Reflective Report on Toddler Observation

Ryan is a twelve-month-old, brown-haired, brown-eyed, White toddler. He is caucasion with almond-shaped eyes. I met him at a friend’s suburban residence, on 10^(th) February, 2020, where he and she live. I was there between 12 pm. and 6 p.m. at her place. I discovered Ryan seated on the living room floor. The house as well as the neighborhood seemed safe and well maintained.

Bethany Rutkowski is 28year old, female, Caucasian, and works as a nurse at Harris hospital. She is a single parent who lives in a suburban residence. She stated she had little to know support from the father during pregnancy. Family was more than supportive but helped her with living accommodations. Stressors in the home are finances, childcare and sleeping habits (due to work schedule). Ryan stays with his grandparents or friends while Bethany is at work. Bethany stated that Ryan is up to date on immunizations and was an easy birth. Bethany stated Ryan is a good child and so far he has not had any major illnesses or injuries.

Ryan has little to no difficulty sitting up. Ryan seemed to appear very confident in his ability to balance himself. He is seated feet directly in front of him, with his legs spread out wide. Ryan is able lean forward till his stomach reaches the floor, he does seem to require a great amount of effort when sitting back up. When Ryan crawls, his hands tend to be flat and spread across the floor, Ryans fingers wide and feet pointed directly behind him. When going from a crawl to a seated position, Ryan first raises his left leg while he places his right foot down before putting his bottom to the floor. When going from a crawl to a standing position, Ryan goes over to the couch and uses it for support with his right hand. He leans his head back, steadies himself with his feet, and places his other hand on the couch prior to standing up. This required a certain amount of effort on the part of Ryan. Ryan appears tall compared to others his age as well as heavy. He has yet to start walking without needing some sort of support. (He can walk alonf the couch while using it as support). His size is what seems to keep him from walking by himself. Ryan is sturdy, in great health, and demonstrates normal coordination. All of the above actions are considered on par by Piaget, for a toddler at aged one.

Ryan was seated on the ground surrounded by some of his toys. Beside him Bethany, to whom he starts handing his toys to. Ryan showed interest in his Bethanys response to the blocks he gave her. He leans forward to pick up the blocks, which he seems to love passing to her. He looks at her face, mouth open while waiting for her to responed. Betahny continues to tell Ryan yo play with the blocks. Ryan goes from block to block and continues to hand them to Bethany. When Ryan is done with the blocks. Ryan crawls to retrieve his toy car in which he pushes around for a couple of mintues. Ryan then looks towards Bethyany to see what she is doing, Ryan moving the toy towards her looks and giggles. Bethany returns the giggle, by asking him if he is having fun with his car? Ryan smiles and giggles – he seems really interested in how Bethany reacts to him. Seemingly care free of whether he is near or moves for a toy, Bethany continually watches him to make sure Ryan is okay. Ryan occasionally turns around to see whether Betahnys focus is on him or not; when Bethany starts retrieving toys from the floor and trying to tidy the place up, Ryan moves towards Bethany because Ryan seems to be intrested in what his mom is doing. He appears to be highly dependent on her mood. If Bethany smiles, Ryan does too. When Betahny is distracted, he desires for the focus to be back back on him. Ryan seems to be reading and responding to his Bethanys facial expressions. Overall, the mother-child relationship appears very positive, with the former being highly attentive to the latter.

Ryan depicts a sound sense of balance, learning best through touch or personal performance of tasks. Babies, from the outset, actively construct individual understandings based on personal experiences. Their sociocultural setting mediates and relates to such understandings. Children display active learning through observation and participation with peers, educators, parents and other adults.

Given his age, I was unable to adequately observe linguistic and cognitive development within the child. Ryan is able to push, pull and carry things around. As mentioned previously, he dragged his toy car to and fro over the floor. Crawling over to it, the boy placed his right hand atop the car with fingers inserted through its front window opening. Initially, he pushed it over to his mom’s sitting place, paused, ceased pushing before sitting down from his crawl, and finally pushed it to and fro, whilst making noises. He started drooling at some point; his mother had to wipe his mouth. The boy demonstrates normal behavior for a 12-month-old. His gross and fine motor skills are age-appropriate. He can take hold of objects which fit within his hand when sitting, standing or crawling.

Ryan shows particular interest in people’s facial expressions, which he responds to. If his mom smiles, he too smiles, opening and closing his hands. On occasion, he simultaneously starts wiggling his toes. If he finds his mom not smiling or not focused on him, Ryan observes her for some time prior to getting a toy for her. I believe he gauges her feelings, and takes comfort in her presence. He watches me as well, it seems like he is trying to understand my emotions. I desired to observe him without participating; however, whenever his focus was on me, I responded. When jotting down my notes, he occasionally crawled toward me, sat nearby with one of his toys, and looked at me from time to time. When I smiled or spoke about the toy, he would go back to playing, satisfied. In my view, he behaves normally for a one-year-old. Ryan is a rather social child, who likes independent play and interacting with other people for short durations.

Early childhood educational and care initiatives can suitably and actively support development. A key important element in the support and promotion of children’s development is a positive, effectual caregiver-parent relationship (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Through play, children are able to gain insights into their world, socialize with other people, convey and control their feelings, and cultivate personal symbolic competences. Play allows adults to understand child development and avenues for supporting novel strategy developmen.

Development within a particular sphere may aid or hinder development in another. A crawling or walking toddler, for instances, is able to better explore around; this mobility successively impacts cognitive growth. Similarly, linguistic ability impacts children’s capacity of forming social bonds with peers and adults, in the same way their social interactional ability aids or hampers linguistic development. Due to the developmental spheres, teachers should demonstrate familiarity with them and apply them for organizing the learning experiences of their pupils to aid their optimal, holistic development and make valuable connections across spheres. People, particularly young children, are highly driven towards comprehending/mastering things they are nearly, though not thoroughly, able to grasp/master (NAEYC, n.d). In Ryan’s case, it is advised that his parents ensure their affectionate displays towards the child are more in number than punishments/consequences. Friendly roughhousing, hugging and kissing are reassurances of a parent’s love. Further, attentiveness and praise encourage children to conform to rules.

Bethany has been a close friend since I was eighteen years old. Doing this assessment was difficult for me. I have never done something like this and trying to fit this in with both of our schedules was difficult. I can see this being an issue while working in the field. I do feel like I can work on my observation skills as well as my writing things down. I feel like I wrote too much down. My thinking was better safe than sorry especially if I was in the field. I feel like I should write down as much as possible. I like this assignment and hope I can improve in the future.

References

• Lake, K. (2017, May 21). Sample Observation Paper for Child Development.
• Mayo Clinic. (2016, October 13). Parenting tips: How to improve toddler behavior.
• NAEYC (n.d). Principles of child development and learning that inform developmentally appropriate practice.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010). Infant/Toddler Development, Screening,and Assessment Infant/Toddler Development, Screening, and Assessment.