Your name: ( Beatriz Garcia de Ackermann)

CHILD 210 Unit 3: Reflective Journal Questions

1. Should children be allowed to eat only when they want or does that
encourage picky eating?
a Speaking from personal experience, my parents made only a few dishes as
my siblings and I grew up due to their busy work schedules. Because of
this, I really was only accustomed to the foods my parents would give me
and I refused to eat anything I wasn’t familiar with. Honestly, it took me
until I was 18 years old before I started giving unfamiliar foods a chance.
2. Why are children so rigid about routines, preferences, and wanting
things just right? Can you think of examples from your own family?
a Children are so rigid about routine, preferences, and wanting things just
right because most children have obsessive compulsive disorder. (OCD) At
age three, this pathological disorder may fade but sometimes will stay with
children throughout their lives. To be honest, I can’t remember wanting
things just right. But I do remember not wanting to cut my own waffles
because I did it wrong and my dad did it right.
3. Why do we develop left/right preferences? Would there be danger in
having no preference or forcing a child to switch?
a Developing left/right preferences is mainly due to genetics. 1 in 10
children are left handed. My second to last brother is left-handed, and he’s
the only one out of seven kids. While it is possible to forcibly attempt to
change a child from their preferred hand, this change will not be
permanent. Your brain is still hard wired to be what your preference is.
4. Why do young children overreact and get stuck on ideas so often
(impulsiveness, preservation)? How would you explain the response
of the girl in the video regarding her own birthday party? Can you
think of any examples like this from your own family?
a This is due to immaturity of the prefrontal cortex. Young children are
impulsive and cannot stick to one activity. They can be stubborn and stuck
on one thought or idea, completely unable to move on from it. Children
that young do not have a balance of these things. The little girl from the
video reacted the way she did because of perseverance. My mom runs a
day care, and this is behavior that we see every single day from the
children, all who are under the age of five.
5. How and why does the ability to skip change from age three to age six?
Why are fine motor skills even less developed than gross motor skills?
a The motor skills of a growing child will improve dramatically. At three
years old, a child cannot skip due to a lack of balance, coordination, and
shorter legs. But by six years old, a child not only has more brain
maturation, balance and coordination, but they have longer legs to skip!
Fine motor skills are harder to master because they require the muscular
control, patience, and judgment that two-year old don’t have.
6. Children’s gross motor skills advance greatly during the early
childhood. View the video segments in the Improved Motor Skills.
Identify four examples of gross motor skills that a five-year old child
could do, but a three-year-old child could generally not do.
a Four things a five-year-old can do that three-year-old can’t:
1) Skipping
2) Hopping on one foot
3) Patting head while tilted
4) Monkey bars
7. What are red flags that might suggest abuse or neglect? When should
it be reported?
a Signs of abuse may be: slow physical growth, lack of appetite, continual
physical complaints (stomachaches, headaches, genital pains), bullying,
frequent absence from school, presence of caregiver brings out expressions
of fear from child, etc., injuries don’t fit ‘accidental’ explanations, the way
they play reveals violent themes, etc.
8. When do you talk to yourself? Is it an easy or complex task? Is it a
common or new experience? How does it help you (scaffolding)?
a I talk to myself more than I’d like. It’s usually because I am in a good mood
and (because of my ADD) my mind is moving so fast that I have to talk out
loud in order to organize my thoughts. It’s something I have done my
whole life.
9. What evidence do you find for Piaget and Vygotsky's theories in these
children's understanding of birthdays?
a When describing their birthday parties, each child used stories to explain
things. In Video B, the little boy answered the question with a long story
about his idea for his next birthday party. Children develop theories about
thing and don’t always know the “why”.
10. In the absence of logical answers, young children use magical
thinking to create explanations (theory-theory) for events. How might
a three-year-old explain why clouds move?
a When I was younger, I wasn’t aware that clouds could move. Honestly I
didn’t know that until I was 8 years old. A child might think that someone
is blowing them to make them move. In a similar situation, for as long as I
can remember, I believed that the moon followed me because we were best
friends and it liked to see me, to make sure that I was okay.
11. Is teaching young children a second language a help or a hindrance to
overall language development? Why?
a Teaching children a second language is great! Being bilingual can be very
helpful in their lives. However, if the child does not fluently speak the
main language of the country they live in, studies and situations have
shown that the child will struggle. It can lower their self-esteem when they
do not communicate well with others who fluently speak the main
language, and it can affect future employment.
12.Are the mother's goals appropriate for her child? What philosophy
and characteristics would you want in a preschool program for your
child? Why?
 a Not only are her goals inappropriate, the mother’s goals are unrealistic.
While a child may learn to potty-train or possibly read at three years old, it
is pointless and rather unfair to make a toddler learn multiplication. Plus,
daily schedules, while helpful if followed loosely, can actually limit a
child’s natural rate of growth. I think that pushing your child can have very
bad repercussions on your child’s self-esteem and their relationship with
you. My mom runs a daycare and in her preschool program, she teaches
numbers, shapes, months, seasons, phonics, and virtues like patience,
friendliness, compassion, and more. That’s the kind of preschool I would
want for my child. A gentle learning environment where learning is a fun,
educational experience instead of a stressful one.
