Introducing Psychology: A Basic Guide for Professionals, Parents and Students

This book covers varies aspect of child psychology. Each chapter is carefully explained so that individuals, whether they are professionals, parents or students, can understand and relate to. Any difficult words or phrases are explained with examples so that the reader fully understand the terms. Chapter one, talks about psychology, how it is related to child development. I refer to cultural context, social context, and socioeconomic context to enable a greater understanding for the reader as to how these are linked to psychology. Chapter two, is on theorists of psychology, here the most influential theorist's views and beliefs are discussed, facilitating the reader's understanding of different belief system that can be found which influences practices of professionals. These theorists are; Piaget, Vygotsky, Sigmund Freud, Bowlby, Watson, Ericson, Skinner and Bandura. The next chapter informs the reader about the benefits of play in learning and development. The chapter starts by introducing play, next it talks about whether all children play and then goes into discussing the benefits of play on language development, physical development, social development and cognitive development. Chapter four introduces the nature and nurture debate. Discussion on both aspects of the argument; nature and nurture and provides suggestion to the reader allowing them to gain a greater insight into this debate which has gone on for decades. On chapter five, I discuss the term 'mental health'. What mental health is, how mental health effects learning and the holistic development of children and adolescence. The next chapter is on supporting children's resilience. This chapter was written to support all professionals, students as well as parents to understand the term 'resilience'. Resilience is something that is crucial for all children. If children and adolescence do not develop the resilience they may give up quickly, when they are faced with difficulties. This chapter may facilitate individuals to support the development of resilience of those they work with or care for. The last chapter 'supporting children's confidence and self-esteem', was included due to the previous chapter as both support each other, however, these needed to be elaborated and discusses separately allowing the reader to gain more insight.