Psychology
Introduction
For this case study, an interview was conducted with the subject from whom the acquired information will be used to cross-examine with the various developmental theories. Her name is Sara Sanchez. She is 20 years old, and has a 2-year-old daughter. She has a full time job as a teacher at Bright Horizons. Her job is to work with preschoolers and toddlers. She’s been working there for 6 months. She is studying child development. She wants to double major in child development + forensic science of elementary school or administration of justice. When she was 9 years old, she was taking care of a 4-year-old girl who was their neighbor, and she was got paid $4 per hour. She has three siblings and Sara is the youngest. She is very organized; everything should be in its place in her opinion. Now, she lives with her parents because her daughter' father cheated on her. Therefore, she can't easily trust any men. She has a boyfriend. She and her boyfriend are trying to find a place to live together along with her daughter. She loves children. It has been 5 years that her mom has an affair, and her dad knows about it, so her parents always have arguments at home. She thinks this is the biggest problem that she is constantly struggling. While she was still in school, the other students made fun of her because of thin physique, darker skin color than other students, and was wearing braces.
Based on the information given by Sara during the interview, it appears that her not being too trusting was a result of a break-up experience from her previous relationship. Erickson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development relates to this aspect of Sara’s perspective because in Erickson’s theory he emphasized that personality development is not always influenced by childhood experiences, but a continuous process that happens over the entire course of someone’s life. Meaning, regardless of an individual had a happy childhood; it does not guarantee that such person will develop a positive attitude because at some point in his life he might encounter circumstance that would affect his life perspectives. For example, the concept of Trust vs. Mistrust in Erikson’s theory suggests that when a child was born, that baby depends on adults for his necessities including emotional comfort and care. However, if the adults failed to meet the babies’ need for comfort and care, there is a possibility that the baby will grow up to be mistrustful and insecure.
In Erikson’s theory, this development also happens on people such as Sarah during the course of their adult life. In Sara’s case, she highly depends on her previous relationship for care, comfort, support, and all elements attributed to a healthy relationship. However, Sara was cheated on that experience broke the momentum of care and comfort in the relation. Therefore, it caused her to be emotionally devastated and she developed as mistrustful personality. Sara finds it hard to trust men easily because of the experience she had in her past relationship. In addition to such the mistrustful personality, Sara also tends to be a person of much focused on what she wants and what she wants to accomplish in her life. She love children very much and wanted to pursue degrees that are associated to child development. These life goals became apparent in her because of her childhood experiences of being other children making fun of her because of her looks. In addition to that is the perceived family dysfunction inside Sara’s house where her parents are constantly fighting.
These developments in Sara’s childhood and the kind of determination she has developed in herself to reach for higher goals can be attributed to Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development. The tenets of this theory encompass the moral reasoning in justifying the cause of a person’s way of thinking between right and wrong. The first level starts when the child recognizes the authority of adults and differentiates right and wrong the constitution of punishment and reward. However, the last level of the development in Kohlberg’s theory suggests that people have to follow rules, yet they are not absolute, and people may develop the kind of flexibility in considering what is important for them. In Sara’s case, she recognized during childhood that, what’s been happening in family is something that is wrong she has the capacity to change it. The same thing with the kind of treatment she is getting from other children at school Sara felt that such experiences should not be happening in the first place because at her age, she is already aware of the rules of the society that what’s happening in her home and at school is wrong. Therefore, she chose to embark on endeavors that are geared towards the welfare of children by means of getting a degree in child development and forensic science of elementary school or administration of justice.
It was also revealed in Sara’s story that she was able to take care of a little girl and was paid for it. In addition, she also has three siblings that assuming there was a family dysfunction could speculate that the siblings have developed the initiative to look after themselves as well. This relates to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive development where the child begins to develop learning. In Sara’s case, the dysfunction in the family and having three other siblings encompasses learning to adapt to domestic responsibilities. It is unusual for parents to leave the care of their child to another child. However, at the age of nine Sara was entrusted the care of another child that is only five years younger. Sara might have demonstrated maturity in undertaking tasks and responsibilities, which convinced the parents the parents of the young girl in hiring Sara to babysit. It appears that Sara at young age have already developed good knowledge, which also explains her decision to take two majors in college at once.
