Personal Narrative: My Virtual Mother

The internet can be a dangerous place and then again there are millions of children and teens roaming it freely. Coben states that “Trust is one thing, but surrendering parental responsibility to the machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence ” (6). I agree with Coben because many teens could/are

Written by former NPR correspondent, Mary Louise Kelly, the story is interesting and kept my attention, however, I would not say it was heart-pounding.

As a mother of three school-aged children, I assumed this my virtual child project would be redundant. Naturally, I thought what could this project teach me about parenting that I did not already know. Consequently, as it turns out, there are a lot of things I did not know or wish I had known before I became a mom. I assumed the My Virtual Child project would be unrealistic and lacking in real life situations. Consequently, the program turned out to be exciting and very realistic. This paper will discuss my virtual child experiment including my daughter, parenting skills, and overall course reflections.

I chose to counsel a 3/C midshipmen who is in my squad this semester. As a fire team leader I have been fortunate to have been given many opportunities to counsel numerous midshipmen in my fire team. After my initial counseling session with the 3/C, I was able to figure out the basics such as, CQPR, ECA, aptitude, conduct grade. When this assignment presented itself to me I realized that I could use this to make significant strides on this particular 3/C midshipmen. I had decided to peruse this 3/C because her conduct and aptitude grade had fallen significantly since last semester. It was apparent that she had been struggling, so I decided to counsel her to help her get back on a successful track. Since the beginning of plebe year this midshipmen was not only loved by her classmates, but she excelled in sports and stayed out of trouble; however, this semester was quite the opposite. I chose to rectify or rather help the 3/C guide herself

In Margret Atwood’s “Lusus Naturae,” set in the 1800’s, a period where a multitude of people remained annexed by those they loved due to ailments that were deemed uncommon; to illustrate this phenomenon Atwood engages us through the intertwining story, told by the protagonist, who is kept unnamed. The protagonist is not only affected by her physical disease, but also the psychological affects from remaining isolated from her community. The tale is crafted to criticize how severely society treats others in the face of diversity and disability. The protagonist not only accepts the abuse, but she also agrees with it because instead of viewing herself as someone who has worth, she only sees herself as an inhuman burden. Through obstacles our narrator faces, because of her disease, we can see how truly cruel society can be. Atwood calls the audience’s attention toward the damaging behavior demonstrated by the community of the healthy population when faced with someone with disability due to no fault of their own.

In this digital age, parents, instead of installing invasive software to monitor their children’s online activity, should develop open and trusting relationships with their children, as this is the best way to guard their kids against potential dangers and respect their kids privacy.

Within Ellison’s article, she depicts an unfortunate scenario that the majority of parents are significantly apprehensive about, their own child being exposed to the negative realm of the internet world. Ellison

Karta is a 12 year old African American girl, who has experienced a long history of trauma. She was referred to me by her school social worker Ms. Johnson who reports that she has academic problems, severe inattention, hyperactivity, physical violent tantrums and is disrespectful to her peers and teachers.

Author Peggy Orenstein discusses how the internet, particularly social media sources, has an influence in the lives of young women. Orenstein focuses on the topic of sexting and whether it is considered freedom of expression and sexual power or cultural abuse. Sexting has been a taboo conversation point among society. They believe that it isn’t something to be discussed, just something that you should already know. Unfortunately, not educating young people about the damaging effects of sexting yields irrevocable results. In the essay, Orenstein includes a harsh statistic about sexting, which states: “…39 percent of teens had sent or posted sexually suggestive messages (or “sexts”).” (p. 450) I believe that this percentage is so high because sexting has become another way for men to objectify women.

Sciences and technologies have improved many aspects of human lives. But as technologies are developing to be more and more advanced, science can be a deadly subject to us as well. Some writers have taken this idea and expanded on this theme of how science is deadly. In this essay I will discuss how this theme is explored in the texts: the novel Unwind written by Neal Shusterman, the film Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol, following the short texts There Will Come Soft Rains and The Veldt written by Ray Bradbury.

Privacy has become a huge issue as people still debate whether they want privacy or protection. And one of the debate is argued by Coben, the author of “The Undercover Parent”. Coben thinks that the concern for the security of children overrides their right to their privacy. But, I disagree because violating the children’s privacy would also involve violating many innocent kids’ privacy rights even when there are alternative ways to protect them from harm. And because of this, parent become the “faceless bureaucracy” as they monitor and dictate over the child’s life.

Introduction (reveal): Native American culture has always been an interest of mine. Since my beginning with the Boy Scouts of America on my path to Eagle Scout, I have come closer to the dense but often forgotten history of the First Nation people of America. Upon joining the Order of the Arrow, the BSA’s honor society centered around Native American virtues and beliefs, I have continued to take it upon myself to learn more about the long forgotten Native history. While I knew about the general struggles the Native Americans faced as “white man” invaded the unharnessed Western frontier, I had not learned about the specific catalyzing incidents that caused such conflict and suffered between these two cultures. While searching through topics like native music and combat, I knew I needed an event that sparked the rift between these two types of people, growing U.S. government and early

Nature versus nurture debate. By: García, Justin D., PhD, Salem Press Encyclopedia, January, 2017. Retrieved from: https://content.ashford.edu/

The 1800’s marked the foundation of modern era studies of child development. Prior, children were viewed as inherently evil (original sin view) and at some point as “a blank blanket” that inherits characteristics through child experiences (tabula rasa view) (Santrock, 2011). Comprehending child development is a pivotal aspect of Child and Youth Development (CYD). With an understanding of child development, Child and Youth Care (CYC) workers can improve their approaches to children. For the purpose of this essay, a child developmental theory will be referred to as an approach and development will be defined as “the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the life span” (Santrock, 2011, pp.6). This essay

Throughout this course of four weeks, my perspective of child development has changed drastically in this short amount of time. This was my first class that was related to child development and there was a lot of material that was important to learn and understand. I came to this class with not much knowledge, but I am definitely leaving this class with an abundance of information that I will be able to use in my career or just in general.