Parenting Styles

According to Berger (2008), there are three different types of parenting styles. The first one being authoritarian, which is when the parent lays down the "law" and there is no negotiating the rules. This is found to be your really strict parents. The second parenting style is permissive, which is when the parent acts more like your friend. The third parenting style is much like how I grew up, an authoritative parenting style is when the parents listen to their children, but still have rules and limits set. My parents had to set limits and rules when they had five children to raise; however, they always listened to us and let us explain ourselves. My parents were very forgiving when we may not have done something to the exact way they wanted us to. Instead they would take what we did wrong and turn it into a lesson for us to learn from. I appreciate this parenting style because I look up to my parents with respect, and I do not resent them for the way we were raised. Now that I am in college I have a very good relationship with my parents still to this day, and I like to think it is because of the way they raised me. If I need advice on something important it is often them who I call because I know they will listen to me without judging me and tell me what the right thing to do is. They really have made me into who I am today and I hope to do the same for my children one day.

Berger, S. K. (2008). The Developing Person: Through the Life Span. New York, NY: Worth Publisher.

Dec 31 Oedpius Complex

A section in Chapter 10 that I found very interesting and strange at the same time was on Freud's theory that boys secretly want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers. Freud said that these unconscious feelings start during the phallic stage, from ages three to six. The phallic stage is Freud's third stage of development, when the penis becomes the focus of concern and pleasure. Boys at this age, from about three to four years, start maturing and become aware of their sexual organs. They also start to develop their unconscious sexual desires for their mother. Freud called this desire for their mothers the Oedipus Complex. Freud gave it its name after a story in Greek mythology. In the story a son of a Greek god grows up away from his parents in another kingdom. When the son returns he kills his father and marries his mother, unaware of who they actually are. When the son finds out what he did, the son becomes overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Freud says that all boys feels this way about their parents, love and hate and the same time. In an attempt to cover up their feelings Freud says that boys develop the superego. The superego is the judgmental part of the personality that internalizes moral standards of the parents. Freud also says that when boys are drawn to playing with guns, have a fascination for superheroes, and playing 'good guys vs. bad guys' this is an unconscious attempt to cover up their true feelings. They fear that if their father finds out with they really think, they will be punishment. This idea sounds kind of crazy to me. Of course it is difficult to say what someone this thinking unconsciously, but I can say that I notice that young boys are more loving toward their mothers, and young girls are more loving toward their fathers.

Punishment dec 31

One issue our text addresses is discipline and punishment; when it is effective? Children are obviously still learning right and wrong in their new world and cannot be expected to know all the rules. Caregivers ideally see that their child is about to misbehave and prevents the misdeed, explaining the situation to the child, before anything even happens. A common type of punishment is physical; it stops a child for a moment but probably does not leave a lasting impression. During the play years children learn about their actions and the consequences, a step to thinking logically about life. After reading the "Planning Punishment" case study on page 267, I started to research the methods to make punishments effective and thus fulfill the goal; internalizing standards.

A punishment should be administered during or immediately after the misdeed, to let the child know for what action they are being disciplined. Punishments should begin at a relatively intense level, rather than starting out mildly and increasing intensity for subsequent misbehaviors. A care-giver and child need to have a good relationship for discipline to work, if the only contact is punishment a child will seek that over behaving. No misdeed should go unpunished, meaning that every time a child misbehaves, discipline is necessary. A care-giver must always have a simple rationale for the child, otherwise they won't know why they are being punished. Lastly a parent should let the child know the alternatives to bad behavior.

Many parents make the mistake of punishing with no explanation. A child can never amend their behavior if they don't know what they did wrong, why its wrong, and an alternative action to their misdeed.

Retrieved on: Dec 31, 2010. From:http://content.ebscohost.com.navigator-millersville.passhe.edu/pdf23_24/pdf/2009/OGD/01Oct09/44930696.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=44930696&S=R&D=ehh&EbscoContent=dGJyMMTo50Seqa84wtvhOLCmr0iep7JSs6m4SrKWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGpt0mzrrdIuePfgeyx44Dt6fIA

Parent Punishments

I liked the way chapter 10 really broke down how parenting can completely help or hurt a child. I think in my personal experience my parents had good mixes of both authoritarian and permissive parenting. I remember learning a lot when I was younger through trials and experience I have had and I can relate to almost all factors in chapter ten. I can think of certain examples of how culture variations, discipline and punishment have somehow helped me to develop as a person. I can remember how punishment in my family was never one dimensional. The4re were different types and levels all depending on the crime committed. My parents were very different and they way they worked together gave me such good balance in I act and have developed. In reading the book mentioned something about how children who at a young age are beaten, or spanked so to speak have tendencies to grow up to be bullies. I was spanked at a young age and do not think I was a bully at all whatsoever. It also states that children that get spanked are likely to become abusive adults. There is the fact that I am only 21 but I do not think that I am abusive at all.

