Myvirtualchild Simulation Essay Examples

This simulation was a real image of what the future holds for future parents. It made me realize how having a baby changes each and everything in one’s life. How the baby becomes the number one priority and how everything comes in second. Another important realization was the fact that most of, including yours truly, prepares tons of stuff for the pre-baby times. We read literature, we search on the Internet, we ask current moms about how the process of our pregnancy will be like, how will we know when it’s time to give birth, how to take yourself during this time so that both you and baby are healthy and happy and most importantly how to give birth. But what most of us forget to research upon is what to do when the baby does get here. And this is one area which needs a lot of research. However, no matter how much you research, read books, attend classes, watch videos and prepare but nothing in the world can truly prepare for you an experience which will change your life forever. Having a baby is like a brand new chapter in your life and this MyVirtualChild simulation activity was a perfect personification of that exactly.
When May was born, it wasn’t an easy time. After eight hours of strenuous labour the doctors informed me that the baby was in distress because it was not in the correct position thus they had to do a C-Section which resulted in my partner and I having to get to hold our baby, after a little cleaning up, after 10 minutes. When I first held my baby I experienced emotions like I’ve never felt before. It was a surge of never before felt emotions and my partner and I could not believe how lucky and fortunate we’re that we gave birth to a new living human being. The Apgar score, when May was born, was 7-8 which lies in the normal range of 7-10 which means that the baby does not require any extra medical help and support to function properly. This score is taken after the first 1 minute as well after 5 minutes. The five dimensions of temperaments to describe May’s behavior in the first 30 months are closely associated with the Big Five personality traits. According to latest research carried out by twins along with the updated longitudinal studies, it can be proven that there are the impacts of genes and the environment on the five types of personality traits associated with the MyVirtualChild program. May’s level of sociability was medium. She is a friendly child who likes meeting strangers but considering her first months she is a little reluctant to just jump onto the laps of total strangers.
Here comes the concept of Good Fit, because I was aware of this personality trait of hers thus I would first introduce May to the stranger and then wait for a little while and if May was comfortable then only hand over her to some stranger. This helped May open up to strangers more as compared to had I just given her to strangers thinking that she’s a baby she doesn’t require formal introductions. Emotionality level displayed by May was low; she was not a very emotional child. She did display appropriate emotions and feelings to things but in a controlled manner and did not experience much mood swings due to this controlled level of emotionality. Research shows that generally boys display more aggressive attitudes as compared to girls. It is thus assumed that boys are less cooperative with the parents, day care providers as well as other children. However, VirtualChild shows that there exists a great deal of overlapping in the characteristics of both the sexes and a certain type of behavior cannot be expected of just one gender. May showed a more cooperative nature, while she did have an inquisitive mind and liked looking at things from a viewpoint of scientists, a researcher but she also was cooperative and did not throw fits of bad moods or uncooperative attitudes. It can be attributed to her gender but it is also related to the environment and the upbringing. May had a habit of studying and observing things. There were numerous examples of her showing her curious nature. She would often try to drown her bath animals at different depths in the bath and then delightfully watch how long and with how much pressure would they come back up. May also utilized her motor skills and lot and would go crawling and later walking around in public places and sometimes even into the streets.
This meant I had to keep my eyes open 24/7 to ensure that she does not get into any type of trouble. When May turned 6 there were a lot of changes in hr cognitive ability, as was expected. We had a choice to either drive our child to explore and experience each and every ability domain or be more specific thus in some instances it has actually given positive results and progress. Intrapersonal and interpersonal insights are caught by fundamental variables in the project, for example, connection security, emotionality, peer fitness, restraint, and the three identity sorts. These parts of the tyke are likewise affected to some degree by my reactions to her activities, and can change because of aggregate impacts of social encounters and child rearing decisions. The experience which positively influenced the development of May was her motor skills and how she would utilize them to explore. May was always a child with a curious nature and I gauged that in the beginning so we would go walk around the neighborhood, one day we were walking and we saw some freelance painters painting a sidewalk with 3D art using paints. I stopped for a little while and that is when one of the artists started his work and we waited until he completed. May was fascinated by this whole thing as she saw how the wall was completely clean and how after just a little time it was filled with such magical colors. Thus May utilized her motor skills and went to the artist and started gazing at him. The artist gave her a little paint and May started drawing on the wall and she drew quite well for such a small age and this is was give her the boost to use her hands and mind to keep in mind how to take care of new things. The experience which had a negative impact on her and still scares the kids is the story of the first floor neighbors who really long bangs. Rachael did not realize that Joey was sensitive around the kid; co cheese and Chandler were chose take of the kid when the cremator came in to talk to kids about the real deal with the things. This was when kids realized that people die. While everyone laughed in the end however, Ross realized that before this Rachael thought good of everyone and how from now onwards, May realized that she can lie about and hide things from each other.
