The Characteristics Of My Virtual Child In My Virtual Child

Moreover, the children’s key carers must provide positive environments for their children so that they can learn from their own experiences. If the children receive this then their individual needs will be catered for, they will develop amiably and they will form a strong attachment with their key carers. However, if they don’t provide this for their children, then they will lack confidence and will show this insecurity through their behaviour. Consequently, they will not have positive holistic development.

1) Q: You are starting to notice that Preslee's crying is rhythmic and moderately loud when she is hungry, wet, or cold. If she is startled, there is a sudden intake of breath and a loud wail, followed by more deep breaths and loud wails. A: You try to respond to the different types of crying by changing, feeding, or soothing little Preslee.

My virtual child is a male, named Gavin (Manis, 2008). The name Gavin was chosen because it is a personal favorite and it is also similar to my paternal grandmother’s maiden name, Gavaghan. Gavin has one virtual sibling, a younger sister named Chloe. There is a three year age difference between the two siblings. According to the program I had a partner and we were married. Unfortunately, when Gavin was four years old we continued to argue and decided to separate. Two years later, we finally decided that the relationship was over and to get a divorce.

According to Winnicott, there are three stages in infant development. In stage one, undifferentiated unity, the child must feel connected to the mother. The mother fulfils this need through feeding, bathing and holding the child. In doing so, the child feels all powerful, and incomplete control of the mother. Their every need is met, and they want for nothing. However, Winnicott warns that if a mother fails to respond adequately to the child’s needs, this will hinder the development of healthy future relationships, including the relationship with one self.

Raising a Virtual Child had been a great experience for me. This assignment made me better understand why adolescents are the way they are. I had my own expectation before the onset of this project, how my virtual child was going to be at age of 18? I was expecting that my child would be a successful and obedient one. She would be nice and polite, follow rules and will be good in education. For me, while raising a child, bonding between child and parents is an important factor to consider. It makes child feel secure and let know that his/her parents are there to look after their needs. Communication between parent and child is important too. It will provide a great scenario for learning and aid in cognitive development. Discussing problem with parents and finding a solution is the best way to go during the childhood. I think parenting is not that much hard as it seems but is absolutely a sensitive and responsible task to raise a child. I had enjoyed raising my virtual child and hope my feedback is going to be a good one too.

The virtual child stimulation is an online program that offers students a feel of what it is like to raise a child and make parenting-decisions concerning that child. Students also learn about the situations that occur in the three main life stages, and see how their decisions determine how their child will turn out. The focus of this assignment will be on my virtual child, Jason, the problems that occurred in the life stages, and the options I chose when raising Jason.

Once you have raised your virtual child through age 5, respond thoroughly to the following questions.

Adolescence is defined as the transition between childhood and adulthood. Many changes happen at this stage. Adolescence involves things such as puberty, greater independence, and a time when someone begins to construct their identity. Identity means their life value and goals including a secure sense of who they are in terms of sexual, vocational, and moral ethics. In the next few paragraphs I will be discussing my Virtual Child, Maeve as she went through adolescence (ages 11- 16). I am going to delve into the different changes I saw in her and how they relate to theories proposed by Piaget, Erikson, Marcia, and Gardner. Each

My Virtual Child program basically covers physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development at several age levels. Various personalized questions were asked and given scenarios that would shape my child’s physical development, cognitive development, and affect his personality. My Virtual Child has a unique set of characteristics at birth, some of which were influenced by how I answered and completed the assessment when I first logged into My Virtual Child. These characteristics gradually emerged and affected his behavior and development. When it was time, our precious baby boy was born and we decided to name him Noah. Noah as a newborn was fussy and often wanted to be held. Breastfeeding time seemed to be the perfect soothing method. I enjoyed breastfeeding because it builds up his immune system. At this point Noah recognized me as his primary care giver because I was the one always attending to his needs. According to Bowlby’s theory of attachment “The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable, which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world”. As a result, Noah was more attached to me than he was to my husband. As time transcurred, he was able to bond to my husband by spending more quality time together.

With what I have learned from the My Virtual Child program, I now understand the complexities of raising and guiding a child. Mere decisions made during infancy can affect a child long term, physically, cognitively, and even emotionally. To make important developmental decisions cannot simply be classified as a challenge, it is one of the hardest things parents experience. Making decisions for one’s self, as opposed to making decisions for one’s child is so challenging that most people will not understand until they have children. Even with the realistic impression this program has, I would venture to say that even

I was asked to create and answer questions about a virtual child. When I was told this was an assignment I thought “this should be easy”. Boy was I wrong! I found many things can affect the outcome of my child. If I am too strict or too easy, the child’s behavior will show this. Over time, this will also affect the child’s temperament. I have learned that some of my classmates’ virtual children are harder to get along with and require more discipline then others. I decided to just trust my instinct and answer the questions as if they were for a real child. In this report you will see how my answers affected my virtual daughter Alexis and, my experience throughout the duration of the assignment.

My virtual child covers physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development at several age levels. This gave me an opportunity to visualize "the whole child" at various points in development. I raised a virtual child from birth to 18 years of age. Each virtual child has a unique set of characteristics at birth, some of which were influenced by how I answered the assessment I completed when I first logged onto My Virtual Child. These characteristics gradually emerged and affected his behavior and development.

Different schools of thought within the humanistic tradition have built on and also separated from the previous theories and conceptualization of child development (Oaklander, 2014). Worth noting is the transactional analysis theoretical understanding of the development of a child (Tudor, 1998), which views a child’s development in terms of ego states, script formation among other concepts like protection and therapeutic potency and permission that are of practical use in working with the children.

This paper will explore the phenomenon of enmeshment between a mother and her child. It will begin by first providing a working definition for the concept of enmeshment, then go into more detail about how and why this manifests within the mother and child dynamic. Next it will discuss maternal enmeshment’s impact on the child’s development during childhood using the theories of Erik Erikson and John Bowlby as a framework of understanding. It will conclude by providing a brief overview of some ways enmeshment can adversely influence the child across the lifespan.

In this section we will discuss transitional objects and what role they play in the development of a child. A transitional object is a physical object that helps toddlers to transit emotionally from a stage of dependence to a stage of independence. The toddler thinks that the object is part of it, and this transition stage enables the toddler to realize that the mother is "not me" as well as separateness of other objects. These objects become vitally important to a toddler when going to sleep and as a defense during anxiety. A transitional object plays an important role in replacing the mother-child bond (Winnicott, 1953).