My Life's Journey in The Play Years - Essay Example

Life’s Journey Part I – My Lifes Journey in The Play Years and The School Years Guided Participation – During my play or preschool years (between 2 to 5 years old), I was able to develop myself physically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially through the process of guided participation. Basically, it was my mother who was directing me to do what is normally accepted within the society. For instance: As I learn to eat independently, my mother prepares and teaches me to eat nutritious foods such as vegetables and lean meat to enable my body to grow and develop. Static Reasoning – My cognitive development was enhanced by my mother since she allowed me to realize that “believing that nothing changes” is not always true. Explaining to me the differences between facts and imaginary thoughts are two different things freed me from my static reasoning as I entered the school age years. Pro-social Behavior – At the age of 3, my parents sent me to a day care every afternoon where I started to learn how to detach myself from the presence of my mother. At first, I tend to cry every time my mother or my grandmother would leave me at the day care center near where we live. I always fear being left out alone. During those times, I remember my mother trying to comfort me ensuring me that she will be back after 2 hours to pick me up. Eventually, I managed to trust my mother and became more relaxed with the presence of other people especially those kids of my age. Empathy – Since I was able to strengthen my ability to mingle with other people at an early age, I developed a better understanding on how people would feel emotionally. In the absence of socialization, it would be difficult for a child to develop empathic reaction towards people around him. Selective Attention – Since majority of the 1st grade students have selective attention, my teacher used repetition technique in teaching to ensure that we remember and understand what she was teaching. Automatization – At the age of 3 years old, my mother recently told me that she had to keep on repeating instructions to me when I was toilet training. After some time, I managed to learn to go to the bathroom without the need of her assistance. Understanding the concept of automatization enables the parents to effectively train their children to become independent. Concrete Operational Thought – Rather than asking my parents about every single thing around me, I started to learn to reason out logically purely based on what I see. This stage normally occurs during school age years. Therefore, teachers and parents should adjust to the child’s level of thinking. Metacognition – The metacognitive of a child differs from another child. In my case, I have learned to develop metacognition when I was on the 6th grade. I tend to think and evaluate several solutions that I had developed when solving a problem in school. Social Comparison – Social comparison is not always present during the play stage. I was already on the 2nd grade when I developed the tendency to compare my own ability with my classmates’ abilities, achievements, and social status. Pre-conventional Moral Reasoning – Due to young age, I normally tend to make a judgment out of my own self-interest. For instance: I tend to achieve a high grade in my academic performance and do good things to other people. Not only because I wanted to but because of the fact that I knew my parents would give me a gift at the end of each school year. Part II – My Lifes Journey in Adolescence Body Image – As I entered the adolescent stage, I noticed that significant parts of my body started to change. Changes in my body structure made me become extra concern and conscious about my physical appearance. I tend to compare how I look with my schoolmates. Imaginary Audience – The common misconception that people around me talks about my physical appearance has contributed to why I feel so conscious about the way I look. This is the primary reason why some adolescents tend to develop eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia especially among young girls. Even though some of them has a normal weight, they feel that they are still overweight and need to cut down on food. Formal Operational Thought – I noticed that my formal operational thought started to strengthen by the time I reached 1st year college. This is actually the stage when I learned to reason out logically, solve theoretical problems, and think abstractly. I also managed to compare ideas with my friends and other people before I start to develop solutions that could solve my personal problems. As compared to pre-operational thought, the way I think has become more systematic and logical as compared to the way I think when I was in school age. Adolescent Egocentrism – As an adolescent, I tend to see myself as someone who is socially significant, unique, and wonderful even though I have not really achieved something in life. As I went through a research regarding this matter, I have learned that adolescent egocentrism could cause the adolescents to develop false conclusions. For instance: They see themselves as someone who is strong and invincible. This makes them become less attentive to their surroundings which often cause them to become a victim of other people with dangerous behaviour. Identity Achievement – As an adolescent, developing self identity becomes a challenge. Either a child could learn more about their personal characteristics, uniqueness, and capabilities. Given that the social and cognitive development of a child was not developed during the preschool and school age years, it is possible that the person would develop difficulty developing his own self identity. Thus, identity crisis which causes low self-esteem is likely to develop. Parental Monitoring – Parental guidance is an essential part of a child’s developmental achievements. Without the proper monitoring of the parents, a child may tend to become less successful as he or she reached the adulthood stage. Part III – My Lifes Journey in Early Adulthood Delay Discounting – During adulthood stage, I tend to become more conscious and persistence with what I have currently achieved in life. For this reason, I have the tendency to undervalue or downright ignore the future benefits of what I am currently achieving right now. For instance: Enrolling myself in school for higher education may leave me thinking about the need to weigh the amount of money which I will be spending for education as compared to what I will receive if I spent full time working. I believe that this is but normal part of an early adulthood stage which any person will have to go through given that they have a similar situation as I am right now. Social Norms – As an early adult, each individual is expected to have developed a standard behaviour based on what is socially accepted within a given society or culture. For instance: People who lived a happy family life may consider marriage as a normal part of life which every person should have achieved before or during the early adulthood stage. For this reason, people who are living with this type of social norms would feel the pressure of the need to get married the soonest possible time. Stereotype Threats – Failure of a person to live life within the social norm increases the person’s risk of becoming a victim of stereotype threats. As a consequence of becoming a victim of stereotype threats, a person may end up becoming a subject of ‘talk-of-the-town’ for his or her failure to live life within the social norm without even bothering to know more about a person’s personal desires. Postformal Thought – With regards to cognitive development, people who are in early adulthood stage are expected to have strengthened their capabilities to solve problems. Failure to meet this expectation could cause a person to develop insecurities about themselves. Intimacy vs. Isolation – intimacy vs. isolation in Erikson’s 6th developmental stage which normally occurs between the ages 20 to 30 years old enables a person to either develop intimate relationship with other people or fear of sharing oneself with other people. Failure to develop intimacy during this stage causes a person to decide to remain single and unattached with other people during the early and late adulthood stage. Part IV - Summary and Response The stages in human development lead to a domino effect. Each individual should be able to positively go through the challenges associated with each of the physical, psychosocial, and cognitive development to enable them to live life to the fullest by the time they reach the old old age. For instance: During infancy stage, a child learns to trust or mistrust people around him. In case the child failed to develop trust, this negative psychosocial development would be carried over as the child enters the pre-school, school age, adolescents, early- and late-adulthood stage, etc. This is one factor that makes a person less successful in terms of socializing with other people. Thus, this type of people tends to isolate themselves away from other people including the life-time commitment with a significant person. *** End *** Read More

