1. Children 1
Introduction
John W. Santrock

2. Introduction How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
What Are Some Historical Views of Child Development?
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
What Are the Core Issues in Child Development?
What Are the Main Careers in Child Development?

3. Images of Children Stories of Jeffrey Dahmer and Alice Walker
A troubled childhood leads to brutal violence
An impoverished and painful childhood leads to creativity and award winning publications

4. How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Health and Well-Being
Children’s health and well-being in many countries is jeopardized
Poverty
AIDS epidemic
Starvation
Poor-quality health care
Inadequate nutrition and exercise
Alcohol and drug abuse

5. Families and Parenting
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Families and Parenting
Family arrangements are changing
Families with two working parents
Climbing divorce rates, child-care issues
Parenting includes providing a safe, supportive, and stimulating environment

6. Family and Peer Relations
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Family and Peer Relations
Maltreated children
may experience language delays and emotional difficulties
Children
learn from family members, peers, books, computers, television, and school

7. How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Education
What is wrong with children’s education today and how can it be made more effective?

8. Mentoring Reduced unexcused absences from school
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Mentoring
Reduced unexcused absences from school
Raised classroom performance
Improved relationships with parents

9. Sociocultural Contexts
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Sociocultural Contexts
Contexts: settings in which development occurs
Historical — Economic
Social — Cultural factors
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10. Culture Passed from generation to generation Behavior patterns Beliefs
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Culture
Passed from generation to generation
Behavior patterns
Beliefs
Other products
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11. How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Culture
Cross-cultural studies —comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures
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12. How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Ethnicity
Characteristics based on cultural heritage, nationality characteristics, race, religion, and language
Ethnic identity: sense of membership in an ethnic group
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13. How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Ethnicity
Socioeconomic status: people similar in occupational, educational, and economic characteristics
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14. Children’s Ethnicity, Poverty, and Type of Home Environment
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Children’s Ethnicity, Poverty, and Type of Home Environment
Sex is a biological dimension
Gender is psychological and sociocultural dimension of being female or male

15. Children’s Ethnicity, Poverty, and Type of Home Environment
How Can Children’s Lives Be Improved?
Children’s Ethnicity, Poverty, and Type of Home Environment
Social policies affect children’s lives
Government programs
UNICEF and Children’s Defense Fund
Child labor laws
Poverty rate for families and risk of diseases

16. Characteristics of Resilient Children
Source
Characteristic
Individual
good intellectual functioning
appealing, sociable, easygoing disposition
self-confidence, high self-esteem
talents
faith
Family
close relationship to caring parent figure
authoritative parenting: warmth, structure,
and high expectations
socioeconomic advantages
connections to extended supportive family
networks
Extramarital Context
bonds to caring adults outside the family
connections to positive organizations
attending effective schools
Fig. 1.1

17. Early Views of Children
What Are Some Historical Views of Child Development?
Early Views of Children
In medieval times: no distinction between children and adults
Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome held rich conceptions of children’s development
Three influential philosophical views

18. Early Views of Children
What Are Some Historical Views of Child Development?
Early Views of Children
Original sin
Tabula rasa
Innate goodness
Children born into the world as evil beings
John Locke: children are like a “blank tablet”
Rousseau: children are inherently good

19. Modern Study of Child Development
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Modern Study of Child Development
Arnold Gesell
G. Stanley Hall
Sigmund Freud
certain characteristics “bloom” with age
development follows evolutionary course
children rarely aware of motives and reasons for their behaviors

20. Modern Study of Child Development
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Modern Study of Child Development
John Watson
James Mark Baldwin
Children shaped into whatever society wishes by environment
Pioneer in study of children's thought; genetic epistemology — how child’s knowledge changes over development

21. What Are Some Historical Views of Child Development?
Jean Piaget
Adopted and expanded Baldwin’s ideas; cognitive stages identified
Children:
Pass through cognitive stages from infancy through adolescence
Think in qualitatively different ways than adults

22. Biological and Cognitive Processes
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Biological and Cognitive Processes
Biological processes—changes in individual’s body; genes and hormones
Cognitive processes—changes in individual’s thought, intelligence, and language

23. Socioemotional Processes
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Socioemotional Processes
Changes in an individual’s emotions, personality, and relationships

24. Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes
All three processes are intricately intertwined
Fig. 1.4

25. Periods of Development
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Periods of Development
Prenatal
Infancy
Early childhood
Middle\late childhood
Adolescence
Conception to birth
Birth to months
24 months to 5-6 years (preschool years)
6 years to 11 years (elementary school years)
10-12 years to years

26. Processes and Periods of Development
What Are the Developmental Processes and Periods?
Processes and Periods of Development
Early childhood
Middle and late childhood
Prenatal period
Infancy
Adolescence
Fig. 1.5
Processes of development

27. Core Issues in Child Development
What Are the Core Issues in Child Development?
Core Issues in Child Development
Nature and nurture
Continuity and discontinuity
Discontinuity
Continuity

28. Core Issues in Child Development
What Are the Core Issues in Child Development?
Core Issues in Child Development
Early-later experience issue
Focus on which are key determinants of child’s development
Hotly debated by developmentalists
People in Western cultures contrast with the majority of people in the world

29. Evaluating the Developmental Issues
What Are the Core Issues in Child Development?
Evaluating the Developmental Issues
Unwise to take extreme position on
Nature and nurture
Continuity and discontinuity
Early and later experiences
All characterize development through the human life span

30. Child Development Careers
What Are the Main Careers in Child Development?
Child Development Careers
Education and Research
Clinical and Counseling
Medical, Nursing, and Physical Development
Families and Relationships

31. Children 1
The End