Althea Davis

8/4/2014

HDFS 211-730

From Concept to Reality

At the local YMCA day camp, after all the organized activities have come to a close at

4:00 pm, the children play free. I spend 6 hours with these children every day. I know them all

well, but I had never once thought that they could connect to what I am learning about child

development. When I finally had the opportunity to step back from my usually interactive and

participatory activity with the children, I was able to sit in the middle of the large play area and

just observe the amazing growth happening around me.

The campers range from age 5 to age 13. As I was taking notes, I realized this limited my

observation on any of the younger stages of development. There is also a child care center that

operates in the same area as the campers. They care for children ranging from infancy to 5 years

of age. I was only able to observe a few of those children at play as well even though they were

not a part of the camp. I mostly focused on my campers though. They were in a perfect

environment to play and therefore learn.

The environment they were set in was not necessarily designed for development, but

there were many opportunities for physical as well as cognitive development. In the big

gymnasium/ cafeteria type setting next to a multi-purpose roller-skating rink. During my

observation period, the children were spread out playing different games and doing different

activities. The majority of the older children were in the rink playing a big group game of
kickball. There were also children outside of the rink coloring, playing board games, and

reading.

In this environment, they were also supervised by and played with at least 10 adults that

they know and are comfortable around. Being around these adults may have altered their actions

and decisions slightly. B. F. Skinners concept of operant conditioning was definitely at play

during my observation. It was quite subtle, but the children, some more than others, were in tune

with what the adults wanted and did not want them to do. When the children would do something

that the adults wanted to encourage, they would give them reinforcement. If the children did the

opposite they would discourage it through punishment. For example, during a game of gaga

ball, a game similar to dodge ball, one child got out, but wouldnt leave the game. The

counselor decided to use negative punishment by taking away the ball until the child left the

game. Negative punishment and positive reinforcement are the most popular, and seemingly

affective, forms of operant conditioning at this camp.

There were many different stages of physical development taking part during my

observation at camp. The children in the rink were developing their gross motor skills by

running, kicking the ball, and throwing the ball. The children at the tables were developing more

of their fine motor skills by grasping small game pieces and moving them or coloring. There

were definitely children in different stages of both gross and fine motor development. One of the

infants from the tot watch was interacting with the campers. The little boy of about 16 months

was just learning how to run on his own. He wobbled at times and seemed unsteady, but loved to

gallop as best he could and was very reactive to his mother asking him to stop. Because of his

ability to move on his own and at his own speed he definitely had increased independence

which is common with the development of locomotion (Parke & Gauvian, 2009). There was also
a difference in the way the younger children of 5 years were able to color their pages and the

older children of 10 years did. The younger children tended to color outside the lines and used

less coordinated strokes. Whereas the older children were able to use gradients by pushing the

marker harder and had no issue with coloring meticulously.

There was also a difference in the younger childrens linguistic development. Of course it

varied between child and wasnt completely dependent on their age, but the older children tended

to be completely linguistically developed and the younger ones had room to develop. One of the

5 year olds told me all about her day at the waterpark. She used the word stormeded instead of

stormed and runned instead of ran. These are a few examples of her use of

overregularization. Another common occurrence was changing certain phonemes. For example,

my name is Althea, but a large majority of the children are incapable of pronouncing (the th
sound) and changed my name to Alfea. I let that go. Some errors adult assisted in correcting by

using the facilitative language technique of Expansion. When one of the children said wow! I

roller skate really good! an adult responded with You do rollerskate very well! Good job!. In

this way it wasnt uncomfortably confrontational, but the child received the message that well

was more fitting for that statement. One adult also engaged with a child by asking a lot of open-

ended questions as a facilitative language technique. This interaction also showed the childs

receptive language skills. The child responded properly to her question and was able to show her

expressive language skills through her response. Adults were very facilitative in all of their

developmental areas.

Another area that adults were able to assist the childrens development was in the

childrens expressions of emotion and emotional development. There are many children at this
camp who struggle with their emotional development because of difficult home situations. At

camp, however, there is a much more supportive environment for many of the children to work

on their emotional regulation and expression. One child in particular caught my attention.

