Week 7 Blog

In this weeks material we explored the ideas of becoming an adult and being with others and forming relationships. I found the idea of creating scenarios and almost fantasizing about life that was discussed in chapter 10 to be very fascinating. I believe that everyone starts out about making or defining a life-span construct (sense of past, present and future) which then can lead into manifesting the future, also called scenario. I think that it is interesting to see how these scenarios and social clocks (setting a time or age for a scenario) can be changed from where someone is raised or how they are raised. This draws into the idea of the biopsychosocial framework. When you look at a scenario for someone like getting married there are a lot of different ideas about when this should happen. What age is put onto it differs. I am not able to relate this to a biological construct but I can see how the psycho and social roles could play on this. 

I am from Seattle we had 1 person get married right outside of high school out of 300 people in my graduating class (that I know of ) my boyfriend from Lynden had maybe 20 people from a much smaller graduating class. This is not just a coincidence but an example of how the biopsychosocial framework is really everywhere. I think that this is mostly a small town idea to get married young and I think it is social. What it is exactly about the small town I am not sure. It could be religion, education, economics and definitely a mixture between them all. I think it is fascinating that a place only 90 miles away could have such a lower marriage rate outside of high school. 

I would like to know more about how small town and cities differ in things like marriage rate and amount of children. I have heard that lesser developed countries tend to have more children because the more children there are the more money can be brought into the home. I do not know how accurate that is but I wonder how marriage and children would differ when looking and similar socioeconomic trends but small verses large cities? 

Week 6 Blog Review

This week there seemed to be a lot of topics discussed in the book that I think many people in this class have experience in their lives in large and small ways. I think that everyone could relate to or has a story of someone who has been in some of the situations discussed in this book. I think one that hit home with me was the discussion on obesity and anorexia.

It is interesting to me that we all know obesity is becoming a problem and we all know anorexia is becoming a problem but not one seems to talk about how the two could be related. Some people may think how could they be related when they are completely different and opposite? I had a great discussion with a friend of my about what America's current obsession could cause in the next generation. We are currently going through a epidemic of obesity and a lot is being done to try and combat it especially in schools with education. There are posters, commercials, lectures, everything now that it has become such a big deal. How can this effect a young girl who is normal weight? I think that we could see the obesity epidemic turn back into a anorexia epidemic placing a fear on being over weight. I think the next generation is going to be one that is hyper sensitive to what they consuming leaving few options and poor body image. This has already been coined a name, it is called Orthoresia nervosa and I feel like we may produce children who are scared to eat something bad in fear they will become obese.

Chapter 7 Review

I think that the most shocking statement I read during this chapter that really evoked a lot of thought and contemplation was something that was said during Leah’s lecture. She states, and the book touched on, that adolescence spends the majority of the time watching TV just behind sleeping. Frankly, that terrifies me! Most of the television that is on air now is reality TV that glorifies especially consumerism and drama. Not to mention from the book the study by Baudura in 1986 clearly found that children who watch violent television could cause that child to be more aggressive. I think that television is used too much as an easy fix for a parent to get out of playtime. This is also disturbing when you look at the studies discussed in the previous chapters about the importance for a parents bond with their child and how television can affect that. I have not watched much of the new children’s television but the book did say that children who watched Sesame Street are able to learn academic skills and useful social skills. My question would be if the same time and attention from a parent would elicit just as much positive social skills and academic skills. I believe (though I have no proof) that if you spent just as much time with your child making creative learning games instead of the television should that you would see better results. Again, I do not know. My question for the authors would be if I am accurate with that statement or if watching these shows does give a skill that can only be taught from watch the program. 

Chapter 6 Reflection Blog

I think that the most interesting part of this chapter was the discussion about intelligence and how it is defined, measured, interpreted. While growing up there were always those kids in school my parents would say "Oh, they are really smart" or "Their parents are really smart". When my parents would make those statements it was always their intelligence in math, reading, writing, science etc. Growing up I struggled with reading and still am a very slow reader. Reading out-loud still is a very stressful thing for me. I have always pondered why it was that it was so difficult for my sister and I to learn to read. My sister likes the use the excuse that my mother always was bad a reading out loud and we were not able to enjoy being read to because of that. For me, I am not too sure if that is true.

The book talks about how intelligence is both inherited and environmental. 2 studies from the book stick out for me on intelligence, the twins study and the adoption study. In the twins study they found that identical twins were more likely to have similar IQs. If it was solely genetics then the two identical twins should have the exact same IQs. This was not the case which brings attention to the environmental influences of intelligence. Personally, I believe it was hard for me to learn to read because my parents did not read to us much nor did we have many books in the house. I think that could explain the delayed development of reading skills. What I am curious about not would be why it is still a challenge for me to read. This brings me to Gardner's Theory of multiple Intelligences. I think his theory that intelligence is made up of multiple types of intelligence and someone could be as a whole intelligent but excel at different types of intelligence.

Where I lack in Gardner's linguistic intelligence I seem to excel in logic-mathematical and musical. I would consider myself average for the others. I like the idea that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Intelligence isn't just something that can be tested in an IQ test but much more holistic.