Child Development : Myths and Misunderstandings

by Jean Mercer

• ISBN13: 9781452217680
• ISBN10: 1452217688
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-11-02
• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc

Summary

In Child Development: Myths and Misunderstandings 2e, Jean Mercer uses intriguing vignettes and questions about children and families to guide readers in thinking critically about 59 common beliefs. Each essay confronts commonly held misconceptions about development, encouraging students to think like social scientists and to become better consumers of media messages and anecdotal stories. The book can be assigned to parallel either chronologically or topically organized child development texts. Features and Benefits: Presents 59 short essays about child development that challenge readers to reconsider their pre-conceived notions14 new essays in the second edition confront topics like language acquisition, adoption, discipline, and nature versus nurture.Includes carefully developed critical thinking questions at the end of each essayOffers examples of research to help students make the connection between research designs and conclusions Intrigues and engages students with the theme of dispelling myths and misconceptions and challenges them to find out if their own beliefs are correct or incorrect. á

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
About the Author	p. xiii
Introduction: Claims About Child Development	p. 1
Genetics and Prenatal Life	p. 23
Genetic factors play such a strong role in human development that genes alone can determine certain human behavioral characteristics	p. 25
There is no harm in putting off childbearing until the mother's career is established	p. 30
If a child's problem is genetically caused, the problem will be present at birth and will stay the same throughout life	p. 35
Unborn babies are not influenced much by the environment outside the mother's body	p. 40
As a mother-to-be gets closer to the date when her child will be born, she needs to be more careful about alcohol and drugs, because the risk of birth defects increases throughout pregnancy	p. 45
If a woman who is taking antidepressant medication becomes pregnant, she should stop taking the drugs because they may cause birth defects in her baby	p. 50
Mothers care for their babies well because they have a maternal instinct	p. 55
Babies work hard to be born	p. 61
"Crack babies" can't be cured and will always have serious problems	p. 65
We can learn about human development from studying baby animals, especially primates	p. 70
Infants and Toddlers	p. 75
Parents need to have contact with their babies right after birth, so they can bond with them	p. 77
Babies are born with emotional attachments to their mothers and can recognize their mothers at once	p. 82
Feral children are individuals who have been brought up from infancy by animals	p. 87
A baby's sleeping position can cause or prevent sudden infant death syndrome	p. 92
Parents should not talk baby talk to their children, because this slows their language development	p. 97
Being exposed to two different languages is confusing for babies and interferes with normal language development	p. 101
Breast-feeding makes babies more intelligent	p. 106
When parents divorce, it's important for young children to have certain experiences with both parents, or they will form an attachment to only one of them	p. 111
Toddlers drop food on the floor because they want to make their parents mad	p. 116
It is important for parents to work with babies and teach them how to walk	p. 121
It is a good thing for an infant or a toddler to have experience with many caregivers, not just one or two	p. 126
Some children would starve to death if their parents did not coax them to eat	p. 131
Parents who were abused as children are likely to abuse their own children	p. 136
Preschoolers	p. 141
Having kids listen to Mozart makes them smart	p. 143
The time between birth and age 3 years is the most important period of development and learning in a person's life	p. 147
People who were adopted will always be unhappy because they have suffered a Primal Wound	p. 152
Children need to develop basic trust and show it by their confidence in other people	p. 157
If a child is able to complete a task with an adult present, he or she is also able to do it alone	p. 162
Preschoolers who hold their breath when angry are trying to upset their parents and get their own way	p. 167
Vaccines and heavy metals cause autism	p. 171
Autism rates are rising rapidly, especially in certain parts of the country, so something must be happening to cause more cases of this serious developmental problem	p. 176
Children with brain injuries can be rehabilitated by using practices like patterning, and other problems can be treated with similar approaches	p. 181
Preschoolers who try to bargain with their parents really want to manipulate and control adults, and they should not be allowed to negotiate	p. 186
A young child can tell when someone is just teasing	p. 191
Children with attachment disorders must be treated very sternly and differently from typically developing children-even in ways that are ordinarily considered abusive	p. 196
Spanking should never be used to discipline a child, because it is ineffective and causes children to model the aggression they experience	p. 201
School-Age Children	p. 207
Children who play with matches will grow up to be seriously disturbed and violent and will probably be serial killers, especially if they are also cruel to animals and wet their beds	p. 209
Children have different learning styles, depending on whether they are left brained or right brained	p. 214
Karate lessons help schoolchildren achieve self-discipline and improve their schoolwork	p. 219
Birth order is an important factor that determines children's intelligence and personality	p. 224
When a child is mentally ill, any psychological treatment is better than no treatment	p. 229
Bullying is a natural behavior for children, and there's nothing you can do to stop it	p. 234
Sugar is a major cause of hyperactive behavior	p. 239
Adopted children have many more problems of social and emotional development than do nonadopted children	p. 244
If a child is sexually molested, he or she will probably repress the memory	p. 249
Parents really don't influence their children's long-term development very much	p. 253
Adolescents	p. 259
Children are more likely to become delinquent if their fathers are absent or uninvolved	p. 261
Violent television programs and video games cause increased aggressive behavior	p. 266
If parents are not strict enough, children will behave badly and may become criminals	p. 271
Adolescents' brains go through some rapid changes; as a result, teenagers develop new ways of thinking about themselves and about the world	p. 276
High self-esteem makes children perform better in school	p. 281
Single-sex schools give better outcomes of academic achievement than do coeducational schools	p. 286
The DARE program is an effective way to prevent children and adolescents from dealing or using drugs	p. 291
Children and adolescents learn bad behavior from their peers	p. 296
Young teenagers should be tried and sentenced as adults if they commit serious crimes	p. 301
Adolescence is an emotionally dangerous time when teenagers are likely to attempt or commit suicide	p. 306
Punishment is an effective way of changing children's and adolescents' undesirable behaviors	p. 311
Children are reaching puberty earlier with each generation	p. 316
Teenage boys and girls should have the same level of fat in their bodies, about 10%	p. 321
Afterthoughts: Some Ideas to Take Into Your Future	p. 325
Index	p. 329
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