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Observation Of Child Observation

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Introduction
Subject “Chris” is a 7 year old middle class Caucasian male. Observation is taking place in the child’s home over the course of two separate afternoons. Chris is a friendly and well spoken child who is small for his age. Chris is the youngest child in his family and both observations take place while his siblings are home. In each case one or both parents are absent.
First Hour of Observation
The first hour of observation takes place on a Saturday afternoon. Chris is in his living room with three of his older siblings. Though they are all in the living room together, Chris is engaged in play by himself. He is content playing alone until he needs help fastening a small, slightly complicated harness onto a stuffed toy. He seeks …show more content…

The children “scold” the toy for poor behavior such as barking at the other toys or cutting in line several times. As they continue to play, Chris begins to pretend to be the animals. He imitates the sounds the animals would make if they were real (dog barks, cat meows) but also gives each animal a distinctive human voice.
The family’s pet dog comes over to investigate and the children laugh when the real animal knocks a few of the toys over. They attempt to coerce the dog to play with them but quickly give up when she fails to follow directions as well as their imaginary animals do. “A” leaves the game and Chris continues to play, arranging the stuffed animals as if they were his audience.
Eventually he loses interest in his games and joins “A” on the couch to look on as she plays on a tablet. He sits next to her but is upside down with his feet in the air, as if he were pedaling and imaginary bicycle. He tells an amusing though completely inaccurate story about how babies are made. His older siblings who are still in the room raise eyebrows at each other in amusement but don’t correct him. Shortly following this exchange the first hour of observation comes to an end.
Second Hour of Observation
I chose to focus specifically on Chris’s interaction with his siblings for the second observational period. As the second hour begins Chris is sitting at a child sized table in his living room playing with Legos.

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