Human Development and Family Systems
This strand covers human development, family systems, parenting, and interpersonal communication across the lifespan. Items typically present a scenario-a toddler’s behavior, a parent’s discipline choice, or a family conflict-and ask you to identify the developmental concept or the most supportive response.
Development and parenting rules
- Developmental domains: physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional. Skills follow a predictable sequence but vary in timing; avoid treating a milestone as a rigid deadline.
- Piaget: sensorimotor (0–2), preoperational (2–7), concrete operational (7–11), formal operational (11+). Erikson’s psychosocial stages pair each life phase with a crisis, such as trust vs. mistrust in infancy and identity vs. role confusion in adolescence.
- Attachment patterns (Ainsworth): secure, avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, disorganized. Secure attachment grows from consistent, responsive care.
- Baumrind parenting styles: authoritative (high warmth, high expectations), authoritarian (low warmth, high control), permissive (high warmth, low control), uninvolved (low warmth, low control). Authoritative parenting is associated with the best adjustment in many studies.
Family systems and communication
- Families are systems: a change in one member affects roles, boundaries, and communication patterns.
- Use I-statements, active listening, and negotiation; avoid blaming and stonewalling.
- Recognize adverse childhood experiences and mandated-reporting obligations.
Worked example
A 15-year-old wants to attend a concert. The parents listen, explain their safety concerns, set a curfew, and invite the teen to propose a plan. This is authoritative: warmth plus clear, reasoned limits. If the parents simply said “Because I said so” with no discussion, the style would be authoritarian; if they let the teen go with no curfew, it would be permissive.
Traps that cost marks
- Reversing authoritative and authoritarian.
- Calling permissive parenting “uninvolved.”
- Assuming a missed milestone always indicates a disorder.
- Ignoring cultural context when judging family communication.