Week four: Elliott: Reflection

After reading chapter 6 in the Lifesmart text, I found the different types of parenting styles on page 142, to be interesting. I was drawn to this because of a conversation I had recently with one of my clients,Tony  who was talking to me about how his girlfriend is raising her children and how he does not agree with her style of parenting. She uses permissive parenting, she rarely punishes he children for bad behavior. The kids are very disrespectful to her and other adults. Tony would like to step in and be a father figure and try to help parent her children but he would use a much different style of parenting. He would be an authoritarian parent. He believes that the adult should make all of the decisions and the child should have complete respect for their elders. 

In chapter 7 of the Lifesmart text I was interested to learn more about attention disorders. On page 160 they explain Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) as a common diagnosis for children who are easily distracted, seem to fidget, and have a hard time focusing.  This is a very common disorder that I have heard about for years. People talk about ADHD and ADD very often. I never really thought of this to be a serious condition until I started working at the Special Rec. center and I met a participant that has severe ADHD, although medication can help him a bit, he can not focus on anything for longer than a few minutes and is very hyperactive. Since meeting him I realized that this is much more serious that I had thought it was. Like the text on page 160 says, medication helps as well as a strict behavioral plan. To help him stay calm he focuses his energy on crossword puzzles, he can finish a whole book in one day.  

Week Three:Elliott: Reflection on Chapters 3-5

Week three's readings really caught my attention. It's very interesting to learn about how human life begins. I was drawn to many of the facts in the chapters. From the first few sentences of chapter 3 ,on page 55, I was fascinated to learn that at conception we were smaller than the size of the period at the end of this sentence. After learning that the genotype is our genetic makeup that cannot be seen by the naked eye I started to think about the traits that I have inherited from each of my parents. The phenotype, or observable traits that I inherited like my hair and eye color I believe are more from my dad. The statement on page 55 of the Lifesmart text,"When you look around a room full of people,it may appear that everyone is vastly different from each other,but the amount of genetic material shared between human beings is astounding - approximately 99.1%". This is so interesting to me, I would have imagined it would have been much more considering everything from height,weight,hair color,skin color, eye color, etc.  

After Reading about the different types of hereditary disorders I made a connection to my life because I volunteer at a facility for adults with special needs. Many of the participants have Down syndrome, learning more about how this disorder began from the start will help me to better understand the characteristics of their disability.

On page 119, I read an interesting point of view on whether language is a biological,innate ability that all humans possess or if it is learned through interactions in the environment. I had never really thought about this before but after reading this I was interested in what people believe about this idea. I believe that environment plays a huge role in the development of language. I think that the more books and language support material a child has the better the development of their language will be. I think that we may pick up some biological abilities that my help with language development like being able to speak multiple languages or being able to read quickly.

There were many interesting facts in chapters 3-5 in the Lifesmart text. I am excited to see what we will learn about lifespan development in the stages after infancy.

Week Two:Elliott: Reflection on Chapter 2

After reading chapter 2 of the Lifesmart text, I gained a better understanding as to why we study so many different theories.  Before reading the chapter, I felt that it wasn't too important to learn about all of the different theories because none of them can be proven. There are many different theorists in this chapter that express different ideas. I enjoyed reading about how they each believe humans develop. Overall whether their theories are true or not I believe it is important to study their work. 

One major reason I found studying theories to be important is that it helps to explain how findings may be interpreted.  On page 28 of the Lifesmart text, Fiore states that studying theories is important to help explain how findings may be interpreted because they offer a detailed guide that leads us to decide which facts are important and what conclusions we can draw. As stated in the text, " Theories allow people to make predictions about people's behavior." I agree, it is helpful to have statistics to base information off of. This allows us to make more accurate predictions. 

A theorist I found interesting is Sigmund Freud. Fiore says, Sigmund Freud has earned the title "father of modern psychology" Freud's psychoanalytic theory is the belief that we possess powerful ideas and impulses of which we are unaware of but exert a strong influence on our behavior. I agree with Freud's theory, I believe that we all unconsciously express ourselves without even realizing it. I was interested while reading about the Freudian Stages of Development on page 30 of the Lifesmart text. I do not have any children of my own, but I babysit children of all ages. Recently I have been watching a one month old and a sixteen month old. After reading about the stages of development I can relate to seeing the stages of development change as the child grows. As he explains the pleasure center in stage one is the oral cavity, the child's main goal is to eat,bite,and suck. In stage two their main focus is to learn to be toilet trained. I have watched the children that I babysit grow I now realize the importance of these stages of development. 

Another theorist that I enjoyed reading about was B.F. Skinner. He believed that reinforcement is very important. On page 39 of the Lifesmart text Fiore explains that Skinner stressed that consequences of behavior. He used positive and negative reinforcement to make responses more likely and better control behavior. I can relate to this theory because I use positive and negative reinforcement at the adult day program that I volunteer for. I work with adults with special needs. We have to use positive and negative reinforcement to help control their behaviors.  For example, when a participant acts out by swearing or talking negatively to one of their peers/staff members then their consequence is to not be able to participate in fun activities (sports,crafts,cooking, etc.)  This technique seems to work in a positive way, the participants know the expectations and how they are supposed to behave. Knowing that if they follow the rules they will be rewarded helps to teach them how to act appropriately. 

This chapter has given me a better understanding of the different theories of lifespan development. There are certain parts from each theorist that I found to be very interesting. I am excited to learn more about human development.  

Weel One:Elliott: Reflection

Week One Reflection

After watching the Words of Encouragement video on the Mobius strip I was very interested in the way that Parker J. Palmer used a strip of paper to explain life. As Palmer uses a simple piece of paper he describes how a person can be worried about their "on stage" lives and "backstage lives". One side of the paper being "on-stage" and the other side being "backstage". He talks about the differences between the two. The "on stage" life is how concerned we are with the outside world. Palmer uses ego as an example to describe how we my use our "on stage" life. To describe our " backstage life" we consider aspects such as, intuition, instinct, and values.

As he uses the piece of paper to demonstrate the inner and outer aspects of life he turns one side of the paper in to connect the paper to the other end to create the Mobius strip. This model shows hows the "on-stage" life and "backstage" life coincide with each other to create our lives. The Mobius strip really gives a great visual. 

I can relate to the Mobius strip in my lifetime when I was really young I didn't really express my "backstage" life. I was shy and did not share a lot with any friends or family.   It took me awhile to be able to express myself and how I truly wanted to live my life.Like most people, as we grow older we learn how to combine the two sides to form a Mobius strip.

After reading chapter one of the Lifesmart text I have a new understanding of lifespan development. On page 5 Fiore, states " Lifespan development refers to an examination of the biological, cognitive/psychological, and social changes that occur over the course of a human life."  I think it is really important for everyone to study lifespan development. I think learning about life and the change we all go though would help people to be more understanding of other peoples lives. 

On page 13 of the Lifesmart text, the statement, "Biological processes range from the role of genes to adult health concerns; psychological processes include all aspects of cognitive and personality development." This statement really made me relate to the group of people that I work with. I volunteer at a day program for special needs adults. Many of which have psychological/cognitive disabilities.  When we go out in public it bothers me to see how many people are ignorant to them because of their differences. I think it is important for everyone to learn about the development of life and how to interact appropriately with people that may be different from themselves.