Week 4

Chapter 6 goes over growth occurring in an infant from the ages of 2-6 years old.  The growth period is also graphed in figure 6.1 on the bottom of page 131.  This graph I found interesting because of how close the weight/height is and also how close the height starts, and then departs as the age increases.  As of weight at the younger age there is a gap, but as the child gets older and gets to the age of 6, the boys and girls weight almost meet at the same lbs.  I found that interesting only because in my eyes, boys would always be much taller than girls and weigh more than boys due to a boy’s body structure of muscle.  I can relate to his as remembering my size at the age of six (of course with the help of pictures) and then to look at my brother when he was six years old.  He was still taller than I was, and had a little more weight on him than I did as a female at the age of six.  These graphs are a clear image if you do not have someone of an infant to compare with. 

Gross moor skills and fine motor skills was something new that I learned in chapter 6.  This happens when the child is 2-6 years old, otherwise known as an important time for growing motor skills.   There is a lot that is developed over these years such as psychological, social behaviors, and biological these are some of many issues that can also include a child’s stress level, nutrition the child is getting, and disease.  Stress at this young age could be caused in school while away from their parents.  This worldwide problem is called bullying.  My opinion of bullying is that while away from home with other children learning social skills, and feeling the changes in their brains at the same exact time, is that the adults at school need to be able to handle these situations ASAP.  I think that if the bullying can stop at school when it first starts to occur both children will have more academic success, and more success developing their social skills.

Language development is a key milestone with children, and has no formal training.  I found it very interesting while working with young children that all of their skills such as, incorrect language models, children learn sounds, and then combine sounds into words, following that they put those words that are grammatically correct into sentences.  On page 142 in Chapter 7 of LIFESMART it is proven that when children move into the first grade they have a vocabulary range of up to 14,000 words.

Child development in a child begins in the early stages of their social life, also known as social development.  Social relationships are a big part in this transition of a child’s life.  A parent’s role in this time period of a child’s life is curtail the process of behavior learning also occurs, so if a child is bad they get a time out or even worse, a spanking.  On page 143 of LIFESKILLS, Figure 6.8 contains a chart on the effects of spanking a child on bad behavior.  This chart shows that you can avoid spanking a child and to just reprimand them on their bad behavior, this seems to be more accurate in improving a child’s behavior, as to spanking a child three times there is no change in cognitive ability.  I don’t think this is the answer to raising children in the social development time in their life because of the mental affect spanking also has on children.  While having a child develops a social mind, I would want that to be the only thing developing.  If a child is worried about why did mommy or daddy spank me, again after doing the same thing that might confuse the child if they are not presented the bad behavior and positive way to change the behavior at the time of spanking. 

Week 3

WEEK 3

While reading these chapters this week, a big part stuck out to me at the very beginning of chapter three was the chart at the top of page 58 in LIFESMART Figure 3.4.  I found it very interesting to see the Maternal age at birth and the prevalence of births that included Down Syndrome.

I knew this type of unfortunate type of disease occurring in some new born genes was something that was some what rare was a mix of bad genetics and chromosomes, but did not know exactly how it happened to the new born baby while in the females body during the pregnancy.  I also did not know there were different types of syndromes a child could be diagnosed with; Klinefelter syndrome, XYY syndrome, fragile X sydrome, Turner syndrome, and most common down syndrome.

This seemed most interesting to me for this week, even though the other topics were supper informative on topics I didn't know much about.  The types of common and least common syndrome's was most interesting to me to pick up more information on.

I currently work with students in high school with Special Needs.  These students have moderate to severe disabilities.  I have two scholars with Down Syndrome.  I have never seen so much willingness to learn and educate themselves from a student that can not only read, but verbally communicate clearly with pronunciation.  A student in particular that I have has such a sharp mind and very tentative to detail, she is 17 years old and has the IQ of a Kindergarten student.  It is so interesting to me how her mind functions daily and how highly intelligent she is in particular areas.  While reading this chapter and these informational blurbs and graphs it has truly helped me understand how the mind works, and how her mind has become the way it is.

Down Syndrome is caused by an extra copy of a chromosome.  "Under the age of 30 the ratio is 1,700 births; once the woman reaches the age of 45, the incidence increases to 1 in 30 (Watson, 2003.) pg. 57 LIFESMART.  There has been proven studies to avoid having a child's life effected by this disorder.  No matter how old the child, the sex, height, age or weight.  I think every child is different in their own way.  Not ever should a child be singled out by their disorder no matter what it may be.  When seeing a student with a strong case of Down syndrome interact with other students that don't quite understand but are willing to help her out in any way possible, it is the best comforting feeling as a future educator.

