Virtual Child Observation

1) Q: You are starting to notice that Preslee's crying is rhythmic and moderately loud when she is hungry, wet, or cold. If she is startled, there is a sudden intake of breath and a loud wail, followed by more deep breaths and loud wails. A: You try to respond to the different types of crying by changing, feeding, or soothing little Preslee.

Once you have raised your virtual child through age 5, respond thoroughly to the following questions.

With what I have learned from the My Virtual Child program, I now understand the complexities of raising and guiding a child. Mere decisions made during infancy can affect a child long term, physically, cognitively, and even emotionally. To make important developmental decisions cannot simply be classified as a challenge, it is one of the hardest things parents experience. Making decisions for one’s self, as opposed to making decisions for one’s child is so challenging that most people will not understand until they have children. Even with the realistic impression this program has, I would venture to say that even

At a certain age infants begin to resist the unfamiliar and are very vocal in expressing their feelings (Brazelton, 1992).

I was asked to create and answer questions about a virtual child. When I was told this was an assignment I thought “this should be easy”. Boy was I wrong! I found many things can affect the outcome of my child. If I am too strict or too easy, the child’s behavior will show this. Over time, this will also affect the child’s temperament. I have learned that some of my classmates’ virtual children are harder to get along with and require more discipline then others. I decided to just trust my instinct and answer the questions as if they were for a real child. In this report you will see how my answers affected my virtual daughter Alexis and, my experience throughout the duration of the assignment.

The virtual child stimulation is an online program that offers students a feel of what it is like to raise a child and make parenting-decisions concerning that child. Students also learn about the situations that occur in the three main life stages, and see how their decisions determine how their child will turn out. The focus of this assignment will be on my virtual child, Jason, the problems that occurred in the life stages, and the options I chose when raising Jason.

My virtual child covers physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development at several age levels. This gave me an opportunity to visualize "the whole child" at various points in development. I raised a virtual child from birth to 18 years of age. Each virtual child has a unique set of characteristics at birth, some of which were influenced by how I answered the assessment I completed when I first logged onto My Virtual Child. These characteristics gradually emerged and affected his behavior and development.

| |2. Vygotsky’s theory believed that economic and cultural forces were very influential in child development. |

My first thought about this subject was that it would be really fun and exciting because of the subject's description, "Observational Child Study", where we can already experience actual child observation. Fortunately, I was right. Our professor tackled amazing topics that really served as an eyeopener. We encountered topics about the characteristics of some of the disabilities like autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, learning disabilities, and also, developmental delays. We even had the chance to test ourselves using the checklists or the assessment tools used for assessing children with special needs. Observation is the main point of our subject. Our professor discussed some of the tips on how to observe children in a proper way. Narrative report was also included in the process. We made written reports about the 10-minutes observations we made from employees we've

Raising a Virtual Child had been a great experience for me. This assignment made me better understand why adolescents are the way they are. I had my own expectation before the onset of this project, how my virtual child was going to be at age of 18? I was expecting that my child would be a successful and obedient one. She would be nice and polite, follow rules and will be good in education. For me, while raising a child, bonding between child and parents is an important factor to consider. It makes child feel secure and let know that his/her parents are there to look after their needs. Communication between parent and child is important too. It will provide a great scenario for learning and aid in cognitive development. Discussing problem with parents and finding a solution is the best way to go during the childhood. I think parenting is not that much hard as it seems but is absolutely a sensitive and responsible task to raise a child. I had enjoyed raising my virtual child and hope my feedback is going to be a good one too.

. Izzie is coming along quite fine cognitively. And it’s fun to watch her grow! During the preschool years, ages 3 and 4, she has started engaging in fantasy play. She acts out scenes with her stuff animals and cartoon characters, and has kept herself occupied with that for up to a half hour. This delighted me because it made me recall Vygotsky’s argument that pretend play, especially if it involves social play, is very important for expanding pre-school age kid’ cognitive skills and of earl that it is helping the brain to develop and become more sophisticated. During this time Izzie has begun to that to tell people about things she has done. She often leaves out key details so I ask her questions along the way to prompt her to fill in the details (Virtual Child). I wasn’t sure if this was where she was supposed to be for her age, but after some research was happy to find out that the autobiographical memory which is the memory of particular events in our lives, doesn’t have much precision

At the beginning of the program I always be reminded one decision was made by ‘both parents’. I didn’t noticed there is meaning behind that, until the marriage ended when the virtual child was 9 years old. I checked the child’s earlier development again then I found lots information I missed. Economic stress developed to a big issue when the child was 3 years old. The child actually overheard arguments and saw one parent left home after arguing, which lead to worry and fear that parent would never come back. The quality of marital relationship is associated with the quality of parenting (pp chap7). As the stress built up there were more arguments, and the child received less attention but more negative affection. The development of this child’s

Observation #A Intent: My intent for this observation was to get a better look at my focus child’s communication and language skills. I want to see if my child is showing any indicators of atypical development. With this information I can find more effective ways to help improve her language and communication skills. Focus Child: BS – female, 4 years + 5 months, Caucasian, dark blonde hair, brown eyes, wearing glasses, wearing t-shirt, jeans, and boots, the same size as most of the peers in class, speaks English, receives speech therapy. Setting: Wednesday, February 22nd, 8:43-8:56 am One child missing from class – 19 children total + 3 adults (including myself) Relevant others: GK – male, 4 years + 0 months, Caucasian, light brown hair,

All children are different in their unique way. The goal of this assignment was to observe different children in an uninterrupted environment. Although all the children observed were the same age, they all acted differently during their observation. The differences in the way we react to different situations are what make us human. These differences can be explained through the theories that different psychologist have developed over the years. Some children react better to things like praise from a teacher or being able to be creative in the activities that they are participating in.

Subject “Chris” is a 7 year old middle class Caucasian male. Observation is taking place in the child’s home over the course of two separate afternoons. Chris is a friendly and well spoken child who is small for his age. Chris is the youngest child in his family and both observations take place while his siblings are home. In each case one or both parents are absent.