CHAPTER 12 AND 13

CHAPTER 12

                 

                            I think that people view work as a means of survival, and it also depends on where they are in life as well. For example; a person who works at a fast food restaurant isn't happy with working there they are only working there to pay the bills ( survive) or that single parent that has to work 3 jobs to pay for their bills. A person who is a doctor or a nurse, may be more happy with their jobs because the worked toward their degree and are getting paid fairly well. Choosing an occupation can be difficult I think that people choose their occupation by their personalities and from what they have seen occupation wise while growing up. For example when my sister was in the 3rd grade she wrote a little book about herself, in that book she wrote that she wanted to be a nurse because she likes helping people. Today she has been an LPN for 8 years and is studying for her RN. I believe that there is a relationship with age and job satisfaction, I mean do you want to be a 40 year old working at Jack in the box? I am sure you would want to be a nurse, doctor, lawyer or something more creditable. Job loss can effect the amount of stress experienced because you stress about how to pay the bills or put food on the table. You stress that if these bills don't get paid then you will be evicted, power will be shut off or your car repossessed. Its especially stressful when you have kids and you lose a job. Speaking from experience I could go without eating however I couldn't handle my daughter not being able to eat. There are programs out there to help people in need, there are SNAP, TANF, food banks and a couple nights a week I know that some churches have dinners. I know this because not only am i the health personnel at my job but I also help parents look for resources while they are here. I refer them out to D.S.H.S and opportunity council. I think that there are many issues faced by employed people who have kids. I know my issues that I face when I work is daycare, budgeting in my money to be able to pay for day care for the 3 months that I work. Household chores are equally divided while my boyfriend and I are working, if i make dinner he will do the dishes if i take my daughter a bath he will dress her and read her a story for bed. However when I am not working I am more than happy to do these chores because it shows my appreciation for my boyfriend and all the hard work that he does do.

CHAPTER 13 

                        Middle adult hood is the prime time of life, I feel like the saying that life begins at 40 is very true. I think this saying is referring to most of us at this time will be in the career we want to be, our kids will be out of the house and living their own lives and you can start to live a little. Physical changes start to occur late 30's. The crows feet start to show, wrinkles start to appear and hair starts to turn grey. The advice I would give to somebody who is going through this would be that these aren't signs of aging these are signs of every time you laughed, made a memory and what you have become. There are products out there, facial creams and hair dye to cover them up but my opinion is that every wrinkle, grey hair and the crows feet has made you who you are today as an individual. I believe that there is a great deal of stress that occurs when you are at this age as well, this is because you have to start thinking of you will as well as your parents. Its hard to think that one day I'm gonna be this age and my parents are going to die one day but has this thought become something that we all have learned to accept? That we are here and then we die? on the other hand do we really have a choice? We cant be like that vampire from twilight and live hundreds of years. Its always better to have someone to lean on while going through this " midlife crisis" . Maybe when I will reach this age someone will come up with something that will make you live forever. But would it be a blessing or a curse in disguise?   

CHAPTER 10 AND 11

 CHAPTER 10

    Reading chapter 10 gave me a better understanding on what I was going through when I was that age.  Before I read the chapters for the week I like to read the questions in the back and answer them as I read along. I feel like the section that I can really relate to is finding financial independence. When I reached high school I started working, I was working by the age of 15. I had my own car and paid my insurance and phone bill. Its not because my mom didn't have the money to pay my portion but she was trying to make me responsible. Its funny how when we are kids we think our parents are being control freaks and are trying to ruin our lives because they are making us pay our way, however they are just trying to make us responsible adults. When I moved in with my boyfriend, we lived with his mom for a while, but for the longest time I couldn't understand why she would charge us rent. My mom never charged me rent and until this day if I or any of my siblings needed to go back to her house would she charge me rent. So for me I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she was charging us rent. I then learned that she had been charging my boyfriend rent since he was 15, and for a long time I still couldn't understand why she would do that. Until one day I was talking to my brother and explaining the situation to him. He pointed out that my boyfriend was the only boy in his family and seeing that his mom was a single parent she was trying to teach him responsibility and trying to teach him how to be a man. Then I realized that this was true. I always see on TV these "men" who were raised by only their mothers who paid for them and they are very financially irresponsible. My boyfriend is very responsible with his money and has provided for me and my daughter with no question. So what started out as questions and misunderstanding in the beginning ended with a thank you to his mother for making him so responsible.

