Child Psychology: Pre-School

Child Psychology: Pre-School

• Changing Demographics: Family structures are diverse, with more single parents. Case studies highlight severe early deprivation, including prolonged neglect, abuse, and institutionalization.
• Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD): RAD is characterized by a child's failure to form healthy emotional bonds with caregivers, often due to emotional neglect or abuse.
• Temperament: Individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding. Temperament is linked to how quickly emotions are shown, their intensity, duration, and fading speed. Inhibition demonstrates significant stability from infancy through early childhood (e.g., Kagan's research).
• Chess and Thomas' Classification: Three basic temperament types:
• Easy child: generally positive, regular routines, easily adapts to change.
• Difficult child: negative reactions, irregular routines, slow to accept change.
• Slow-to-warm-up child: low activity level, somewhat negative, slow to adapt.
• Kagan's Behavioral Inhibition: Categorization of temperment based on shyness or boldness when exposed to the unfamiliar. Shy children/inhibited temperament react cautiously or fearfully to novel situations.
• Rothbart and Bates' Classification: Three broad dimensions of temperament:
• Extraversion/surgency: positive anticipation, impulsivity, activity level, sensation seeking.
• Negative affectivity: fear, frustration, sadness, discomfort.
• Effortful control: flexibility in attention, impulse control, and perceptual sensitivity. Infants high in effortful control are better at regulating their arousal and have soothing strategies.
• Goodness-of-Fit Model: Compatibility between a child's temperament and environmental demands. A good fit leads to positive outcomes; a poor fit can lead to adjustment problems.
• Parenting Styles: Specific approaches to child-rearing are connected to particular temperaments
• Shy children: benefit from encouragement to explore.
• Aggressive/difficult children: firm, consistent discipline.
• Fearful children: warmth and gentle discipline.
• Attachment: Close emotional bond between two people, developed especially during infancy.
• Ethological Theory: Bowlby's theory emphasizing the importance of attachment in the first year and responsiveness of the caregiver.
• Phases of Attachment:
• Pre-attachment (0-2 months): Infants display innate signals to summon caregivers.
• Attachment in the making (2-7 months): Preference for familiar caregivers develops.
• Clear-cut attachment (7-24 months): Specific attachments develop with separation anxiety.
• Reciprocal Relationships (24+ months): Children consider others' feelings and adjust behavior accordingly
• Internal Working Model: Expectations about attachment figures, influencing future relationships.
• Strange Situation: Ainsworth's observational measure for assessing infant attachment styles, involving a series of separations and reunions with the caregiver.
• Attachment Patterns: Secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized/disoriented.

Opportunity and Quality of Caregiving

• Research highlights the importance of sensitive caregiving.
• Insecure attachments can result from inconsistent or unresponsive caregiving.
• Good caregiving involves a sensitive response to signals, pacing, and encouraging interaction.

Explore key concepts in child psychology focusing on preschool-age children. This quiz covers topics such as changing family demographics, Reactive Attachment Disorder, and temperament classifications. Dive into the various behavioral styles and emotional responses that shape early childhood development.