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Jenette Noe Professor Haunold Child Psychology December 2, 2012 Child Observation Journal and Reflection
*Names changed for anonymity

October 6th, 2012 10:00am - 1:30pm Present: Tanya, John, Lacey, Eric, Erics mom and two sisters These are family members, so the children are somewhat familiar with my face, and comfortable with me. 10:00 am I arrived to find the family around the kitchen table, including three youths who I would be paying close attention to: Irene, (3 years), and her younger brother Lance, (10 months), and cousin Harry (8 months) Lance and Harry were both being held. Irene was standing on a stool at the table. She shows Irene has developed her gross motor skills. me how she gets down, by climbing from chair to chair (of different heights) until shes safe on the ground. Irene and I go over to play. She pulls out a Dora the Explorer version of Candy Land. She shows me how to set up the board. Asks me who I want to be. She picks her favorites and gives me the others. While we play she bends the rules a bit, making her own. Sometimes she picks which color box she wants to go to based on her personal color preference. We only get through about three turns each before she gets distracted and leaves the game. 10:30 am Then Irene shows me how she plays dress up with shoes. She lines up everyones shoes just so. We point out colors. She points black, black, green, black, white, and is Irene is at an age where she is very social. She is also learning the unspoken rules of her culture. Playing Candy Land helps teach her these. She knows that we take turns. She also knows that it is polite to let the other person go first, and that encourages positive relationships (but in the end she picked her favorites and let me get the leftovers). Playing Candy Land with me allowed Irene to practice her cooperative play (Berger 206). Irene is old enough to know her basic colors.

Another example of Irenes knowledge of colors. She proudly shares this knowledge.

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attentive enough to point out a pair of black heels with a white insole. She tries on different shoes, but finds them oversized and difficult to walk in. 11:00 am Harry is a very happy, secure baby. All smiles. Master of crawling. He is able to stand up for a few assisted steps when we hold his hands. After a few attempts at walking he is tired and focuses solely on crawling again. While sitting next to him he notices my necklace and gets very focused. He reaches out and grasps it tightly. Laughing, I have to get assistance to make him release me from the trap. Lance gets a diaper change and put down for a nap. 11:30 am Pancakes and scrambled eggs are ready, so we sit down to eat. Harry eats with us, sitting in Laceys lap. She feeds him very small bites of egg and pancake. He gums them in his mouth, with all two of his teeth. His eyes focus on the fork, ready to accept bites. 12:00 pm Irene pretends to be a baby (I think shes jealous of the attention the others are getting). She pushes her stroller around and then sits on it. She calls out to Lacey (her aunt) Mama! Then she crawls around the house. She tells Tanya she needs to go potty (not pretending). We walk to a neighbors yard sale. We bundle up Lance and Irene. I help Irene put on her shoes. Irene picks out a baby seal stuffed animal and a Bratz doll. When we get back Lacey plays with Irene and the seal, making sounds and shaking it in front of her. Lance is up from his nap. John gobbles up Lance, holding him to his face. Lots of sounds and bouncing.

She is practicing sociodramatic play in which [the child acts] out various roles and plots (Berger 207).

Harry is learning his gross motor skills, such as crawling and the beginning of walking (Berger 95). This is developmentally normal for his age. One of Erics sisters was holding Harry, and they are not relatives. Harry had no problem with it, so I guess he has a secure attachment style, to be held by a stranger and be comfortable (Siegal 100-101). Harry learns a lot about his world by touching and grasping things with his hands. Harry is just old enough that his family is trying to expand his diet. He doesnt have teeth, so we have to feed him very soft food. We also have to feed him very small bites of food, so that it fits down his small throat and doesnt choke him.

Irene is practicing her role-play skills (Berger 207). She is proud she doesnt wear diapers. Playing pretend but retains executive functions.

Little girls love dolls because they can experiment with role playing, learning social rules through their toys (Berger 207).

This seemingly scary form of play is delightful to Lance. He loves being right in front of his fathers face.

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4:00pm - 7:30pm Sarah just turned three years old 4:00 pm I arrive at Aunt Irmas house to see a basket of toys scattered around. Sarah bounces from toy to toy, picking them up and playing. Sleeping Beauty is playing on the television, but is ignored. Sarah shares toys with me. Exchanging and tossing them around. Climbing on back of couch, looking in mirror. Mumbling animal noises. Auntie reminds her to be careful not to fall or to break the mirror. Not allowed on very back of couch for long. Gets in big kid chair and buckles herself in. But she doesnt know how to unsnap the buckle, and needs my help getting loose. 4:30pm Time to pick up toys. She sits with me for a while. No fear of me, even though weve hardly met. Sees me writing. Wants to color in my notebook. This makes me think about Medinas caution against exposing children to television before age two (145-149). While Sarah is three years, and beyond Medinas age cutoff, there is general agreement that a childs exposure to television of any type should be limited (Medina 145). I wonder why Auntie doesnt just turn off the TV, as it is obvious Sarah is not interested in it. Having the television playing in the background could be negatively impacting her already sporadic attention span. Sarah is old enough she wants to share her toys and interact with me. She is making associative play (Berger 206). Her attention span is very short. She jumps from task to task. Sarah doesnt have the fine motor skills needed to unsnap herself from the child safe buckle.

