Factors affecting Child Behaviour and Mind – Child Psychology

Factors affecting Child Psychology

What is Child Psychology?

Human’s infancy and childhood are the times full of fun but yet the most imperative part of their lives. These are the most pivotal ages of how a person will transform as an adult. Child Psychology, basically deals with :

  • Understanding a child’s behavioural and developmental pattern as per the age group.
  • It mainly deals with a child’s Physical, Social, Emotional and Cognitive development and its deviations.
  • Child Psychology deals with how circumstances, internal / external factors change a person, right from an Infancy to an adult.

Why do we really need to know what children are thinking?

A child after being born reaches many milestones in their lives as in sitting, crawling, walking and these are distinctly visible to all of us. But there are many other milestones like, learning ability, social friendliness, handling emotions , developing personalities which can get easily get overridden by a parent. This is where, the need comes in to understand what a child thinks, how s/he behaves, what factors are leading to changes in the child’s behaviours.

And being a parent, it calls for a heads up. Observing any sort of deviance in normal psychology and its early treatment can help child grow into a positive and an healthy adult.

Understanding what your Child is thinking, is an answer to many “Why” which can crop up very soon. We all as a parent, try to understand our children to the best of our skill sets. A child’s brain is growing at a very fast pace and experiencing numerous conflicting emotions and different peer groups. All this is new to them and in this journey they need a friend, a guide in the form of their parents. 

But there are many times wherein we may fail to interpret them / their actions correctly. Such mis interpretations form a wrong judgement of children in our minds and it often leads to poor decisions at our parenting part. These wrong decisions adversely affect our growing children and will also impact a parent – child relationship and a child’s psychology.

Hop on to understanding Child Behaviour as a Parent in easy 10 pointers!

Understanding Children’s Cognitive and Emotional stages:

Jean Piaget, an esteemed French Psychologist shared stages of Cognitive Development, which were an answer to what do the children learn at various stages and how do they react to the environmental factors. Sharing a small tabular form to help you understand Child Psychology in a much better way.

Cognitive skills, Memory, logics, reasoning, attention, emotions, all develop between ages 2-7years. And this is the major reason, why it is important for parents to understand what their child is visualising, thinking and trying to imbibe in life. These are the formative years of a Child’s Psychology and the resultant adult that s/he will become.

StagesSensorimotor StagePreoperational StageConcrete Operational StageFormal Operational Stage
AgesBirth –  1.6 – 2years2-7year old (Toddlerhood – Early Childhood)7-11year old11 and older (Adolescence to Adulthood)
Developmental FactorsLearning via sensory touch, feel, visualisation of objects. Here they learn to react as per their immediate environmentDevelopment of Imagination, Creativity, memory. Think about things symbolically. Understand between past and future. Thinking not completely logicalMore Logical and reasoning aptitude. Kids start becoming less egocentric and understand that their own thoughts may be different from others. Become more aware of external eventsMore easy with Logical and scientific abstracts (Algebra, Science). They can now formulate hypothesis, use logic to solve problems
Other Emotional Research factorsDevelop Emotions as Feeding, Rocking, rely on caretakers to provide emotional support under stress.Express emotions as Shame, Pride, Joy, anger. Express emotions in plays. Empathic and altruistic behaviour can be seen Self regulate their emotional states. Factors as cognitive development, self skills, Parental adjustment, parenting styles, family and school environment, Peer behaviour, Self Confidence and so play important role in Social and Emotional Development.

Factors affecting Child Psychology

Understanding a child's mind

Every factor in a child’s surroundings impact the growing minds. Broadly these can be broken into 3 categories :

1. Environmental factors :

    • Exploring Space
    • Housing, Garden, Parks
    • Kids community in nearby places
    • Family Nutrition, Diet
    • Family’s Financial Capabilities
    • Family relationship’s (Single Parent, Family stress)
    • Upbringing (with parents, nanny, daycare)
    • Education, access to books, practical learnings
    • Socio – Emotional development while in School

2. Biological factors :

    • Girl or a Boy (Learning graphs vary)
    • Family and Social treatment
    • Treatment of both genders in family and surroundings
    • Health of the child and family
    • Warm and loving environment
    • Behaviour of child’s care givers

3. Interpersonal relationships :

    • Attachment towards Parents/Caregiver
    • Responsive Infancy
    • Ample options to explore
    • Parenting Styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive or uninvolved)
    • Social Circle, Friends at school and back home

A child’s feeling, understanding, intellect is a combination of all these factors. Basis a complex weaving of similar factors will a child arrive at a specific behaviour. 