I really enjoyed reading chapter 9. Learning about child development between the ages of 2 and 6 cause me to reflect on my childhood experiences. After my parents divorced when I was two, my father soon remarried when I was four. Instead of only having one older brother and sister, I now had two older brothers, two older sisters, and a younger brother. As a child, I was thrilled because I now had more opportunities to play with siblings. On page 239 of Baker's text, she explains that two key contextual influences include language and siblings. Especially when the siblings you have are older. I wondered if my siblings have contributed to my cognitive development? One thing I'm sure of, playing sports with older siblings helped develop hand-eye coordination. Their scaffolding and guided participation was used without me even knowing. I'm enjoying reading Baker's text, and will continue to relate her text to my personal growth and development.

Dec 31 Parenting Styles

Chapter 10 touched upon a variety of topics but the one I found most interesting was Diana Baumrind’s different parenting styles. Parenting styles vary by culture, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and several other factors. Baumrind found that parents differed in the way they raised their children on some different conditions: Expressions of warmth, strategies for discipline, communication, and expectations for maturity (Berger, 264, 2008). She also describes three different patterns of parenting: authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting, and authoritative parenting (Berger, 264, 2008). Authoritarian parenting is strict punishment, sometimes abusive, and not very much communication between child and adults. With permissive parenting there is a lot of nurturing but little discipline. Lastly, authoritative parenting is when the parents have boundaries but are also flexible with their children. Growing up I think I had a pretty good balance between permissive and authoritative parenting. I had a good relationship with my mom. It was a good balance between friendship and parents, knowing when to be a parent and when to be a friend. I think that this is something that all parents should keep in mind.

Dec 31 Sociocultural Theory of Gender Development

The sociocultural theory had interesting ideas about gender identity formation. I think it is true that young children are encouraged to adopt culturally-accepted gender roles. For example, starting even before children are born, parents often buy blue-themed clothes and room decorations if they are expecting boys and pink ones for girls. This continues into early and middle childhood with the types of clothing children wear, toys they play with, and accepted behavior. For example, people tolerate more active personalities in boys and write it off with the saying “boys will be boys.” However, I don't think the cultural influence of assigning gender roles is as clear-cut as it appears. For example, my nana tried her hardest to get me to enjoy playing with dolls. She bought me everything from collector's dolls to Barbies to American Girl dolls, and I didn't like playing with any of them. I preferred playing with plastic dinosaurs and my brother's Legos. The toys I liked playing with would probably be classified as androgynous. Even so, the way I played with them was more feminine than the way my brother played with them. When we played with Legos together, he would build tanks, guns and spaceships, and I would build houses and “lands” for Lego people to live in. Then he would use his tanks, etc to blow up my Lego land. At the time it was upsetting, but looking back at it makes me laugh. Even when I was playing with androgynous toys, I played with them in a more feminine way (nurturing the Lego people and making sure they had good houses, food, and pets). This makes me wonder if a truly androgynous balance can be achieved when other genetic, behavioral, and cognitive gender development also play a part. And if it could be achieved, would it be a good thing? Or would that person feel like an outcast in a society that embraces gender-roles?

Overregularization and Vygotsky

There were a few things I found fascinating in Chapter nine. I found the concept of overregularization very interesting, more or less that this tendency in children had been labeled. I can remember doing this myself trying to say or pronounce the correct term for the experiences I’ve had. Overregularization is “the application of rules of grammar even when exceptions occur so that the language is made to seem more regular than it actually is.” (Berger, 2008, pg. 243) It is almost as if children guess what to say if they are not sure.

Another thing I found to be interesting was Vygotsky’s approach to the way children learn. He stated that cognitive development in children was based solely on social context. (Berger, 2008, pg. 234) His approach was very different than Piaget’s but together both theories and approaches mesh well together. Vygotsky called children an “apprentice in thinking” which meant a person who learns from older siblings and people in the environment. (Berger, 2008, pg. 234) To me, Vygotsky’s makes a lot of sense when I think about how I have learned things growing up and who I learned them from. Although children learn on their own, the people around them will always be able to teach them without even trying.

Berger, K. S. (2008). The Developing Person Through the Lifespan. New York: Worth Publishers.

