Psychology explained to children
Madelijn Strick wrote a childrens book introducing the science of psychology
Madelijn Strick, assistant professor in psychology and member of the Utrecht Young Academy, wrote a childrens book introducing the science of psychology to children from 9 years old, including their parents. It is called 鈥淭ussen je Oren鈥 (for now, only a Dutch version is available). She wrote it together with her partner Ap Dijksterhuis, who is also a psychologist.
Why did they write it? Psychology is one of the most popular university courses, but children under the age of 18 get to hear very little about it. They do economics and history and myriad other subjects, but the field of psychology is never included in the formal curriculum. Ap and Madelijn thought that was a pity 鈥 because it鈥檚 an amazing subject 鈥 and so they wrote this book.
They took an introductory psychology course taught to first-year students and adapted it to children from 9 to 12 years of age. The brain, our conscious and unconscious behaviour, emotions, disorders, your attitude to others, and how to be happy 鈥 it鈥檚 all included in the book. They wanted to reach as young a readership as possible, and originally considered children as young as 6, but there are just too many subjects that are too difficult. We have dealt with a good 90 per cent of this first-year subject, leaving out only the most complex issues, such as the philosophical debate as to whether free will exists.