Personal Narrative: The First Parent Interview

Since I was a kid, I had a ton of responsibilities, cleaning up after myself, doing chores, managing to not fight with my brother, although we fought all day everyday, but you know, it happens. One thing that I didn't know wasn't normal was parenting your parent. I go to school do all my class work and during recess and lunch I listened to all the other kids talk about going to the park after school and eating dinner together with their parents. When I got home from school, I had to do my homework and then take care of my mother. Bring her things she needed such as food, water, help her with many other simple everyday activities. Of course I wasn't the only one who was her “little helper” as she put it, my dad helped her and my older brother by two years,

My interviewee is a second generation immigrant with one parent who was born in El Salvador and the other who has Mexican roots but was born in the United States. For the purposes of confidentiality my interviewee will be addressed as Ana from here on out. In this interview paper I will discuss the experiences that Ana faced growing up in a tri-racial household. I will also evaluate her experiences regarding assimilation to the lectures and reading assigned through out this course.

If the child is unsure of what the interviewer is asking, make sure they know that they should ask for clarification.

During our conversation many topics were discussed. During my time talking to the family I started to notice a few worrisome details. First, the mother was going to stay home with the infant while the father went back to work. Though she had a lot of family present for the birth, they don’t live in Colorado. The mother shared she has struggled with depression during her pregnancy and was worried about if it was going to come back. It became clear that I needed to focus my teaching on educating the family about postpartum depression due to the mothers’ risk factors. I questioned the

When I was sixteen years old, I had my first child. The experience was a long process of ups and downs. There were many lessons to be learned. Strength, motivation, courage and determination were my goals to getting through the obstacle of having my daughter at sixteen. The feeling of being pregnant and sixteen was horrible. How I got through it is the start of this story.

I was able to interview both my niece and nephew. I interviewed my nephew in the afternoon and my niece at night. They are both eight years and are in third grade at different schools. My nephew is Mexican American but he can speak a couple phrases in Spanish. My nephew’s parents divorced three years ago. They have shared custody but since my older brother is in the army so he rarely sees my nephew. I have noticed how the divorce impacted him, I only see him once a month if I am lucky. He has never been babied, for instance, when he cries when his soccer team loses they do not comfort him. They want him to be independent. As for my niece she is Mexican American and only speaks a few words in Spanish. Her parents never married so they would be together for half a year and they would separate for the other half. They did this for six years and finally moved on with different people. They have shared custody as well she is with my third brother M, T, and W. I noticed that she would cry to sleep when her parents were doing that cycle. I told my brother my niece was suffering a lot and it is not healthy. That is why they decided to move on; now my niece gets everything she wants. She gets new clothes and shoes weekly and is in the cheerleading team. She seems happy now and when she is

I noticed that the wife was answering most of the questions while the husband appeared to be perplexed and a bit disinterested. As I reflect on the interview, Sara answered most of the questions and elaborated on many while Ray’s answers were short and to the point. Additionally, Ray sat sideways during the completion of the genogram; he changed his position a few times based on the questions I was asking during the entire meeting. For example, if the questions were uncomfortable such as discussion about his health, “I have a heart issue.” He would not elaborate further and the rest of the family would chime in. When the question about finances was asked he paused, looked at his wife, they looked at each other and he stated, “We are blessed.” Wife agreed, “Yes, we are blessed.” They looked at each other, Sara had a smile on her face while looking at Ray and then me, and Ray looked away, and then looked at me with a serious face. He appeared irritated, I felt intimidated, my stress level at this point was escalated; I realized that I was touching a sensitive topic that this family did not want to discuss. I was not expecting the answer this family gave about their social or financial status and found myself saying, “That is a good way to look at it.” I felt that finances were a very sensitive subject and did not push any further. As our conversation continued

“La la la!” I was running around my room dancing to Kidz Bop on Pandora. My blonde hair half up half down.

