Person One Paper 1

Person One Paper

Nicole Evans

Professor Lemons

Psychology 1100

03/14/2019
Person One Paper 2

Ted and Robin were new college graduates when they met. Both Ted and Robin were of

a Caucasian background and from middle-class families. They were also both born and grew up

in small Californian towns, a little south of the Bay Area. After graduating from Southern

California Universities, Ted and Robbin decided to move to San Francisco where they eventually

met. Locking eyes in a small intimate bar in downtown San Francisco they immediately kicked it

off. This was a rare and exceptional situation because the bar was so crowded with San

Francisco’s high population. They were inseparable from the moment they met in that tiny little

bar and fell deeply in love.

In their late 20’s they decided it was time to get married and start a family. They were

both in good places in life, and already living together. Ted had an average paying job as an

architect and Robin was teaching at the local elementary school. Ted and Robin made average

money which put them in the mid-range middle class socioeconomic status. (Berger, 2016, Ch. 1

p. 14). It was time for them to start their family, so they started preparing for pregnancy. Robin

lived a very healthy life style with frequent exercise and healthy eating habits. With her

knowledge of child development, she prepared by taking a daily multi-vitamin, stopped drinking,

and updated her vaccines (Berger, 2016, Ch. 2. P. 74). With Robins education she was fully

aware of how important it was to be healthy to obtain implantation of the fetus, and how crucial

the germinal period was for development of a baby long term. (Berger, 2016, Ch. 2 p. 58). This

meant Robin wanted to do everything in the best way possible.

After trying for a few months, Ted and Robin’s gamete cells finally merged into one and

went through the processes of implantation creating a zygote cell. (Berger, 2016, Ch. 2, p. 48).

Ted and Robin were so very happy to have a complication free pregnancy. Robin carried the

baby passed the age of viability to full term at 38 weeks on the dot. After the average 12 hours of
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labor a beautiful baby girl was naturally born. The newborns name was Lily. The nurses

implicated the normal assessment of the Apgar Scale and Lily was determined a happy healthy

newborn. (Berger, 2016, Ch. 2, p.64).

Robin and Ted couldn’t be happier to bring home little Lily and start their new family

together. Having a new born in the home was amazing even after all the lost sleep. Robin

decided to beast feed Lily to give her the best life she could, because she knew of all the benefits

and it was also the recommended choice by the World Heath Organization. Robin knew Lily

could have improved vision, less chance of asthma, better oral and jaw health and much more

just from this small choice (Berger, 2016, Ch. 3, p. 110).

Lily developed as a normal baby girl should. Her height and weight were always around

50th to 60th on the percentile scale (Berger, 2016, Ch. 3, p. 90). She was a growing baby, growing

more and more every day, and Robin was very proud of her baby girl. Because Ted made enough

money to provide for the family, they decided that Robin would stay home and be the care taker

of Lily for a while. For the first two months Lily slept for most of the day but had erratic sleep

behaviors. This made it hard for Robin to be on a normal sleep schedule. Lily was a co-sleeping

baby with her own Victorian style crib in her parents’ room that Robin picked out herself

( Berger, 2016, Ch. 3, p. 92).

As Lily grew, both of her parents thought she was such a smart little girl. Lily kept

growing, she learned to babble and gave her cute little toothless smiles. Lily was a very outgoing

and happy child when around the family and people that she knew. Things began to change

around nine months when she started to show fear around strangers and others she did not know.

This was a normal sign of stranger wariness, but it made Robin’s mother insecure when little

Lily wanted nothing to do with her when she came to visit (Berger, 2013, Ch 4, p. 130). As Lily
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grew so did her personality. Robin had many friends who also had children around Lily’s age, so

she scheduled a lot of play dates. Robin knew she only wanted to have one child so she wanted

her to get as much socialization with other children as she could and have her grow into a well-

rounded adult.

