Karnac Developmental Psychology Series – serie

The adolescent finds himself in the very difficult position of having to make all these readjustments whilst he has to deal with the subsequent conflicts and anxieties. The earlier passionate mixture of love and hatred that characterizes the attachment and dependency on the parents must now be renounced until the adolescent reaches a point at which it is possible for him to confirm his own identity and find new love relationships. These must neither be based too much on repetition of previous early attachments, nor be entirely and exaggeratedly opposed to them. It goes without saying that none of this can be achieved without much upheaval and experimenting. The step from adolescence to adulthood is complex and involves not only the individual's emotional experience, but also the continuous input, reactions from the world in which he/she lives. It is these interactions that are described and discussed in this book.

This is a book which seeks help those going through the process of mid-adolescence - either from the point of view of the adolescent or their families - it attends to the serious strains that may have to be borne if the picture portrayed is to have any realism. 'Youth culture' may idealize the adolescent and vilify parents; but, as we shall see, the paradoxical expectations placed on both adolescents and their parents arise from the creative tension between the desire to progress and the desire to regress as mid-adolescents consolidate the move out of childhood and prepare for adulthood. No easy task for the mid-adolescent and those responsible for them.

The fifth birthday represents an important landmark in a child's development. He is now ready to start full-time primary school, and we no longer speak of a baby or a little child; instead, we refer to the boy or the girl. Over the next five years, as his horizons become wider and his experiences outside the home increase exponentially, he seems to become more reserved; more difficult to approach and share things with. Sometimes, ordinary questions are ignored or responded to with some apparently unrelated answer. Occasionally, the child will move away even while someone is speaking to him. This is a child trying to make sense of his new experiences, adapting to new people and places, while preserving his link to his earlier environment.Adults can feel frustrated by this behaviour and impatient, but when moved to protest, tend to use words of exasperation rather than plain anger. There exists an unspoken understanding that the child needs time to adjust to his new pattern of life. However, not all over-fives are like this and we do find some who seem to blend into the new pattern of life and carry on with their home life as if no major change had taken place.

This book aims to facilitate the understandings of nursery age children, that is, children around three, four and five years, and their parents. Children of these ages are particularly fascinating. The wealth of their growing minds is apparent in their play and in their widening capacity to express themselves in words. It is a time of much discovery and experimentation, accompanied often by excitement and anxiety. There is something open-minded and open-hearted about children of these years. The author's views on nursery age children have been based on observing and working with them over the past twenty years, in various settings, including their homes, nursery schools and hospitals, and as a psychologist and child psychotherapist, in assessments and individual psychotherapy. She has also learnt much in working with families and with groups of parents .The book is influenced and informed by the writings of Sigmund Freud, Donald and Clare Winnicott, Anna Freud, Selma Fraiberg, and Jean Piaget.

A central theme of this book is the gradual process of separation between parents and toddlers and the growth of autonomy in them all. The author has written with clarity, sympathy and warmth about the multiple problems children face in their toddler years and she has addressed the parents with immense empathy. The author manages to co

The problems which the individual has to deal with in adolescence are qualitatively different from those of childhood; they are related in particular to the adolescent's reaction/responses to the physical development of his/her sexual body, and the changing relationship to the parents and to the world in which he/she lives. We have to take into account the revival of infantile conflicts and the newly emerging sexual and aggressive urges and experiences, both of which have to be integrated by the adolescent so that a new equilibrium can be created. The adolescent finds himself in the very difficult position of having to make all these readjustments whilst he has to deal with the subsequent conflicts and anxieties. The earlier passionate mixture of love and hatred that characterizes the attachment and dependency on the parents must now be renounced until the adolescent reaches a point at which it is possible for him to confirm his own identity and find new love relationships. These must neither be based too much on repetition of previous early attachments, nor be entirely and exaggeratedly opposed to them. It goes without saying that none of this can be achieved without much upheaval and experimenting. The step from adolescence to adulthood is complex and involves not only the individual's emotional experience, but also the continuous input, reactions from the world in which he/she lives. It is these interactions that are described and discussed in this book.

A central theme of this book is the gradual process of separation between parents and toddlers and the growth of autonomy in them all. Jenny Stoker has written with clarity, sympathy and warmth about the multiple problems children face in their toddler years and she has addressed the parents with immense empathy. Stoker manages to convey complex concepts and arguments in a lucid and simple style that all readers will find most helpful.'Each of the authors featured has published papers and books for the academic and clinical communities; the present volumes, however, are specifically aimed at parents. The intent is not to convince but to inform the reader. Rather than offering solutions, we are describing, explaining and discussing the problems that parents meet while bringing up their children, from infancy through to adulthood.'We try to provide portraits of the various stages in the child's cognitive, intellectual, and emotional development and how these unfolding stages affect not only the child's experience of himself, but also how he perceives and relates to the world in which he lives. Our hope is that establishing this context will help the parents who read these books to see their child from a different perspective.'- Dr. A. H. Brafman, from his Series Editor's Foreword

This volume looks at the physical, mental and emotional development of children with varying degrees of learning disabilities through tracing the development of six young adults from childhood. The case studies are in the form of illuminating commentaries from the parents and provide extra insight into the children's everyday lives. Each chapter also looks at education and schooling in detail, as well as acknowledging the importance of support outside of the family nucleus.

This is a book which seeks help those going through the process of mid-adolescence - either from the point of view of the adolescent or their families - it attends to the serious strains that may have to be borne if the picture portrayed is to have any realism. 'Youth culture' may idealize the adolescent and vilify parents; but, as we shall see, the paradoxical expectations placed on both adolescents and their parents arise from the creative tension between the desire to progress and the desire to regress as mid-adolescents consolidate the move out of childhood and prepare for adulthood. No easy task for the mid-adolescent and those responsible for them.This book examines issues such as the emotional and intellectual development commonly observed during adolescence, the variation in physiological development and what this can mean for the developing adolescent, the importance of the peer group and why this seems to provide so many of the signifiers of adolescence, the difficult and sometimes distasteful experiences that mid-adolescents may have to face, the framework of the law as it concerns adolescents, the frequency of eating disorders, self-harming and suicide among adolescents.

The fifth birthday represents an important landmark in a child's development. He is now ready to start full-time primary school, and we no longer speak of a baby or a little child; instead, we refer to the boy or the girl. Over the next five years, as his horizons become wider and his experiences outside the home increase exponentially, he seems to become more reserved; more difficult to approach and share things with. Sometimes, ordinary questions are ignored or responded to with some apparently unrelated answer. Occasionally, the child will move away even while someone is speaking to him. This is a child trying to make sense of his new experiences, adapting to new people and places, while preserving his link to his earlier environment.Adults can feel frustrated by this behaviour and impatient, but when moved to protest, tend to use words of exasperation rather than plain anger. There exists an unspoken understanding that the child needs time to adjust to his new pattern of life. However, not all over-fives are like this and we do find some who seem to blend into the new pattern of life and carry on with their home life as if no major change had taken place.