Love to read 10 pointers to help you understand your child behaviour?

Or

Why not read Developing Resilience in kids?

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Jhilmil

Quest to live the life surrounded with the charming little bundle's of joy. When they speak, I sing, When they smile, I rejoice , When they hug, I hold them never to lose, Such is my passion for these Gifts of God.This love urged me to navigate separately from my Travel Blog & establish an "All-In-One" Blog for budding mothers. Mum's have multi-tasked this world ,with all her professional commitments , she still makes an extra effort to be a loving, caring and be an intellectual mommy! Cheers, for me too come from the same fraternity, post having a superb academics & close to 8 years of professional experience and blessed with a little one "who has indeed changed my life from Autumn to Spring";)

This Post Has 26 Comments

  1. Menaka Bharathi

    very detailed report, nice read and you have given valuable information to all moms.

  2. Ola Broom

    Children are so tender and thus need constant nurturing and attention. This table is a good guide for parents, who want to give their children the best care.

  3. cheerstoawonderfulworld

    Really interesting report! You really put a lot of research into the post for other parents to benefit from it!

  4. Familyearthtrek

    This is why my husband and I are taking a long timeout to travel and pay the fullest attention to our daugther! She is two years old now and we think its now that its important to build a stable root for her personality and who she will become later on as adult. I dont say we need to travel to do that but for us is the best way.

  5. Amber

    This is so important to keep in mind. I just try to always be there for my kids and encourage them to open up to me.

  6. Jess

    My original major in college was early childhood education, for that we had to take nearly two years of various forms of child psychology. As a parent, I’m so happy I did, what seems completely understandable behavior to me, seems completely irrational to my husband who did not have the years of experience studying the mystical enigma of child behavior. 😉

  7. Great blog post!! I loved the relevant information, the graphics, the charts, and thoughtful commentary on addition to the science. Great thought provoking touch!! Thanks for sharing!!

  8. Rose

    It’s hard to know right from wrong but if you pay attention to your child you may see behaviours that are not part of their normal routines.

  9. oneloveourlove1114

    This was very interesting to read and lear. As a future mom it important to know that and thank you for sharing it.

  10. Nayna Kanabar

    This is a great piece of information. Its always important to observe your kids and support them through all stages of their growth and life.

  11. Blair Villanueva

    Lovely read about child mental health. I shall share this as well to my bestfriend who has a baby.

  12. fashionenzymes

    Thanks for sharing the tips, they are so helpful and handy. would love to share these with one of parents around me.

  13. alisonfay1

    This is so helpful. Children’s mental health, knowing how their mind works, is so important. Seeing a blog post about it, that contains so much information and explains it so well makes me happy. When I was a kid, these types of things were overlooked. I’ve definitely got a better understanding of the different emotional stages now. Thanks for sharing xo.

  14. TColeman

    Understanding what is going on in your child;s mind is so important. This was some really great insight.

  15. Ana Ojha

    It is important for parents to know about their child’s mental health! You’ve mentioned some great insights and I’m sure it will give all the parents a wider perspective!

  16. jrdnjenkins

    This is super interesting – I have always been interested in child psychology. Their minds are little sponges just wanting to soak everything up!

  17. TheMommyAvenger

    I think this is really valuable information and totally worth reading to understand where your children are coming from.

  18. Ria

    Super informative! I haven’t refreshed my memory with all the child development info since my college days as a psych major.

  19. Shell

    His s such important information for parents to use while raising their children…. They are only young for such a short period of time….

  20. Cara

    Great overview of child psychology! I took psych and child developmental classes, and have always found this topic interesting.

  21. MissHarleyRose

    This is so informative! I will definitely be taking these things into consideration

  22. Meagan

    A lot of information! Great read!

  23. MyVeteranWoman

    It’s so important to understand that children do not process the world around them in the same way as adults!

  24. Hi, I Love The Guest Book With The Animal And Balloons. Just Wondering If You Have One With A Cub Animal? Cheers

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