CHAPTER 11

    To me Chapter 11 answered questions that a lot of us are asking from time to time, however that's the authors opinion compiled with facts and different theories. I feel like the types of friendships that adults have is a lot different from friendships when they were teenagers. As far as my life goes I still have 2 friends that I have been friends with since we were 13. Through the years we have been through a lot. But sitting here looking at our friendship we started hanging out at the movies, mall and each others houses. Then house parties, restaurants and bars. Now we have play dates with our kids and don't really go out to the bars. We all had our girls. That's right we all had girls, young. So as some people look at us 23 year old moms as missing out in life, its really them that's missing out. Yeah I may not be able to go out and drink whenever I please but I have a little girl that I wouldn't give up for the world and that's something people may never have. I feel like adult friendships develop by having things in common. Such as me and my friends we all have girls so we constantly have play dates and sleep overs. We also have similar personalities and attitudes. There is a question that I feel would be different if you asked 10 different people. What is love? To me love is staying up with the person you love endless hours of the night talking about anything and everything. Doing anything for that person no questions asked. The way you look and talk changes when you look and talk to that person. You get happy every time you see each other. Endless smiles and laughing is love. Love also is fighting and disagreeing with one another. One time my sister in law said that she and her Fiance never fight. I laughed in her face and said that then you don't have a healthy relationship. I hate it when people think they have the perfect relationship and try to rub it in my face. love is all the smoochy and lovely things however its also disagreeing, fighting, crying and hurt. It takes hurting and crying over the wrong people to find the right one.

chapter 8 and 9

chapter 8

            We have got to the chapter that speaks of changes that happens to girls that makes them women and boys men. I remember this stage in my life, it usually happens in the sixth or seventh grade. when girls start realizing that their best guy friend is cute. where the boys start realizing certain things about girls that weren't their before, or they didn't notice them until now. when kids are going though this change I can honestly say that not only are their physical changes, but their are also attitude changes. At this age is when my mother and I started seeing things differently. At this age I started hanging out with friends out side of school at the mall instead of the playground. I wore make up and cared about how my hair looked, instead of putting it back into a pony tail. where slumber parties didn't consist of just watching movies but talking about our crushes. Some of these changes are hard to deal with, when approaching this age I feel like parents should have open communication with their child. If a child has a question about something like sex or changes in their bodies I don't feel like they should be shunned because they are curious. I wish I could have had that open communication with my mother, I found out what I mostly know now from friends or the Internet. I feel like in these years that's why I was such a rebel.  I wanna call these years were the years that I wanna call, the year of the rebel. I wanted to do everything my mom was against because she said no. through my adolescence I gave my mom hell, and now that I am a mother I pray to god that he will have mercy on my soul when my daughter reaches this age. My mother always reminds me of my wrong doings when I was this age and lets me know that usually the headaches are double when the rebels have kids.

Chapter 9

        This chapter covers a lot of issues that teenagers go through. I feel like one that doesn't get talked about enough is self esteem and identity. With all the media out their peer pressuring girls that a size 0 is "hot". Dressing provocatively is the only way to be cool and get the boy of your dreams. A lot of magazines gear girls towards  being that size zero and putting on a bunch of makeup. Its hard for some girls who are lets say " plus size" that they will never be that size 0. I'm not trying to be mean but I myself as a plus size woman had to come to the realization that I could never be a size 0, not because I was being hard on myself. Its because the way by body was built its built to hold meat and be solid. I'm not burly or anything, I'm not extremely overweight or anything but I'm not a size 0, I am plus size and proud. I know that I am beautiful, but what does a girl have to go through to finally bloom and be happy with her size? To be called every animal on the farm or every animal on the African Savannah? Honestly when I was in these years I really didn't have issues with others such as being called fat, heavy or any other names. I got a long with everyone, and I feel for those girls out there that had to go through that. If I could tell them one thing it would be this, you are beautiful who you are and you may feel like your outer image doesn't show your beauty but in the real world its your inner beauty that matters most to others. If you have an inner beauty that shimmers like diamonds in the light then you are flawless.

Chapter 7 expanding social horizons

    

            When reading about the systems approach to parenting I found it rather interesting, children are influenced by parents and parents influenced by children. Now what does that really mean?  Perhaps taking a step back and looking at it differently and saying that the entire family is influenced by their surroundings such as their neighborhoods, or their religious organizations. This totally makes sense to me. When thinking about how people are and the way that they act does have a lot to do with where they are from, who they were raised by or what religious organizations they belong to. For example I know that a lot of celebrities live in Beverly hills, California. Do you think that you would find a celebrity who makes a lot of money shopping at a thrift shop? I mean there are some celebrities like Ben Maclamore who has a song about such things, but honestly you find them on rodeo drive shopping until they drop. Spending what most of us Americans make in a year in just one day.  I came from a middle class family, and yes I like the finer things in life ( who doesn't) but I would never spend 200 dollars on a pair of jeans or a purse to me that's insane. The way I grew up was to save your money for a rainy day and not spend crazy amounts on things you can get cheaper somewhere else. It all depends on where you come from and how you where raised.