Egocentrism

When I read in chapter nine about the characteristic of preoperational egocentrism I thought about a time when I was younger and laughed to myself. According to Berger (2008), egocentrism is when the child has a tendency to think about the world entirely from their own perspective. As I have mentioned previously I am the only boy living with four sisters; however, my one sister was "suppose" to be a boy. My parents were under the assumption that they were having a baby boy and were going to name him "Sam." However, when they brought our new sibling home from the hospital and they said "Its a girl" I did not want to believe them. I had been so excited to have a brother and was very upset to find out she was in fact another sister. Well I would not believe this and I continued to call her Sam. I told everyone she was my brother and said how I was excited to have a brother to finally play with. My parents tried to keep explaining to me that she was a girl and her name is Meghan. Eventually I gave up that act; however, I was very egocentric in what I wanted and what I believed to be the truth.

Berger, S. K. (2008). The Developing Person: Through the Life Span. New York, NY: Worth Publisher.

Dec 29 Theory of Mind

Reading chapter 9 reminded me of my younger sister, particularly the section on theory of mind and the “sudden leap in understanding” happening around age 4 (Berger, 2008, 238). My sister is 15 now, and it is a running joke in my family that everything important in her life happened when she was 4. There were some big life experiences that happened when she was 4, like getting her first, and most-loved pet, a cat named Nippy, but there were also funny things that we joke about, like her getting married to the same preschool classmate twice. She remembers her first dreams, her first birthday party, and how one of her friends threw scissors at her head. When I read the section about the leap of understanding at age 4, it immediately reminded me of her memories. It made me realize that there is probably a reason it seems like so much happened at that stage of her life. For example, she was developing a theory of mind. She was able to recognize how her new kitten might feel, enough so that she cuddled with her instead of pulling her tail. Although the cat is not human, this still shows that my sister could see others' points of view. Despite developing a theory of mind, my sister's memories still show a definite egocentric point of view. All her memories are things focused on her experiences. Her memories of when she was 4 give proof to Piaget's preoperational theory as well as demonstrating other developmental milestones.

Berger, K. S. (2008). The Developing Person Through the Lifespan. New York: Worth Publishers.

Dec 29 Egocentrism

Over the Christmas holiday, my two year old cousin Dani, thought that every present someone opened was for her. Whenever someone opened a present Dani would run over and grab the gift and ask if the present was for her. Even though she opened all her gifts and her mother told her that the presents weren't for her, she still insisted that they belonged to her. Dani was showing signs of Piaget's term called egocentrism. Egocentrism is a term used for children's tendency to think about the world entirely from their own personal perspective. Egocentric children think about the world exclusively from their own personal perspective. They are only about to see things from their point of view and cannot think about other people. Being egocentric does not mean that the child is being selfish. It is just that they cannot understand and grasp other people's point of view. To them the world is only what they think it is. Since Dani opened her own presents and received present, she thought that when someone opened a present, it was for her. She wasn't being selfish at all she just is not capable to understand that other people can open present and that they belong to them. As Dani gets older she will grow out of the preoperational stage and become aware of other people's thoughts, points of views, and feelings.

Dec 29 Classic Mirror Experiment

One topic I found really interesting in Chapter Seven was self-awareness. I never really thought about toddlers having a sense of self before. But this chapter made me realize that babies do not have a good sense of self-awareness, or a realization that he or she is a distinct individual, with body, mind, and actions that are separate from those of other people (Berger, 182, 2008). Researches did a classic experiment to test babies’ self- awareness. They put the babies in front of a mirror with a dot of rouge on their noses to see if the babies knew it was there or not. If they knew it was there they would touch their noses, indicating that they had self-awareness. Researchers developed their research even further by taking it to different countries. So they did a comparative study between babies in Cameroon and babies in Greece. They wanted to see if culture effected self-awareness. Mothers in Cameroon were known to always be holding their babies (proximal), whereas mothers in Greece were known to let their babies be more independent (distal). By 18 months babies are supposed to have a self-awareness. Studies found that babies in Cameroon didn’t recognize themselves in the test but were more obedient. Whereas babies in Greece were said to be less obedient, but were able to recognize themselves at 18 months. I think that this study shows that there needs to be a good balance between the two types of parenting, proximal and distal.

Dr. Baker,

Are we able to take the quiz AFTER the posted time frame without penalty?
Thanks,

Kyle G.