Auntie gets out color book. Markers. She hands me two. Sarah wants to share. Starts drawing (scribbles) on pages. Asks me to draw her. She sees I can draw well, and starts requesting drawings house, car, doggy, mommy, daddy even when I dont know who shes asking for Tucker (cat) or Shorty (baby). She gets mad when I dont know how to draw someone I dont know who or what they are.

I was surprised by how comfortable Sarah was around me. In a very short time she was up in my lap, leaning against me and requesting drawings. This must be evidence of a secure attachment. When thinking of the Strange Situation test of child attachment, Im the stranger in the room (Siegal 100-101) but with Auntie nearby she feels safe to approach and interact. Sarah got mad at me when she requested Tucker and Shorty and I didnt draw the right pet/person. This shows a lack of Theory of Mind, in the ability to develop a theory of how the other persons mind works, even if it differs from your own (Medina 227). She assumes that because she knows who Tucker and Shorty are, I also know. However, its normal for young children to lack Theory of Mind, as it is a skill we are not born with, but develop over time (Medina 227).

5:00pm Auntie tells her to put caps on markers when

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Sarahs not using them. I explain why the markers will dry up. She refuses to listen to her aunt. Throws a fit when Aunty repeatedly has to tell her to put the caps on the marker. Sleeping Beauty ends, still being unwatched. Sarah wants to watch Spongebob. She throws a fit when we dont put it on (because of cable scheduling its not on for another few minutes). Auntie takes Sarah for recover time after Sarah begins bawling.

Here I was trying to use Medinas advice for discipline. He outlines three essential aspects of discipline, and the third part is to explain the rules to the child (Medina 245-248) Sarah doesnt understand why we cant put Spongebob on right now. She doesnt know that cable scheduling is something outside of our control. I suspect this may be part of the childhood belief that adults are omniscient and all-powerful (Medina 226).

7:00 pm 9:30 pm Serenity 3 years old 7:00pm I arrived while Auntie and Uncle are decorating the Christmas tree. Sarah immediately shouted HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me as I walked in the door, even though it wasnt my birthday. She immediately approaches me and says help me, handing me an ornament. Sarah would hand me ornaments and ask me to put them on the tree. She would point and I would place the ornament. Hadnt mastered the concept of equally distributing ornaments, so I furtively moved them around when she wasnt paying attention. She would point with her finger and tell me where to hang the ornaments. There were some tense moments when I misinterpreted her point and didnt get the ornament where she wanted it.

I think Sarah remembers me from the last time I visited and observed her. Or perhaps her secure attachment with Auntie and Uncle allows her to feel safe around me (Siegal 100101).

Here was another example of Sarah without developed Theory of Mind (Medina 227). She would point to areas of the tree where she wanted an ornament, but got frustrated when I didnt share the same knowledge she had of where the ornament should go. My misinterpretations made her angry. I think that Sarahs tantrum was a result of her inability to express her frustration with language (Medina 171). Sarah doesnt have enough fine motor skills/hand-eye coordination to hang up most of Christmas ornaments, much to the danger of any glass ornament in her grip (but Auntie Irma made sure most of the ornaments were glass for this reason). The family was using bent paperclips as hangers, and some of the hangers had been pushed together, shutting off

Sarah also had trouble hanging up the ornaments on her own. She would try to hang them on the tree, but often dropped them or they fell off of her insecure branch. This made her angry, and more than once she picked up the offending ornament and threw it. Auntie and Uncle had to tell her no, dont throw the

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ornaments. You might break them!

the open U shape meant for the tree branch. Sarah didnt have the dexterity to manipulate the paperclip and maneuver the clip into place over the delicate tree branches. This is developmentally normal, and will come with practice (Berger 163). Giving rationale to discipline (Medina 245248). Sarahs throwing of the ornaments is also evidence of her inability to regulate her emotions (Berger 201). She hasnt learned that it is not acceptable to give action to such outbursts. She has problems with externalizing her problems: she lashed out at the ornament, turning her frustration into an act of aggression and violence (Berger 201).

7:30pm I noticed we did a lot of repeating what Sarah said to make sure we interpreted her language correctly. Her speaking had advanced since the last time I saw her.

