8 Other Kids example essay topic

Child development is an amazing thing to watch in the way that children interact with one another and how they perceive the world that surrounds. While doing our research of child development we began to observe a group of kids ranging the ages 1 - 12. During these observations we noticed traits such as attachment, comfort, and love. Through the following examples we will proceed to observe development in our environment and explain its relativity to the text Observation #1 I observed a set of dizygotic or fraternal twins, Antonio and James, that had walked in, which were both males. I noticed that they were attached to their mother, which I had considered "normal" when thinking back to when my 15 year old daughter was that age.

Even now she is like that when she comes into contact with strangers. Finally when Antonio and James received an invitation to come play, Antonia stood holding onto his mother's leg when James only stood a few inches away. Their mother urged the two twins to go and join the others, but they were both reluctant, when finally James took that first step to warm up to the others and went over to pick up a toy, at which point Antonio followed close behind. When I asked their mother if they were always like that she replied that they were, whether or not she was in the room or somewhere near. Although it appeared the twins were warming up, Antonio kept getting up to see where his mother was.

In addition to knowing of her whereabouts he needed to go over and touch her before going back to join the other children. It appeared as though he had no peace while playing because of his constant worry about where his mother was; he had to know where she was at all times in order to go back to playing for a while. James on the other hand was not like this. James would check on her from where he was sitting but did not get up as much as his twin. All of the children continued playing with each other and with the toys that were on the floor. As like the other children both twins sat on the floor playing with a toy of their own liking; Antonio was facing one direction and James another.

After a few minutes, all of the kids began to play with the twins when they both began to get aggressive towards the others. Everything was fine when they played by themselves but once the other kids began to play with them Antonio and James began to show aggressive behavior towards the others. Antonio took a toy away from one of the kids almost as though he did not want to be bothered by anyone. Then with all of the commotion Antonio calmly got up as if he did not do anything to, again, check on his mother.

This time she was not where he had left her, which caused him to react by screaming, "I want my mommy, I want my mommy". Then James came over and began to do the same thing. It was as if they had lost their security blanket. The other kids went over and began to stare at them as though there were something wrong with them. One of the kids came up to me and said, "Why is he crying like that?" I explained to her that he wanted to be with his mommy, and she responded, "Oh", and walked away with out a care in the world. This was a clear example of the experiment that (Harlow) ran on the monkeys in 1962.

The monkeys were removed from their mother after 8 weeks of being born then placed in a cage with a surrogate mother, one of wire and the other one was made out of terry cloth. They eventually attached them selves to the surrogate mother that was made out of the terrycloth, even though the one that feed them was the one made out of wire. The reason was the comfort in the soft and warmth of the terrycloth, which made them feel safe. Just like Antonio when he held on to his mother's side. Once Antonio had lost his comfort zone, he felt scared. Harlow stated that attachment was important but it did not ensure normal social development.

We saw proof of that behavior earlier with the twins when they did not function as well in an environment where they had no control of. When they felt they lost control they showed signs of anxiety when they could not see there mother. The other kids were not worried about where there parents were, they played and adapted to there surroundings. Antonio and James did not feel when their mother was not in eye sight; they felt lost. The Ethological theory Pre-attachment states that during the first six months of an infant's life, attachment plays a big role. They instead use smiling and crying to get closer to their parents or grandparents.

Because the twins were born prematurely they were constantly being picked up by their parents even after the six months period their parents felt the need to pick them up because of there size, which made it harder on them after there seventh month. According to the ethological theory from seven months to twenty one months, children begin to show signs of attachment toward their parents. In this case it would be the mother because she took time off from work to care for them. During the first year of their life they saw her all of the time, even though their father helped. The father was not there all day with them; they only saw him part of the night, which made it hard for the mother to go anywhere because the kids would start crying. As a result of their behavior she never went any where with them; only when they went to the doctor's office.

They adapted to being home at all times and when it came time for them to go out the house, they felt scared around other children and other people. I will say that sometimes it is best to expose children's to different environment so they will be able to associate better with others, and not feel anxiety while around others. Observation #2 Where I live there are not really any parks or other such places to readily watch children in action. But I do live on a cut-de-sac road where the kids play in the street, and in everyone else' yards. No one really minds, we just don't want them to hurt themselves, especially in our yard. There are kids of almost every age group on this road although it is only about 1/4 mile long.

The boys across the street are 6, 8, and 12, while the girls next door are 13, and 16. There are also about 7 or 8 other kids, but I am unsure of their ages. The other chance I had to observe a smaller group of kids was at my brother's house, where he has three kids, the oldest a girl is 7; the next is a boy is 4, while the youngest is not quite a year. Of the boys across the street the youngest one is 6 just getting into the stage that Erik Erikson called Competence vs. Inferiority (About, Inc (PRIMEDIA), 2004).

This is the stage where they are starting school and learning how to really interact with people. He always wants to help, he will come over while you are working in the yard and ask if he can help, you tell him yes and he comes back with a shovel and rake. Granted they are both too big for him to use, but he wants to help., this is also something that I see in my nephew who is 4, he always come over "me help uncle Nick" no matter what you are doing he just wants to help. This is because they want to feel like they are accomplishing something (Krebs-Carter, 2004).

Then the next one who is 8 is always showing off in front of his friends, even when he knows he is either going to get hurt or in trouble he still does it. I am not exactly sure where this would fall into, but I know it is very common especially among young boys (since I was one once). This actually holds true for the remainder of the boys that live on my road. They all do dumb things that they know they will pay for later, whether it is by getting in trouble or getting hurt.

My niece who is 7 on the other hand wants to be her own person and "you can't tell me what to do" this is almost what Erikson would call "ego-identity vs. role-confusion" (Boere e, 1997) which may help to show that many children these days are growing up and maturing faster than they did in Erikson's day. This can also be seen in both girls next door. The youngest one just turned 13 and got her first "real" boyfriend. They just sit out side and look at each other. This is kind of funny to see, because they do not talk, they just stare. While her older sister and her boyfriend are always looking to sneak off and hide, or come over and jump on the trampoline where her parents can not see them.

Freud called this stage the Genital Stage, where everything revolves around sex, and sexual desire (About, Inc. (PRIMEDIA), 2004). In conclusion, life as we know it can be by the book or not. We have been assigned a task to provide examples of how children act and react throughout the growing process. Still, we must keep in mind that everyone is different, much like a snowflake. Later on in their lives, these children will realize they have a choice of who they want to be.

To me, there is no "by the book" method for that. The younger years are much more easier to predict because of factors like a lack of independence or even a lack of knowledge..