Every time a drip drops a baby is born stated the midwife. 19 thousand drops completed the birth of a newborn baby whose name was name was Isabella. Isabella’s mom was losing so much blood so they took her to a room. Doctors where every where that room was filled with doctors. Beep!Beep! that is the sound of my dad's heart because,he doesn’t want my mom to die. And that was not only the beginning of my life it got worst. 10 whole years passed! I can still feel the pain when I was 7 years I was rapped but, I didn’t get pregant that great. Then when I was 12 I was kidnapped and I didn’t see my parents for a whole 2 years.

I have always felt the need to connect with children, even when I was just a child myself. I remember the first time I looked into a baby’s eyes and saw all of the possibilities in his life ahead of him. From then on I was curious about how kids’ minds developed and how they grew into adults. I wanted to be around their innocence and sweet little personalities. It came so easy to me, bonding and caring for these kids. I never truly understood why I felt so drawn to children until I met Kumar.

The first mutual factor that scholars believe increase the effectiveness of a child interview is to have trained staff conduct the interview. It is common knowledge that you don’t speak to a 5 year old the same way you speak to a 25 year old. Training staff to conduct sensitive interviews with children includes many factors such as the ability to form a connection, the ability to converse at their level, and the ability to attain the important details of the case. (Cederborg, Alm & Lamb, 2013) Using trained evaluators to conduct the interview reduces errors in suggestive questioning, risk of contamination, and potential additional harm to the child. (Cederborg, Alm & Lamb, 2013; Tang, 2006) The trained evaluator shall act

Picture a woman sitting at the table with a baby in one hand, phone in the other, bills scattered around on the table, and a look of despair written all over her face. This was the image that I saw of my mother at the age of six, a struggling single parent taking care of three children. She walked around with a joyous look on her face for me and my siblings, but I knew that inside life’s reality was eating her away. Seeing my mother depressed because my father wasn’t in the picture was unbearable. Hearing her cry on the phone to my grandmother at night about how she can’t do it anymore was heartbreaking. Having to do everything alone greatly played a part on my mother’s emotions in a negative way.

The real basis for Jeff’s fear is the fact that he is a new, first year teacher, and he has a class of low performing students. Being nervous before parent conferences is something that all teachers go through. It does not help that the talk he’s heard from other teachers is considerably negative. They have unrealistically implanted a fear in him of parent conferences. He must understand that all parents do what they think is best for their children. There are a few parents who are obnoxious and are not doing what they should, but they are few in number. The problem is, however, is that they can be the loudest. Not only did colleagues give him a negative view of conferences, his issues with pressure from previous dealings with his family is also why he fears the parent conferences. Being a teacher makes him accountable to parents

Throughout this whole semester we have learned that there is no right or wrong way to parenting. We have learned that some approaches to parenting might be more effective than others, but there isn’t a one size fits all approach when it comes to being a parent. I asked “Lauren” basic questions on how the experience of being a parent has been, what are some challenges she has faced, and how she juggles it all from working to being a wife to being a mother. I found that most of her responses were consistent with what we have learned throughout this whole semester. According to The process of Parenting Baumrind, and

An interview is being used as the data needing to be collected will consist of mainly qualitative data, therefore an interview will suffice as the most appropriate method of data collection (Lambert 2012, p. 105). The interview questions can be found in appendix 4 and there will be a separate slightly different set of questions for both parents and children, to ensure that the children can understand (Lambert 2012, p. 125). The data will be recorded using voice recordings as this will leave the interviewer free to listen intently and be able to respond and discuss what the interviewee is saying (Lambert 2012, p. 126). After completion of the interview, the voice recording will then be noted to gather key information and quotes (Lambert 2012, p. 126). It is also considered that some participants will not want to be recorded, in the case of this occurrence the interviewer will resort to writing as many notes as possible during and after the interview has occurred. As a major part of this study was ensuring to include children’s views, an interview was thought to be a better way of collecting data from students, as the interviewer can elaborate and explain questions further if needed (Lambert 2012, p. 122). The interview questions were created by asking questions which will either directly answer part of the research