How to Understand Child Behavior

Series Summary

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of progressive psychological changes that occur in human beings as they age. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence and more recently, aging, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including problem solving abilities, conceptual understanding, language acquisition, moral understanding, and identity formation.

For some parents, it's difficult to understand a child's behavior, why they act a certain way, and how to respond to these behaviors. In this free video series, a childcare expert will teach you how to understand the behavior of children, and use this understanding to better teach your children. You'll learn about being positive, about discipline, and hear some examples of a child's behavior and how you should deal with them. You'll also learn the important of paying attention to children and proper interaction, as well as setting limits and goals for children. Learn how to be a better parent today!

Video Transcript

"Hi, I am Pam on behalf of Expert Village and now we're going to talk about understanding behaviors in children. Here are a few examples of some behavior situations that you may encounter in any type of class. Say for instance that Grace and Ava are playing in dress-up and Grace likes the necklace that Ava has around her neck, so Grace is an only child, she doesn't know necessarily alot about sharing, she just runs up and grabs the necklace. Ava, reacting, bites Grace's arm. Say, for instance, Joel and Mike are playing in block center and Joel has spent a long time building a very, very intimate tower and Mike comes running into the room and just knocks it over. Or, you have another child will say Connor, who's playing in art center and you ring the bell and say okay, it's time to clean up. Well instead of putting the chalk back into the basket like it's supposed to, he's not ready to clean up so he knocks the basket of chalk all over the floor. All of these are typical situations that you're going to come across in early childhood centers no matter how plentiful the materials, how well-trained the adults or how good the program is conflicts are gonna occur when you get more than one child into a one setting. Now understanding why children behave this way and why they misbehave is gonna help you guide their behavior and form new patterns."