Dec 24 Language Development Via Dr. Suess

Reading the second half of chapter six about language development made me think about Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss books were some of the books I loved most as a child because they were about funny people and animals doing funny things like eating green eggs and ham (weird!) or trying to steal Christmas. But learning how infants develop language made me realize how smart Dr. Seuss was in writing his books. Infants first learn simple, one-constant words with similar sounds and their first grammar is in very simple sentences with two to three words (Berger, 169-171, 2008). Dr. Seuss books make use of these kinds of words and sentences on every page. They are words small children can try to pronounce and remember, and they are often repeated, such as in Green Eggs and Ham. The books also use rhyming words, which are easy to learn and remember, helping to increase children's vocabulary. Additionally, Dr. Seuss made use of bright colors, exotic places and characters, and funny sounding words. All of these would be new affordances for children learning how to read. Because they were new and interesting, the kids would want to read or be read to, and their language skills would develop further. I always knew I liked Dr. Seuss (and still do), but I never realized how brilliant he was in helping to teach children to read. :)

Piaget's research

After reading chapter six I learned a lot about Piaget’s research with more in depth detail. The six stages of sensorimotor intelligence to me as well as object permanence really made me think and I feel the need to share it with all of you. The six stages of sensorimotor intelligence to me is fascinating. The fact that just by observation and experiment we can get inside the minds of babies and see how far along they are different ages that match the stages. I also found the three circular reactions to be interesting . The primary circular reactions involve the baby and its own body. The secondary circular reactions involve the baby and an object or another person. The third deals with a child’s first independent action on their way to discovery. The concept of object permanence intrigued me. Object permanence is knowing an object still exists even when you cannot see, touch or hear it. (Berger, 2008 pg. 158) I did not know that to babies younger than about two years could easily forget about something just because it is completely out of site. Although Piaget was a little off in his finding according to the book I still believe without him the field of developmental psychology would not be where it is today.

Dec 24 Language Development

Babies go through several different stages of language development. A newborn has reflective communication, meaning the baby communicates with cries, movement, and facial expressions. At tw0 months old, a baby will start using noise to communicate. For example coos, fussing, crying and maybe even laughing. Between three months and six months a baby introduces new sounds to its form of language. Babies at this age will begin to squeal, growl, coons, trills, and make some vowel sounds. At around six to ten months old, a baby can produce both vowel and consonant sounds and babble some small syllables. This is what most parents and doctors call babbling. From around ten months old to a year old your baby should be able to understand or comprehend the meanings of small words. A ten month to twelve month old can also babble in a way that sounds like speech, they start to communicate in their own way. To people who are around the baby a lot they can distinguish different sounds and decode what the baby wants. This age group with also us their hands to make gestures indicating what they point, for instance pointing at a toy they want to play with. At a year old a baby will say its first word. These words are part of the language, not just baby babble. From around thirteen to eighteen months a baby will expand its vocabulary to around 50 words. At eighteen months learning new words increases greatly, babies at this age are capable of learning three to four new words a day. But on the other hand some babies at this age haven't even said their first words. The list of development continues but what fascinated me the most was that this is the same basic pattern for all babies, all over the world, and have different native languages.

December 24 Case Study Findings

I thought I would share with you some of my findings from the case study. After reading Chapter 6 yesterday I found that the book gave a lot of information on theories with child development but no actual parenting suggestions. So for my case study I called my friends’ mothers and got their feedback on cognitive development with infants. I recorded each mothers age and occupation to see if there was a correlation between the two. When I researched their opinions and findings with that of psychologists they were very similar. Most of the mom’s really emphasized the importance of creativity as did that of the article. They said that they had their kids do a lot of coloring exercises to work on cognitive development with color association. All the mothers had different methods of developing cognition with their toddlers so hearing the different views was really interesting. The article said that teaching your toddler math and words was not as effective as doing it naturally. But a lot of the mothers I spoke to used flashcards and read a lot to their children. One mother felt that social interaction with other babies was the most important way to help with a child’s’ cognition. She felt that learning through deferred imitation was very helpful. Although they all had different views they all agreed that it was best to be in close proximity with your child instead of letting them be independent at such a young age.

December 24 Habituation

While I was completing the reading for today, which was chapter six, I ran into some interesting topics. What I thought was the most interesting to me was the process of habituation because it was something I feel we all can relate to in a way. According to Berger, habituation is from the word habit and refers to the process of getting used to an object, or event after repeated exposure to that object or event (2008). What came to my mind was sitting in class and you hear the radiator go off, at first I am paying attention to that radiator and not as much to the professor; however, eventually I tune that radiator out. This made me realize that I "habituated" the radiator after continues exposure to the noise. In a sense you are able to block out the noise and go back to concentrating on what you are learning. I think this is useful process for college students, because I know whenever I personally am at the library studying it never seems to be quite. So if we consider habituation; it is a good thing our brains engage in this process, because I can eventually after repeated exposure to the talk tune it out and continue my studying.

