Personal Narrative: My Experience Of Working With Children

Working with children has always been a distant thought to me. Growing up, I never imagined working with kids, although I have always enjoyed being around them. I signed up to do my internship for undergraduate school at a daycare. I wanted to challenge myself and working with children was the area that I had the least amount of experience in. What I learned during that internship has shaped my life in a completely different way. Fast forward a couple years and now I am completing my practicum in a Middle School. Practicum continues to teach my valuable lessons; each time I enter the school. I can’t believe there was a time, when I thought against working with children. Working with children can be rather difficult. Children are complex creatures …show more content…
I asked the parent’s of the child, if they would mind if I interviewed their child for class. They agreed that would be okay. Names will be changed to protect the privacy of the family interviewed. I explained to Patrick that I would be writing a paper about our interview and asked if he was okay with that. I also explained that I would change his name, so nobody would be able to figure out I was interviewing him. I also asked Patrick if he would be okay to answer the questions without his mom around, he said yes and his mother agreed that, that would be okay. I told him he could answer as much as he wanted to or as little as he wanted to. I also told him, that if he felt uncomfortable with any question he did not have to answer. He could quit at any time, if he chose …show more content…
He is very mature for his age and had good manners. I know his family, and I know they have raised him to be polite. Patrick should be in the 4rd stage of Erikson’s model. That stage is industry vs. inferiority. In this stage Patrick is valuing his friendships and looking for competence. Patrick’s family is allowing Patrick to express himself and according to his answers he is thriving in this developmental stage. He is well within the cognitive stages as his peers. He is well on his way to figuring out his identity, but that could change with time. Although, we did not touch into anything to emotionally deep, he appears to be expressing his emotions in appropriate ways. I have known Patrick since he was a young boy, so he was rather comfortable around me. He did appear a bit nervous in the beginning but I reminded him that no answer was wrong and it was all about what he thinks. That appeared to loosen him up. He was a good sport and participated very