Final

Human development is a wondrous and mysterious thing. Being a nurse for 10 years, I was confident of my knowledge of the stages that we go through from start; conception, to finish; death. Through out this course I learned so much that I didn't, and I am grateful to have that knowledge now. I feel it will help my be a better nurse and a better human.

Prenatal, infancy, early childhood

Prenatal development is a crucial time from the development of a baby. The mechanisms of heredity are how family traits are passed from one family member to another through DNA and genes. During pregnancy so many disorders and complications can arise. From hereditary diseases to abnormal chromosomes that result in a child being afflicted with Down's syndrome. External anf internal environmental factors play a role in many of these complications. Nutrion, stress, mother's age and use of teratogens can cause not only harm to the mother but to the developing fetus.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states that “children construct their own understanding of the world by creating schemes, categories of related events, objects and knowledge. And that these schemes are based on actions.” After my son was born, I would video tape him almost daily. Every time he would perform a new task it would be the proudest moment for me. When he realized that he could get my attention with just a smallest of coos he began to do it every time he wanted to be picked up, when he learned that when he shook a toy it would make noise, and then began to shake it constantly. I thought it was the cutest thing in the world. Then when he realized shaking it to hard could cause pain when he accidentally hit him self with it. I think this is what is meant by accommodation and assimilation.  

When my daughter was about 2, i had taken her to Wal Mart to pick out an Halloween costume, and being me I grabbed a mask and put it on and turned towards her. She began to cry, and then when I took of the mask she stopped and reached for me. I realized that when I put the mask on, even though she witnessed me placing it on she thought I was gone. I believe that qualifies as an example of ego-centrism, in the preoperational period. Erikson's stages of psychosocial development include a basic trust vs mistrust. This stage is critical in that it centers around a babies basic needs being met by the parents, such as security, food, and attention to name a few. If these basic needs are not met, then a sense of mistrust is instilled in them, which could effect their social development. Attachment relationships with caregivers is also essential. Regarding gender roles and identity, i am very guilty of  stereotyping. With my daughter I dressed her in frilly dresses as a infant and toddler. And then as she grew up always tried to keep her in the latest fashions. (I must admit she has a great sense of fashion now) My son was the same in I dressed him in little baseball and football outfits. Where my daughter had barbies, my son had dinosaurs.

School-age and adolescents

 We learned about everything from child memory development, Intelligence and how it is measured, creativity, academics in school, to the physical development of our children. Piaget’s theory, The Concrete-Operational Period relates to a child’s view of the world around them, they are said to be egocentric, believing that others see the world as they do and they are unable to reverse their thinking. The Formal Operational Period stats at roughly 11 and enables the child to start seeing beyond what is right in front of them.

Intelligence is a huge process during the school years. Gardner believed that schools should focus on all intelligences, not just the traditional reading, writing, and math. And that teachers need to be aware of how their students individual intelligences and how they will best learn material. Which leads us into Sternberg’s Theory which states “Achieving one’s goals by using one’s skills defines successful intelligence. instruction is most effective when it is geared to one’s strength.” In my opinion every child is learns differently and , as is discussed later in the chapter regarding cultural and ethnicity factors r/t intelligence,  stereotyping a child may convince them to think that they are destined to be not as smart as another child of different culture or ethnicity group, they may never reach their full potential. The best example of this that comes to mind is “Forrest Gump”, great movie, here is this child that has been asked all his life “are you stupid or something?” because of the stereotyping that because he had a lower IQ he was stupid. And as we see throughout the movie he is the cause/ or part  of some of the most important moments in our countries history. This leads me into the subject of mental retardation, I happen to know quit a few individuals that are considered to be mentally retarded and most of them are the happiest, friendliest people I have every meet. The lack of “intelligence”, not that they are stupid in any way, is what make them able to be this way, my opinion only.

Physical and cognitive development of the adolescents starts roughly at the time of puberty. Both physical and mental changes can be difficult for both sexes. My son is currently experiences pre puberty, and I am quick to note the physical changes that await my son such as; reproductive organs  (primary sex characteristics), facial hair ( secondary sex characteristics) and of course spermarche,  Cognitively adolescents begin to process information differently. Self esteem is a huge issue during this time as well, kids are trying to figure out who they are and may go through several fashion stages, and mood stages. Learning to express themselves.

