleanliness, and strict public health regulations.

41. Childhood: Past & Present • In the past, babies either thrived on breast-feeding, or they died. Today, of course, breast-feeding still provides an infant with complete nutrition – a balance of all the food substances needed for health and growth. Parents also have the option of bottle-feeding a baby with commercially prepared formula, which is a mixture of milk or milk substitutes and added nutrients. Infant formulas are safe and scientifically balanced for nutrients. Special formulas are available for infants with digestive problems or other special health needs. Older babies now usually eat strained, unseasoned foods, made either commercially or at home, rather than the adult table food served to babies in the past.

42. Childhood: Past & Present • Dress: • Until the seventeenth century, children were dressed as small adults. Around that time, special clothing styles began to develop for children, though these styles did not encourage activity and play. Even early in the twentieth century, all children wore dresses for the first years of life. • Preschool boys and girls were dressed alike until the early part of the twentieth century. Then styles began to change, and sex differences were reinforced by the style and color of clothes worn from infancy and on.

43. Childhood: Past & Present • Today, young children now usually wear clothing that is suitable in both style and color for either boys or girls. Modern children wear practical, washable, lightweight garments designed to provide freedom of movement and maximum comfort.

44. Childhood: Past & Present • Parental Love: • Although childhood in the past was different in many ways from what we know today, one thing that has not changed – the love of parents for their children. History is filled with stories that include striking examples of parental love. • Despite their genuine affection, parents in the past had little awareness of the special needs of children. They did not know how to encourage the best physical, emotional, social, or intellectual development. This kind of knowledge is fairly recent.

45. The Growth of Child Study • Attitudes toward children have changed. Our society now attaches great importance to understanding and guiding children. The fact that you are studying and learning about children is one indication of this change in attitude. • Over the past several generations, interest in studying children and their behavior has grown remarkably. For the first time, researchers and scholars have been able to study child growth and development scientifically. Several pioneering scholars have made basic contributions to our understanding and appreciation of children and childhood.

46. The Growth of Child Study • Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, developed a series of test to measure intellectual processes. • Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, theorized that intelligence develops in stages that are related to age. According to Piaget’s theories, the new mental abilities at each stage determine the limits of what a child can learn during that period. He used his own children as study subjects.

47. The Growth of Child Study • Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician, developed the theory that the emotional experience of childhood have a lasting effect on the personality of an adult. • In the United States, theorists including Arnold Gesell and Erik Erikson have explored child development in terms of social and emotional growth.

48. The Growth of Child Study • Much remains to be learned about children. However, with the help of scientific research, the superstitions and misunderstandings of the past are being replaced by sound knowledge. • Information about children and their needs has become not only more complete but also more readily available. In the past, older family members were almost the only source of information and advice about child care and development. Today, people without the help of nearby relatives can find books, articles and radio and television programs on the subject of child development.

49. The Growth of Child Study • All these resources can give you valuable knowledge about children. Still, the best way to understand human development is to study and observe it for yourself.

50. Characteristics of Development… • The study of childhood has led to an understanding of some basic facts about human development. You may be able to recognize examples of these characteristics of development in your own life and in the lives of other people you know. • Development is similar for everyone. • Development builds on early learning. • Development proceeds at an individual rate. • Development is continuous throughout life. • The different areas of development are interrelated.