My Childhood Observation

For my childhood observation study, I chose to ask one of my sister's friend for permission to study her daughter. My sister's friend daughter, who I will continue to refer to as D, is a very active 5-year-old African -American girl who is in kindergarten, she is normal height and weight, about 45 pounds, with dark brown hair, and eyes. Her primary language is English, and her Secondary language is Haitian Creole. She is the only child of her young adult parents. D's parents are not married but my sister's friend insists that being married has nothing to do with raising a child and that they are doing just fine. Both of D's parents are currently attending college and working full time to provide a good life for their daughter. As you can imagine,

During my observation time, I wanted to see if D is on the right track in her child development regarding her motor skills, language, cognitive, psychosocial, adaptive skills. It was around 4:00 p.m. when I started to observe her. I watched her in her home after school. Upon entering her house, I watched her working on her homework assignment. She was tracing shapes with a pen, she was able to hold the pen in her hand in trace the circle lines on the worksheet. After tracing the circle, she was able to cut out the circle and glue it to another piece of paper. She then colored the circle with the correct color that was asked for and matches the shapes. After she was done with her homework we went to her playroom where she showed me how she could skip and stand on one leg. Her physical development is good for her age. Her language skills are also on track, she is very talkative for a 5-year-old and very smart. After playtime, we sat at a blue table to read one of her favorite book "The Berenstain Bears." She was able to tell me what the story was about since she had read it multiple time before. She is able to speak clear long sentence's. She told me a story about how her

She knows how to use home appliances like the microwave, fridge, and the bathroom. She girl another shower and dress on her own and use the toilet without the help of her parents or caregiver. However, she does struggle a bit when it comes to buttoning up her shirt and tying her shoe properly. Her social and emotional skills are not well developed. During playtime at school, she doesn't like to share her toys with her friends. I was told that she is aggressive to her surroundings, she would hit her classmate when things don't go her way. Her teacher punished her by making her put back all her toys in the bin and have her sit until she learned how to share and stop being aggressive to her classmates. Her teacher uses operant conditioning, operant conditioning according to Skinner is "the best way to understand behavior is by looking at the causes of an action and its consequences"(Saul McLeod). This helps to reduce D’s aggressive behavior because she doesn't like to be taken away from her toys. This also teaches her how to be nice to others and how to share. Because D is the only child it can be difficult getting along with other kids. According to the birth order theory, Adler suggests that "the order in which children are born into a family will mold and affect their personalities."(classmate). Because D is the only child she is self-centered, can be spoiled, and she missed out on social skills learned by sibling