Lily was growing into such a smart little young child. She was very good at centration

and impulse control and that made learning for her very easy (Berger, 2013, Ch. 5 p. 17 1 &

174). Lily really enjoyed going to her head start programs, then pre-school, followed by

kindergarten. Reading was one of her favorite things to do with her mother so going to school

and learning to do it by herself was very exciting for her. It was coming the time for her mother

to go back to work after a few years off to be with her daughter. Lily had to adjust and learn how

to deal with not getting as much time with her mother as she once did, but she handled it well.

School was a very good experience for Lily because it was easy for her to make friends.

On her first day of second grade, Lily made a friend named Kim who would become her best

friend for the rest of her life. It was easy for them to connect because they were both only

children and lived on the same street. Lily and Kim took the bus to school together every

morning and played during recess. They took part in cooperative play, playing pretend and may

other games together with their peers at the school (Berger, 2016, Ch 6, p. 207). Life for them

was very simple in early years. They didn’t have the fears and stress of adolescents and play with

other kids came easy for them. They played mostly with other girls and didn’t have to deal with

much bullying.

As Lily grew older things in school did start getting a little harder for her. In the third

grade she noticed that she was having more issues with reading then the other kids in her class.

Kim who came from almost the same background and family structure didn’t seem to have this
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same issue as Lily, so she said something to her mother. After seeing the school therapist, she

was diagnosed with Dyslexia (Berger, 2016, Ch. 7, p. 271). This was hard for Lily to understand

and accept. Reading was always something Lily loved to do and now it was something she

struggled with. It made her feel a bit insecure with herself. Her mother knew how important this

was for her and started working with her at home so she didn’t have to feel so bad about

struggling.

Through out school even with a learning disability Lily was able to over come and was

also very liked by her peers. She never took part in bullying and was never bullied. Lily was a

kind hearted soul that never like to see anyone sad and some how was able to make friends and

stick up for the bully-victims without making enemies herself (Berger, 2016, Ch 8, p. 303). One

day during recess Kim and Lily were playing with some friends and saw a group of girls

harassing another girl that was quiet and withdrawn and didn’t quite know how to stick up for

herself. Lily went and diffused the argument and name calling with grace. She was not

aggressive or rude to anyone, she just had that way about her. She was a leader type and had no

idea.

Although Lily was smart, nice, socially accepted, and well-rounded this did not change

the effect that adolescence would have on her. In middle school she began menarche at the age of

11 years old (Berger, 2016, Ch. 9, p. 316). This would have been a year or two before her

classmates. This caused many insecure feelings for Lily. Not only was Lily having to deal with

her period much earlier she was also taller than most of her peers and was developing much

earlier too. This was giving Lily a very unhealthy body image. Even though Lily had many good

friends and wasn’t bullied she felt as if there was an imaginary audience that there was always

watching and laughing (Berger, 2016, Ch. 9, p. 330). This self-esteem issue followed all the way
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through high school. She talked to Kim about it many times, but her reassurance did not seem to

help. In the 10th grade Lily developed an eating disorder called Anorexia to lose weight. She

spent so much time on social media comparing herself to her peers and celebrities witch feed

more into her unhealthy body image. Lily was not over weight in any way she was on the thinner

side of an average build. This all stemmed from her inability to think as logically as she would in

adulthood.
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References:

BERGER, K. (2016). INVITATION TO THE LIFE SPAN PLUS LAUNCHPAD. [S.l.]: PALGRAVE

MACMILLAN.
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Reflection:

The subject of human development is a complex and interesting topic. While writing I was

able to apply these thoughts and ideas to the real world. Its one thing to memorize terms and

know what theory started another study, but the other side is seeing and understanding and the

ability to apply the thought and reasoning to your own life’s. Writing this paper made me take a

step back, into the eyes of a made-up person and think through what they may have thought.

This paper taught me to view life through other people’s eyes. its also not about

answering the question of what they are thinking but why. This class and paper gave me the

ability to take step back and educational assume as to why the thought prosses goes the way it

does. For example, before the class I looked at a toddler’s fits were only because they being rude

and selfish. This class and paper taught me that they don’t have they same abilities of though

processes. That has helped me deal with my nephew so much better.