My Virtual Child

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Psychology

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Dec 6, 2023

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Running head: MY VIRTUAL CHILD My Virtual Child: My Experience On Raising Isaac Stephanie Caldera College of the Canyons 1

MY VIRTUAL CHILD In the virtual child project I had a normal birth to a baby boy named Isaac. I breastfed Isaac for as long as I could. I started working on his IQ at 3 months. He was securely attached to me, I allowed him to warm slowly and didn’t force anything on him. At 12 months he spoke his very first word, it was the name of my parents dog. When it was time to potty train I waited for him to give me signs that he was ready rather than trying to force it to happen. When Isaac was 2 I got pregnant with Sophia. His language skills developed rapidly and I enrolled him in preschool. When Sophia was born I included Isaac to help me with the baby so he wouldn’t feel left out. Isaac's gross motor skills are within the average range, for example, climbing, riding on trikes, climbing, kicking balls and playing catch. Later on I enrolled in in sports like soccer and baseball but he seems to have more of an interest in reading novels and writing his own stories. Isaac is continuing to be a strong reader, and always seems to have a fiction book he is reading Isaac began to argue with me and my partner more in 7th grade. He argues mostly about clothes, bedtime, and chores, but otherwise we get along pretty well. Isaac is in the gifted and talented program at his school. Isaac is starting to notice girls more, but has not said anything openly about it. He then has girlfriend and I talk to him about the consequences of having unprotected sex and encourage them to go get contraceptives. He’s been able to manage a 4.0 GPA all through out high school. I let him go to parties now but with a curfew and with some conditions Isaac received his test scores on the ACT and SAT. He scored in the top 5-10% . He got accepted to an out of state university. He’s has been working part-time at a local grocery store in and got offered a promotion for the summer. I think managed to be an excellent parent in terms of both discipline and warmth. Isaac is very close to both my partner and I but he is closer to me. He seeks out my advice on important issues or questions that are a bit beyond his experience. 2

MY VIRTUAL CHILD For this project we played the role of a parent and were able to raise our own virtual child. We raised our child from birth to age 18, made decisions about specific scenarios, and learned how our decisions and other parenting actions affected our child over time. Isaac experienced one of the four different types of attachment from the attachment theory that was introduced by John Bowlby. He went through secure attachment, which is when a child uses a parent as a secure base from which to explore and usually cry when they are separated from the mother and when mother returns they’re happy. (Arnett, 2012) Frequently Isaac became quite upset and clings to me while sobbing. This usually occurred whenever he is in a new situation, or meeting new people. I hold Isaac and allow him to warm-up slowly to new situations and people, but don't force anything on him. The concept of object permanence plays a significant role in the theory of cognitive development introduced by psychologist Jean Piaget . It’s used to describe a child's ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard. Isaac is able to find a hidden object, as long as I don't wait too long or distract him in the middle of the search. Isaac really likes this hiding game and shows by his interest that he wants it repeated. However, if I hide the object in the same place repeatedly, and then change the hiding place, Isaac has a strong tendency to look in the old hiding place, and then get confused about where the object is, or forget about it. (Arnett, 2012) At the age of 2 Isaac is toilet trained now and is able to communicate better, but has difficulty understanding other people's perspectives. Here he is going through Piaget’s Pre Operational Stage that includes egocentrism, which is being unable to distinguish other people’s perspective from your own. (Arnett, 2012) Isaac is able to imitate actions or words that he has seen or heard days before. This greatly expands his ability to learn new things. Isaac also seemed to be aware of basic categories, such as big or little, and blue or red. I was able to tell because of 3

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MY VIRTUAL CHILD the way he is sorting his toys. Isaac knows his gender now, and has begun to categorize behavior and objects as suited to boys or girls, which relates to gender schemas. It refers to the theory that children learn about what it means to be male and female. According to this theory, children adjust their behavior to fit in with the gender norms . Isaac likes to imitate his little sister’s sounds and movements. This is called differed imitation, which is the ability to mimic other people’s actions. Piaget believes mental representation is the basis of categorization, which Isaac has learned to do as I mentioned earlier. (Arnett, 2012) Isaac's communication skills are growing by leaps and bounds. He is speaking mostly in three to four word sentences and his vocabulary is expanding greatly because of his intense desire to learn new words. He communicates very well now, relying primarily on complete sentences, and seems to understand most of what you say. He enjoys watching children's TV and listening to books. He occasionally makes charming errors such as "I beated you in the race." This is called the naming explosion, when word production takes off. The pace of learning new words doubles from 1-3 words per week to 5-6 words per week. (Arnett, 2012) When Isaac was working on 6th grade math (one grade level above), he sometimes gets stuck or gives up easily on story problems. I require that Isaac give the problems his best shot for a half hour and if he still doesn't get it, I showed him how to do it, and let him complete the rest of the problem on his own. Vygotsky believed that when a student is in the Zone of Proximal development for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of a "boost" to achieve the task. Once the student, with the benefit of scaffolding, masters the task, the scaffolding can then be removed and the student will then be able to complete the task again on his own. (McLeod, 2010) The type of parenting style that I believe is best is the authoritative parenting style, which is high in demandingness and high on responsiveness. I make the rules clear and state the 4

MY VIRTUAL CHILD expectations, make clear of the consequences and explain the reasons for my rules and discuss the issues of discipline, which sometimes leads to negotiation and compromise. Isaac has begun occasionally lying to me about accidents or rule violations (such as sneaking a cookie before dinner). The lies are pretty lame (like there is a trail of cookie crumbs). I recognize this as a sign of a theory of mind, but I decided to wait until I catch him in the act, explain that lying is wrong, and put him in time-out. For good measure, I also explain that being lied to makes people feel bad. (Arnett, 2012) Sometimes Isaac gets upset in stressful situations inside or outside the classroom, and will withdraw from activities or become anxious or moody. He usually improves before the day is over. Like I mentioned previously when he works on 6th grade math (one grade level above), sometimes gets stuck or gives up easily on story problems. He receives the support and encouragement from the teachers and I that is needed to overcome these difficulties and still was able build a sense of mastery. This is the industry part of Erikson’s 4 th Stage of Psychosocial Development Industry vs. Inferiority. However if Isaac had lacked the social and emotional encouragement he needed he would be left with the feelings of being a failure, which is the inferiority part. (Cherry, 2016) All in all I did enjoy this project, I feel like it will help me in the future once I have a child of my own. Some of the decisions that I had to make were difficult because I wanted to choose what was best for my child. I don’t really know how accurate the virtual child project was because I do no not have a child of my own and am not experienced with children that much anymore but I’m sure some things are similar to real life. I think you should keep assigning this project in future classes of yours because it shows us at least a glimpse of how a person develops and how its not easy to raise a child. I feel like when a person is new at being a mother they freak out because they don’t know what to do and how to do things and they turn to other experienced 5

MY VIRTUAL CHILD people but no baby is quite exactly the same. Having a baby doesn’t come with instructions. This project reminds me a lot of past ones that I’ve had in high school but this one goes more in depth of course. The project wasn’t too hard because I was doing the project at the rate that lecture was going, so what made it easy was that I applied what we learned from lecture to the project and that helped me make what decisions to take. It also helped the material stick better for exams because the more you go over things the more likely your brain is to retain the information. 6

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MY VIRTUAL CHILD References Arnett, J. J. (2012). Human Development: A Cultural Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc. Cherry, K. (2016). Industry Versus Inferiority. Retrieved from http://www.verywell.com/industry-versus-inferiority-2795736 McLeod, S. A. (2012). Zone of Proximal Development. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html 7

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