Child Observation Report

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 ...

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...role-confusion”(Boeree, 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.