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First Two Years: Psychosocial Development
Newborns only show the emotions of distress or content, but as they grow older their emotions become more complex. By six weeks, babies develop social smiles, and by three months laughter and curiosity develop. I had a big social smile when I was little, and I laughed often because I was a very happy and social child. -
First Two Years: Body and Mind
Gross motor skills are the larger body movements that young children begin making, and these movements progress in a certain order. During the development of gross motor skills in the sensorimotor stage, I tried to go out of order in the development of bigger movements by attempting to walk before I could crawl. My mother had to stop me and force me to participate in "tummy time" to learn how to crawl first. -
Early Childhood: Psychosocial Development
Sociodramatic play allows children to act out different roles, themes, and storylines in stories that they create. This helps children practice social roles, explanation skills, and regulating emotions. When I was little, I would dress up in different fairy or princess costumes and pretend I was the character I was dressing up as, and make up stories to match what I was doing. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
Aggression is an anti-social behavior that often declines with emotional and social maturation. Reactive aggression is a form of retaliatory aggression that is often impulsive and is a reaction to another child's aggression. In my daycare, there was a girl I was friends with that would bite me. I demonstrated the development of reactive aggression by impulsively biting her back for revenge. This aggression occurred before moral development had fully taken place. -
Middle Childhood: Social World
A nuclear family is the immediate family consisting of two parents and their children. My family consists of my mother, my father, my brother, and me. My parents have a strong parental alliance, and this helped them raise my brother and I well because they were on the same page when it came to discipline, control, and making decisions together. -
Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development
Measuring a child's mind often includes taking tests that examine their ability to learn, what they know, and how they think. My Gardner intelligence type and IQ were both measured as a part of JCS's Quest Program for gifted children. -
Adolescence: Cognitive Development
Egocentrism is thinking about oneself to the exclusion of others, or holding a self-centered belief despite little evidence supporting it. As a girl who had gone through puberty early, I was constantly thinking I had an imaginary audience that was judging me for my acne, my height, and my socially awkward behaviors. I was extremely self-conscious and had low self-esteem, and did not realize that nobody else was thinking about me in those ways. -
Adolescence: Social World
Peer pressure is the influence that adolescents have on each other, and it can be positive or negative. I have peer pressured many of my friends into making more positive, moral decisions. I have tried to persuade them to pursue maturity rather than pettiness, and try to be a good influence on them and warn them away from the bad influences.