The broadened scope of psychology which includes not only kids
but adults and aged as well, known as developmental psychology.
The process of aging has certain effects on human brain and its behavior.
While aging is usually used in reference to aged people, it
is a process that starts even before the birth of a child.
The growth first takes place in the womb, from an egg to a baby.
While after the birth, more complex development takes place.
With regular exposure to society and environment, the kids start picking up
on things that people do around them, the way that people behave around them.
The way people move, the way they talk etc.
These are the initial things that a kid learns from home,
from family, from society and even from initial schooling.
While we all know that school is the source of a lot of knowledge that a child holds,
it also is the source of behavioral skills, speaking manner, habits etc that a kid has.
After the family, school is the second most time-consuming
exposure that a kid has in early childhood.
While the family does play a crucial part in
the development of a child, so does a school.
The crowd of the school decides a lot of factors about a child.
As it is said that a kid is like wet clay, that can be
shaped in whatever way, but stays that way once grows up.
Which is why the selection of schools, selection of teachers
is a critical choice and is the key to a healthy childhood.
Even cognitive skills are highly affected by the environment in which a kid grows up.
The creativity of a child’s mind depends on the crowd that a kid has around.
If the creativity is not appreciated and encouraged,
the growth might not take place properly.
Along with perspective skills, which means that
one’s perception affects their kid’s perception.
When it comes to physical skills environment does have a
role but so does diet, genetics and geographical location.
When it comes to diet one thing must be kept in mind
that nutrition of a child is of great magnitude.
While physical growth is evidently on the stake of good diet, so is cognitive.
A mind required proper nutrition to grow.
Without that, a mind can grow lethargic and many consequences will follow.
Location is also of importance, the gravitational force, as well as
the climate, has its own effects whenit comes to physical growth.
The factors affecting it doesn’t end yet, one of the main
factors is still remaining and that factor is genetics.
Yes, genetics has a toll on the physical growth of a child.
The genes of parents decide most of the important growth factors in a kid’s body.
Most of the time the growth pattern in children matches their parents.
Be that height, weight, body-type, muscle growth etc.
Even the skin-tone and features are decided by the parents' genes.
While genes are very important sometimes some underlying
disease takes control over the growth of a child.
These diseases can either fasten the growth way more than an
average level or slow them down by a considerable amount.
These diseases usually affect the growth of bones and muscles but
in some cases, it fastens or slows the aging process as well.
While these diseases are highly rare, they must be taken into
account while studying the physical development of a child.
With this section, the physical development is
covered with all of its major deciding factors.
Next comes the social as well as emotional development.
The focal part of a child’s development and the deciding
factor of his personality and place in society.
Social and emotional development is trivial to
psychological well-being, the way a child reacts to
society and individuals in a social situation is
what is basically known as social development.
The behavior and manners which a kid decides to
follow along with his/her way of speaking, confidence
level and ability to handle different social
situations ranging from fights to embarrassment.
When a person goes out into society, he/she must face all
social situations and there might be a variety of them.
A kid starts learning how to behave in society from a very early age.
By learning hoe the family behaves in social situations as
well as what reaction they get when they behave that way.
These things start leaving a mark on a child’s moind from a very early age.
That is why families are highly advised to behave
nicely all the time, whenever their kid is around.
While social abilities are also developed in school with the
exposure they provide by different kind of students and teachers.
The school is where the major part of social development takes place and when it
comes to emotional development then every kid has a personal process for that.
The emotions of a kid might be affected by the behavior
of those around him as well as his perspective.
While in some age-group the emotions remain extreme, in other
age-groups the process of maturity starts taking place.
While early on the socio-emotional aspect is almost
invisible to kids, it starts development very soon.
Until the age of 1 or 2 years, children behave a bit
when agendas directly related to them start occurring.
Smiling while seeing a familiar face and scaring upon seeing a stranger’s face.
While this is a very initial stage of development.
Until the age of 6, the social and emotional development takes a huge leap.
The school and the exposure to social scenarios help develop these skills.
The children see each-other day after day developing a bond
of friendship and sometimes of some other emotion even.
They learn to behave in social situations at school.
They understand the difference between crying and smiling and
how they should behave when someone is crying or smiling.
They develop a sensitive side for emotions that come into their view.
While the emotional response is usually very
strong in early age until the age of 13.
It begins to mature gradually when they come closer to puberty.
The responses become more mature and sensitive to almost every
emotional outbreak they see rather than just some impulses.
During the process of puberty, the emotional aspects
of a kid are on rising and the rise is usually
very extreme and even dangerous in some cases due
to the hormonal changes that the body goes through.
This condition is usually found in teenagers.
Everyone’s heard of how hard managing the teenagers can be, that
is because puberty is a difficult and very confusing process.
The body starts developing capacity and desire of sexual
intercourse which results in attraction to the opposite gender.
This also affects the social behavior.
But its main effect falls on personal care and the way of living that kids
have and the changes they make in those aspects are easily noticeable.
Children become more aware of their body and start
taking more care of every aspect of their looks.
This process changes their social behavior when
they are around the gender they are attracted to.
They become more conscious and cautious.
The attachment also increases, due to puberty and a lot of
hormones in the bod, every little detail becomes extreme.
Every issue goes beyond its normal scale, the kids in
this age are usually moody, and they prefer solitude.
While what they actually need is a lot of support and attention.
A proper amount of attention must be paid to teenagers
otherwise they can take extreme steps under influence.
Even parents who are interested in this subject are usually worried about
this period and seek professional advice to handle such situation properly.
With increasing use and influence of social media, the
problems amongst teenagers have taken a rise as well.
The display of perfection on social media causes
anxiety and depression amongst many teenagers.
This has been the number 1 concern amongst parents as well as psychologists.
More and more teenagers are suffering from such diseases which don’t only affect their
socio-emotional development but also takes a toll on their cognitive development.
When it comes to extremes,even self-harm cases become common amongst the teenagers.
This is an increasing issue which is inviting concerns from all over the world.
That is why a lot of people are taking a keen interest in the
whole process and all the stages of psychological development.
While initiatives are in place, this requires serious
attention from every family and even teenagers themselves.
The awareness should be spread and the precautions are taken so
that not a single other kid takes any extreme steps in any case.
These are the things which must be spread even through social media because
it has a very powerful influence on them and can help them greatly.
Every person who comes in contact with any of
such cases must stand up and raise the voice
against all of this so that a better future can be provided for the generation to come.
And their psychological balance can be maintained as well.
“Since the earliest period of our life was preverbal,
everything depended on emotional interaction.
Without someone to reflect our emotions, we had no
way of knowing who we were.” Said John Bradshaw.
This quote doesn’t only show the importance of this process
but also describes the integrity of socioemotional quality.