As a parent you had a lot of choices to make. The very first choice, which sounded totally wrong in the beginning but now makes total sense, is the decision to keep you and not go for a decision. This is a decision that no one of use think twice about from now onwards. After that even we had to make a lot of decisions and had to take a lot of hard choices for the kids. Emily was of the opinion that they now need to change all his clothes, while it was something that Ross was completely against but it sounded right for the future of the marriage and any future kids were saved from being scarred for life.
One of the most challenging decision that we had to make, even though I hated it was the when they had to give up Bonzo. During our 6th month of the pregnancy my partner suddenly realized that this is the perfect time to talk to me about giving up Bonzo, as my partner realized what a big threat this is to the health of May. My partner was being a little paranoid, he was scared that the kid might actually be allergic or might swallow a fur ball and thus pose, so it is better that we give up our old, pet dog. At least until May is old enough to understand how having a pet works. The stages of development of May that was toughest for us during the 7-15 months. This was the time when May learned how to crawl and it was also the time when my Chandler was giving up smoking so it was a time when Chandler, my closet friend and neighbor, was always cranky and thus could not be kept a lot with the baby thus leaving us short of one perfectly good babysitter for the baby. This made things difficult for both my partner and I as both of were working. So we had to give up on the permanent status of my job. I adopted the temporary phase and would return to work for a shorter duration and that at flexible hours.
However, this resulted in a fall in our financial stability as a baby is expensive so I had to take up part time shifts at restaurants etc which had flexible hours but provided us with the extra cash. After this hardship we were a little toughened by things and thus the time that followed was one of the easiest phases of May’s development. This is when May would be the most inquisitive and would utilize her motor skills the most, but it was also the time when May began to instructions clearly and properly and as her aggressiveness and cooperativeness level was better, meaning she was more cooperative then that meant that May listened to instructions more readily and completely. The decisions that I would do differently now that I’ve finished the activity would the decision to be a little less paranoid. I gave up on a lot of things because I either believed that it would be detrimental for the child’s health or I believed that I do not deserve to have things easy and thus I would not allow myself daily luxuries as now I’m a parent and as a parent fun times are restricted and I should be overly protective and careful about things. I would ensure that my partner and I let down our hair a bit more during this time as this would have ensured that our health stayed better as we were in constant state of tension and worry along with paranoia, which still does not go away leaving in both my partner and I facing issues with our blood pressure as it would rise too easily in such a young age. The part of child and adolescent development that I would like to learn more about is the variety of approaches to the study of individual differences in cognitive ability. It varied from child to child and we however, made the mistake of holding our child against a benchmark that we set up without any analysis about the various reactions and actions of our own child which resulted in us having unexpected expectations and worries about May which we might not have had we learnt more about this stage of development.
After the completion of this class I realized what a blessing this MyVirtualChild simulation has been for all of us future parents. It is actually good for people who were sacred of or not ready to have kids as they believed that they would not be any good at it, like yours truly. It helped me train myself and helped me examine myself under various situations. While having a real baby would be a million times more difficult and challenging but it gave me a fair depiction of how the process would unravel and I like this rehearsal before the real thing. After this activity I’ve gained a lot of knowledge about the physical, emotional and cognitive ability and development of children.
The development of May taught me about important concepts of child and adolescent development like activity which is the physical as well as mental capability of the kids. It made me categorize children into broad categories which made me understand them slightly better and thus helped me straighten up my expectations, It also helped me realize where I go wrong and what is it that I do right. Like every other thing in life, it taught me to play on my strengths of realizing what a good fit is for me and my child while helped me identify my weakness of becoming slightly overly paranoid and careful about the various dangers associated with child and adolescent development. I strongly believe that I would be able to utilize these leanings in not just the times when I might actually have a child but also help in understanding the psyche and thought process of people around me better as I would know what sort of child and adolescent development activities that they went through easily and what is it that they struggled with.

Bibliography

Andrews, V C. The unwelcomed child. New York: NY: Pocket Books, 2014.
Brunk, Jason W. Child and adolescent development. New York: Wiley, 1975.
Clarke-Stewart, Alison and Judy Dunn. Families count : effects on child and adolescent development. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Dunchock, Arnold D and Betty Mahmoody. For the love of a child. New York : St. Martin's Press,, 1992.
Gemelli, Ralph J. Normal child and adolescent development. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1996.
Gootman, Jennifer Appleton. After-school programs to promote child and adolescent development : summary of a workshop. Washington: DC: National Academy Press, 2000.
Hoffnung, Robert J and Kelvin Seifert. Child and adolescent development. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Hoy, Anita Woolfolk and Nancy Perry. Jason W Brunk. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson, 2012.
Raad, Boele de. The big five personality factors : the psycholexical approach to personality. Kirkland, WA: Hogrefe & Huber, 2000.
Sarafino, Edward P and James W. Armstrong. Child and adolescent development. Glenview, Ill. : Scott: , Foresman, 1980.