Child development in the context of "Islam and children"

Child care, also known as day care, is the care and supervision of one or more children, typically ranging from three months to 18 years old. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), childcare typically refers to the care provided by caregivers who are not the child's parents. Childcare is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions. Early childcare is an essential and often overlooked component of child development.

A variety of people and organizations can care for children. The child's extended family may also take on this caregiving role. Another form of childcare is center-based childcare. In lieu of familial caregiving, these responsibilities may be given to paid caretakers, orphanages, or foster homes to provide care, housing, and schooling.

Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equivalent of third grade. ECE is described as an important period in child development.

ECE emerged as a field of study during the Enlightenment, particularly in European countries with high literacy rates. It continued to grow through the nineteenth century as universal primary education became a norm in the Western world. In recent years, early childhood education has become a prevalent public policy issue, as funding for preschool and pre-K is debated by municipal, state, and federal lawmakers. Governing entities are also debating the central focus of early childhood education with debate on developmental appropriate play versus strong academic preparation curriculum in reading, writing, and math. The global priority placed on early childhood education is underscored with targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4. As of 2023, however, "only around 4 in 10 children aged 3 and 4 attend early childhood education" around the world. Furthermore, levels of participation vary widely by region with, "around 2 in 3 children in Latin American and the Caribbean attending ECE compared to just under half of children in South Asia and only 1 in 4 in sub-Saharan Africa".

Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and educational development from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship.

The most common caretakers in parenting are the biological parents of the child in question. However, a caretaker may be an older sibling, step-parent, grandparent, legal guardian, aunt, uncle, other family members, or a family friend. Governments and society may also have a role in child-rearing or upbringing. In many cases, orphaned or abandoned children receive parental care from non-parent or non-blood relations. Others may be adopted, raised in foster care, or placed in an orphanage.

Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual, integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others. As such, social emotional development encompasses a large range of skills and constructs, including, but not limited to: self-awareness, joint attention, play, theory of mind (or understanding others' perspectives), self-esteem, emotion regulation, friendships, and identity development.

Social emotional development sets a foundation for children to engage in other developmental tasks. For example, in order to complete a difficult school assignment, a child may need the ability to manage their sense of frustration and seek out help from a peer. To maintain a romantic relationship after a fight, a teen may need to be able to articulate their feelings and take the perspective of their partner to successfully resolve the conflict. However, it is also interrelated with and dependent on other developmental domains. For example, language delays or deficits have been associated with social-emotional disturbances.

Edward John Mostyn Bowlby (/ˈboʊlbi/; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. Bowlby was inspired by Melanie Klein during his psychoanalytic training. Melanie Klein was his supervisor; however, they had different views about the role of the mother in the treatment of a three-year-old boy. Specifically and importantly, Klein stressed the role of the child's fantasies about his mother, but Bowlby emphasised the actual history of the relationship. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Bowlby as the 49th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Sexual behaviors in children are common, and may range from normal and developmentally appropriate to abusive. These behaviors may include self-stimulation, interest in sex, curiosity about their own or other genders, exhibitionism (the display of one's body to another child or an adult), voyeurism (attempts at seeing the body of another child or an adult), gender role behaviors, and engagement in interpersonal sexual acts.

More than 50% of children will engage in a form of sexual behavior before the age of 13 (around puberty), including sexual experiences with other children. These experiences can include fondling, interpersonal genital exploration and masturbation; while intrusive contact (digital penetration, oral or genito-genital contact, etc) is more rare.