Introduction: (8 points)
Start your paper by sharing a little information about your virtual child: name, gender, birthing information, infant’s sleep habits, infant’ eating habits, infant’s temperament, child’s results from intelligence reports, and your adolescent’s physical health. Add in additional information from the virtual child program that would also tell me more about your child’s development.
My child’s name is Carter Pirnuta. He was born at full-tem with no complications. He typically sleeps 15 hours a day with increments of around 2 hours at a time. Carter is able to digest new foods well, so the doctor recommends that he eat a variety of foods. Carter has typical emotional reactions for his age, such as fear of total strangers,
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separation anxiety and a quick, loud cry when upset or in pain. His motor skills are typical for age: crawling, sitting up, and standing up, but not walking yet. Because of his physical high energy, he tends to be more restless especially when it’s bedtime. We were able to afford placing him in a preschool program, which we thought was beneficial to his development. At first, Carter was hesitant to engage with his peers but after a while he latched on to a couple of the other children and had a good time. Carter was quite self-confident in novel social situations and seemed to be well liked by several children. He had several little friends in the preschool and was somewhat of a group leader in free play activities, such as imaginary play or riding trikes. Carter was above average in understanding quantitative relationships, in counting skills, in classifying objects, and in solving age-appropriate reasoning tasks. His gross motor skills were within average range. Now Carter is old enough for kindergarten. This is a big step for him and he feels like a big boy. During his first days there, he makes a few friends, but is sometimes reluctant to join in new activities with unfamiliar children. We believe that was normal especially during the beginning. We encouraged his to engage in different activities with new children since it would be fun. He took our advice and was excited about his new friends. As far as his academic performance during kindergarten, reading and vocabulary test was average, but showed advanced ability to count, use numbers, understand quantitative relationships and classify objects. He had a real knack for the art projects the teachers had the students do, and really got interested in the pre-math activities involving working with blocks and geometric shapes. During Carter’s elementary school years he is demonstrates strength" in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. He likes to works independently, listens attentively and follows directions, and classroom rules. We found out Carter’s favorite subject and that is mathematics. He is well beyond his classmates and we are thinking of placing him in a gifted math program. The school he attended has a math club and Carter became part of it. Carter continued to develop throughout his adolescent years without giving us major problem. He was a well-rounded kid that liked to experience different things, but knew his limit. Attachment relationships—the emotional connection and bonds that adults and children can form. (9 points) • What type of attachment did you have with your child? Identify and explain with examples from the virtual child program. Our attachment to Carter based on set of questions about parenting attitudes. According to the scores, we are below average in warmth and affection toward him and we are in the top 15% in discipline and control toward your child. • What might happen to adolescents who have weak, poor, disrupted, or missing attachments? If adolescents have poor attachment at home, they tent to look somewhere else to find that safe zone, and that sometimes can be the wrong place. • As a parent, how could you ensure that your adolescent might overcome less-than-optimal types of relationships in the early years of life? As a patent it is important to maintain a good relationship with your adolescent by giving them space to make mistakes, and knowing how to approach them when it comes to serious matters. It is hard to be the parent and the friend, but that balance has to be there in order to maintain in good standings with your child. Parenting Decisions (parenting styles) across your virtual child’s development: (9 points) • What type of parenting style did you display while raising your virtual child?
Identify the parenting style and provide examples from the virtual child program.
The parenting style we used was authoritative. With this style our virtual child benefited because he knew what the expectations were and we stayed consistent we set few rules, but enforced then every time.
• How do you feel about the parenting decisions that you made? Would you have changed your choices at all if you saw some outcomes while you were making the decisions, rather than having to wait for consequences to unfold?
The parenting decisions are always easier to make if you can see the outcome before. It real life that is not possible and you just have to trust yourself and your child when making decisions. We would not change any of our decisions, because we believe in learning from our mistakes.
