What Influences A Child's Development?

How children develop is something that developmental psychologists have been trying to figure out for years.

Nature vs Nurture
Where child development is concerned, there’s the age-old “nature vs nurture” debate to think about.

Psychologists involved in this argument try to find out whether it's our biology or our environment that influences our development the most.

What Is The “Nature” Side Of The Debate?
The “nature” side of the coin argues that our development as a child is influenced by our biology. This includes:

• Brain structure
• Brain activity
• Age
• Gender
• Heredity (genetic traits passed on from your parents)
• Temperament
• Hormone levels
• Health conditions

Obviously, all of these things have an impact on our development.

Cognitive psychologist Jean Piaget was something of a pioneer in this field, and he believed that our intelligence and cognition (how we think) develops in stages, the most important of which take place between the ages of 0 and 11. 

What Is The “Nurture” Side Of The Debate?
The “nurture” argument suggests that a child’s development is influenced by their environment. This includes:

• Parenting (for example, whether your parents make you behave by rewarding your good behavior, or by punishing your bad behavior)
• Role models
• Friendship groups
• Economic background
• Exposure to things like crime or violence
• Neighborhood
• Schooling
• Social expectations (for example, being raised in an area with low rates of literacy might have a negative impact on a child’s learning process)

As you can see, both nature and nurture have a lot to say for themselves! Both sides of the argument receive a lot of support from psychologists.

Ultimately, a child’s development is probably influenced by both nature and nurture.

Role-models play a big part as a child learns from watching.