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Childhood
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Childhood is one of the most examined periods in human development, drawing attention across disciplines including psychology, sociology, education, criminal justice, and literary studies. Courses in child psychology, developmental psychology, and family studies regularly ask students to analyze how early experiences shape cognition, behavior, and identity. The period is academically rich because it sits at the intersection of biological growth, family dynamics, social institutions like school, and cultural narratives, making it relevant to both scientific and humanistic inquiry. Freud and psychoanalysis, for instance, appear as a foundational lens through which students explore how childhood experiences influence adult personality and mental health.

The papers archived on this topic reflect a genuinely wide range of approaches. Some take a developmental focus, examining middle and late childhood as distinct psychological stages. Others are applied and policy-oriented, addressing juvenile crime within a criminal justice framework or exploring behavior modification strategies for children with autism. Literary analysis also features prominently, with works such as Blake's "The Chimney Sweep," Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," and Steinbeck's "The Red Pony" read as texts that interrogate childhood innocence, labor, and loss. Additional papers address family violence and its effects on children, grounding the topic in real-world social consequences.

A strong essay on childhood begins with a clearly scoped thesis that commits to one dimension of the subject — psychological, social, literary, or policy-based — rather than attempting to cover all of them. Evidence drawn from developmental theory, case studies, or close textual analysis carries the most weight, depending on the angle chosen. The most common pitfall is treating childhood as a uniform experience; effective essays acknowledge that factors such as family structure, school environment, and cultural context shape the period differently for different children.

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Paper Undergraduate

Spirituality, Religion, and Depression: Treatment and Well-Being

Role of Spirituality in the Treatment of Depression

Paper High School

Free Range Kids How to Raise Safe Self-Reliant Children Without Going Nuts With Worry

Skenazy introduces to the reader a (supposedly) profound "new" way of raising children in the United States, which is the Free-Range way. Her point-of-view stems from the new parenthood phenomenon of sheltering children…

Paper Undergraduate

Case History and Theoretical Strips

Tracy is a thirteen-year-old, Caucasian female, who is being raised by her mother, Melanie in Los Angeles. Also living in the home is Tracy's older brother Mason, who is fifteen. Tracy's parents are divorced, with…

Paper Undergraduate

Post-Colonial Theory in Richard Wright's Jim Crow Ethics

In "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," Richard Wright provided a brief autobiographical sketch of his life growing up in the segregated South. He described how he learned about the laws of Jim Crow in the South, and the…

Paper Undergraduate

Social Learning Theory Children That Grew Up in Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence and Social Learning Theory

Paper Undergraduate

How Courts Deal With Tough Custody Cases

In family law, there are a myriad of philosophical and ethical issues which society must confront. The very personal and intimate nature of family, as well as the permanent ties which bind members of a family together,…

Paper Undergraduate

Critique of the Lost Boy

David Pelzer's autobiography The Lost Boy (1997) is a very moving and disturbing account of his childhood experiences of severe abuse by his mother and abandonment by his father. He was removed from his mother's custody at age 12 by Child Protective Services and ended up in a series of foster homes for the next six years. He rarely spent more than a few months in each one, and did not receive the necessary psychological counseling that would have helped him resolve the issues of abuse and abandonment. Although David was grateful to the foster care system and believed it had literally saved his life, he recognized that it was often overwhelmed with the sheer volume of abuse cases and lacked a sufficient number of social workers and foster homes. On the whole, though, he was very satisfied with the social worker who saved him from his alcoholic and violently abusive mother and certain that she was a very caring individual. Had the system identified this abuse sooner instead of sending him back to his mother, he would certainly have been better off, but whether his severely disturbed mother would have benefited from treatment is more problematic. Essentially, the system worked by removing this child from the home but failed in certain important areas of follow up as he was passed from one foster home to another. He became very isolated and alienated, did poorly in school, and failed to make emotional bonds with any of his peers. Fortunately, though, David was particularly resilient and was able to obtain a GED at age 18 and then enlisted in the Air Force.

Paper Undergraduate

Alfred Adler Was One of the First

Alfred Adler was one of the first supporters of Sigmund Freud's theories of psychoanalysis in Vienna in the eraly-20th Century, although the two psychiatrists had a particularly harsh falling out in 1911 and never reconciled. Adler's basic theories were so distinctive from Freud's that any attempt to combine them would have been impossible, given that he denied the existence of the id, ego and superego. In general, Adler minimized the role of genetics, sexuality and unconscious drives in human personality formation is favor of conscious goal-setting that overcame the childhood sense of dependence, powerlessness and inferiority and created a mature, competent and self-realized adult.

Paper Doctorate

Robert Hayden, One of the Most Important

Robert Hayden, one of the most important black poets of the 20th Century, was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1913 and grew up in extreme poverty in a racially mixed neighborhood. His parents divorced when he was a child and he was raised by their neighbors, William and Sue Ellen Hayden, and not until he was in his forties did he learn that Asa Sheffey and Gladys Finn were his biological parents. During the Great Depression he was employed for two years by the Federal Writer's Project, and published his first volume of poetry Heart-Shape in the Dust in 1940

Theoretical Dimensions Involving Criminal Behavior

Laws exist to maintain order, peace and provide for the safety and well-being of all members of society. Acts that disrupt and threaten this system of order are deemed criminal in nature and are therefore punishable by law. The psychology of criminal behavior addresses the thought processes that result in deviant acts and the motivations that drive them. It is believed that criminal types operate from a self-centered framework with roots in psychological, biological, and/or sociological causes. Theories of nature versus nurture are explored.

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