Child Development From Infancy to Adolescence. Laura E. Levine
same, is essential to fostering positive development. This understanding can help parents and family members, professionals who work with children and families, and people who create and carry out social policies and design programs that affect the well-being of children and their families.
Parents and Family Members
Having a good understanding of children’s needs and abilities at each stage of development can help all parents provide the appropriate amount and type of support and stimulation to foster their children’s growth and development. However, this knowledge is even more crucial for particular segments of the parent population. Teen parents are more likely than older parents to lack knowledge about what to expect from their children at different ages, to talk to and play less with their infants, and to use physical punishment to discipline their children (Mann, Pearl, & Behle, 2004). When teen parents learn about child development, their frustration decreases and they have more realistic expectations for their children, their ability to empathize with their child increases, and they better understand how to discipline their child without resorting to physical punishment. Programs designed to improve the quality of parenting among the weakest parents (and teen parents were included in this group) have resulted in more of their children graduating from high school, fewer having a child themselves by the age of 19, and fewer having a criminal conviction by age 19 (Reeves & Howard, 2013).
Child Development Professionals
You may be interested in studying child development because you see yourself in a future career that involves working with children and families. In different ways and at different levels, people in all the helping professions promote positive development for children and teens, engage in the identification and prevention of problems, and provide interventions when problems do occur.
Promoting the optimal development of children and adolescents is a primary goal of professionals who work in the field of education (especially classroom teachers, resource teachers, administrators, and counselors) and of mental health professionals, youth service workers, and representatives of community organizations who run programs for children. Community organizers, community psychologists, and outreach workers are a few of the professions that focus on preventing problems before they emerge. Child therapists and family therapists are two of the professionals who help families address existing problems. Social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and child psychiatrists are other professionals who provide various types of interventions to families. Knowledge of child development helps each of them find and use ways to support and encourage children and adolescents to reach their full potential.
Careers in child development. Knowledge about child development is essential for people working in many different careers (including pediatricians, teachers, social workers, counselors, therapists, lawyers, and nurses). If you are interested in a career working with children, there are many opportunities available to you.
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We recognize that students today want to know where their education can eventually lead them and are hungry for information about future careers. If you are taking this course because you are considering working with children and families in the future, how much do you know about the career you are thinking about entering? You can assess your current knowledge about a career related to child development by completing Active Learning: How Much Do You Know About Careers in Child Development?
Active Learning: How Much Do You Know About Careers in Child Development?
If you are interested in a career that includes working with children, begin by completing the first column in the table below with what you currently know about the career you would like to enter when you finish your education. If you haven’t settled on a career yet, simply choose one that currently holds some interest for you. Even if you feel you have very little information on a particular topic, take your best guess at every answer.
Next, use the Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017) to find current information on your career to complete the second column. You will find it on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website at www.bls.gov/ooh, and there also is likely a copy in your campus library. Select the career you are interested in from the list on the A–Z Index, or type the name of your career in the search box on the page. For each career, you will find this information:
What people in this career do—duties and responsibilities.
Work environment—where people in this career work and conditions affecting their employment.
How to become one—the education and training required both for entry into the field and for advancement within this career. You will also find information about any certifications or licenses required to work in this profession and the skills and personal qualities required for success on the job.
Pay—average salaries earned in this career.
Job outlook—how many people are currently employed in this career and whether demand for this profession is expected to increase or decrease between 2016 and 2026.
Similar occupations—additional information about careers related to the one you are researching. For instance, if you think you would like to be a child psychologist, here you will find that related careers include being a counselor, social worker, special education teacher, or recreation worker. If you click on any of these links, it will take you to the page in the Occupational Outlook Handbook that provides information about that alternative career.
More information—links to professional organizations that support and advocate for people working in this career. The organization webpages you find here are rich sources of information about each career, and you should look at one or two of them before you finish exploring this page.
Although the Handbook lists hundreds of occupations, you won’t find every conceivable job title. For instance, child life specialist and early interventionist are not yet in the Handbook, but you can find information about a related career to begin your search. For instance, child life specialists do work similar to what a counselor does, but they work in the specialized setting of a hospital, and their clients are children with chronic illnesses and life-threatening conditions and their families.
How well informed were you about your potential future career? Another useful website if you are specifically interested in a career in the field of psychology is the American Psychological Association’s site at www.apa.org. You can find information on what psychologists do, the subfields in psychology, and the job outlook for these careers by clicking on Careers at the top of the page.
Policymakers
Most often we apply our understanding of child development directly to the work we do with children, but the well-being of children and families is also affected by the laws and programs that make up social policy. Research on child development can guide and inform the people who make these policies. For example, Walter Gilliam (2008), director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University, found that preschool children in Connecticut were more than 3 times as likely to be expelled as children in Grades K–12. His research also showed that when a mental health consultant was available to help