Human Development and Family Studies
Human Development and Family Studies asks you to apply developmental and family theory to realistic scenarios involving children, adolescents, parents, and older adults. The exam favors application over name recall, so link each theorist to an observable behavior.
Developmental frameworks
- Piaget: sensorimotor (0-2) object permanence; preoperational (2-7) symbolic play, egocentrism, failure to conserve; concrete operational (7-11) conservation, classification, reversibility; formal operational (11+) hypothetical and abstract reasoning.
- Erikson: trust vs mistrust (infancy), autonomy vs shame/doubt (toddler), initiative vs guilt (preschool), industry vs inferiority (school age), identity vs role confusion (adolescence), intimacy vs isolation (young adult), generativity vs stagnation (midlife), integrity vs despair (later life).
- Bronfenbrenner: microsystem (family, classroom), mesosystem (home-school links), exosystem (parent workplace), macrosystem (cultural values), chronosystem (time and transitions).
- Parenting styles: authoritative = high warmth plus high expectations; authoritarian = low warmth plus high control; permissive = high warmth plus low control; uninvolved = low warmth and low control.
Family systems
Treat the family as an interacting system: roles, boundaries, communication patterns, and stressors affect every member. The family life cycle includes launch, new couple, young children, adolescents, launching children, and later life.
Worked example
Two parents set a curfew, explain the safety reason, and listen to their teen's counterargument before holding the limit. This is authoritative parenting. The reasoning: warmth is present (listening), expectations are high (curfew held), and communication is bidirectional. Authoritarian parenting would impose the rule without explanation; permissive parenting would abandon the limit.
Traps
Do not treat Piaget's ages as rigid cutoffs; a child can be transitional. Attachment quality is not the same construct as parenting style. Bronfenbrenner's macrosystem is cultural ideology, not a school building. Family systems explanations should avoid blaming one member in isolation.