In a child's mind, each child will always be there for each other.  When being so young and innocent it is something that functions in a human beings young stages that will give you a warm feeling in your heart to know that no child will ever be left behind no matter of any condition they are in.


I myself as a female, have not had a child yet.  Reading on this subject is very informational that I think any female with or without a child would find very interesting.  I also think that this reading would also catch the attention of that females partner to get a better understanding of what their female is going through or what they could do to be mindful before any hormones change in the women's body, good or bad.  I am really enjoying the readings, and informational data with charts in this book.  Great readings thus far!

Week 2

After reading through the second chapter of LIFESMART, I found all the psychoanalytic theories very interesting.  Each one of these intelligent people had almost the same frame work of their theories. When beginning this course I honestly was not use to seeing the term psychoanalytic; which was the theory of Freud's development of personality.  On page 29 of LIFESMART we view the definition of this term as the following "Psychoanalytic theory Freud's theory of the development of personality; emphasis on the role of the unconscious" (Fiore).

I can relate which seems to be the most important theory in our foundation of life because it will be the same process for generations to come.  Sigmund's theory was one that we will explore and continue to do so, till the last human beginning on this earth is standing.

I can relate and also reflection majorly on one of the stages of the Freudian Development Stages which would be four, The Latency Stage.  The Latency Stage, shown in Figure 2.1 on page 30 of our chapter shows life in stages that breaks our personalities down in sections.  Sigmund's development starts at the age of one and goes until the age of 12.  Back to my reflection on Stage four,  the ages 5-12 were my prime years to me.. and my mother and father.  As to his figure I was put to the test of developing social skills at Elementary Dances where things started off really awkward but by the time your parents where at the front doors to pick you up... you were best friends with the people you just had met.  Developing sports was something huge to a large Irish Catholic family.  Between the ages of 5-12 we were in probably 5 sports each to figure out what best fit our physical needs as a child.  I was put into soccer for two years as my parents were hoping that I would enjoy the sport.. which I did, and began to play for another ten years.  The same goes for cheerleading.  This is something big to a lot of people I think because sports develop social skills, intellectual skills, along with a large stream of energy.

It is almost as our parents knew of this theory and knew that it would work on us as children.  If you were fortunate to be placed in activities/sports even just one.  This is the stage where being in that activity developed all those skills as Freudian predicted would happen while putting his thoughts into data in the 80's.

As I reflect on this reading, I picked up a lot of information from charts, and bold terms which as a future Elementary teacher, this has been drilled into my brain after some training.  I found this chapter very interesting not only with Freud's theory but the several other intelligent minds that decided to try their theories even on animals, let alone people.

Thus far, this book has me wanting to keep flipping due to the interesting readings that keep my mind going.

Week 1

In the first chapter I read over and skimmed through a couple times, I enjoyed the content of the text.  The first chapter is a bit of a preview to live why WHY's of a persons course of life to the impact of diversity in the development of life.  While heading in the profession of Education I think that it is very important to be informed on all of these topics overall, there is so much to expand on just a couple of these two major topics.  While reading I read information around emotion, life milestones, views of childhood and adulthood, aging, most important the psychology behind lifespan development.  A couple words of week one's reading that seemed to stick with me was the random quotes spread out throughout the chapter, motivational life quotes to inspire a reader or to simply keep thumb of wise words. "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." -Lewis Carroll found on the bottom of page 6, in LIFE SMART.  Another one that reflected off of my life thus far was "development reflects this underlying assumption of change".  (Life Smart, Fiore) This stuck with me because of the word assumption.. we mental think of change, but the question is 'are we really doing it?, change that is'.  Assumption is key to this line of change and development in movement of aging.

This quote brings me to connect with the short video watched; Mobius Strip by Parker J. Palmer.  The analysis of this small strip of paper that was put into thought of ones onstage life and backstage life.  I can relate from a point and time while in college while considering the thought of what others thought of me.  As a year or so went on through college I noticed my changes developing through my mind were changing.  After watching this video I know that my backstage life transformed into my onstage life because I began to be comfortable with myself.  Even though you are transforming and developing new feedback you get from your personal thoughts daily.  Your backstage life is who I believe you truly are.

I completely agree that it is hard to merge the inner and outer self of one.  As shown in the video it is very easy to bend the strip into a circle and combine both once your mind is flexible enough to do so.  I never thought about our thoughts in a flexible strip form, after watching this explains more clear to me how our cycle of comfort and thoughts start.  This video is also a new interesting way to teach young or adult students a new way to merge the inner self(who you know you really are inside) and the outer self(who you appear to others) it is always nice to have something visual while learning something new.