Cbwolf's Blog

Chapter 16

cbwolf — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:00:09 +0000

The chapter on death, dying and grief are very interesting, having recently lost someone close to me I found this section helpful. The differences in mourning when an elderly relative or friend has died as opposed to a younger relative or friend. When the elderly die the grieving is somewhat tempered by celebrating what they accomplished in life. When the young die the grieving is more a loss at what they will miss. Another part that is discussed is the Hospice organization, which I believe is a vitally important organization for the terminally ill who want to die at home with respect and comfort.

Euthanasia, I believe, is the right of every terminally ill individual. Someone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness should have the right to end their with dignity and on their terms not societies. It is my firm belief that no one has the right to a terminally ill person that they have to suffer till they die.

Life support is another very touchy subject. If a person is brain-dead why continue life support and drain the emotional and financial resources of the family when there is no hope, that is ridiculous.

Grieving is an individual process, everyone grieves over the loss of a loved one differently. Personally I believe that grieving needs to be tempered with the celebration of the deceased’s life. I believe that the Irish have it right. The idea of a wake is wonderful, not only mourning the loss of a loved one but also celebrating their life.

Chapter 14 & 15

cbwolf — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:35:46 +0000

These chapters deal with the stage of life that I am very familiar with , as I have worked with the elderly practically all my life. The chapters put forth some very good topics about this stage of life.

The prejudice the elderly deal with as a result of younger people believe the elderly to be more impaired and less able to perform tasks.
The fact that aging doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

On the cognitive level

How the effects of dementia can be devastating to the elderly, the loss of one’s memories is terrible but when one is aware of the loss it is terrible frustrating.
Dealing with retirement issues
Keeping family and friends close is very important to those in late adulthood

Chapt. 12 & 13

cbwolf — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:30:13 +0000

In these 2 chapters the main concepts i got out of them was Generativity vs Stagnation and the concept of the kinkeeper. As Adults most of us tend to want to be productive both through work and family life. Unfortunately most of our productivity at work is measured by our income. The chapters discuss the importance of juggling career and family and all the pitfalls inherent in not letting one overrife the other. The idea of the kinkeeper is introduced, where one person in the family takes on the job of holiday gatherer and information giver for the entire family. In my family that was my Nana, she always had holiday gatherings at her house and was the information person for the entire family. If you ever wanted to know what was going on with one part of the family all you had to do was call Nana and she’d let you know. When she died the family kind of fell to the wayside. the whole family doesn’t get together anymore for holidays and people have tended to move away from where we were all born. It’s sad really i miss those family gatherings.

One of the other concepts that the chapters discuss is caregiving for aging parents. Being a nurse i have noticed that this society/culture doesn’t have a strong desire to care for their parents in their homes and there is a lot of reasons that this happens. In our society most families need 2 incomes to keep their heads above water, so there really is no one at home to care for the parents, much less the children. They do help financially, when they can, helping to pay for a skilled facility. Caring for both children and aging parents does cause problems both at home and at work, causing the juggling act to be even harder.

Chapter 10 & 11

cbwolf — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:33:19 +0000

These chapters deal with lifestyles in adulthood and the relationships we form in adulthood. Once we reach adulthood it seems that the aging process reverses in what’s called senescence. the chapter states that our appearance undergoes changes, more wrinkles and fat appear and less hair is apparent. sensory organs also decrease as in hearing and vision losses. the brains processes slow down, fertility becomes more problematic for both men and women. With sedentary lifestyles this slide is more noticable, while with a healthy lifestyle much of these declines can be noticeably slowed. the next chapter deals with adult relationships, how our friendships and marriages are formed. the book states that during adulthood we strive for intimacy through friendships, marriages and family relationships. This timeframe is where our life choices are firmed up. The concepts of “Midlife Crisis” and “Empty Nest Syndrome” often occur during the latter part of this time frame, although the text states that the “midlife crisis” is happening with les and less frequency. while i’m not sure about that, at age 40 i decided to go back and get my RN after being a LPN for the last 16yrs. I’m not sure whether or not this would qualify as a midlife crisis. as for the “empty nest syndrome”, I seem to be going though this earlier than most of my friends as i started parenthood much earlier than they did.

Chapt 8 & 9

cbwolf — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:27:42 +0000

These chapters focus on the adolescents their thought processes and problems growing up. There are two very important thoughts in these chapters. First is the Invincibility Fable, I remember this from my own teen years. I thought i would live forever, growing up i was the typical rebel, smoking, drinking no stunt to dangerous etc, etc. Now that i am older i am coming to regret some of the stunts i used to pull, my body is definitely feeling the follies of my misspent youth. I think that most of the time it may not even be thinking you are invincible but wondering whether tomorrow really is ever going come. The second thought is that of the Imaginary Audience, the text seems to focus on teens thinking that they are the center of attention every time they walk into a room by drawing the attention to themselves. I believe that it is split between those that draw the attention to themselves and those that believe that every eye is on them so they try to fade into the woodwork. Both of these are types of insecurity, in my eyes, those that try to fade into the woodwork and the attention seekers neither one of them believe they are worthy but they exhibit it in different manners.

