COURSE STRUCTURE:

Number of Assignments: 10

Duration: 100 hrs

The course consists of ten lessons including:

• Develop an understanding of the theories of child development in relation to adolescents.
• Develop an understanding of life crises in relation to adolescents.
• Develop an understanding of the physical changes that occur in puberty.
• Develop an understanding of the intellectual changes that occur in adolescence.
• Develop an understanding of the emotional development that occurs during adolescence.
• Develop an understanding of sexuality during adolescence
• Develop an understanding of the social development that occurs in adolescence.
• Develop an understanding of the theories of moral development in relation to teenagers.
• Consider the links between adolescence and delinquent activity such as crime.
• Develop an understanding of the changes that occur moving from adolescence to adulthood.

Some Sample Notes from our Adolescent Psychology course -
As teenagers grow and develop, they may be more influenced by their peers than adults, including their parents.

FAMILY INFLUENCE
Different parents can use different child rearing practices, and the influence of siblings on each other can also vary greatly. A lot of American research has focused on the influences of different types of parent child rearing attitudes. Put simply, attitudes have been seen to range from restrictive to permissive.

A restrictive parent lays down many rules for a child, is generally intolerant and over protective, although they do not necessarily use punitive methods in disciplining children, for often their strictness alone is successful in keeping their children in check. Usually they try to encourage mature behaviour in their children.

A permissive parent tends to be lax and unconcerned with the child's behaviour, seldom intervening in the child' behaviour, and seldom using any disciplinary procedures. Such parents usually make no effort to provide rules and regulations for the child to conform to. They tend to sit by and expect the children to resolve their own problems. They do not make many demands and do not expect mature behaviour.

Another dimension that describes different parental attitudes is that of acceptance and rejection. This is self explanatory. Rejecting parents tend to frequently criticise their children without providing reasons for their dissatisfaction. They seldom give physical affection or cues of approval.

Accepting parents tend to provide a lot of positive affirmations, often openly show signs of being proud of their children, and tend to use a reasoning approach when communicating with them.

Restrictive, rejecting parents are often referred to by psychologists as authoritarian. While parents who have been described as accepting without being permissive - that is, parents who use reasoning, give positive reinforcement, but still provide a measure of control - are referred to as authoritative.

American researchers investigated the parental attitudes of children they observed in pre school. They noticed three distinctive types of children which they described as follows:

1. Instrumentally competent children (ie. children who showed a marked degree of independence, self reliance, maturity, achievement orientation, and pro social behaviour).

2. Children who were fairly self reliant, but who were withdrawn, shy and mistrustful.

3. Children who lacked self control (ie. self reliance and independence). (taken from our Adolescent Psychology course).

If you're interested in our Adolescent Psychology course, you may also be interested in some of the following courses -

• Child Development Certificate
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Introduction To Psychology