Child Reflection Paper

The child that I will be doing a psychological observance on is named Dontrey. Dontrey was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 11th, 1998. His mother Carol is an officer in the US Navy. She was 28 when he was born. She is away in Iraq and Afghanistan for many of his growing years, so she misses out on a lot of his milestones. His maternal grandmother, Nancy is the primary caregiver. His father is not involved in any way. He does not know his father. Dontrey does not having any other siblings. When he was 11 years of age, his mother was killed in a helicopter crash. Throughout this observance I am going to look at various parts of his life and look at his heath mentally, physically and emotional. In chapter one of this course we discussed subjects such as The Life – Span Perspective, The Nature of Development, Theories of Development and Research in Life – Span Development. Through all of Dontreys experiences he had to go through different types of development. Development is the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the human life span.

The only thing that I want to focus on is Bonding and Emotional/Psychological Adjustments. During Dontrey’s infancy he lacked the bonding between parent and infant. Usually when talking about this subject it is the bond between mother and infant; but, Dontrey lacked this with his father as an infant. This may cause him to resent male figures in his life, or cause a lack of trust. Also, it is said that during the postpartum period the father can provide an important support system for mothers, especially in helping mothers care for young infants. Since Dontrey’s mother did not have this paternal support it was probably very hard for her to raise him on her