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.