If you decide to attend a psychology graduate school, you have already made the decision to work in helping people overcome psychological problems, whether for children or adults. Some psychology students want to work to help teenagers get through the troubling years of adolescents, and help them adjust to the transitional changes they experience from childhood to adulthood. Those interested will find information for grad school helpful as they progress.
Understanding the stages of development adolescents go through, helps psychologists to learn the reasons that teenagers encounter problems at this stage and how to help them work it. Psychologists study the physical, social, and cognitive developmental changes of adolescents.
The stage adolescents go through causes physical changes that, more often than not, can lead to psychological changes. While normal, parents often misunderstand adolescents at this stage. Growth spurts and outward physical changes occur at puberty, and it may occur for adolescents as young as ten to thirteen.
The age that a child reaches puberty can be a problem for some teenagers from the start. Some reach this age too soon and may be taller or more developed than their classmates, which may result in other teens poking fun at them. At the other end are those adolescents that who are slow to develop and may become the target of ridicule or bullying.
Abstract thinking occurs at this age, as an adolescent’s cognitive developmental abilities increase. At this age, teens are able to picture events that have not happened yet. They are able to consider all aspects of a given situation using the ‘what if’ scenario in a wide range of areas, including reality and fantasy. Adolescents reach this cognitive developmental stage, according to child psychologists, at different ages. Understanding the mindset of teens who have the ability to grasp concrete and abstract scenarios, helps child psychologists empathize with the emotional and psychological issues of adolescence.
A teenager’s social development may be the most essential stage in that teenagers have the capacity to go through extreme changes in personality and attitude. Adolescents can be lazy, contradictory, lethargic, or cruel. They may also be diligent, extreme, exuberant, or sensitive.
Psychology students will learn about these extreme changes in personality and attitude among adolescents. They begin to learn that these extremes occur as adolescents go from being a child to becoming an adult. They experience their first identity crisis, while parents describe seeing a vicious cycle occurring in their teen. Parents want to help their teen in the process of becoming independent as they watch their child behave like a small spoiled brat with some of their attitudes and behaviors. Psychologists understand that these extremes occur because teenagers begin to rebel against their parents, due to their desire to conform. They engage in troubling behavior due to peer pressure, brought on by the psychological and physical changes teenagers are going through. Psychologists must get the most from their online graduate schools to ensure they can best help these troubled youth.
Because of all of these development changes, psychological and physical, adolescents oftentimes need the help of a good child psychologist. A good psychologist from the best graduate school not only acquires the knowledge and information needed to work in the field, they also learn throughout graduate school, the natural progression of physical and psychological changes that can lead to problems in the first place.