LIFE SPAN GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
MY VIRTUAL CHILD SEMESTER PROJECT
ASSIGNMENT OBJECTIVE
The objective of this assignment is to write a thoughtful and analytic paper detailing significant developmental topics in reference to your experience of raising a "virtual child." This should be done by associating and incorporating material from our class discussions, lectures and issues discussed in your textbook, as well as any additional resources which you may discover on your own.
PAPER FORMAT
• APA Style - American Psychological Association
Purdue University resource for writing in APA Style: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
• Length: 4 to 5 full pages, in addition to a cover page and reference page.
• Sources: You are required to use at least one professional source, in addition to the class textbook.
INSTRUCTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
• Throughout the semester, it is strongly recommended that you keep a journal in order to reflect upon the experiences and knowledge gained as you raise your virtual child. Once you have completed raising your virtual child, this journal will become an essential foundation for writing your paper.
• Before you even begin to raise your virtual child, it is also recommended that you take the time to briefly write about any expected results and hopes that you have for your child's development. In other words, by the time your child is 18 years old, how will you know that you have been successful as a parent? This can be eventually incorporated into the introduction or body of your paper.
• The following is a list of possible topics that can be addressed within your paper. Please note that this is simply to generate ideas but should not limit you to only writing about only these matters. Be creative!
- Provide a brief description of your expectations and hopes that you had for your virtual child, before you even began to raise him/her (as described above)
- Relate experiences of raising your virtual child to theories and research discussed in class & the textbook.
- Discuss and draw connections between how you believe that your child's experiences during infancy impacted his/her childhood and how his/her childhood experiences impacted his/her adolescence.
- Address physical, cognitive, language, academic social and personality development at the different stages of development.
- Discuss characteristics of your virtual child's development that made you feel proud as a parent.
- List struggles that your virtual child experienced. Do you believe that these are due to genes or due to your parenting decisions? Why?
- Identify the parenting styles that you used while raising your virtual child (refer to Baumrind's work, etc.), and provide some specific examples of how you employed that particular style.
- Describe physical or behavioral signs emerging from your child's transition into puberty.
- Readdress the first bullet listed above. How similar were the results of your child's development as compared to the expectations that you had from the beginning. What made you proud or regretful?