13.What were your fears as a child? Why are they more common in
childhood? What should parents do about childhood fears?
a Fears are common in childhood because children are uncertain and
unknowledgeable about life. As a three-year-old, I remember believing
that if my toys and I were not completely covered by blankets when it was
dark, then aliens would take us. I was also afraid of being kidnapped by a
stranger, disobeying my parents, and the sounds in animated company
logo scenes before and at the end of movies. Parents just need to be patient
and produce ways to solve or deal with these fears. For instance, with
three-year-old-me, my parents could have come in and sprayed a water
bottle around the room and called it “Anti-Alien Spray”. That can help kids
to help themselves to feel safe.
a P.S. My parents can’t be blamed for not helping me because I never told
them about things that bothered me growing up.
14.Nearly all parents in the western society desire their children to have
high self-esteem. President Faust spoke highly on appropriate self-
esteem. What is the difference between self-esteem as defined by
President Faust and self-esteem as conceived by the self-esteem
movement?
a Healthy self-esteem is knowing who you are and loving yourself. However,
nowadays, parents are going to an extreme to try and secure their child’s
self-esteem, but they are actually training their children to be selfish,
irresponsible, and disobedient.
15.How was rough and tumble play or sociodramatic play manifested in
your family experience?
a I was raised in a family of mainly boys, so we always played rough with
fake karate chops, pretending to beat Dad up, and wrestling. As we got
older and gender roles were a little more defined, my sister and I turned
more to sociodramatic play with baby dolls, playing house with friends,
and other family-themed ways to play.
16.What are the parenting styles of a prophet? (1 Nephi 8:35-38)
a When Lehi sees that his oldest sons have chosen not to partake of the fruit,
he gently counsels them and lovingly extends his advice. He teaches them
what he has learned and what is righteous. But ultimately, he knows that
his sons’ choices are their own. They can exercise their agency however
they choose to, although he hopes and prays for a righteous outcome.
17. What is the displacement hypothesis of media (clue: Dr. Larry Rosen,
is too much media making our kids sick)? Does this seem true in your
own life?
a Media has proven to affect children in these negative ways: leads to
obesity, can cause kids to get sicker, affects the minds of children, etc.
a I think media is definitely a gift from our Heavenly Father. It is a tool that
can be used for goodness and knowledge. However, it can also be a tool
manipulated by the adversary to lead us to procrastination, gluttony,
laziness, and worse. In my life, media has been a wonderful, helpful tool.
But I’ve also seen the dark side of it, (time-waster sites, easily accessible
pornography, movie/TV show/book spoilers, etc.) and it can be really
scary.
18.What parenting style is illustrated by "Mother" as she talks with
Rapunzel about staying home (see Parenting Styles: Tangled)? What
statements/behaviors illustrate this? How do parents establish
healthy boundaries (and consequences) without becoming too
demanding or too permissive?
a In Tangled, Mother exhibits a lot of psychological control over Rapunzel,
using guilt and fear to try and keep Rapunzel in the tower. She also
attempts to lower Rapunzel’s self-esteem. While it is good to outline real
dangers when leaving home, it is unhealthy to force them to stay (this
should be obvious to parents). A real way to establish healthy boundaries
that a teenager would be willing to abide by, is by making compromises.
When a teenager feels like they’re the one sacrificing everything (they
probably aren’t, but everything is dramatic when you’re a teenager), they
will be less inclined to follow the rules you set. But making compromises
helps them feel like you are trying to meet their needs.
19.A Lesson They'll Never Forget: Is there a difference between
discipline and punishment? Was spanking effective?
a I think that there is a difference between discipline and punishment.
Discipline is a way of shaping your child so that they learn right from
wrong, whereas punishment tends to be the consequence after they have
done something they know to be bad.
a To be honest, I am a proponent for spanking. I don’t think it’s a bad thing
as long as it’s a quick swat to immediately stop a behavior. Some people
blame the delinquency of a person on being spanked, but let’s be honest.
That behavior comes from being raised in an environment that was not
wholesome and obviously did not teach right from wrong. They may have
spanked, but the real issue was not teaching the child why they had the
consequence and what they had done. I was spanked growing up, and
so were all of my siblings. But my parents made sure to have us tell them
what we had done wrong and then explain why that was wrong, that way
we understood that our actions have consequences and it wasn’t because
“mommy and daddy are mean”. We are all very respectful, polite adults
and teenagers, all of us are in college or in school, and we achieve very
high grades. We were spanked until we were old enough to understand
consequences fully and we were taught to respect authority.
20. In what area or ways should parents strive for androgynous
socialization? What areas of gender roles do you feel are primarily
biological and what areas are primarily socialization? How would you
respond to President Summer's (former Harvard President)
statement? Why?
a Parents should strive for androgynous socialization by not telling off boys
for playing with dolls or liking pink and by avoiding the concept of
“ladylike”, because who says a girl can’t like trucks and dirt? It is
important to also be unisex in the teaching of education, manners, and
good habits. Biological gender roles for males: protector of the family,
leader, provider, etc. For females: nurturer, loving, compassionate,
homemaker, etc.