This text uses a chronological organization to teach principles of development through childhood and encourages readers to reflect on their own personal experience of development.

A brief paperback version of Exploring Child Development, the authors' goal was to address the need for a book that actually showed the child in the context of human relationships.

Children do not develop in a vacuum, as the process of development is shaped by the continuous interplay between individuals and their ever-changing environments. To illustrate the uniqueness of these individuals and environments, the authors have integrated examples of diversity throughout the text, in the domains of physical, psychological and cultural differences, gender, race, ethnicity, and social and economic status.