Understanding child development is essential to ensuring a full and rounded psychological grounding, but given the complex nature of the topic it can be a real challenge. Child Development: Concepts and Theories takes a step back to focus just on the key concepts of child development that all students must learn. With this book, their first encounters with theories and their applications will mean that they can move on with a firm foundation in child development. Central to this, is understanding how these theories or concepts are applied in the real world and how psychologists engage with them in research. This book gives clear and detailed examples to bring the subject to life. Each chapter features case studies that run throughout the chapter and develop as the students' own understanding does. Written for undergraduates, the book will become essential to any student wanting a key to unlock the world of child development. Jean Mercer is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stockton University, New Jersey, and writes a blog, "Childmyths".

""A wonderful way to look more deeply into issues in child development." "

- Sarah Jane Anderson, Mount Ida College

""With its emphasis on critical thinking about child development, Mercer's text is unique and timely. . . ." "Mercer has done an admirable job in selecting and tackling the topics that she does." "

- Nancy Dye, Humboldt College

In Child Development: Myths and Misunderstandings, 2e, Jean Mercer uses intriguing vignettes and questions about children and families to guide readers in thinking critically about 59 common beliefs. Each essay confronts commonly held misconceptions about development, encouraging students to think like social scientists and to become better consumers of media messages and anecdotal stories. The book can be assigned to parallel either chronologically or topically organized child development texts. Features and Benefits: Presents 59 short essays about child development that challenge readers to reconsider their pre-conceived notions 14 new essays in the second edition confront topics like language acquisition, adoption, discipline, and nature versus nurture. Includes carefully developed critical thinking questions at the end of each essay Offers examples of research to help students make the connection between research designs and conclusions Intrigues and engages students with the theme of dispelling myths and misconceptions and challenges them to find out if their own beliefs are correct or incorrect.

Understanding child development is essential to ensuring a full and rounded psychological grounding, but given the complex nature of the topic it can be a real challenge. Child Development: Concepts and Theories takes a step back to focus just on the key concepts of child development that all students must learn. With this book, their first encounters with theories and their applications will mean that they can move on with a firm foundation in child development. Central to this, is understanding how these theories or concepts are applied in the real world and how psychologists engage with them in research. This book gives clear and detailed examples to bring the subject to life. Each chapter features case studies that run throughout the chapter and develop as the students' own understanding does. Written for undergraduates, the book will become essential to any student wanting a key to unlock the world of child development. Jean Mercer is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stockton University, New Jersey, and writes a blog, "Childmyths".