         Different dimensions of parenting, this one struck me as interesting as well because I am a parent. I agree that children benefit from the degree of warmth that they feel from their parents. I love my daughter to pieces and when she gets hurt or is feeling sad or sick I always cuddle her and give her loves. On the other hand this section further describes that with children you cant be too controlling and you cant be careless either. The problem that I have seen in my experience growing up is if a parent tries to control their child too much a lot of things can happen, this is what I have seen happen.

       Scenario one: parents are too controlling with their kids never let them spend the night with friends, they have to come straight home from school and can never go out with their friends. what happens in this situation is the child will start to rebel big time. I see the parents intentions here, and they are completely understandable. They don't want their child to be exposed to whats out there; drugs, sex, media etc... but let me put it this way, this is what I would tell parents like these, you can chain your child to their bed and make them stay in as much as you want but mark my words either way in your child's life they are going to experience these things in life and its better to expose them to whats out there now so you can guide them to make the right decisions now then when they are adults and don't know how to deal. I'm not saying let them do drugs and let them drink and give into the social media or media out there. I am simply saying lighten the grasp you have on them. Believe me when parents show trust to their children most of the time that means a lot to them and so they don't want to break it. If these parents continue to be this way with their child when their child leaves the house most of the time they run into these types of things that their parents have tried to keep them from and they don't know how to handle the situation so most of the time they cave in.

             Scenario two:  Now lets look on the other side of the spectrum shall we? we have parents who let their child run a muck! They can be out to late hours of the night, their parents let them swear and cuss in the home, pretty much the child is running the parents. This is the advice I would give these parents, I understand that you want a good relationship with your child, but just being their friend isn't going to cut it. Its going to lead to your child making bad decisions which could cost you in the long run. I feel like parents should put healthy boundaries on their children. Discuss with your child what they think is reasonably fair. Including them on decisions like this means a lot to a young adult it makes them feel grown. All in all, my opinion on parenting with dimensions is balance your boundaries. Don't be too controlling but at the same time being careless can lead to destruction.

 

      

Chapter 6 Psych 200 off to school

    When reading this chapter I couldn't help but to think of where I work and what our goals are for the children. I am the Health Personnel at a Child developmental center. Its called Inspire Child Developmental Center. We care for children from 6 weeks all the way up to 5 years old. We are a short term center and only run from early June to late August, but what we can do with these children in these few short weeks is amazing. Especially the 4 and 5 year olds. We prepare these children for kindergarten any way we can. We help them learn, and at the same time observe how they learn. We then talk to their parents and explain some strategies that may use at home to interact with their child and also so their child can learn. Its always fun to read more about something that you are already doing and take notes to maybe improve your ways of teaching children.

      What I found interesting was the memory section of this chapter. I can say from experience the best way to get something "transferred" from working memory to long term memory is repetition. The more your brain hears it or sees it the easier it will be to remember something. I took a class a couple quarters ago, reading 85, and in the text book for that class is a section on memory. I remember it comparing memory to a jungle, but before you can get to the jungle you have to go through a savannah. The savannah in this scenario is the working memory because memory doesn't stay here long its easy to maneuver through and is easier to get out of. Once you have crossed the savannah and go into the jungle its much bigger and more complicated to get out. So like working memory that is short term the savannah is a simple, short stroll before you reach the jungle ( long term memory). Now the jungle is large, filled with vines and trees, which make it more complicated to leave the jungle. Which makes the jungle like long term memory, its hard to forget long term memory. 

        

WEEK 3 CHAPTERS 4 AND 5

Chapter 4 

             Starting off with Piaget view of development, talking about schemes,, categories, objects and knowledge. when babies use schemes they are base on actions, probably because they cant say much to express their way of thinking so they act  on it. When looking at the different kind of schemes in children to adolescents we realize that they are constantly changing, I believe that this is because of experiences that  create new schemes or changes a current scheme. As the schemes change in life it allows development of four different phases of mental development.

