Observations of Development

Child development is an amazing thing to watch in the way that children interact with one another and how they perceive the world that surrounds. While doing our research of child development we began to observe a group of kids ranging the ages 1 - 12. During these observations we noticed traits such as attachment, comfort, and love. Through the following examples we will proceed to observe development in our environment and explain its relativity to the text

Observation #1

I observed a set of dizygotic or fraternal twins, Antonio and James, that had walked in, which were both males. I noticed that they were attached to their mother, which I had considered "normal" when thinking back to when my 15 year old daughter was that age. Even now she is like that when she comes into contact with strangers.

Finally when Antonio and James received an invitation to come play, Antonia stood holding onto his mother's leg when James only stood a few inches away. Their mother urged the two twins to go and join the others, but they were both reluctant, when finally James took that first step to warm up to the others and went over to pick up a toy, at which point Antonio followed close behind. When I asked their mother if they were always like that she replied that they were, whether or not she was in the room or somewhere near.

Although it appeared the twins were warming up, Antonio kept getting up to see where his mother was. In addition to knowing of her whereabouts he needed to go over and touch her before going back to join the other children. It appeared as though he had no peace while playing because of his constant worry about where his mother was; he had to know where she was at all times in order to go back to playing for a while.

James on the other hand was not like this. James would check on her from where he was sitting but did not get up as much as his twin. All of the children continued playing with each other and with the toys that were on the floor. As like the other children both twins sat on the floor playing with a toy of their own liking; Antonio was facing one direction and James another. After a few minutes, all of the kids began to play with the twins when they both began to get aggressive towards the others. Everything was fine when they played by themselves but once the other kids began to play with them Antonio and James began to show aggressive behavior towards the others. Antonio took a toy away from one of the kids almost as though he did not want to be bothered by anyone. Then with all of the commotion Antonio calmly got up as if he did not do anything to, again, check on his mother. This time she was not where he had left her, which caused him to react by screaming, "I want my mommy, I want my mommy." Then James came over and began to do the same thing. It was as if they had lost their security blanket. The other kids went over and began to stare at them as though there were something wrong with them. One of the kids came up to me and said, "Why is he crying like that?" I explained to her that he wanted to be with his mommy, and she responded, "Oh," and walked away with out a care in the world. This was a clear example of the experiment that (Harlow) ran on the monkeys in 1962. The monkeys were removed from their mother after 8 weeks of being born then placed in a cage with a surrogate mother, one of wire and the other one was made out of terry cloth. They eventually attached them selves to the surrogate mother that was made out of the terrycloth, even though the one that feed them was the one made out of wire. The reason was the comfort in the soft and warmth of the terrycloth, which made them feel safe. Just like Antonio when he held on to his mother's side. Once Antonio had lost his comfort zone, he felt scared.

Harlow stated that attachment was important but it did not ensure normal social development. We saw proof of that behavior earlier with the twins when they did not function as well in an environment where they had no control of. When they felt they lost control they showed signs of anxiety when they could not see there mother. The other kids were not worried about where there parents were, they played and adapted to there surroundings. Antonio and James did not feel when their mother was not in eye sight; they felt lost. The Ethological theory Pre-attachment states that during the first six months of an infant's life, attachment plays a big role. They instead use smiling and crying to get closer to their parents or grandparents. Because the twins were born prematurely they were constantly being picked up by their parents even after the six months period their parents felt the need to pick them up because of there size, which made it harder on them after there seventh month. According to the ethological theory from seven months to twenty one months, children begin to show signs of attachment toward their parents. In this case it would be the mother because she took time off from work to care for them. During the first year of their life they saw her all of the time, even though their father helped. The father was not there all day with them; they only saw him part of the night, which made it hard for the mother to go anywhere because the kids would start crying. As a result of their behavior she never went any where with them; only when they went to the doctor's office. They adapted to being home at all times and when it came time for them to go out the house, they felt scared around other children and