Child Psychology in Twelve Questions

Abstract Child psychology as a scientific enterprise is about a hundred years old—juvenile in comparison to other branches of science. Yet the reader who wants to learn what has been discovered faces an obstacle. There are plenty of textbooks offering an encyclopedic review. They are packed with recent research, aimed at the latest cohort of students, but such a welter of findings and mini controversies can obscure enduring questions as well as established answers. Firmer guidance is on offer in books aiming to help parents and teachers, but the more meditative and less practical questions about the nature of the child’s mind are rarely asked. This book takes up some of the enduring questions in developmental psychology. For example, how do children form an attachment to their caregivers? In their imagination, are they confused or clear-sighted about the difference between fantasy and reality? When and how do they make moral judgments? In each chapter, readers are given a sense of why these questions are important, the answers proposed, and the uncertainties that persist. Readers are shown important landmarks, both well known and neglected, and invited to linger.