Metacognition – The metacognitive of a child differs from another child. In my case, I have learned to develop metacognition when I was on the 6th grade. I tend to think and evaluate several solutions that I had developed when solving a problem in school. Social Comparison – Social comparison is not always present during the play stage. I was already on the 2nd grade when I developed the tendency to compare my own ability with my classmates’ abilities, achievements, and social status. Pre-conventional Moral Reasoning – Due to young age, I normally tend to make a judgment out of my own self-interest.

For instance: I tend to achieve a high grade in my academic performance and do good things to other people. Not only because I wanted to but because of the fact that I knew my parents would give me a gift at the end of each school year. Part II – My Lifes Journey in Adolescence Body Image – As I entered the adolescent stage, I noticed that significant parts of my body started to change. Changes in my body structure made me become extra concern and conscious about my physical appearance. I tend to compare how I look with my schoolmates.

Imaginary Audience – The common misconception that people around me talks about my physical appearance has contributed to why I feel so conscious about the way I look. This is the primary reason why some adolescents tend to develop eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia especially among young girls. Even though some of them has a normal weight, they feel that they are still overweight and need to cut down on food. Formal Operational Thought – I noticed that my formal operational thought started to strengthen by the time I reached 1st year college.

This is actually the stage when I learned to reason out logically, solve theoretical problems, and think abstractly. I also managed to compare ideas with my friends and other people before I start to develop solutions that could solve my personal problems. As compared to pre-operational thought, the way I think has become more systematic and logical as compared to the way I think when I was in school age. Adolescent Egocentrism – As an adolescent, I tend to see myself as someone who is socially significant, unique, and wonderful even though I have not really achieved something in life.

As I went through a research regarding this matter, I have learned that adolescent egocentrism could cause the adolescents to develop false conclusions. For instance: They see themselves as someone who is strong and invincible. This makes them become less attentive to their surroundings which often cause them to become a victim of other people with dangerous behaviour. Identity Achievement – As an adolescent, developing self identity becomes a challenge. Either a child could learn more about their personal characteristics, uniqueness, and capabilities.

Given that the social and cognitive development of a child was not developed during the preschool and school age years, it is possible that the person would develop difficulty developing his own self identity. Thus, identity crisis which causes low self-esteem is likely to develop. Parental Monitoring – Parental guidance is an essential part of a child’s developmental achievements. Without the proper monitoring of the parents, a child may tend to become less successful as he or she reached the adulthood stage.

Part III – My Lifes Journey in Early Adulthood Delay Discounting – During adulthood stage, I tend to become more conscious and persistence with what I have currently achieved in life. For this reason, I have the tendency to undervalue or downright ignore the future benefits of what I am currently achieving right now. For instance: Enrolling myself in school for higher education may leave me thinking about the need to weigh the amount of money which I will be spending for education as compared to what I will receive if I spent full time working.

I believe that this is but normal part of an early adulthood stage which any person will have to go through given that they have a similar situation as I am right now.

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