Week 10, chapter 16

 “People fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend.” – Jim Morrison  
     The ending chapter of Human development life-span view ended on the topic of “the final passage” death. Our book followed the ideal stages of life, prenatal devolvement through old age and now death. Like stated in the podcast, death is something that can happen at any time, at any age. It may seem like stating the obvious but I think that many people believe that if a person dies before they hit old age they suffered a “ pre mature death” or that they were robbed of their “time”. Yet no one is guaranteed any amount of time in this life, a good reminder to live a full, happy life daily.
     Death is such a fascinating topic to me, and has been for many years now.  I have spent many years battling the topic of religion, many years researching and looking into different types of beliefs. I found that death and beliefs of afterlife play a major role in majority of religions and how the follows of those beliefs live their day to day life. I took note that despite many religious beliefs that majority of people fear the inevitable, most humans fear or previously have feared death. Even after reading the ten different ways death can be viewed, most of them have fearful or negative associations;  this seems true across many cultures and religions.  Death doesn’t have to be a bad event, or a sad event. I have been to funerals that were tragic and heart wrenching, where you left the event sick and unsettled. I have been to funerals that were, do I dare say happy and joyful, leaving after celebrating a loved one’s life with laughter and love. It is all about peoples perspectives; they say life is what you make it, why can’t death be what you make it too? After all, it just might be a friend.

Week 9

      I currently work as homes care aid for the department of developmental disabilities. In order to receive my certification I had to undergo training. A week work of the training was focused on dementia. In our classes we spent a brief period of time overviewing the disorder and more time learning how to care and manage the behavior of  victims of dementia,  Alzheimer’s disease in particularly. I was interested in seeing how the books description of the different types of disorders associated with dementia were similar or differed from the training I received.
     Majority of aging adult (especially seen in those with children, grandchildren or spouses) will spend time worrying about the possibilities of devolving Alzheimer’s.  As we have read one of the greatest things about aging is being able to sit back and enjoy ones accomplishments in life. People who develop this disease have trouble recalling their location and time; enjoying their life accomplishments seem out of the question for victims of this form of dementia.  With the onset of this disease memory starts to gradually decline, learning skills are impaired,  self-care skills decrease many cannot care for their own personal needs, often times needing assistance with everyday activities.
   The process of diagnosing Alzheimer’s was interesting and new knowledge to me. You would think that since the disease is very common ( about 4.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s) it would be diagnosed with ease and maybe even over diagnosed.
   Although this section included ample information, it would have been nice to see more about the effects on the family of victims as well as elaborated more on treatment, behavioral treatment especially.

Week 8

Chapter 12 discussed both work and leisure. This is a good topic for most of us, as we are all receiving our educations in hopes of going into specific careers. In the two quarters that I have attended BTC I have took note that many of my classmates have jobs and family life. Many of them also have little down or “leisure” time. The discussion of both topics I think is crucial because I think many people spend plenty of time working at little time leisurely; not knowing or acknowledging the importance of it.  
      Work and family can involve one individual juggling many roles and tasks. Take a new mother for instance, since half of all mothers return to work before their child reaches their first birthday.  She may have previously juggled the act of being an employee and a wife, after having giving birth she now has many more acts added to her routine. She now has to make a decision on whether she is finally equipped to be a stay at home mother, or if she must return to work. After that decision is made then comes the choice of alternate childcare, who will care for her child, can she afforded alternate care ,  if not does she qualify for government assistance? Balancing a household, a relationship, work and motherhood can be a rewarding yet tiring and emotionally draining task.
    For a situation like the one above, where does that leisure time we were speaking of come into play? It may seem for someone who is busy with that many responsibilities it would be impossible to add something else to their plate, even if it is time for enjoyment. But that must change, due to the fact that this time doing an activity, “veritably any activity”, contributes greatly to the overall well-being of a person’s life. Time management is essential in balancing family work and time for oneself.

Week 7

Chapter ten was an enjoyable read. The information about emerging adulthood was not only applicable to my age group but also brought many concepts that I had no idea existed. I agree with some of the books “markings” of adulthood, but I also found some examples to be unclear and too generalized.
   A large mark into transiting to adulthood was getting married and child bearing. I considered myself an “adult” when I was only teenager. I had my oldest daughter at a young age. At the age of seventeen my life consisted of going to school (where I brought my daughter with me), after school  I would then work at my minimum wage job, go home care for daughter, do homework and repeat. I was young, yet I considered myself an adult, because I was a mother. Although I acted “adult like” and had an “adult lifestyle” at that time in my life, I was still unable to solely support myself and my daughter financially. Luckily I had a supportive mother that helped us until I was able to support us myself.
   At the age of nineteen I graduated high school, had a good full time job, owned my own vehicle and was able to afford to get my own townhouse. At this time in my life I felt even more adult like because we were on our own. Yet, I was not in college; I was single and was able to afford to live on my own yes, but still living paycheck to paycheck.  I was mature yes, but my brain was still that of a nineteen year old.  
   This topic emerging adulthood had me questioning what I consider adulthood. I am in my twenty’s, a mother, an employee, a student, but I have still yet to meet my all of my goals… Is this adulthood?  Age 18-25 is said to be the time of distinct life changes. Challenges that this age group faces can be difficult and are sometimes referred to “quarter life crisis”. It is interesting that our American culture has vague yet contradicting over generalized definitions of “adulthood”. What about individuals who never receive further education, never are financially stable, never get married or becoming parents? When will their mark of adulthood be? Or what about people with disabilities who are unable to accomplish these tasks that  so “mark adulthood”?

