What is child development?
Child development courses teach students about the changing physical, and emotional states that occur in a child’s life from birth to the beginnings of adulthood. It refers to the evolving stages of physicality, language, thought process and emotional response in the child as they go through life. It refers to the process of the child’s progress from dependency to self reliance, and the outside factors that impact these progressions.
Why study child development?
In the early stages of a child’s life, they endure a huge amount of physical, social, cognitive and emotional upheaval. Children go through so many different stages of growth and development and each of those stages can be profoundly impacted by their outside situations. Depending on the physical and mental environment of the child, these early formative years can have either a huge negative or positive impact on the adult that the child will later become. By embarking on a course in child development the learner can find out more about the way in which children develop. From here they can learn the most effective ways to help children to become the best versions of themselves that they can be as they enter adulthood. By gaining knowledge of children’s development, it is also possible to understand why some children have learning difficulties and delays. Embarking on a journey of study in this field will teach the student how best to help a child overcome these challenges.By studying one of these courses the student will also develop an understanding of the environmental factors that often influence how a child grows physically, emotionally and psychologically.
In short, if you are someone who wishes to help children, to learn about them and to utilise that learning to produce positive outcomes for the child, then study in the field of child development might be the best course of action for you.
What can I do with a certification in child development?
Upon completion of one of these courses the learner should be able to:
- Recognise the importance of primary care relationships
- Provide quality curriculum through routine care environment
- Recognise that each child is unique
- Have realistic expectations of young children
- Provide developmentally appropriate play and learning activities
- Provide safe environments
- Monitor progress to detect delays
- Support relationships with families
Graduates of any child development program have a variety of different career options at their fingertips. You may be interested in working in pre-schools or montessori’s or even in child care facilities. You might also be interested in becoming a teacher’s aid, or an early childhood educator or special needs assistant. This can be either in a classroom setting or on a one to one basis.
There are also a whole host of options available to the graduate of these courses, such as social worker, child life specialist, early childhood education consultant, and parent educator.
You may also decide that you wish to further your study and these courses can open the door to other areas of education. In these instances the student might wish to embark on the pursuit of a degree in areas such as child psychology, child psychiatry, speech therapy, language specialist, etc.
What do I need to apply?
As with most courses depending on your age you may not need any prior training whatsoever to apply to some of the outstanding courses available in this field. Many of these courses can be accessed without having done any previous training or certification at all. It is always worth checking out the college specifics in regards to this matter however.
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