          I believe that thinking becomes more advanced while children grow older because they live and learn For example a child that is curious to a hot curling iron on the floor will investigate and see what the shiny thing on the floor is, not knowing that its hot. Once the child touches it, a reaction occurs and he or she would associate that shiny round thing with pain. so next time he or she sees that shiny thing on the floor its not gonna be touched because its associated with pain. So as the child progresses in development and gets older, more and more things like this occur. This is how the child develops as an individual.

            when speaking about the memory of infants and preschoolers I cant help to ask the question do they really remember? In my opinion yes, I believe that when talking about infants they do remember certain things such as mommy's and daddy's face, to such when a nipple is paced by their face, when they cry someone comes and checks whats wrong the list goes on an on. Infants can only remember so much and their memory grows with age. When talking about the memory of a preschooler is a lot different than an infant. Preschoolers memory has developed tremendously since they were infants. Now when we say preschoolers I think of 3 years +. So by 3 years old the child has learned to potty train, eat on their own, play with others and the list goes on. So as these preschoolers grew from infants to toddlers and from toddlers to preschoolers, their memories have been building. I like to think of memory as a huge filing cabinet. Every memory either has a file already to be filed after being made or a new file is made to store away until something happens to bring back that memory.

         I believe that children start problem solving at like 6 months. I remember watching my daughter in her crib or playing with her toys. She would babble to herself and interpret things in her own way, as she grew it became evident that she was her best teacher. She would recite things like mommy or daddy, or names of our pets. I think that children can problem solve in their own way.

           Children start hearing speech sounds in the womb, when mommy talks or daddy talks the baby inside is listening, this is why sometimes when baby is upset mommy's or daddy's soothing tone can calm them down. As far as speaking speech sounds I believe its pretty early in their development as infants. I would say 4-6 months, I say this because babies start cooing at this age. 

Chapter 5

      Infants  have a way of forming almost an immediate attachment to their parents and other people that play a big role in their lives. For mom this attachment stats in the womb, baby is always hearing mom when she yells, talks, sings etc... so Its almost immediate with mom. It also becomes pretty immediate for dad to, or any one who is around mom a lot while baby is in the womb. Also the way that an infant makes attachments is who ever is there for them. When baby cries who comes to soothe them or meet their needs?  when baby gets hurt who is there to comfort them? Who sings them to sleep or bathes them ? Usually these people who are doing this frequently is who baby will be attached to. 

      I think that children develop emotions such as joy, anger being sad at a very young age. However understanding these emotions and controlling them is a different thing. I believe that children start showing emotion at at least 6 months or younger. I believe it starts when they need something such as a diaper change or are hungry they cry, and when someone comes and for fills their need they associate crying with getting their needs met. As they get older in the toddler stage they learn to cry for emotion, when they get in trouble for example, it might make them feel sad or mad so they cry or when they find something funny they laugh an giggle. Showing emotion in children is a lot easier then hiding emotions as an adult. 

PSYCHOLOGY 200 BLOG WEEK 2

             

          I really liked this section,  I know I said before that this book can be boring; but when I am reading something that interests me it becomes intresting. I knew a lot of the terms used throughout the chapters because I have already taken Cell biology and Anatomy and physiology, so this was basically review for me.  when reading the blue writing on pg 59 in 2.3 made me laugh because when I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter I was the samee way. I wanted to know how I could have the healthiest baby possible, and if there were things I needed to stop doing I would stop doing them. Knowing the general risk factors of pregancy is important, you know what your in for. Speaking of diseases, drugs, alcohol and environmental hazards, it really gets me upset when I see a pregnant lady smoking or drinking. Its really discpicable. Why wouldnt you wnat the best for your baby?  I believe that having a baby is the best thing that would happen to anyone, when reading about the stages of labor it really made me think about when I was in labor with my daughter. It wasnt pleasent by any means however the out come worth it beyond a reasonable doubt. After the baby is born it is important to learn the babys "style" if you will.  Figuring out when the baby is hungry, has a poopy diaper, needs to be burped or is just irritated is definitley the funniest thing about having a new born. NOT ! Usualy a baby has different ways of crying for what they want, and believe it or not a mother can distinguish every single one of those cries her baby makes.  I remember reading and hearing of how many babies died because of SIDS ( suddent infant death syndrome). Its a scary thing to think about especially being a first time parent. It brings tears to my eyes to think how big my daughter has gotten, and how much more she will grow.

psychology 200 week 1 chapter 1 blog

Reading chapter 1 of this book pulled my interest in many ways. There was a lot of good information to think about. I found interesting the nature-nurture recurring issues in human development. I believe that  the genetic or hereditary influences really does make out who an individual turns out to be. At the same time when talking about Nurture, the experiences and the environment one grows up in also has a big impact on who an individual turns out to be. I am always hearing about studies done with identical twins who are raised in totally different homes become two completely different people, yes they may be twins and look alike but have personalities that are totally different. By scientists doing these studies it proves that the Nature- Nurture theory is true.

Reading the life cycle forces section of this chapter really was spot on when talking about the two  ladies that were pregnant. I find i very true that Jenny who is the teenager would be concern, frightened and judged more than Jaqui who is more stable in every aspect.