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MyVirtualChild-Early Childhood
Olivia is 3 years old! (www.myvirtualchild.com/raise, Marris, 1995). -
New Sister
Olivia welcomes her new baby sister home. She is very helpful with the baby; feeds her and plays with her. But she has gradually become more whiny and makes sounds to mimick her sister. According to Piaget, Olivia is in the beginning of the Preoperational stage of development, and Erickon's Psychosocial Stage, Initiatoive vs. Guilt ("Child Development", Jeffrey Jensen Arnett & Ashley E. Maynard). -
Language
Olivia is able to speak in complete sentences, although sometimes the structure of her sentence is grammatically incorrect. She is showing that she's becoming a representational thinker; she is seeing the world symbolically which has led to her language development, and Piaget believed this to be a crucial turning point for children (Arnett,Maynard. 2013). -
Animism
Olivia enjoys playing out scenes she has seen from cartoons, giving her dolls and toys "voices" and emotions. Piaget describes this behavior as "Animism"; giving inamimate objects human characteristics. He also said this is part of "Egocentrism", which is not being able to see the difference from the child's own perspective and someone else's perspective (Arnett and Maynard. 2013). -
Intuitive Thought Substage
Olivia likes to point out when someone doesn't do something in order, Piaget would describe her behavior as the second substage of the Preoperational Stage, called intuitive thought substage. At this stage young children understand the order of things, but are unable to explain why they know. (Arnett and Maynard, 2013). -
Theory Of Mind
I have caught Olivia telling small lies, I have to explain to her how lies make people feel bad. Olivia telling lies shows that she's using the theory of mind principle, which is similar to Piaget's egocentrism because she is unable to think about how I feel when she lies to me (Arnett and Maynard, 2013). -
Olivia is 4!
Olivia has turned 4 (Marris, 1995)! -
New Skills
Every day Olivia discovers new skills she has, and she likes to verbalize that to anyone who will listen! -
Cognition
Olivia's cognition development is average. She asks questions about everything in her environment, especially nature. According to Piaget, she is in the second preoperational, "intuitive thought substage". Her curiosity about the objects in her world reveal that she's thinking logically; although Piaget would say she still lacks the ability to classify these things correctly (Arnett and Maynard, 2013, pg.251). -
Jealousy
Olivia has started showing signs of jealousy when it comes to her baby sister. She is still showing signs of egocentrism because she is unable to perform "mental operations, that is, cognitive procedures that follow certain logical rules" (Arnett & Maynard, 2013, pg.249); she can't understand, completely, that her sister needs a lot of attention because she is a baby who relies fully on her parents for survival. -
Olivia's 5!
Olivia turned 5! -
Gender Roles
Olivia is adamant about gender roles. She thinks boys should play with boy toys and girls should play with girl toys. Piaget's explanation of this behavior would be that Olivia is creating "gender schemes" to process what she has learned about the cultural expectations of boys and girls in our society (Arnett and Maynard, 2013, pgs. 266-267). I believe she sees these as rules that cannot be changed, and because she wants to please any adult in her life, she won't break them. -
Olivia is 6!
Nothing significant happened during Olivia's 5th year, but now she has turned 6. Piaget still has her in his preoperational stage of development, and it is apparent that her language and reading skills have expanded dramatically (Arnett and Maynard, 2013).
She likes to sing and play intruments as well (Marris, 1995). -
Shyness
Olivia is really outgoing at home but has demonstrated thst she can be quite shy around her peers. Mary Rothbart, a developmental psychologist, explains how most children may appear shy in the beginning of kindergarten, but eventually get over it ("Becoming Who We Are: Temperament and Personality in Development", Rothbart, 2012, pg.157). I assume Olivia's shyness will gradually fade and she will get accustomed to her peers and the group setting that is different than her home life. -
Bed Wetting
Olivia has been potty-trained for a while now, but she occassionally still wets the bed at night. She is very embarrassed by this; according to Erikson, she is still in the "initiative vs. guilt" stage of development because she realizes that wetting the bed is not an appropriate thing for her to do at her age (Arnett and Maynard, 2013). Her embarrassment shows me that she doesn't want to displease me, and she probably doesn't want to be looked at as a "baby" who wets her bed still. -
Cheating
I have caught Olivia cheating when we play games. Even though she has demonstrated sociomoral emotions of guilt and embarrassment, she still hasn't completely developed a "strong sense of morality" (Marris, 1995). -
Imitation
Olivia enjoys imitating most of what I do, such as cleaning the dishes, and the laundry, as well as putting my makeup on and styling my hair. She has grown quite attached to me more than her father (Marris, 1995). -
School Evaluation
After being evaluated at school, Olivia shows a strong sense of cooperation with the teacher as well as with her peers when assigned to do group projects. Her strengths academically are reading and writing (Marris, 1995). She appears to be developing right on track and we are very proud of her!