Young and middle adulthood

When is an adolescent considered an adult?”. I just recently have considered myself reaching the “Adult” stage, at least Cognitively. I think many of us believe that we are adults when we hit the ripe ol age of 21 or so, are able to drink, legally and have our own place (role transitions). I know I did! Boy was I wrong. I guess I wish that I had some “role of passage” to tell me when I had reached adulthood officially, as in many other cultures.

Challenges of middle adulthood involve realizing that you are not going to be young anymore. Life has pretty much slapped in the face; aka wrinkles.

Late adulthood

Late adulthood deals with the reflection of your life; did you have regrets, did you accomplish your goal. And of course dealing with our own mortality. From start to finish life is a wondrous journey, and depending on what paths you take through out your journey determines were you are at the end. I personally hope that I pass on with a smile on my face and no regrets.

Chapter 12 & 13

Chapter 12; Work and Leisure

Occupational and Lifestyle Issues in Young and Middle Adulthood

This chapter starts out with ” Work- it seems as though that’s all we do sometimes.” In our society today this is the case for most of us. Many of us start off with an idea of what we want to be when we grow up. I personally wanted to be Indiana Jones, traveling all over the world looking for priceless treasures and narrowly escaping danger at ever turn. Childhood dreams are great! unfortunately not many of us end up being what we dreamed of. Choosing an occupation can be difficult. Some of us have family expectations, financial factors and even gender issues to tend with. Holland’s theory of occupational choice argued that “the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality”. Although i still think my personality expresses dangerous adventure, I choose to become a nurse. Where my witty, caring, and compassionate personality shines. Holland’s theory states that people choose occupations to optimize the fit between their individual traits, such as personality, intelligence, skills and abilities, and their occupational interest. I highly agree with this due to the simple fact of if you don’t enjoy what you do, why do it? and most people train for an occupation in a field of interest. However the  flaws in this  theory are, due to limitations that some have, and ethnic and gender factor. s.

Job satisfaction is a necessity in my opinion. I always found that praising and giving my employees a sense of accomplishment gave them the incentive to earn that praise every time they worked. I also feel if one is not satisfied in one work, ones work suffers.

I have for years juggled work and family. When my children were younger I, as millions of other parents, had to rely on my husbands and my ability to organize and mange the work ,household chores, family time and also find time for myself. Although it took many trial and error's, we finally found our way and have found that it benefits not only us but our children to have us able to have our leisure time away from our busy lives.

Chapter 13; Making It in Midlife

The Unique Challenges of Middle Adulthood

This is my chapter. As I am going to be 40 in about as week, I can so relate. I started noticing slight physical changes in my appearance a couple of years ago. I started having more grey hairs emerge, my back and knees would hurt more and more after any physical activity. And with my experience with working with older females the likely hood of developing osteoporosis, i decided to make a huge life change. I began to exercise on a regular basis, my eating habits have changed dramatically, I still sneak my occasionally Big Mac and Fries, but because of the scare of being so debilitated in my “golden years” I realized it was time to take responsibility for my health. And I can honestly say that my stress level has also improved with my physical improvement.  I have always had type A behavior but have focused it in different areas of my life. When I learned to direct it inwards it helped keep me on track. I am not saying that I am hostile or always angry , I just don’t like to fail at anything. i do fear getting older and the future changes , both physically and mentally. Menopause is something that my mother has recently gone through that was very difficult for both her and I to deal with. As women we are often given talks about sex, marriage, child rearing, and parenting. But how many of us can actually say we are given any heads up about this major event that will eventually happen to us all? None I know. I hope now that I have helped my mother with this stage of her life I will better prepared when it happens to me. And I hope that I can pass this knowledge on to my daughter.

Chapter 8 & 9

First, I want to start off with saying, “It is a wonder that any of us make it through adolescence.”

