LP 5 & 6

Wow as I read in our text it really facinates me how much children know at a young age. I have two cousins that are both 3 and born a month apart and it amazes me how smart one is over the other...I don't want to compare because they are both very smart, but one is more exposed to older kids(which probably makes her learn things 3 yr. olds shouldn't know) and a lot more things than the other and that seems to be giving her an advantage over my other cousin. In chapter 5 they talked about how young children do self talk when playing I now notice my young cousins doing this often when they play. Also in this chapter they talked about Head Start, Child-centered kindergarten, and Montessori approach. I went to a Head Start program when I was little and I think it really helped me in my development. I was an extremely shy as a kid and still am at times, but I truely believe going to preschool helped me in becoming less shy. I personally think any of those three types of preschools would be a great idea for all children to attend because not all kids have other kids to play with, and I think it is a good place to learn how to work with others, become more outgoing and just be exposed to people other than in your family.

The interesting topics to me that were talked about in chapter 6 were birth order, effects of TV violence on kids, and the effects of divorce on kids. I have read in this text book and in other Psychology text books that the first born is usually better at acedemics, is more resonsible, and is a leader. Which in my case it is kind of like that I have one sister who is 10 years younger than I, but even though she is the "baby" in the family I think she is quite responsible and very smart. I know these types of things are not always true, but I do think there is some valitity to the whole birth order thing. Here is a web site with some more characteristics of birth order http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/birth_order.htm. I also do believe that if kids see violence on TV or with video games etc. that they are more violent. When I was in Psychology of Human Relations we had to write a paper about this subject. For this paper we had to watch a childrens TV show and count how many acts of violence were in it. I watched SpongeBob and was supprised how much violence was in that 30 min. show. A website(http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html#) I was looking at about this made a good point, the "hero" in the show can kill the "bad" guy and he gets praised for it, and kids might get the wrong idea even though they know hurting people is wrong. I know my 8 yr. old cousin has always been able to watch what he wanted on TV and play whatever video games he wanted and now he acts out a lot and has behavior problems. I think kids watching violence has to to with indulgent parenting styles because like with my cousin he just gets his way so no one has to deal with him. With divorce I can definately say it doesn't seem to ever have a positive effect on kids. My parents divorced when I was 3 and I think if even after they divorced they would have had better coparenting skills things could have gone smoother.