What this is:
I'm taking a class on childhood. This is a short discussion assignment. The assignment really did ask about our own childhood--I didn't just use it as another excuse to whine about my life...
I'm taking a class on childhood. This is a short discussion assignment. The assignment really did ask about our own childhood--I didn't just use it as another excuse to whine about my life...
I wrote:
The environments that I grew up in were not
consistent, but they still show the correlations mentioned in our text.
In my early years, my environment was quiet but detached (passive environment). My personality was
also quiet. I was an only child until I was 8 and and was accustomed to
quiet time with my single working mother.
Later my mother married a man with three
children. My step-father was loud, the children were loud and I was
still, well, not loud. I preferred alone time reading or drawing but this
behavior was interpreted as aloof, arrogant and even insulting to my
step-father (evocative environment). As
the book explains, "responses children evoke from others (then,
eventually) strengthen the child's original style (Berk 2012)." In
other words, for me, my quiet nature strengthened into a more withdrawn quiet
nature as I grew up.
As I grew
into young adulthood, my ability to choose my environment resulted in my
withdrawing and eventually movingcompletely away from my family. I
choose friends, hobbies and eventually a husband who were all also fairly
quiet, reflective and introspective (active environment).
Textbook cited:Berk, Laura E. (2012). Infants, Children, and Adolescents (7th ed.) Boston, MA: Allyn &
Bacon
