Child Psychology

What is Child Psychology?

Child psychology is a branch of developmental and clinical psychology that deals with children. It includes both a research branch (experimental psychologists who study the minds and behavior of children) and an applied branch (counselors and clinical psychologists who specialize in working with children). Child psychology is one of the most popular branches of psychology to study, and books and articles on the subject are avidly read by parents, teachers, and others who need to understand and communicate with children. Because childcare is so complicated and can be so confusing for parents, nearly everyone with children has a desire to learn as much as possible about child psychology.

Child psychology is also of great interest to academic psychology. Specialists in this field can help to address such fundamental psychological questions as: how do our childhoods affect us as we grow older? What aspects of our personalities are determined at birth, and what aspects are learned or developed as we grow? What kind of environment helps children grow up to be psychologically healthy and happy?

Who Should Study Child Psychology?

As a branch of developmental psychology, child psychology will be encountered by every psychology student, usually at the undergraduate level. It is especially important for those interested in school psychology, and also for clinical psychologists who want to work with children and adolescents. Of course, the value of studying child psychology is not limited to professional psychologists. Students in many other areas, including sociology, education philosophy, and political science, can benefit from studying child psychology.

Child psychology is also one of the fields of psychology that tends to be of particular interest to non-specialists and the general public. Unlike, for example, cognitive psychology, which is read almost exclusively by academics and professional psychologists, books on child psychology are extremely popular reading in the general population. All of us had childhoods, and all of us acknowledge that our childhoods have had a major effect on us, so it is interesting to learn what psychology has to say about that process.

The History of Child Psychology

Child psychology has been of interest to psychology since its earliest days. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, was acutely interested in the ways in which people were affected by their childhoods. He also developed a complex theory of childhood development, in which children develop their faculties and personalities in a series of stages. Freud called his theory the “psychosexual theory” of child development. As you might expect from its name, the theory had a few somewhat disturbing elements, so it is probably for the best that modern research has discredited it. Regardless, it was the first comprehensive theory of child psychology, and thus Freud is credited with being the founder of that discipline.

Perhaps the most influential post-Freudian child psychologist was Jean Piaget. Unlike Freud, Piaget believed that the sort of abstract theorizing that Freud was known for was not the best way to gain psychological knowledge – he, like modern psychologists, preferred careful experimentation. By observing children in controlled environments performing specific tasks, Piaget developed a theory of human development based on empirical data.

Child psychology is an intensely active field of psychological research today, with new theories being developed and debated at a rapid pace. The contribution of educational theorists, neuroscientists, and others makes it a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative area. In addition, the high demand for new research (from academics, policymakers, and the public) ensures that there will be many more books and articles produced on child psychology in the near future.