Yes, but they can at least provide an outline for how people work and think. The brain is too complex to completely break down but we can get a general idea.

So 1% of the population, schooled in theories that can't be proven, scratch each others backs, while the other 99% shake their heads and follow their experience and traditions. C'mon, Jewish boys become Jewish men at 13 because they were ready to procreate, umpteen thousand years ago, when the tradition was established.

How often have we seen teenagers, especially early teens, making totally irrational choices. Although this could be because they lead such sheltered lives, compared to 100 or more years ago.
Remember too, when a child reaches his/her maximum cognitive development, they are far from all equal.

Depends on the kid.
I don't many adults that made decisions well.
Per an earlier statement, authority figures should not be friends.

Yes, and some adults.

Do you understand what theory means in science?
Not the same as lay language, it means it has been shown to be true under multiple circumstances and by more than one scientist (peer review).
Gravity is "just a theory".

I can tell you from multiple experiences, not just my son, a two-year-old will treat you exactly like you treat them and does not give a shit what you say to them. The same is true for all kids, the younger the kid, the more true this is.
Fact.

"Theory" in general science is different from "theory" in psychology. There are many contradictory theories in psychology; not in empirical sciences like biology or physics.

RK- you are being called to the pronunciation thread. In Meta. We need something cleared up.
Now where in the hell is my spanking?!?
.....take the fun out of everything around here...grumgle/mumble........"theory" blah blaaah.

I am still unhappy about how I worded my earlier posts in this thread.
I could have presented the data in a better way.
Not today, but earlier.
Again, I am sorry.

Theories in psychology are there to explain why we act like we do, it doesn't change the premises of the area they are testing it on. There is usually no contradiction between experience or traditions and the explanation. Because of that, it is more of a take it or leave it scenario but these things are very helpful because to do give an idea on how the conciousness works.

I'm married, don't look at me... though I've been naughty too. :redface:

Although I agree to most of your post in theory, I have to say that I disagree with this part.
After/while still parenting 3 teenagers, if there is one absolute, it is that NOTHING is true for ALL kids. Not even close to a fact. I have to treat all my children differently, they are all individuals with different life experiences. They are NOT ALL the same - not even close. While coaching 100's of children from 7 to 15 I find that they respond differently as well. Thats the beauty of it all - we are all different.

This is from wiki and is a fairly good explanation of Piagets theory of cognitive development. Note that Piaget talks about environment and events shaping the way children evolve as opposed to inate stages of development which is a theory prefered by other equally respected child psychologists.

Although there is no general theory of cognitive development, one of the most historically influential theories was developed by Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist (1896–1980). His theory provided many central concepts in the field of developmental psychology and concerned the growth of intelligence, which for Piaget, meant the ability to more accurately represent the world and perform logical operations on representations of concepts grounded in the world. The theory concerns the emergence and acquisition of schemata—schemes of how one perceives the world—in "developmental stages", times when children are acquiring new ways of mentally representing information. The theory is considered "constructivist", meaning that, unlike nativist theories (which describe cognitive development as the unfolding of innate knowledge and abilities) or empiricist theories (which describe cognitive development as the gradual acquisition of knowledge through experience), it asserts that we construct our cognitive abilities through self-motivated action in the world. For his development of the theory, Piaget was awarded the Erasmus Prize. Piaget divided schemes that children use to understand the world through four main stages, roughly correlated with and becoming increasingly sophisticated with age:

Sensorimotor stage (years 0–2)
Preoperational stage (years 2–7)
Concrete operational stage (years 7–11)
Formal operational stage (years 11–adulthood)

I agree. People shop around for a psychologist that subscribes to a school (theory)they are comfortable with. They probably don't know the therapist's theory but test the comfort level. Not saying it doesn't help them just not all psychologists would.

I subscribe to the Dr Phil school... he comes on, the TV goes off.

Here is some info on nativist theorists; again from wiki

In the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are 'native' or hard wired into the brain at birth. This is in contrast to the 'blank slate' or tabula rasa view which states that the brain has little innate ability and almost everything is learned through interaction with the environment.

When understood as an interdisciplinary field in their own right, nativist approaches are referred to collectively as nativist theorizing.

Nativism is most associated with the work of Jerry Fodor, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker, who argue that we are born with certain cognitive modules (specialised genetically inherited psychological abilities) that allow us to learn and acquire certain skills (such as language). They argue that many such abilities would otherwise be greatly impaired without this genetic contribution. For example, children demonstrate a facility with acquiring spoken language but require intense training to learn to read and write. In The Blank Slate, Pinker cites this as evidence that humans have an inborn facility with speech acquisition (but not with literacy acquisition).

David Reimer, a boy unsusccessfully raised as a girl, also serves as a nativist case in point.

Psychologist Annette Karmiloff-Smith has put forward a theory known as the representational redescription or RR model of development which argues against such strict nativism and which proposes that the brain may become modular through experience within certain domains (such as social interaction or visual perception) rather than modules being genetically pre-specified.

In the United Kingdom, Stephen Laurence of the University of Sheffield initiated an interdisciplinary nativist theorizing project, entitled Innateness and the Structure of the Mind, which ran from 2001 to 2004 and was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Board (AHRB). [1]

Of course, with our current knowledge of our brain, cognitive development would be put in a category more closely to philosophy than actual science. Until we can unlock the inner working of our brains, which may be never, we will never find out the truth about our brain but can only rely on observations and manipulative testing. Both can lead to results being very accurate or misleading and it is almost impossible to distinguish the two due to unknown variables.

Then with cognitive development, there is also the fact that everyone is different and we do not know exactly what is genetically or environmentally manipulative.

Having spent 4 years in a Cog Psy dept, I can tell you that psychologists' kids are generally the most fucked up of all, so that ought to say something about theories and practice :lol:

I don't have kids, but I really can't imagine myself spanking them. I was never spanked as a child, but I do enjoy it in a sexual context, so in my personal experience spanking is a sexual thing and it is creepy for me to think about doing it to a child.

My parents never hit me, although I remember my dad coming close one time (I don't remember why). And once my mom slapped my brother because he had thrown something at her. In general, though, the punishments I grew up with were mostly lectures, being sent to my room, and not being allowed to do something I wanted to. I always cared about my parents' feelings enough that knowing that they were unhappy with me was bad enough. And I think I grew up ok -- I graduated from college early, I have a decent job and a good marriage, and I treat others with respect and consideration (I even try to on the Internet!). The one thing I never learned to do was to maintain a clean room or apartment, but I don't really think that spanking me for not cleaning my room could have changed that -- it would have just made me hate cleaning even more.