My Virtual Child Application: The Strange Situation Application

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My Virtual Child Application
Kylee Fox
Harrisburg Area Community College
Abstract
In this application paper, I talk about the child that I raised through My Virtual Child. I’m going to be applying what I’ve learned through class, power points, lectures, and research to my parenting style and the development of my child. I will explain in detail the theories that are taken into consideration while describing my child’s development. My child’s name is Piper. I chose to breast feed, and her eating habits started off on a bad foot. For the first week she wasn’t very hungry and lost a little weight but finally she began to eat more and gain some weight back. Around 3 months, Piper will occasionally get fussy after meals, but is …show more content…

Mary Ainsworth was known as the mother of attachment research, she tested Bowlby’s theory of attachment. She conducted a stress test better known as The Strange Situation Procedure. This consists of a series of staged episodes that illustrate the strength of attachment between a child and usually his or her mother. “The “strange situation” follows an eight-step pattern: (1) The mother and the baby enter an unfamiliar room; (2) the mother sits down, leaving the baby free to explore; (3) an adult stranger enters the room and converses first with the mother and then with the baby; (4) the mother exits the room, leaving the baby alone with the stranger; (5) the mother returns, greeting and comforting the baby, and the stranger leaves; (6) the mother departs again, leaving the baby alone; (7) the stranger returns; and (8) the mother returns and the stranger leaves.” (Cite) There are four different attachment patterns: secure, avoidant, resistant/ambivalent, and disorganized. A secure attachment is defined when the child uses the mother as a home base and the mother is responsive to the child’s needs. They are comfortable in the Strange Situation as long as the mother is there. Exploring independently, checking in with …show more content…

My partner and I set rules for her because we both work so we weren’t able to drive her everywhere or pick her up from places, but we would usually let her do what she wanted as long as she could always be reached on her cell and if it would be that she wouldn’t answer or follow curfew or lie about where she was going, she would be grounded. Erikson talk’s about how “adolescents strive to discover their strengths and weaknesses and the roles that best suit their future lives” (Feldman) and Piper is pretty good at concentrating in class “and is usually able to keep her activities. Occasionally she gets too busy and gets stressed out” (My virtual child, at age 16). She had one instance where she had gone to a party then called me to pick her up and I smelled alcohol on her breath and she had a hangover the next morning. I didn’t scold her because I knew it was bound to happen eventually, so I told her I was proud of her for being responsible and called me to pick her up rather than driving home drunk or riding home with someone who had been drinking also. I also went over the dangers of underage drinking and made her she understood. While she was becoming more and more independent, she thought it would be a good idea to run off with her boyfriend and get matching tattoos, thankfully they were small and in a spot that is not visible. Our relationship actually got a lot better after she had started taking a psychology class

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