Granville Stanley Hall: Pioneer of Child Psychology

Granville Stanley Hall

Many students use the typing format from the American Psychological Association daily, but these students do not know the history behind it. Many parents take their children to see child psychologists, but go only on trust, not knowing the doctrines or the founder of child psychology. One person who could be found in both categories is Granville Stanley Hall. He was a leader of child psychology and helped to start a university. G. Stanley Hall was an influential person in the early days of psychology.

G. Stanley Hall came up from humble beginnings; he was born on a farm on February 1, 1844 (Cherry, 2016). His mother was a school teacher and his father was employed in the Massachusetts legislature. When he was 14, he left home with a desire to be something in the world (Grezlik, 1999). At the age of 16, he was teaching school with students older than himself. (Thorndike, 1925) He graduated from Williams College in 1867, then went on to fulfilling his childhood aspiration to be a minister. When his training was finished, he became a church pastor for ten weeks before leaving the ministry (Parry, 2006). He

In this book, Hall (1904) explores all of the issues of adolescents and how to discipline them. He defines adolescence as a period of storm and stress, or Sturm und Drang. The storm refers to a lack of self-control, and the stress refers to increased sensitivity (Roundy, 2016). Sturm und Drang is a theory that implies that during the time of adolescence, behaviors and emotions such as rebellion, idealism, and passion run wild until maturation (King, 2004). Along with these behaviors comes the search for a mentor or role model that follows the same crowd they do. Hall also stated that adolescence can begin at twelve years of age, and go all the way up to twenty-five years of