At one point she started meowing like a cat. Auntie had to explain she needed to talk, or we couldnt understand what she wanted. Every time Sarah discovered another box of ornaments she would scream with excitement, MORE! Whenever she couldnt find more ornaments to put up she would scream the same thing in a much more upset tone.

Repeating and rephrasing what Sarah said not only allowed us to check that we understood her correctly, it also allowed us expose her to more vocabulary and more complex sentence structure. Every time we paraphrased what she had said, we were giving her more options of how to say something and what words were appropriate. This form of parroting adheres to Medinas smart baby rule #2: talk to your baby a lot (127-131).

I think this was another instance of Sarah turning to a tantrum as a way of expressing emotions she does not yet have the vocabulary for (Medina 171). She obviously loves the process of decorating the tree, and is very crestfallen at the possibility that there are no more ornaments and her fun is over.

Sarah found a couple packs of glittery snowflakes, which Auntie wanted to hang from the ceiling. I got tape and a ladder. Because I knew Sarah would want to be involved, but didnt want her on the ladder, I asked her to hold one snowflake at a time and hand them to me. Sarah tried to climb the flimsy braces on the Again we tried Medinas technique of explaining why Sarah shouldnt get on the back

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back of the wooden ladder, and we all had to tell her to get down, those arent steps. Told her we didnt want her to fall and get hurt dangerous! Despite repeated warnings she did this multiple times.

8:00pm We played with Legos. She told me where to put pieces. Many times got angry with me for not putting a piece where she wanted it, because she didnt understand Legos couldnt just float on the smooth sides have to have pegged sides fit together. She kept trying to put Legos in her mouth. Auntie kept telling her not to put Legos in her mouth. 8:30pm Dinner was ready. Sarah was strapped into her high chair. Sarah had a microwave dinner that Mom said she likes. Didnt want any of it. Didnt want to eat. Auntie tried to negotiate with her. Offered the adults food pasta. Didnt want that either. We saw another fit. Auntie moved her into the kitchen to eat alone, and stop her attention seeking misconduct. 9:00pm Sarah knew to say when she needed to potty. Auntie Irma helped her in the bathroom. As the night wore on I saw tantrums with increasing frequency. At one point she ran into the hallway and began crying (that forced kind of sob where you know its more of an act than a genuine cry). We decided to ignore her for a few minutes, so she stopped crying, before Auntie went over to her and talked her through the fit.

of the ladder (245-248). We had to warn her many times. We probably should have followed up with swift consequences (Medina 244). This may also be an example of an undeveloped frontal cortex, where Serenity makes emotional decisions before rational ones (Berger 89). She isnt developed enough to regulate her emotions (Siegal 281-283). It is not until adulthood, when the frontal cortex (center of executive functions) is developed enough to think actions through and make rational (rather than emotional) decisions (Berger 324-325).

Sarah doesnt yet have the fine motor skills to manipulate these small pieces (Berger 163). It takes a lot of strength and friction to grip the smooth blocks and pull them apart. When Sarah couldnt manage to do this on her own, she improvised by using her mouth as a tool to get the Legos apart.

Here Auntie was using punishment by removal (Medina 242). It seemed that Sarah was making a fuss over her food as a method of getting attention, so by putting her in the kitchen on her own, we removed her from our attention for a brief time-out.

We were using negative reinforcement discipline (Medina 242). Attention was what she wanted by throwing a fit, so we did not give her the attention she wanted. After she had a few minutes to calm down, Auntie used empathetic language (I bet youre tired and upset) to end the tantrum.

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Asked if Sarah was ready for bed. Of course she wasnt, despite her behavior saying the opposite. Did she want to take a bath? No. 9:30pm Finally we got Sarah in her pajamas and ready for bed. Uncle picked out a princess movie and put it on while Auntie put Sarah in her crib to settle down. After saying goodbyes, I left. I realize that the majority of my observation journal references are to Medinas book. This is because I found his book to be the most interesting and accessible. I remember his book the most. I also feel that Medinas book is the most practical of the three we read. He connected his ideas to actual child behavior, where the other books were more focused on brain development, with instances of child behavior as an afterthought. I also think that many of my observations were based on social/environmental factors rather than biological factors, and it made more sense to me to connect this to Medinas parenting advice. After writing my observational journals, I realized that a lot of the observations I had made were pertinent to the things I learned in Developmental Psychology last year. In my response column of this journal, I cited Kathleen Bergers writing in Invitation to the Life Span. Here again I was frustrated with the adults reliance on television. Not only is the movie numbing her mind to sleep, but Ive also read reports that the blue e-light of technology can actually increase insomnia and hamper sleep.

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Works Cited Berger, Kathleen Stassen. Invitation to the Life Span. New York: Worth Publishers, 2010. Print. Cozolino, Louis. The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Brain. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print. Medina, John. Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five. Seattle: Pear Press, 2010. Print. Siegal, Daniel J. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2012. Print.