PSY 8
For this journal assignment, review your first journal and what you stated regarding your knowledge in the field of childhood psychology. Reflect upon whether your thinking has changed throughout the course.
Describe what course concepts have impacted you the most personally and how. Evaluate whether you may decide to pursue a career in child psychology, and why. Should you decide not to pursue a career in child psychology, describe how you might use the knowledge attained from this course in your life.
Running head: Childhood emotional challenges 1
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Childhood Emotional Challenges
Children experience problems, especially when it comes to emotions. However, most people confuse them with being weaknesses or bad behavior and end up punishing the child and increasing the extent of the emotional problem. I say this because I have witnessed it in my cousin, and it took about three months before my aunt noticed it was an emotional problem and not misbehavior. My aunt was blessed with two handsome sons, and they were twins, Jayden and Jordan. When the twins were six years, my aunt and the twins were involved in a terrible accident and unfortunately Jordan passed away. Siblings are like your best friends and with them being womb buddies they were super close. The death of Jordan had a significant impact on Jayden. Jayden seized being jovial and started becoming possessive. He no longer wanted to talk to people and he wanted to play alone. He did not like it when anyone touched Jordans items, among other things. At first, everyone understood it was Jordans death causing the change. However, things got worse. Jayden became sulky and rude to other children at school. My aunt became frustrated, and anytime Jayden would misbehave that way, she would punish him with timeouts or taking something like the tv away.
In my early twenties I noticed Jaydens behavior and I remembered how I acted after losing another cousin when I was 17. I lost a very close cousin on my mom side, due to gun violence right before I went off to college. I was very standoffish, didnt want to answer my phone and just all around didnt want to deal with anyone. I missed my cousin and hadnt known for maybe several months I was dealing with depression. If it wasnt for my parents and close friends checking on me and making sure I spoke for someone on campus to help me deal and cope with his death I do not where I would be right now. Because I knew how much just speaking to a counselor helped me, I suggested to my aunt that maybe Jayden should speak with someone as well (this is like 5-6 years after Jordan death). I explained to her how I felt when I realized I could no longer see my cousin. Most people take the death of their loved ones to a child as something simple. The child might be young and not understand everything that is going on. However, the child will always feel the impact of losing the loved one. Not only does it lead to emotional problems but also development problems since it interferes with the development stages of the child.
It is crucial to help a child, especially when it comes to emotions. Some children, like my cousin Jordan and I, are very emotional, and therefore, specific interventions should be made to help out children like us. Some of the interventions include understanding the child and not taking it as an embarrassment. Most parents take it that a child crying or behaving in a particular way at a certain age is wrong or embarrassing or both. It is also important to teach the child about emotions. Help the child to understand what he or she is going through, how to handle it, make the child understand what emotions are, and what brings about emotions, and how to manage them. For example, you can teach the child to count down to control the emotions, or to draw whenever the emotions come. Most importantly, talk to the child about their emotions and listen to them, perhaps they need an ear. Lastly, you can always take the child to a psychologist if you feel things are getting out of hand.