Chapter 8: Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Reading through this chapter it reminded me of what a tough time this was for me, and how much I didn’t know about the process. With my son quickly growing up I am grateful to have the chance to have a better understanding. As the text went through the pubertal changes I was quick to note the physical changes that await my son such as; reproductive organs  (primary sex characteristics), facial hair ( secondary sex characteristics) and of course spermarche, which my husband will have the job of dealing with that discussion. Health issues are a big topic in my household , due to how many sports my son is involved in. . Over the past few months he has begun to , on his own, be involved in more physical activity to prepare him for the up coming changes to his body, and being more aware of  his nutritional intake.  He enjoys the competition in sports and also the accomplishment of practice and learning new friends. He has several times been praised for his good sportsmanship, he is one who just enjoys playing. “Winning is great’” he says to me, “but it’s not everything. I just like to have fun.”  As the text states boys need a little extra iron and calcium intake for their developing muscles, I started daily vitamins for him years ago but after reading this I checked the amount of iron and calcium he was receiving and noted that the children’s vit. I give him hardly have any calcium and iron supplements in them. So I called my family MD and he recommended a new one which we have started yesterday. Cognitively I do see him processing information differently, he stops and thinks more often before he answers a question. He has become more diligent about making sure he does his 30 minutes of reading daily to keep his skills improving for next school year, middle school I am very lucky to have such a wonderfully amazing son.

Chapter 9; Socioemotional Development in Adolescence

As I had issues with self-esteem and my identity through these rough stages, I hope that my experience will allow me to give my son the advice to hopefully make the right choices. I remember going through these stages with my daughter where, I knew absolutely nothing about being a teenager and what she was going through, (adolescent egocentrism). We have come to an agreement now that she is a bit older and  married , that I do know a little bit more about life than her. We still butt heads quit a bit but she has grown to be a her own person and I am extremely proud to be her mom. I fortunately did not have to deal with her being into drugs and alcohol. She was and continues to be a part of a youth group, which I feel has helped her deal with many issues dealing with her adolescence. We of course had our dealing with dating and boys, and the breaks up where she swore she would never love another, which she did and was married to that love last Aug. The text discussed working and the effects it can have both positive and negative on an adolescent. My daughter starting working a an NAC at the age of 16, and she did only work 15- 20 hours a week.  She continues to work at the same place today. And although she also went through the make it and spend it phase, I feel that having that sence of accomplishment in making her own money has allowed her to become more financially responsible today. And as for Holland’s personality type theory, my daughter fits her job perfectly. She has always been extraverted and caring, lots of friends. She has always dreamed of a career on the stage as she enjoys expressing herself. I encourage her to follow that dream with hopes of her accomplishing them.

Last, I wanted to discuss the Current Controversies feature regarding , When Juveniles Commit Serious Crimes, Should They Be Tried as Adults? I think it really depends on the individual. We should of course consider the age of the juvenile, do they have the mental cognitive development to understand why they committed the crime and what the consequences are? Some individuals mature sooner than others. The enviroment in which they were raised should also be considered, moderately. Although some one brought up in a poor community can have wonderful caring parents that taught them right from wrong, they maybe forced by other means to commit a crimes, such a Heinz and his aillig wife. On the other end of the spectrum, you can always have the “rich kid” that commits a crime because he/she believes they are above the law.  Should these two individuals be treated the same way???

Chapter 6

Chapter 6- Cognitive and Physical Development in Middle Childhood

In chapter 6 , we read about everything from child memory development, Intelligence and how it is measured, creativity, academics in school, to the physical development of our children. I guess i am pretty lucky to have a child that is actually going through   of what is being discussed in this chapter. My son Ethan, who is 11, happens to be in what Piaget’s theory describes as “The Concrete-Operational Period”. And as i was reading this chapter I could place examples of him in just about every area. So that is what I shall do.

Memory;

The text discusses memory strategies such as organization and elaboration. My son has been taking guitar lessons since the age of 5, and although the first couple of years I had a very hard time listening to him practice for very long, it was just lots of screeching noises, I had him practice, and still do , 30 minutes to an hour daily. He used to complain about having to do this, but I would explain to him how constant repetition would help him remember the notes and the cords he was learning. And now 6 years later he can read just about any piece of music you put in front of him. It goes on to talk about metacognitive knowledge, or the knowledge and awareness of cognitive process, and one of the most important features of this knowledge is the understanding of the connections among goals, strategies, monitoring, and outcomes. A couple years ago he starting playing tackle football, we live in Lynden so football is a big deal, and it was fascinating that when I read this I realized that he was doing this. Example; he, and his team members would determine the goal-getting yardage or blocking other team from getting yardage, Select strategy selecting which play would be best to obtain the goal, based on other teams prior performance, use strategy-perform selected play, monitoring strategy-was play effective.