Week 6 Chapters 8 & 9

Week six’s readings and articles covered tons and tons of information! Although I feel as though I gained knowledge on many topics regarding adolescents, I ended this week with many questions. Thus far I have really enjoyed taking on online class. Weeks like this week though I do long for a classroom setting. It would be nice to able to discuss different theories and to hear everyone’s opinions and experiences. Pre-teen and teen years are such an interesting, event filled time. I am still stumped on how we all made it through them, lol.
                I was really shocked at the links of the onset of menstruation and environmental and social emotional factors. I had no clue that so many possibilities were linked to menstruation.  Genetics, environment, nutrition and health all play an effect on when young woman may start her period. What surprised me the most was paternal investment theory (Ellis & Garber, 200; Ellis et al., 2003), which is the role that fathers plays in determining the timing of puberty that their daughters experience. The book stated that girls who have negative or infrequent relationships with their fathers enter puberty earlier than girls who have positive and frequent interactions with their fathers.  I found this odd and still can’t quite wrap my head around it all. It makes sense in some ways, environment and stress are said to be factors linked to onset of menarche. Unhealthy relationships with one’s father could lead to stress or a negative environment. Still, with that being said why though would a father have an effect and not the parents or the family as a whole? I found the text that was meant to explain this theory a bit confusing. Did anyone else get a better understanding of it?

week five

I wish we could have had more time to focus on chapter seven. The readings of this week were filled with information that we probably could have spent weeks elaborating on and discussing. I am not positive what year the fifth addition of our human development book was published. I do think that if a new addition were to come out that the section on television and electronics would have its own chapter. The advancement s of technically even in the past few years are incredible.  Although some of the advancements are great, what about the impact on the children growing up with all this new technology. Is it a good thing?   
   Now contrary to common beliefs of many parents that “television is bad”, the book mentioned that there is no scientific evidence that supports any claims that the act of watching television has a negative effect on children. Popular criticisms of TV are that viewing to much television could shorten a child’s attention span and result in loss of creativity.  Neither of these claims have been proven to be true. The book also stated that educational programs are proven effective, helping children improve in academics.
   Like I stated earlier the change and advancements of technology, even the past year, have been huge. Most children have their own type or at least have access to a hand held device. Whether it’s a tablet or a kindle or a smart phone. I have even seen advertisements for a tablet that state that what they can learn from the device supports healthy development and positive attitude. Now I am not sure but I am assuming the same concept that educational programs on television are proven effective would be true for other, newer devices such as tablets or smartphones. Are these new technologies really helping our children advance academically and now behaviorally?
  I realize that everything is good in moderation, but if statistics show that people viewed television more than any other activity other than sleeping, and that was years ago; can you image what the time spent on our devices now adds up too! It seems to me that children spend more time with their elctronis than imaginative play. They even have advertisements to remind parents that “active play is important”. What are the effects of this on our children?

Week four/Chapter six

When I first opened up to this chapter I was excited right off the bat when I read “Off to school”. This past year I had to send my baby off to kindergarten. The first days of school for her were exciting and tearful for me. I quickly learned that the transition from being a child changing into a whole new category of elementary-aged child is a huge one, for both parent and child.  I have seen a huge transformation in her both academically and socially in the past eight months since beginning kindergarten, so I was excited to get to read about the changes that are accruing in her beautiful mind at this time in her life.
  This week I enjoyed all of the reading, but memory was always a topic that intrigued me but something I am not necessarily knowledgeable about.  It seems that elementary aged children spend a lot of time on developing different memorization strategies; all of which are simple yet effective. Word association seems to be what works best for her. “A-A-alligator, B-B- Bear”. Cute and effective J.
   This chapter touched a bit on metamemory but it didn’t elaborate much on it. Just to satisfy my own curiosity I would like to know more about memory problems and what type of factors contribute to that. Mainly I am interested in memory problems that occur in childhood and young adult hood (not conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s.)  I have heard and I believe read somewhere that childhood trauma can affect memory.  I am also interested in why some methods of memorization work for some people and not for others.  I took a personality test recently and found that I scored extremely high in the category or music. Over the years I have found that I can memorize lyrics with ease and have used that method of memorization for school. Do different methods of memorization correspond with different personality types?
   Although human devolvement as a whole is very interesting, it is always fun when topics relate to you or your loved ones J