Chapter 7

cbwolf — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:42:00 +0000

This chapter deals with the emotional and social development and the theories dealing with this development in the first two years of life. I have to disagree with the epigenetic theory that it is inevitable genetics that are ultimately responsible for our social and emotional development. It seems that basically this theory states that it doesn’t matter what we do we are stuck by our genetics. I believe we are free to choose how we develop with our families help. I do believe that early socialization is important as a strong foundation for future growth. I believe that early strong attachments are important for the emotional and social growth of children. Without these attachments children cannot learn how to interact with other children and therefore will end up with stunted social skills and stunted emotionally.

Chapter 6

cbwolf — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:49:52 +0000

This chapter is somewhat difficult to follow except to show just how soft a science psychology is. 3 different theories explaining how children learn and start to speak in the first two years of life, then the hybrid theory that picks bits from each theory and melds it in to one theory. Who’s right, who’s wrong, who really knows. Children learn in different ways and at different rates. Most children’s first word is mom or momma followed closely by dad or dada. Does the child know that mom is the woman who feed, changes and plays with them or is it just being repeated like a parrot. My daughters, for instance, fist word was dada. There may be a reason for this while her mother spent most of the day with her, I would spend all the time I could when I got home from work, and was the one who got up and fed and changed her at night and rocked her to sleep. I came to find out that her mother was basically ignoring her during the day. So did my daughter say dada first because she connected the name with the person who took care of her basic needs or was it simply that she heard it over and over again and started to parrot the word when her vocal chords were able to articulate it, who knows? Were her first words influenced, as Piaget stated, by the experiences she had? I believe that it is very difficult to understand how infants learn without large scale experiments and I don’t think that type of experiment is functional in attempting to undertake.

Chapter 4&5

cbwolf — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:01:47 +0000

These 2 chapter’s seem to focus on the importance of prenatal care up to the second year of life. They stress the importance of parental and caregiver contact with the child during the first two years of life is important to the basic development of a healthy well adjusted child. The importance of caring nurturing physical and emotional contact, and the fact that proper nutrition and sleep all help the development of the healthy child. This is very important to making the child feel safe and secure and develop a strong sense of self. I agree with Piaget’s concept of egocentrism not meaning that the child is selfish or superior, but that the child’s world at that point is small. THey know themselves and thier wants and needs. At that point in time the world does revolve around them and thier needs and wants. It is not till they are older that they realize that there are other points of view other than there own and that these differences are ok and not wrong. The concepts of right and wrong ore formed at this early age but are not fully understood until later. This is why the terrible two’s are so difficult to deal with. As parents we believe that we have taught out children the difference between right and wrong , but the child is still at the age where they don’t understand that what they want isn’t always right and they rebel while parents are trying to force the concepts of right and wrong and patience to a child who is not able to comprehend the idea that what they want right now is not ok.

Chapter 2-3

cbwolf — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:33:23 +0000

One of the things that i learned from these chapters is that there is a group of psychological theory perspective that i can agree with. The eclectic perspective, which takes psychoanalitical, behaviorism, cognitive, sociocultural and epigenetic theories and makes selective use of all of them. In past studies of psychology I could never get my mind around one theory or another, some things make sense in one theory but other things make no sense.I you believe the epigenetic theory both my brother and I should be physically abusive addicts, where the truth is niether one of us is abusive in any way shape or form, and I was the only one who had a dependancy problem. mY brother doesn’t even like taking aspirin. I believe we are molded by more than just genetics but everything we experience, and everyone we experience throughout our lives. I really don’t believe that we ever stop changing, stasis leads to stagnation. The second chapter is very iformative in regards to genetics and its role in human development and in regards to genetic testing. I belive genetic testing is a good thing when testing for genetic abnormalities, but not for designer children. As with any science we must be careful in it’s applications and uses because it is all to easy to abuse medical advances.

Chapter 1

cbwolf — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:15:51 +0000

This type of format is very new to me, as it probably is to many of us. I have not had any experience in blogging; And this is only my second online class. I am intrigued to see how this learning experience works out.

So it seems to me that the first chapter doesn’t really lend itself to a discussion forum. It introduces us to the science of Developmental Psychology, the vast influences in development from birth to death and the variances in theories on the types of influences we go through. It warns us that the science is not the end all answer to all of life’s questions, it also warns us of the dangers of haphazard research. The chapter, as i see it, gives us a very strong foundation for the rest of the book. It explains the steps of scientific method and how hypotheses are tested. It explains the five characteristics of development, that it is multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary, and plastic. All in all I think that this chapter will, as I said before, give us a very good foundation for the rest of the book.