Landon got in trouble for not listening to a counselor when they asked him to stop pushing the

other children. Because he didnt listen, the counselor put him in timeout. At first the child

expressed the purely primary emotion of anger. He yelled and stomped his feet. Once he was in

timeout he was able to take a second to regulate his emotions and tap into his secondary

emotions. He felt guilt, a secondary emotion, for yelling at the counselor and once he was let out

of timeout he said he was sorry. I discussed this event with the counselor and it seems he has

come a long way since the beginning of the year. He has been working on his emotional self-

regulation and getting a lot better at understanding others emotions as well. This even may have

a lot to do with his temperament style as well. He is known to be quite an angry child in general.

Even when he is happy, he can laugh and smile, but he never really lets his guard down or gets

rid of the scowl on his face. This angry could definitely be seen as a temperament style that plays

a large role in his emotional development, expression, and self-regulation. Caregivers and

environment affected all the children strongly as well.

The adults interacted with the children in a very supportive manner. Because many of

them have a lot of experience with children, they are very in tune with the childrens needs. I did

notice, however, that the adults tended towards campers with commonalities. When no children

were in need, the counselors tended towards the more socially capable students. As attractive

children tend to receive special treatment in daily life, they received more attention from the

adults. This may have had to do with previous attachments iniciated by the camper, but for the

majority of the cases, the more attractive and socially competent children received the most
attention. However, when it came to non-emergency needs like a falling down in the skating rink

or having an argument with another camper, the adults tended towards the less attractive peers

(Ma & Fisher, 2014). The Empathy-Helping Hypothesis definitely plays a large role in this. The

children that the adults felt most empathy for were the first to receive assistance in a non-

emergency situation. For example, when an attractive and socially competent child would fall in

the skating rink the counselor would look at them from afar and ask briefly if they were hurt or

did nothing at all knowing that they achieve their personal objectives through social means

and other children would rush to them to help. When a less attractive or less socially competent

camper fell, the adult rushed to their aid and made sure they were up and could continue skating.

This was something I had never noticed before, but now that I am aware of it, it seems to make

sense and become apparent more often than I would expect. Obviously the adults would never

put the children in harm and never intentionally favor some children over others, but depending

on certain situations, different children receive attention.

The attention that the adults give the children may also positively affect their

development. I noticed one adult playing Connect Four with multiple children. The children

were of different ages and different experience levels with this game. For the first game with all

of them the adult would play at her level of experience. She would not hold back and use all

different types of strategies to win. With this she could decipher where this level of difficulty was

in comparison to their Zone of Proximal Development. The more advanced players were able to

play at the high level using all the different strategies with no help from others, but still lost at

times. This means they were able to understand, but still had room to learn. The youngest player

lost every time. She could only play for a short time with the help of peers and other adults

through guided participation, before losing. Seeing this, the counselor used scaffolding to adjust
the game to her level. She was able to access her Zone of Proximal Development when she

changed it so they could only win with vertical and horizontal four-in-a-row. From here she

was able to learn strategies to win with vertical and horizontal lines instead of diagonal. Once

she is able to win consistently and fully understand the strategies, she can move to using

diagonal as well. Through language and drawing as mediators, the student was able to learn new

techniques and advance her problem solving skills.

By watching this game of Connect Four it became very clear that children of different

ages were at separate stages of problem solving. I was able to tell where certain campers were in

the Piagetian stages of development. While playing the game, an 11 year old wanted to do a

secret maneuver to win the game. She put up a piece of paper on her opponents side of the board

blocking their view from it so they couldnt see what she did. Doing this proves that she has the

capability of understanding others perspectives. Although when asked what she would do if her

opponent placed a piece in a certain spot, this question being an abstract idea, she was unable to

solve the problem. This limitation and this ability shows that she is in the concrete operations

stage. This is just right for her age. This is just one example of the different stages that I

witnessed during my observation

This observation was incredibly enlightening. I was able to take the hypothetical concepts

that I have been learning in class and use them to understand real life situations and

development. I was able to use the different techniques I learned in order to form the most

supportive and helpful environment for the children. By watching and applying the concepts, I

was able to better understand them and also better understand the children I work with every day.

I was also able to adjust the way I interact with the children in order to give them the tools they

need to grow. I will definitely be able to use this experience and information in my future.
 Works Cited

Hetherington, E. Mavis, Ross D. Parke, and Virginia O. Locke. Child psychology: a

contemporary viewpoint. 7th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print.

Ma, Yu, and Robert J. Fisher. "The Price of Being Beautiful: Negative Effects of Attractiveness

on Empathy for Children in Need." Journal of Consumer Research 41.2 (2014): 899-

899. Print.