Parent Observation and Interview

My dad, because he has a good job and he can be lazy whenever he wants to and he gets to buy whatever he wants.

I chose to interview three family members in order to evaluate similarities and differences on experiences on what it’s like to be a parent. I believe that there is no right or wrong way to define what family is, but the definition of family comes with a wide range of beliefs about parenting and what it means to be “good parents” to their children. Every person is different and when it comes to every parent, they have their own style of parenting due to the environments as well as experiences within their environment. Throughout the interviews, I hope to gain knowledge and to be able to understand what it’s like to be a full time parent. Therefore, I have completed three interviews with three separate members of my family that were all raised by the same parents in the same household so it would be interesting to get an insight of how each individuals perspective as parents are. Furthermore, I will present a summary of questions that I’ve asked, a summary of their answers as well as an analysis of their way of parenting with some information that I’ve gathered and compare it to what I’ve learned in class.

This family consists of five individuals. The caregivers of the family are the mother and father who have been happily married for twenty years. MS and MS have three children together, AS, MS, and CS. AS is the oldest child who is a male, nineteen years old, and attending college in Staples, MN. The middle child is MS who is a female, seventeen years old, and a senior in high school. CS is the youngest of the family and is female, eleven years old, and attending middle school. The mother has a part-time job, while the father has a full time job. They recently sold their home out in the country and moved closer to town. The interview occurred mainly via phone because of their busy schedules with the parents being the historians of the family.

In the article, "The Undercover Parent" by Harlan Coben, the author talks to the audience about why he thinks all parents should watch their children on the internet. Coben uses pathos more than anything else when trying to reach out to his readers. Coben uses some tactics to get the reader to trust what he says. One specific tactic is that he acknowledges the reader's feelings. He also manipulates the reader by reducing the negative feelings that they have when they read this article and replace them with positive feelings. Then he is finally increasing the fear enough that the reader will feel obligated to put spyware on their kid's computer so that they can protect them from the horrible thing found on the internet.

The individual I interviewed was my coworker Andrena’s adopted daughter Ann. Ann came to live with Andrena when she was 8 years old. The reason Anna came to live with Andrena was due to experiencing multiple natural disasters while living in Haiti which caused her to have an unstable living environment. The last event that Ann experienced prior to moving to the US was a flood in Haiti in 2008. Ann stated she was just six years old when the flood happened. The flood was caused after several days of torrential rain. It is reported that the rain left up to hundreds people dead. At the time of this disaster Ann was living with her biological parents and two aunts. Ann refers to her biological parents as her Grandparents since Andrena and her husband adopted her. Andrena’s husband is actually Ann’s biological brother, but she now refers to him as her father and Andrena as her mother.

The second parents that I interviewed was Terry and Ross Kunkel. Even though they were both present, Terry answered the majority of the questions. The interview was done at their house in Bluffs. Terry and Ross are both retired; even though Terry has gone back to working part time for the village. They have two kids; Linsey and Harley. Linsey is I’m assuming in her upper 20’s and has her own family with two kids, and I just learned, she is also expecting twins in October. Harley graduated in my class and just turned 21 a few months ago.

I choose to interview Mary from the Fresno City College child development center. Mary works with toddlers who are 2 years of age. While observing Mary with her students, I notice she was well organized and very attentive to her students, and they seem to respond very well to her. I also noticed that Mary has a lot of patients with her students and they love her. I also noticed while observing Mary, that she seems to deal each of the students differently according to what needs that need to be met and how each of the students learning is different. Mary is well organized and has a strategic schedule that she goes by.

For this research project, I chose to interview my very own daughter (Alaina). She is a 7-year-old first grader who lives with her mother full-time. She has one older sister who lives in another state. Alaina is an active and inquisitive young lady. She attends year-round schooling and in her free time, she participates in Tae Kwon Do and basketball.

For my interview I decided to talk to a young mother that I met in one of my classes. For her privacy I will call her Sofia. Sofia told me that she had her first child at the age of 17. At this young age she was very unprepared for what was to come.

I observed children at ABC Child Development Center in the 3 year old classroom on March 1, 2010 from 8am until 11am. The classroom had a very diverse composition in the classroom, Hispanic, African American, Caucasian, Native American, and Asian (Vietnamese). In addition to diversity the ABC child development focus on maintaining a child centered environment that allows children to learn at their own pace. The classroom had 2 teachers and 24 children in attendance during the observation. The classroom has blue walls and displays of the children’s artwork around the room for Saint Patrick's Day and also spring. The classroom had 8 centers for learning and activities. The centers were arranged at the

I completed seven assessment tests from PsychCentral.com. The tests were based on parenting, relationships, and personality.

Observation is very important in young children because that is how you get to know a child better. While observing how a child interacts with their peers, adults, and how they behave in different settings, you are getting to know the child without speaking to them.

During the interview on September 12th, the student discussed times and dates in which she would volunteer and discussed activities she would perform. It was expected that the student would help paint rocks for a luncheon to thank the sponsors who helped the Hurricane Matthew survivors that is coming up next month. The student was told how to dress when she comes in for her hours and chose to come in two Monday’s from 12p.m. to 3p.m. as well as Tuesday and Thursday from 1p.m. to 4p.m.

The child I observed was a seven-year-old girl in Year 2 who sat on the second highest ability table in a mixed class. While not in school, she lived a substantial distance away meaning she travelled to and from school by car and was often the first child to arrive in the morning and the last to leave in the afternoon. I will focus on the social and emotional development of this child who, from now onwards, will be referred to as C.

The three parent child observations that have been documented will be analyzed using knowledge from class material and with peer-reviewed articles. Support will be given to show the connection between the articles, the class material, and to each observation. Each observation took place in a different location and each supporting article discusses how the actions of the parent and child relate to different aspects of a parent child relationship.