Psychology for Everyone: Babyhood and Counseling Parents

Our Objectives

• To help us recap the Developmental Psychology of Babyhood

• To connect the Theory with our experiences

• To share the ideas to help parents to help themselves in Effective Parenting

Characteristics of Babyhood

• Is an age of rapid growth and change.

• Is an age of decreasing Dependency.

• Is the age of increased individuality.

• Is the beginning of Socialization

• Is a hazardous age

• The hazards may be physical, psychological, or both.

For e.g., excessive crying

Physical hazards

Mortality

Greater mortality occurs during the first three months of babyhood than later.
Approximately two-thirds of all deaths during the first year of life occurring during first month.
During the first year of babyhood, death is usually caused by serious illness.
In the second year, death is often due to accidents.
Throughout the babyhood, boys die more than girls.

Crib Death

Usually crib death occurs after a long period of sleep
To date, medical science has been unable to find the exact cause or causes of death
It’s common among who experience abnormality in breathing or
who have had some abnormal condition at birth such as Jaundice

Illness

Due to such illness as gastrointestinal or respiratory complications.
Minor illness such as colds and digestive upsets are common.
Prompt diagnosis and proper medical care can keep these from causing serious harms.
If they are neglected, serious infections can develop rapidly.

Accidents

Accidents in babyhood may be both minor and serious.
During second year, when babies can move about freely and are not as well as protected
Infrequent during the first year of life, owing to the fact that babies are carefully protected

Malnutrition

Foundations of Obesity

Many parents equate health in babyhood with plumpness and do all they can do see that their babies are chubby.
There is evidence that fat babies tend to have obesity problems as they grow while thin babies do not.
This is because the number and size of the fat cells of the body are established early in life.

Physiological Habits

The foundation of the important physiological habits-eating, sleeping and eliminating are established during babyhood.
Common physical hazard of the period is the establishment of unfavorable attitudes towards baby’s part toward these habits

Psychological Hazards

Play Hazards

Play in Babyhood is potentially hazardous, both physically and psychologically.
Many toys can inflict cuts and buries
The major psychological hazard is that baby may come to rely too much on the toys themselves for amusement, instead of learning to play in ways that involve interaction with others.

Hazards in Understanding

Even though understanding is in a rudimentary stage of development, it presents a serious psychological hazard.
In the development of concepts, it is relatively easy to replace wrong meanings associated with people, objects or situations in the correct meanings.

Hazards in Morality

No one expects babies to moral in the sense that behavior conforms to the moral standards of social group or they will feel guilty and shame if they fail to do.
However, a serious psychological hazard to future moral development occurs when babies discover that they get more attention when they do things to annoy and antagonize others than they behave in a more socially approved way.

Family Relationship Hazards

Hazards in Personality Development

The developing self-concept is in large part a mirror image of what babies believe significant people in their lives think of them.
Thus the changed attitudes of family members are reflected in their treatment of babies.
This reinforces the unfavorable self-concepts that the baby is in the process of developing.

Educating and Counseling Parents

The parents have to be educated in the hospitals about the hazards and should take preventive steps.
Both psychological and physiological care has to be given to children by the parents.
Medical care becomes more important in this case of babyhood.
Child Counselors can play the role equal to Medical Professionals.
The parenting starts right from the conception of the baby.
The counselors’ duty is to make them understand what is parenting and what not is parenting.
The parenting workshops can be conducted.
The psychological tests available for parenting can be administered to make them realize their parenting style.
In case of any issues, parents have to be given counseling.

Ref: Developmental Psychology by Dr. Hurlock

Psychology for Everyone