Intelligence;

The text discussed a couple different view’s and theories, but Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence made the most sense to me. Gardner believed that schools should focus on all intelligences, not just the traditional reading, writing, and math. And that teachers need to be aware of how their students individual intelligences and how they will best learn material. Which leads us into Sternberg’s Theory which states “Achieving one’s goals by using one’s skills defines successful intelligence. instruction is most effective when it is geared to one’s strength.” In my opinion every child is learns differently and , as is discussed later in the chapter regarding cultural and ethnicity factors r/t intelligence,  stereotyping a child may convince them to think that they are destined to be not as smart as another child of different culture or ethnicity group, they may never reach their full potential. The best example of this that comes to mind is “Forrest Gump”, great movie, here is this child that has been asked all his life “are you stupid or something?” because of the stereotyping that because he had a lower IQ he was stupid. And as we see throughout the movie he is the cause/ or part  of some of the most important moments in our countries history. This leads me into the subject of mental retardation, I happen to know quit a few individuals that are considered to be mentally retarded and most of them are the happiest, friendliest people I have every meet. The lack of “intelligence”, not that they are stupid in any way, is what make them able to be this way, my opinion only.

Learning disabilities & ADHD;

I have been fortunate not to have to have had my children have to face such obstacles, but I feel that a better understanding and skills to deal with these disorders are a necessary step for parents and teachers alike is the only way to really help these children. I think a lack of knowledge is what keep those who blame ethnicity and parenting able to continue stereotyping these children and their families. 

Academic skills;

As the text discusses, the american education system is severely flawed. Every other major county is ahead of us. I feel that we as parents are to blame more that any other. Living in Lynden I have seen it first hand. The Lynden public school system  a large portion of the parents are so concerned with their sports that it lax in our academics and art programs. More money is spent on winning sporting titles than is on academic and arts. Please do not  think I do not support sports because I do , I teaches many, many valuable lessons, but I feel that every area should be as important. (there’s my complaint, I can move on) More emphasis need to be placed on bringing our education system up to par with the rest of the world. And as the text discusses we need to learn ways to teach our children as individuals with their own  ways of learning. Teachers need to be better trained, parents need to be more involved.

Chapter 2 and 3

Chapter 2
Being a nurse and a mother I had a pretty good idea about the birthing process. So before I began to read this chapter I was pretty confident that it would be a lot of review for me. Boy was I wrong. The making of a new life is an amazing process. From the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg and through the many stages and changes that take place. As I watched the podcast “Life’s Greatest Miracle” and actually could see these stages takeing place, I was in aw. From the mechanisms of heredity, which discussed how family traits are passed from one family member to another through DNA and genes. And the difference between dominant and recessive genes, now I know exactly why I have brown eyes like my father and not hazel as my mother.  The most interesting part of this chapter, for me was the section on prenatal development, which discussed risk factors specifically teratogens. Having 2 children of my own I could not see how any mother would pollute their unborn child with drugs and alcohol knowing the risk factors. And in today’s society and culture most kids from the age of 13ish has been given some knowledge of this. I do however feel that knowledge and community involvement is the key to decreasing the number of birth defects due to these teratogens.
Chapter 3,
In this chapter I focused mainly on the subject of temperment. Which was facinating. Learning that one’s temperment can be heriditary explained so much to me about my own tempermant and those of my children. It made me think about the differences between them. My daughter who was born when I was 19 and single is very strong willed, and independant as i was during her childhood. My son, born 9 years later is also independant but not as strong willed. I feel this is due to the fact that I was older and more experienced in life and raising a child. With my daughter I wanted to everything my way and didn’t take much advise from others, luckly by the time my son was born I had learned that i didn’t know everything and I could learn from others. My half sister and I where brought up in two very different enviroments, she in a rule based enviroment, me in a learn from your mistakes enviroment, but still found that after not having any communication for 20 plus years we still had many common traits. I agree with the the way the texts explains that heredity gives you the building block or blue prints for your trait, but your enviroment can alter them.