PSYC-2314-004
Journal 1
Childhood is a period of an individual’s life that allows the child to grow strong and confident from the encouragement of their family. Being young should be enjoyed with the little responsibilities and challenges that will soon approach in adulthood. Luckily, my parents encouraged me to be a child before the young stages of my life came to an end. My mother and father have always been considerate and loving toward my brother and me. Not only did they express kindness toward us but they slightly would tell us strictly what we should not do. For that, we never developed a sense of fear for our parents like other children that lived under a strict household had. I was allowed to get dirt on my clothes and play with kids that I had never met on the playground without getting yelled at. From the beginning, my parents have always allowed me to choose freely on the activities I want to join or continue on doing. I remember when I was about 5 or 6 years old, my mother signed me up to join a dance class because I was always dancing around the house. However, when I had to start dancing in front of other children and the instructor I felt very uncomfortable and nervous about everyone staring at me. After the first day my mother let me decide if I would want to attend the dance class the next day. I believe this action was very efficient and effective because I was able to play soccer which was much more enjoyable for me. The situation could have been my mother pressuring me to do something that I had no interest in doing. There were also some individuals during my early years that permitted me from being a child. Every time we made a visit to my grandmother’s house I felt like I was many years older than I was. I had to constantly ask permission if I wanted to play outside or watch television and even when I needed to use the restroom. It was strange at first because I wasn’t use to asking permission for little things but ultimately it did help improve my manners to others. In the end, my two main supporters in life have taught me so much by letting be myself as a child which helped me tremendously on becoming the person that I am today. rn during the spring and the weight documented on my birth certificate is 7 pounds and 20 ounces. My mother had me at the age of twenty-two and mentioned that she did not take part in smoking or consuming alcohol during the pregnancy because drinking a glass of wine or puffing on a cigarette has an extremely high chance of affecting the baby. Later in the pregnancy my mother was informed that there was an amniotic fluid band in her ultrasound. She had to frequently receive an ultrasound to see more clearly how the amniotic fluid band was doing. Fortunately, the amniotic fluid band posed no danger toward me and I was born healthy with no abnormalities at all. After long hours of being in the labor and delivery room, my mother was able to successfully deliver naturally. Luckily, my mother did not need an abnormal surgery to deliver me and was able to give birth in the way she hoped to achieve. I was a full term baby and was born at the North Central Baptist Hospital. In fact, my mother had to drive herself to the hospital once she realized that she was about to go in labor because my father was at work and my parents had left all our family back in Los Angeles once they moved to San Antonio. Since it was just my father in the delivery roo it took several months for others to fly down and visit me for the first time. My parents were married for two years before making the decision to add a baby into their life. Both my parents were looking forward to bringing a human being into the world and honestly had no preference toward the gender of the baby. They both simply wanted to bring a healthy baby into their arms. I'm sure everyone in their life wonders if they were an adopted child. I once thought I was adopted because both of my parents have straight hair and I have PSYC-2314-004
Journal 3
Being a child is one of the happiest moments that anyone can experience. My delighted memories as a child mostly revolves around being with my parents and brother. I always think back to the days my father allowed me to sit on top of his knee to supposedly help him drive the truck from the mailbox to our driveway. At that time, I really thought that I was controlling the truck to move down the street but it wasn’t until I got older that I realized it requires more than just steering the wheel to get the vehicle to go. Little things like holding my parents hands when crossing the road, playing outside with my brother, and even getting piggy back rides from my father when I was tired of walking always brings a sense of joy. I can’t really recall a moment in the earlier part of my life that I came across a situation that gave me extreme anxiety or pain. I think that having an imagination and protection from family members when you’re younger helps to eliminate the idea of experiencing sorrow. My mother informed me that I was about 14 months that I began to develop an ability to hold out more conversations than just babbling and making sounds. My first word was "ball" and that slipped out of mouth at about 11 months. For potty training, I learned fairly quicker than my brother had and I was around 11 months as well. Since I was able to speak around 18 months the only baby talk words that I was mostly known for were saying "boo-boo" when I had fell and barely hurt myself, "pee-pee", and "bye-bye” to complete strangers. During preschool, I was constantly shy and my mother always tells me that I would me crying for her to not leave me behind. However, as I got used to being in the environment of other children it made me want to go back the next day. My parents actually moved down to San Antonio from Los Angeles about two years before I was born so it was the just the three of us that lived in our house until my brother was born. PSYC-2314-004
Journal 4
The first day of school has always been an exciting but terrifying moment because you are going somewhere completely new with people you have never seen before. I remember that I couldn’t wait for the first day of kindergarten because I got a Winnie the Pooh backpack with a matching lunchbox. As I approached the classroom, I saw many children getting reading for the teacher to read a story and in that moment I felt like I was able to conquer this new chapter in my life. On the whole, elementary school was definitely more fun because the amount of schoolwork and life in general was easier. I was able to come in contact with other students from different classes when the bell rang for recess time. A group of us would constantly be playing some sort of chasing game as well as kickball. Other games that I enjoyed playing as a child included participating in "Duck, Duck, Goose", playing card games with my father, and entertaining oneself with jump roping. I also enjoyed playing with toys because of the amusement these objects that I was playing with had given me. My favorite toy was a stuffed animal that my uncle had given me when he came in town to visit my family and me. The stuffed white cat went everywhere with me to the point that the cat wasn’t completely white anymore. My mother mentioned that we would often have to return to restaurants and stores to pick up the stuffed animal that I had accidently left behind. Besides having a fascination with toys, I had developed a hobby in collecting stickers. Going to the stores and receiving them from teachers helped increase my collection of stickers that consisted of animals, smiley faces, and hearts. The heroes in my life were and still are my parents. Both my mother and father had the ability to maintain a responsible lifestyle between family and career. Fortunately, my parents are still together after 22 years of marriage and so I didn’t experience the divorce of my parents or single-parenting but I did know many students who were going through hard times in their families. My parents frequently worked together in order to establish an authorita