RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

Lifespan Development Writing Assignment 1: Observation of a Child

Following the American Psychological Associations Guidelines
Kayla Morgan Stone
Ivy Tech Community College

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

During the week of February 16, 2015 I conducted a psychological observation of a nineyear-old female, who for the purposes of confidentiality will be referred to as Kate. During the
time frame of this observation, Kate was observed in her most natural setting, interacting at
home with her family. Kate is a Caucasian child of a middle-class socioeconomic background.
She attends fourth grade at a local private school in central Ohio and lives with her father,
John, and her older sister, Sam. From my understanding, Kate and Sam have been raised
independently by John for the last five years due to the death of the girls mother.
My decision to observe Kate was initially based upon my interest in becoming better
acquainted with her home-culture so that I could provide her with effective after-school care. I
was first acquainted with Kate two weeks ago after following up with a peer reference which
informed me of Johns need for stable after-school caregiver for Kate a few days each week. I
rationalized that by observing Kate interact within her home setting I would gain a better insight
towards effectively responding to her temperament during future care-giving sessions. My
secondary motive for selecting Kate for this observation stemmed from my interest in observing
the family culture of a single-father family.
The majority of my observation time consisted of observing Kate come home from
school and participate in her everyday evening rituals of homework, play, and sporting activities.
While participating in each of these activities, the most noticeable quality of Kate appears to be
her maintenance of a characteristically well-developed self-concept. Her positive self-concept is
best evidenced academically by her careful attention to the praises and critiques written by her
teacher every day in a take-home agenda for parental review. While completing her homework
with her father, she is easily able to reflect upon the coursework she completed for the day and
make connections between what she learned earlier in class, and what her homework

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

assignments are asking of her. Kates father uses the feedback from her take-home agenda to
promote her self-concept by reminding her that she has made improvements on various tasks, or
to demonstrate that she is undergoing a positive shift towards mastering a given skill.
As I observed Kate complete her homework each night, I noted that she currently is
working to master the skills associated with learning her multiplication tables. From what I could
observe, she seems to be making average progress in learning her multiplication tables, but from
time to time she significantly struggles with multiplying numbers greater than six. However,
whenever she would start to struggle with multiplying larger pairs of numbers, she would pull
out the multiplication flash cards her teacher sent home with her for review. In order for her to
achieve maximum review efficiency, she would ask her older sister, Sam to act as her coach in
memorizing the multiplication cards.
To best examine Kates cognitive process while competing her homework assignments,
one might choose to view Kates academic prowess through a lens reflective of Lev Vygotskys
theory of the zone of proximal development for learners, which details that a childs zone of
proximal development is the area most-optimal for expert-guided learning (McLeod, 2010).
Vygotsky best asserted through his theory of the zone of proximal development that the most
effective way for learning to develop is through the encouragement of peer interaction, which
Kate distinctively modeled with her sister while reviewing her multiplication tables (McLeod,
2010). Additionally, Kates astounding capability for self-directed learning is predominantly
reinforced through Jerome Brunners theory of instructional scaffolding, which mirrors
Vygotskys theory of proximal development by establishing learning as a concept best perfected
through the provision of positive environmental forces and academic tools best-fit for the learner
(McLeod, 2008). In the instance of Kate reviewing her multiplication tables, her older sister

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

acting as her academic coach demonstrates the presence and effectiveness of scaffolding within
her learning environment, because her sisters academic instruction was complemented by the
usage of the multiplication cards as a learning tool to help Kate overcome her difficulty in
learning multiplication.
Naturally, while observing Kate I carefully monitored her temperament in relevance to
interactions with her father, John, to gauge probable manifestations of her psychosocial
development. In terms of parenting style, John appears to abide by what child psychologist,
Diana Baumrind would classify as authoritative parenting, which denotes that he is a parent who
expects maturity, but implements rules with an attitude conscious of flexibility and reason.
(Grobman, 2008). In accordance to the psychosocial successes of Johns parenting style with
Kate, I was ultimately surprised when she received a time-out at school for talking during class,
and at home did not hesitate to tell her father about her wrong doing. I feel that Johns
authoritative parenting style has facilitated an astounding open-flow of communication between
him and Kate, as she appears to be comfortable discussing any personal shortcomings upfront
with her father because his parenting methodology leads him to respond to her in a constructive
manner.
Johns supportive relationship as both a mother and a father figure to Kate has also
manifested itself psychosocially in her disposition relevant towards developing gender. Unlike
most girls her age, Kate does not appear to be fixated upon engaging in methods of play relevant
only to at-home life or fairy tales. Instead, she seem to act with an open minded attitude towards
accepting ideas and playtime-roles suited for either boys or girls, which I mostly attribute to her
observations of her father happily maintaining traditionally masculine and feminine roles in the
absence of the her mother. While she was playing with her toys, I carefully observed the sort of

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

play scenarios she would engage her dolls in, and interestingly enough I observed that she had
constructed a play environment where both her male and female dolls were at the same time
occupying roles of mommys and mechanics, just like daddy, as Kate described. One might
infer that Kates alternative attitudes towards gender norms appear to be a manifestation of some
of the formulating components of Albert Banduras social learning theory, which models that a
childs social attitudes are greatly influenced by what they can imitate from the behaviors
reinforced through parental modeling (McLeod, 2011).
Kates alternative ideations of gender norms also appear to manifest themselves in her
interactions with peers. On the second evening that I spent with Kate, she attended junior co-ed
hockey practice in the community recreational center. While watching Kate practice with her
predominantly male teammates, surprisingly I did not observe any reinforcement of genderprejudice that could have been held against her for being one of the only females on the team.
Instead, it seemed relatively easy for Kate and her male-counterparts to play together in a
respectful manner. While inside the rink, Kate seemed to easily follow the directions of her coach
and communicate small plays with her teammates effectively. Cognitively, this demonstrates
Kates formative beginnings of understanding what psychologist Mildred Parten, referred to as
cooperative play (Parten, 1932). While maintaining a positive flow of communication and
teamwork with her teammates in the hockey rink, Kate is actively participating in the principles
of cooperative play relevant to the maintenance of skills such as negotiation, turn-taking, and
group-based problem solving.
In final reflection of my observation of Kate, I would assert that what I have learned the
most is the critical role that family dynamics plays in the overall temperament of a child. Most
explicitly, Kates self-driven and gender-balanced personality is a direct bi-product of the

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

situational nature of her single-parent family dynamic. Overall, Kate appears to maintain an
easygoing temperament, accompanied by prominent cognitive ability in areas of self-directed
learning; and psychosocial development in the areas of communication, teamwork, and
examinations of social/moral behaviors.

RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION OF A CHILD

References

Grobman, K. (2008, N.A.). Diana Baumrind's 1966 prototypical descriptions of 3 parenting

styles. Retrieved from http://www.devpsy.org/teaching/parent/baumrind_styles.html

McLeod, S. (2008, N.A..) Bruner. Retrieved from

http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html

McLeod, S. (2010, N.A.). Zone of proximal development. Retrieved from

http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html

McLeod, S. (2011, N.A.) Bandura social learning theory. Retrieved from

http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html

Parten, M. (1932, October 6). Social participation among pre-school children. The
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 243-269. Retrieved from
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/27/3/243/