0-8 Months

How does your baby’s eating, sleeping and motor development compare to the typical developmental patterns?

At first, she wasn’t very hungry and lost a bit of weight, but rebounded pretty quick. Her eating is similar to the patterns of a newborn. Seven was occasionally fussy but we just kept our regular routine and she was fine. She spent most of her time sleeping, similar to other babies at this age. Her sleep pattern is similar to babies at this age, down a couple of hours and then waking up. She goes back to sleep after a little relaxing music or gentle rocking. By 8 months, her motor skills include crawling, sitting up and playing like most other babies at this age. Her gross and fine motor skills are a little behind and the doctor wants more one on one motor skills play.

At 8 months of age was your child an “easy”, “slow-to-warm-up”, or “difficult” baby in terms of Thomas and Chess’s classic temperamental categories?

On what do you base this judgement? She is a “slow-to-warm-up” child. She is a bit clingy and doesn’t really accept new situations. She is content with us but hesitant with others. Seven has typical emotional reactions for her age, such as fear of strangers, separation anxiety and crying when upset.

How is your child’s attachment to you and your partner developing? What is happening at the 3-month and 8-month periods that might affect attachment security according to Bowlby and Ainsworth, and various research studies?

Seven is comfortable with her father but seems to want to be with me primarily (especially when she’s upset.) Because we popped up every time Seven seemed slightly uncomfortable, we feel that we are to blame for the sheltered attachment. During the “attachment-in-the-making” phase, Seven developed a preference for me over others. She does not care for it when I leave her with her grandmother, this is separation anxiety and normal for this age.

Describe and give examples of changes in your child’s exploratory or problem solving behavior from 8 through 18 months and categorize them according to Piagetian and information processing theories. Note that 8 months is included, so you’ll need to use the time-line to look back at 8 months for examples.

Seven was a very active crawler at 8 months, at home, not so much at the doctor’s office. I encouraged more crawling by allowing her free roam of our home. Seven is able to find a hidden object,(object permanence) as long as we don’t distract her while she’s looking for it. If we change up the hiding place she will still want to look in the previous hiding place. This curious error was first discover by Piaget. She wasn’t able to walk, but she could almost stand on her own. She was able to imitate new words at 12 months. Seven now clearly understands a couple of dozen words. In fact, Seven pronounced her first clear word and pointed at the object in question. At 18 months, Seven was a little above for her age. She built a block tower to model one made by the examiner. At the 19-month assessment, she was again behind in gross motor skills. That just meant more gym time. Seven was able to concentrate very well during all of the informal testing, and if this continues, she will be more than ready for preschool-type activities, which require children to stay on task or remain in “group time” for 10-15 minutes.

Analyze your baby’s temperament in more detail at 18 months than you did at 8 months. How would you describe your baby in terms of the five aspects of temperament utilized by the Virtual Child program (activity, sociability, emotionality, aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, and self-control)? Has your baby’s temperament been stable over the first 18 months?

A blurb defining and providing examples of the five aspects of temperament is provided at 12 months, but you should seek out further explanations of temperament from your textbook. Explain how the concept of goodness of fit (also discussed in the blurb on infant temperament) applies to your interactions with your child. Activity- Seven’s activity level was normal. She had an incredible drive to use her motor skills. She often took on problems too difficult for her age. This was consistent with her disposition when she was younger. She was shy during her assessments, but at home was very active, and grew up to be very active and quite talkative.
Sociability- Seven was a bit of an introvert. She was talkative at home, but there were few adults that she was comfortable with, and would become upset by new situations. She was very shy in new situations and around new people.
Emotionality- Seven’s range of emotions seemed to decrease from 9 months to 18. She seemed to be emotionally solid. She played well with others until one of the other children wanted to take her toys.
Aggressiveness v. Cooperativeness- Seven was not aggressive at the assessment, unless another child tried to take a toy from her. She was cooperative with the examiner.
Self-Control- There are no issues with self-control.

Were you surprised by anything in the developmental assessment at 19 months? That is, does your perception of your child’s physical, cognitive, language and social development differ from that of the developmental examiner? Give specific examples. If you were not surprised, write instead about some aspects of your child’s development that need the most work.

We were told at the assessment that while she was advanced in fine motor skills and problem solving abilities she was behind (again) in gross motor skills. Seven scored above average in all aspects of language development, and is ready to be read aloud to more frequently, as she can follow typical story lines. We are going to continue to introduce Seven to new situations and new people and try to work on the shyness just a bit. If she is introverted, so be it…
2 years:

Have there been any environmental events in your child’s first 2 ½ years that you think might have influenced his or her behavior? On what do you base your hypotheses?

Nothing out of the ordinary has influenced our child. We have a normal home life and introduce her to situations with us by her side. We have gotten her around to new people and children around her own age. We allow her to have a bit more freedom. We show her that there are limits and consequences. I understand her reactions and allow her to feel comfortable but at times push her to step out of her comfort zone while being supervised. I base this hypotheses on watching her around other children. It is a fine line to walk as a parent having to supervise but not hover. Help without completing the task and allow freedom to find out consequences.

How is your child progressing on the typical toddler issues, such as learning household rules, learning to follow routines, listening to you, developing self-control and learning to get along with other children?

While playing with a group of children, Seven was timid at first, but she spent a few minutes watching other kids play before she joined in. She was not aggressive, but sometimes would say “Mine!” when other kids wanted to play with her toy. Seven learned to get along with other children by smiling and giving up the toy. (Not sure if that is going along to get along) Seven is toilet-trained now. We have rules and make her use her words when wanting something. We still have to work with Seven on the gross motor skills (more gym time.)

Analyze your own parenting philosophy and practices. What principles from social learning theory, Bowlby, Ainsworth, Piaget, Vygotsky, information processing theory, developmental neuroscience and other theories do you appear to have relied on in making your parenting choices or interpreting your child’s behavior? Include three principles/theorists from the above list in your answer.

Different situations call for different theories. We used Skinner’s example of operant conditioning, providing positive reinforcement when she used the toilet. For the fine motor skills, we used Bandura’s modeling giving on problem solving. We also implemented Ainsworth’s Attachment Theory. Seven is clingy and feels uncomfortable in some situations that she is placed in. We will continue to work on this.