Annotated Bibliography for the Article Review Final Paper

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY 0

Developmental Psychology

PSY600 Introduction to Graduate

Instructor:   Joseph Belcher

01/30/2017

Developmental Psychology.

Psychology primarily refers to the scientific study of an individual’s way of thinking and their actions or behavior. I have decided to take this topic so as to view the changes that occur in a family during the development of a child and its effects in society. Development psychology tries to actively study the development process and growth of a child’s life and the relationship with his or her environment. It is beneficial when the society gets to know and understand why people behave the way they do in given situations and how to improve their lives (Keijsers, 2013). According to the behavioral perspective, a child’s thoughts, behaviors, and way of life can be influenced and affected positively or negatively by the family and surrounding they grow up in.

The parent-child relationship and level of family communication have been a challenge many families face. Parents are always curious about what their children are doing as it is part of parenting and a biological perspective of psychology. Almost all parents strive to make their children’s lives better by providing what they need. As children grow up, they tend to ask a lot of questions in order to understand what’s going on in their lives and parents are actively required to provide the answers (Keijsers, 2013). At this stage, the parent-child interaction is very intimate and strong, and the child is very open to the parents.

However, according to psychologist’s reports, the level of communication between the parents and their young children decreases once they enter into adolescence that is from the age of 13years to 19 years old. The level of disclosure rapidly decreases, and the child is reluctant to communicate with his or her parent especially about what is happening in their lives. The youngster begins to view their life as personal, and the need for privacy becomes very strong cutting off the parents. When this starts happening, the parents control over the child decreases, changing their friendship and in the long run, the child becomes very secretive especially about the bad things and mistakes they do (Motivational Psychology of Human Development, 2000).

One of the psychological reason for this is because of the aspect of fear. A child, for example, may fear to tell her parents she has a boyfriend thinking she will be punished maybe because it is unacceptable to have one while still in school. A boy, on the other hand, may disclose who his friends are because of the fear of lack of approval from the parents. The effects of these adolescence fears and disclosure are that they may continue doing a wrong thing and ruin their life for example in the case of drug abuse, joining gang-groups, early pregnancies, and many other mistakes (Keijsers, 2013). Parents should learn that their children are different that is in terms of gender and thus learn how to deal with each of them according to their unique personalities and behaviors. Adolescents are very sensitive, and without the proper communication, interaction, the feeling of acceptance and love can lead to a lot of consequences.

References.

Keijsers, L., & Poulin, F. (2013). Developmental changes in parent–child communication throughout adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 49(12), 2301-2308. doi:10.1037/a0032217

Motivational Psychology of Human Development - Developing Motivation and Motivating Development. (2000). Advances in Psychology. doi:10.1016/s0166-4115(00)x8001-6