My Virtual Child Paper
My virtual child covers physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development at several age levels. This gave me an opportunity to visualize "the whole child" at various points in development. I raised a virtual child from birth to 18 years of age. Each virtual child has a unique set of characteristics at birth, some of which were influenced by how I answered the assessment I completed when I first logged onto My Virtual Child. These characteristics gradually emerged and affected his behavior and development.
My child was a boy so I decided to name him Wolfgang. Wolfgang was born about four weeks premature and underweight (four and a half pounds). To regulate his body temperature, he spent the first few days in neonatal care. After five days, his Apgar score had risen from a six to an eight, which allowed me to bring him home. I was somewhat nervous when I brought him home because Wolfgang was not very hungry and had lost weight. Eventually, he began to eat more and gained weight. My partner and I had decided to breastfeed. I liked breastfeeding because I began to feel a connection hormonally.
During toddlerhood, Wolfgang’s language and motor skills developed rapidly. Eventually, he was able to imitate actions and words. He took an interest in his surroundings, causing him to experiment with and study objects. He also started using the word “me” a lot and wanted to perform tasks by himself. He was pretty sociable. He just needed to warm up a little to strangers before he was fully comfortable.
During early childhood, Wolfgang had become very aggressive with other kids at school when my partner and I separated. He was not doing well academically. He would get in fights with other kids at school and his attention span was lacking at home. My partner and I had trouble deciding whether we were going to spank our children or not. According