• Looking towards adolescent development, can parents of real-life teenagers compensate or make up for decisions that they made for or about their children when in adolescence they now see these decisions as being bad ones made? Or do you think that, once influenced, there is no way to undo
decisions? I believe parents can still compensate fro decisions that were made during the adolescent development. Brain plasticity allows humans to change through life and even though a few wrong decisions have been made during an early stage of life, we are still able to recover from it and change for the better. Patterns of development that you see in your child: (9 points) • Do you think your adolescent is “typical” or more demonstrative of unusual development with respect to American youth? What features do you consider as you answer this question? Use examples from your virtual child program to support your answer. My adolescent developed as a typical American youth. He was active, but preferred to stay inside and take advantage of the video games system. He also explored the freedom of speech act and wanted to know why things are the way they are, just like many adolescents in America. • What types of genetic traits do you think could influence your child’s adolescent development? Give two examples in your response and try to clearly explain how these traits in childhood might specifically shape the adolescent years. Genetic traits could influence a child would be the color of the skin, and more prone to different disease. Depending where the child grows up, the skin color can have an impact how they get treated. Many disease are past on through genetics. Parkinson’s is one that can affect the physical and mental ability of a child growing up. • Think about your teen’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses and how they are reflected in his or her school grades and activities. What careers or courses of study might be best suited to your teen’s abilities and interests as they grow older? Use examples from your virtual child program to support your answer. My Virtual Child strength was Mathematics and because of that he enjoyed going math problems. His weaknesses were reading and writing. I know how important that was and paid more attention to those subjects to make sure his confidence did no diminish. The career that I felt that was best suited for my son was becoming a math educator. I knew that he was really good at math, but when I saw him wanting to help other in need, that made my realize that he would be great as an instructor. Conclusion: (7 points) •Two similar families who raise their kids with the same patterns of choices and behaviors could have very different outcomes! Describe some specific influences outside your control, such as genes, random environmental events or the general influence of contemporary middle-class American culture that might differently shape your child from other peers. The idea of raising children should be an important subject to every parent. Even if two families raise their children with similar patterns, the outcomes can be different. Genes plays an important part on a child. Physical appearance can shape children different during the process of growing up. There is a saying that good-looking people usually get what they want. The environment surrounding the children can dictate many of the decisions children make based to socially norms. The financial situation between two different families with the same parenting style can impact their children and how they are seen by their peers. The wealthy child might have better toys and that can translate to more friends and higher popularity level.
In conclusion of the My Virtual Life Simulation Program, I raised Luciano, my male child, until he reached the age of 18 years old. Luciano came about the world normally through a natural birth; labor lasted about 10 hours. Luciano inherited 50% of my characteristics through the survey taken prior to the start of the simulation. The other half was through the actions and changes that occurred throughout his life by the choices of my virtual partner and I and Luciano’s personal decisions later on in life. Certain characteristics Luciano developed resulted directly from the authoritative parenting style I chose to follow throughout the simulation. Despite minor setbacks towards the beginning, Luciano, developed properly in his psychological development which involved his physical, cognitive, social, and moral development, personality, emotional understanding, and peer competence. In the beginning years of his life he endured minor academic problems but later had no issue and was even involved in honor classes. He was also very social having
I would rather be a parent today, and not in 1960. The reason being is, I was born now and not before 1960. I only know how to parent a child now and I am quite accustomed to what it takes to raise a child now.
My virtual child experience began with the birth of Ivan Trejo. Throughout this journey I learned parents have great influence over their child before it’s brought into the world. For example, the biological parents determine their child’s genes that are passed down to them and the environment that impacts the child. With these factors in mind, it gave me a new perspective to parenting. I have adopted an authoritative parenting strategy to raise Ivan. Authoritative parents are parents who are firm, setting clear and consistent limits, but who try to reason with their child, giving explanation for why they should behave in a particular way. (Feldman, 2014). When raising Ivan, I made my decision based on previous encounters and positive results from authoritative strategies.
In this application paper, I talk about the child that I raised through My Virtual Child. I’m going to be applying what I’ve learned through class, power points, lectures, and research to my parenting style and the development of my child. I will explain in detail the theories that are taken into consideration while describing my child’s development.
The purpose of this assignment is to answer the three posed questions in regards to my Virtual Child, who I will refer to as Kieran though out my assignment. I will be describing changes in his exploratory or problem solving behaviors as well as analyzing his temperament. I will also summarize his developmental assessment at nineteen months old that may differ from my perception than what was assessed through his developmental examiner.