Berger, S. K. (2008). The Developing Person: Through the Life Span. New York, NY: Worth Publisher.

Question on Paper#1

Dec 23 Cognitive Theory

The cognitive theory focuses on how people think. The theory aslo says that thoughts and expecations profoundly affect a person's attitude, beliefs, values, assumptions and actions. The cognitive theory is very popular; a sub divison of the cognitive theory is the information-processing theory. This theory is closely focues on the step-by-step process of thinking. I think that figuring out how people perceive something or the way they react to certain stimuli can help change an unwanted behavior. Which is why I think this is the most effective form of theraphy. Cognitive theorapists work on changing the way a person thinks and or reacts to an external stimulus. The founder of the cognitive theory is Piaget. Piaget came up with periods of cognitive development associated with ones age. The periods are sensorimotor, peroperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The descriptions of each period really caught my attention. I know how toddlers can be, everything is mine, always ask why. But I never knew why they did this. After reading the descriptions, it was like an ah-ha moment. Toddlers have an egocentric form of thinking. which explains why they are so possesive of toys and do not like to share. Anyone who has a lot of contact with young children, such as teachers, or day care professionals would find this information very informative and helpful.

Chapter 1&2 Blog

Before entering this course I had a very limited background in psychology. As a young professional, it is important to have a thorough understanding of how, and why people develop from birth to death. I am studying to become a teacher and it is an advantage to be empathetic to a broad range of students. After only two short days and two chapters I have realized that everything in a person's life is linked two past and present reactions. Influences include cultural environment, and socioeconomic status. No one person's life is identical.
My favorite portion of the readings so far was the short story about the nephew David. An embryo and it's mother had reached both of them in rural Kentucky. Once David was born, he was in need of immediate medical treatment for cataracts, a heart ailment, and multiple malformations. David would not grow through childhood like most healthy children. His progression and development was slow. David slowly overcame these obstacles and eventually learned a second language and went to college. After student teaching and having four life skills students, it made me reflect on the challenges these students are faced with daily and the struggle they endure. I am very fortunate to have my health.

Dec 22 Identity vs Role Confusion

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development interested me most from our readings so far—particularly the identity vs role confusion stage. This stage is supposed to be during adolescence when people are figuring out who they are and what they believe in (Berger, 2008, 36). It is most interesting to me because I didn’t figure that out until this past summer/fall, and I’m 23. Since middle school I felt like I had to be a teacher for various reasons, none of which were because I wanted to teach. The culture of my family, church and school encouraged it, and I stuck with it because everyone I was close to expected me to. I even tried to convince myself that it was what I was “meant to do” since so many people told me so. I avoided thinking about my nagging discomfort with it because I wanted to do what I was “meant to do”. It took graduation and the necessity of employment as a teacher for me to have enough courage to disappoint everyone and refuse to teach. Since then, I finally allowed myself to think about what I want my career and life to be instead of what people expect. I discovered occupational therapy and found that it matches my personality, values and career objectives very well. Now I am excited for the prospect of grad school for OT because I have chosen it for myself based on who I am and what I want.

It seems that I was stuck in Erikson’s identity vs role confusion stage for a long time past adolescence. Looking back, it’s easy to see the cultural influences and expectations that helped keep me at that stage, but at the time it was difficult to understand. The most interesting part is that I don’t feel like I waited until I had figured out “who I am” and passed the identity vs role confusion stage to enter the intimacy vs isolation stage. I made very close friends at college and my boyfriend and I met at Millersville, all before I figured out what I want from life, let alone anything about grad school and OT. The text didn’t make it clear if the theory allows a person to skip a stage and then come back to deal with that crisis later, but I think my experience would argue that you can.

Contact Comfort and The Social Learning theory

After reading chapter 2, I found a few things that were very enlightening as well as interesting. The first being the whole concept of contact comfort and Harlow’s experiment. I assumed and would have guessed that the monkeys in his experiment would have clung to the food source, not something soft and warm. The results of his experiment did not support behaviorism or the psychoanalytic theory. I also found the social learning theory to be interesting. I think everyone can recall a time when they saw a friend or family member get burned, shocked, or show pain from something that had happened to the person and knew that they did not want to experience the same pain. It is basically learning from other people’s mistakes and achievements, without experiencing it for yourself . I have experienced this many times in the past and still do in the present. When I was about 5 years old my sister, (who would have been 8 or 9) out of curiosity reached up on the ironing board and touched the iron and burned herself. The way she screamed and cried, left me without an ounce of curiosity as to what the iron felt like, and I completely left it alone. I believe this is a good example of the social learning theory.