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PEPSI

Serenity Martinie

College of Southern Nevada

EDU 220 Principles of Education Psychology

Professor Hooks

April 10th, 2016

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Biography

I am analyzing a female child named Lucille. Lucille is primarily African-American and

Caucasian. She has a light brown complexion, curly light brown and blonde hair and hazel eyes.

She is also Cherokee, Portuguese, West Indian, African Creole, and French on her father's side,

as well as Choctaw, German, and French on her mother's side. She is ten years old, in fourth

grade, and has attended Wilhelm Elementary, Howard Wasden Elementary, and Joseph Neal

Elementary, and is now currently at Quest Academy Elementary. Lucille was born two months

premature at 5lbs 8oz in Las Vegas, on October 7th, 2005. She was mainly raised by her father

and partially by her grandmother. Before recently gaining a step-mother, she dealt with racial

identity issues. Lucille lives in a household with her father, step-mother, and five siblings, who

are seventeen, fifteen, twelve, eight, and five years old. She displays tomboy behavior due to the

fact she was raised mostly by her father.

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Physical Development

Lucille is approximately five feet tall and sixty-six pounds. Gessel makes the statement

that ten-year-olds will, “ take sheer delight in physical activity; their stamina is higher…” Lucille

demonstrates this by being extremely physically active. Lucille exercises by riding bike, roller

skating, running, and other activities. One of her favorite methods of exercise is to work out

through push ups, pull ups and lifting weights. She can withstand about fifteen pull ups,

eighty-five push ups, and twenty pounds in weight. She typically participates in physical

activities for six to eight hours a day. She prefers to eat healthy foods and has a general

proclivity for vegetables and disdain for foods with excessive sugar such as chocolate. Her

typical diet consists of cereal or eggs in the morning, a light lunch of some type of pasta or

sandwich, and her dinners tend to consist of chicken, pasta, or hamburger meat that is

accompanied with various seasonings. Lucilles liquid intake tends to primarily juices or soft

drinks however when there is a large supply of water available she can drink up to six bottles a

day.

Lucille seems to have fairly good eyesight and hearing, she doesn't need glasses or any

other sensory aids. Her body has developed very fine hairs and occasional body odor in typical

places. Her figure has stayed relatively slender and straight over the past two years that I have

known her, however there is some very faint breast development occurring. This is to be

expected because Gessel notes that at this age, “girls are showing the hormonal changes of

puberty in the beginnings of breast development…” Her coordination and balance seems to be

slightly under developed because of her general clumsiness but overall has control over her
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cognitive skills. Gessels research shows that physically ten-year-olds are well coordinated and

graceful.

Emotional Development

Lucille tends to have a calm and collected emotional state but is easily deterred from that.

She has a tendency towards becoming quickly angry. Most of the time she is very calm, patient,

and mature. Other times she displays episodes of pathological lying, extreme rage, and

continuous crying. Fisher states that, “for most adolescents emotional distress is temporary and

easily handled…” You can see an example of this when she is being emotionally unstable and

responds from direct instruction from her father and stepmother, she will quickly regain

composure once it is addressed. Slavin notes that children at this stage can, “... form concepts,

see relationships, and solve problems, but only as long as they involve objects and situations that

are familiar.” She isn’t very alert when it comes to identifying situations, however she quickly

finds a solution once she recognizes the recurring emotions and actions from people within her

mesosystem.

Lucille is not easily frightened, she enjoys horror films, bugs, the dark, and other things

that typically young girls are afraid of. Slavin says that, “though preadolescents are generally

happy and optimistic, they also have many fears, such as fear of not being accepted into a peer

group…” She shows significant distress and sadness when feeling as though she has

disappointed someone or feels that she is being excluded from a group. She tends to display

occasional compulsive behavior when it comes to things she wants but tends to have extreme
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difficulty with completing obligatory responsibilities on time. Lucille has a general sense of

pride in herself and abilities, she is overall a confident person.

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Philosophical Development

Lucille is very oriented around the welfare of others, she will often sacrifice personal

wants for the benefit of others, I feel she is advanced in her philosophical development due to the

level at which she practices this behavior. Kohlberg analyzes that this is a common part of the

conventional level of morality development, where a child will begin to analyze values such as

the golden rule. She rarely ever shows any sign of being greedy or insincere with her

generosity. Lucille is the type of person that if there is one fish stick left she will let you have it

and be generally good natured about the decision. She is extremely obedient to her father and has

inherited most of his standards in correct behavior, however she shows significant signs of

elaborating on these values with interpretations of her own. Kohlberg continues to note in the

conventional level that this is the stage where children are able to see the perspectives from other

people's shoes. Lucille is extremely likely to consider the effect a situation will have on an

alternate person before analyzing the effect on herself, and once again because of the extent to

which she will do this is why I feel she is advanced in this area. Her advancement is also

reinforced when Piaget mentions that children at ten to twelve years of age tend to focus on the

intentions of the actor rather than the consequences of the action. Lucille strongly demonstrates

her consideration for the implications of her decisions. A lot of her values and beliefs are rooted

in her paternal influence and religious affiliation. She has no shame in attributing the blessings in

her life to her faith, and likewise will also attribute much of her success to her father.
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Social Development

Lucille has multiple friends however she shows more signs of being a follower than a

leader. Erikson says in stage IV of psychosocial development that, “success brings with it a sense

of industry, a good feeling about oneself and one's abilities. Failure creates a negative self-image,

a sense of inadequacy that may hinder future learning.” Lucille tends to display confidence in her

words and isn't afraid of public speaking or displaying talents such as in athletics or singing.

