Personal Narrative: My Integrative Report Of A Child

For my second entry of my integrative report I had another one-on-one interaction with Jacob, the three-year-old boy from my last entry. Jacob is a false name I will be using throughout this report for confidentiality purposes. This visit was very similar to my last visit as I babysat at the home of the child and we visited the park down the street. Much like the last time we played in the basement, which had lots of toys to play with and a television. Jacob is part of a traditional nuclear family as he has both a biological mother and father who he is dependent on (Shaffer, Kipp, Wood, & Willoughby, 2013, pg. 612). However, only the mother was there when I came over to babysit Jacob. When I first arrived at Jacob’s house I could tell Jacob …show more content…
My initial reaction was scared that Jacob hurt himself and unfortunately Jacob could read the emotional expression on my face and started to cry. I believe Jacob was using social referencing because he paused to look at me after he fell as he was unsure if he had hurt himself and once he saw the worry in my face that is when he began to cry (pg. 438). Once Jacob stopped crying I decided that we should go play on the playground. At the time the playground was empty and Jacob and I were having lots of fun. However, once more children arrived and started joining us on the playground Jacob began to display behavioural inhibition, as he then started to remove himself from the playground area. I believe he was uncomfortable with so many children he did not know surrounding him (pg. 444). While Jacob was by himself on the playground he then began to exhibit nonsocial activity by displaying onlooker play as he stood to the side of the playground and watched the other children play and did not try to join them for a while (pg. 683). Once Jacob got a little more comfortable he ended his onlooker play and began cooperative play with a few boys around the same age as him. The boys then began to play tag on the playground and Jacob assumed the role of the “it” tagger (pg. 683). As I watched the children play I noticed some gender segregation as the boys played on one side of the playground and the girls played on the other. It seemed to me that even at such a young age these children preferred to play with other children of the same-sex (pg. 529). I then watched Jacob continue to play with these boys and noticed one of the other boys had skinned his knee on the playground. Jacob showed altruism by running over to see if the other boy was okay as he was concerned for him (pg. 585). Jacob displayed prosocial behaviour by comforting the other boy who was hurt (pg. 585). Before Jacob ran over to