When Ezra was eight years old, he had a psychologist report done that asked a set of questions not only to him but also to myself about my parenting style. I scored high in the top 15 percentiles in not only warmth and affection but also discipline and control. Being high in all four aspects of parenting styles puts me into the authoritative style (Bee & Boyd, 2012). In The Developing Child, the authors describe the parents with this parenting style as those that are “setting clear limits, expecting and reinforcing socially mature behavior, and at the same time responding to the child’s individual needs (Bee & Boyd, 2012, p. 326).” As I reflect on certain situations, I can tell that this style guided my parenting. For example, when Ezra was 6 he frequently cheated at games if he knew he could get away with it. My response, with accordance to my authoritative parenting style, was to beginning teaching him right and wrong, not getting upset, but to bring up the cheating and tell him to play by the rules despite him not having a “strong sense of mortality (Manis, 2008).” I decided to use that option because I wanted Ezra to learn from the experience but continue to play the game and have
Manis, Frank. "My Virtual Child." My Virtual Child. University of Southern California, 4 Jan. 2004. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .
During the first nine months of Dominic’s life he was sick several times with colds and digestive complications which are not typical for infants. Physically, Dominic was active the first nine months. At three months he began to start laughing and would focus his eyes on me, the mom (My Virtual Child). At eight months we would play object permanence games which enhanced his cognitive development and at nine months old Dominic was adv...
I started this project very excited and interested in different decisions I’d be able to make and choose for a virtual child. I want to be a parent at some point in time, so I found this project to be very influential and helpful for me. Throughout the simulation, I made choices and decisions based on what both my parents and I would do, particularly leaning toward a stricter parenting style in order to keep the child in line with good morals and a strong background. I enjoyed this assignment, and I expect to remember certain decisions I made when I may become a real parent.
Parenting styles refer to a set of different manners in which parents raise their children. There are four parenting styles including authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting. The authoritarian parenting style is based on the implementation of rules, and on the idea that all rules should be followed without exceptions. Similarly, authoritative parenting style implements rules, but the child feelings are taken in consideration and reasonable exceptions to the rule are allowed. On the other hand, in permissive parenting style, there is implementation of rules, but they are rarely encouraged to be followed. Lastly, in uninvolved parenting style, there is a lack of engagement between parents and children, and there are
This paper will discuss My Virtual Life child development. I will go into detail how the theoretical framework and parental decision making I used with my child from birth to 18 years of age influenced my decision making and my virtual child’s life. I will discuss how I feel the theories I used and the decisions made had an impact on why my child is in the position he is, at 18-years of age.
A parent’s parenting styles are as diverse as the world we live in today. Nowadays, parents only want what is best for their children and their parenting styles plays a crucial role in the development of children which will in the long run, not only effect the child’s childhood years, but later prolong into their adult life as well.
I know I would have been, my parent let me make my own decision and let me do it the way I wanted to. As a parent myself to see how happy my child would be for letting him/her do something they wanted to do so badly but came to me and got my permission I would feel that they trusted me and glad to know they felt comfortable coming to me. Giving that statement if they could trust me, I shouldn’t hold them back from something they wanted to do just because the what if’s.
Authoritative parenting has a stronger positive outcome due to the balance maintained within the structure of this parenting style. According to developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind, “Authoritative parents are firm, setting limits for their children. As the children get older, these parents try to reason and explain things to them. They also set clear goals and encourage their children's independence,” (Baumrind 2005). For example, a young boy wants to play video games all day and the parent decides this is unwise. It is a nice day outside and the parent wants him to go out and play. An authoritative approach would be to sit down with the child and explain the positives of playing outside rather than the negatives of playing video games. The parent would appeal to the child's interests in order to engage the child in effective parenting. The child would then be able to see the positive side of the decision rather than just the negative consequences.
With over three hundred million Americans and over six billion people worldwide parenting skills are essential to maintain a healthy society. Parenting involves many aspects and requires many skills. It is a time to nurture, instruct, and correct to develop fundamental skills children will need to be mature, responsible, and contributing adults to a society. There are four commonly identified parenting styles; authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting. Of the four parenting styles, two remain on opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. These two styles; authoritarian, and permissive both have deleterious results that are often visible throughout different developmental stages, such as rebellious behavior. As well each style has its own advantages such as; acceptance by peers with commonality. Child rearing for most parents is an evolving set of skills. It could be said that, with any style of parenting, there is no explicit set of rules for every situation, and what works for one child may not be effective for another.