Example Of Child Observation

My child observation was done with 3-year-old Abriel, Daughter of my cousin. The observation took place in Ariel’s home where she resides with her mother, father, and great cousin. The house is located on the 3rd floor of an apartment building; the home was decorated well with pictures of the family lining the living room wall. The television was in the center of the living room with an oversized sectional. There are two bedrooms in the home; Abriel shares a room with her great cousin, a female, who is 21 years old. There were not many toys in the home; and all were stored in Ariel’s room. The observation took place on a Saturday afternoon at approximately 2pm and lasted for 6 hours. Her father was at work, and her mother and great cousin were …show more content…
Again, I explained to her that I was working and that she could not brush or comb my hair and she became upset, yelling, “nobody wants to play with me, mommy can I call my daddy?” After talking with her father, she went to get her doll baby whom she named “princess” she came over to me and showed me the doll baby pressing her chest to demonstrate that the doll cried when she did so. She explained, “when the baby cry you have to feed her” so she went and got her bottle and began feeding princess. She continued to play with her doll engaging in animistic thinking as she believed that the doll was felling hot and so she took off all the dolls clothes, later she wanted to give the doll a bath and went to gather all the dolls toiletries. Here it can be safely assumed that she was in Piaget’s preoperational stage (Berk, 2012). It was clear that Abriel was craving adult attention and interaction, her mother, and great cousin gave her little as I sat in the living room, I watched as she found ways to entertain herself and when hungry without her mother knowing went to the refrigerator and got whatever she needed. It was clear that her mother supported independence and this appeared to be the norm. She engages in self-soothing activities while upset that she was unable to go on the balcony with putting the TV on the music channel and distracted her self by getting her doll baby. This is thought to contribute greatly to autonomy and mastery of cognitive and social skills. She engages in make believe play not only by feeding her doll but also pretending that her fist was a microphone. According to Piaget, young children practice and strengthen newly acquired representational schemas through pretend play (Burk 2012). Abriel’s language deficiency may be due to heredity as her father and grandmother