When she faces failure she becomes very introverted and quiet such as after parental

admonishment. When conflict arises with her siblings she is very defensive and verbally

assertive. When conflict arises outside of school she has a tendency to act like she doesn't care

and then become privately distressed.

According to Erikson parental influence should be decreasing in this stage and be more

reliant on teachers and peers however she has a very strong relationship with her father and

heavily relies on him because he has raised her for most of her life. She is provided guidance,

love, and mentoring by her oldest sister, protection, acceptance and favoritism from her older

brother, companionship and structure from her twelve year old sister, and companionship, love

and a friendship bond from her two younger siblings. James Marcia noted that the first identity

status is that of foreclosure meaning children have not faced an identity crisis because of parental

influence however because Lucille was raised by her father and grandmother she lacked input

from a mother figure and faced identity issues, recently she gained a stepmother and has since

been improving. Lucille is very socially active and is frequently verbal in any situation, she

displays strong relationships and is very solidified in who she is.

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Intellectual Development

Before moving into a stable household Lucille was very academically unstable. She has

attended Wilhelm Elementary, Howard Wasden Elementary, Joseph Neal Elementary, and is

now at Quest Academy Elementary. Going into fourth grade she showed first and second grade

comprehension levels. Now after moving in with her father full time and being able to settle

down into one school she is excelling at her fourth grade studies and often claims she is bored of

the slow paced curriculum. Lucille has a well developed memory, I asked her a series of memory

provoking questions such as; When was Declaration of Independence signed? What was your

first grade teacher's name? And the birthdays of several family members. To which she answered

them all correctly. Slavin identified a process of moving from egocentric thought to decentered

thought. Lucille frequently compares the ideas of people around her and often shapes her own

opinions according to them, especially when it comes to her opinions on food and media rather

than relying on her own perceptions of something. Slavin says that they will master a skill called

transitivity where they can infer a relationship between two objects on the basis of knowledge of

their respective relationships with a third object. Lucille did demonstrate that she can form a

relationship between items. After reading a short passage from a story I placed three items out

and had her pick the two that had relevance to the story and then describe their connection to

each other. Flavelle describes the concrete operational child as taking an, “earthbound ,

concrete, practical-minded sort of problem-solving approach, one that persistently fixates on the

perceptible and inferable reality right there in front of him.” This directly correlates with how

Lucille’s reasoning is most prominently based on her direct observation of a situation and the

logical assumptions based on the information presented.

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Recommendations

Physical Development Recommendation:

I recommend that Lucille continue maintaining the same pattern of exercise, sleep, and

lifestyle habits but increase the quality of her diet. Because she is so active and young it makes

her body more resilient and it is easy to unknowingly forfeit a nutritional diet, however I do feel

that if more organic foods were provided that it would be beneficial.

Emotional Development Recommendation

I recommend maintaining the behavior she currently displays and enhancing it through

open forum discussion. I also recommend that she practice analyzing the emotional state of

people around her.

Philosophical Recommendation

I strongly recommend that she maintain the same level of philosophical practices that she

currently displays.

Social Development Recommendation’

I recommend that she continues to identify with her current mother figure and fill that

developmental gap. I also would encourage her to become more actively social with her peers in

hopes of achieving less reliance on her father in this stage of Lucille’s development.I feel that

this goal will be more achievable now that she is settled in a stable home with parents available

full time

Intellectual Development.

I recommend that Lucille maintain her current intellectual practices.

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References

Erikson,E.H. (1963).​ Identity, youth crisis​.New York, NY:Norton.

Fisher, D. (2006). Keeping adolescence “alive and kickin” it: Addressing suicide in schools. ​Phi

Delta Kappan​, 87(10), 784-786.

Flavell, J.H (1986, January), Really and Truly.​ Psychology Today​. 20(1), 38-44.

Gessel. (n.d.). Conscious Creative Courageous Living with Children. Retrieved April 19,

2016.

Kohlberg, L.(1969). Stage and sequence:The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization.

In D.A. Golsin (Ed.),​ Handbook of socialization theory and research​ (pp.347-380).

Chicago, IL:Rand McNally

Marcia, J. E. (1991). Identity and self-development.In R.M. Learnerr, A.C. Peterson, & E.J.

Brooks-Gunn (Eds.) ​Encyclopedia of adolescence​ (Vol.,pp. 527-5310). New York

NY:Garland

Piaget, J. (1964). ​The moral judgement of the child​. New York, NY: Free Press.

Slavin, R. E. (2009). ​Educational psychology: Theory and practice​. New Jersey: Pearson.