LIFESPAN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (PSYCH 1100)

Person Paper 1
Anns Experiences and Stages of Life (Chapt 1-9
Melissa Wells 7/27/2012

This is the story of Ann, created to illustrate and give examples of the teachings learned in Chapters 1-9 of the textbook, Invitation to the Lifespan.

Person Paper Don and Sheila were your average white family, living in the suburbs in Utah with six children. Sheila was currently pregnant and anxiously awaiting their last child; a baby girl. Their family was average, not really extremely high or low on the socioeconomic scale. (Berger 2010 Ch 1 p. 10)i They had a nice home with plenty of space for everyone, and no one in the family really ever had to go without, but Don worked hard to make sure of this, it wasnt all just handed to him easily. Even Sheila worked so that they could maintain their lifestyle. There were certain aspects of Don and Sheilas relationship that could use some work, but Don is an engineer and not so great with emotions. Their relationship pretty much got to the point where Sheila gets upset and tries to talk to Don about it, and he avoids dealing with the situation because its awkward for him. He is a very logical thinker, and emotions dont make sense to him like they do for most people. Eventually Sheila gets fed up and ends up letting the emotion go, or burying it deep down and not dealing with it, letting it build up more and more. Because of this vicious cycle, Sheila has struggled with depression for a long time (Berger 2010 Ch 1 p. 16). Her behavior causes her to suppress her emotions and because of Dons awkwardness and her depression, their children very rarely witness them express emotions of any kind really. In a way, this caused a sort of neglectful parenting (Berger 2010 Ch 6 p. 210). Having parents that dont show their emotions, and the fact that they work all the time created the problem of not being home often. Another factor that played into this was the familys choice of religion. Both Don and Sheila had grown up in strongly religious homes, and continued to practice Mormonism within their own family. By doing this, a lot of their time was taken away

from the family because of service projects and church callings (similar to volunteer work). Much of the time the kids were home with only each other for supervision. Ann was born in December. Her mother had made sure to follow all the rules during pregnancy, and made sure to eat right and take great care of herself to optimize the health of the baby. Due to the birth of her previous baby, a boy born by C-Section two years prior, the doctor decided that it would be the best choice to deliver Ann was to repeat the procedure. (Berger 2010 Ch 2 pp. 65-66). She wasnt scheduled like many c-sections are in these days, Ann was actually a couple weeks early, but the beautiful baby girl was healthy and happy. She was soon able to go home and join her siblings at home. As with all babies, time started to go by quickly, and Ann seemed to be getting bigger and bigger by the day. She soon started to show control of her gross motor skills, and everyone was excited when she started crawling (Berger 2010 Chapter 3 Page 95). This was soon followed by standing and walking, and before you knew it, she was having her first birthday. She continued to grow and mature quickly, and her siblings loved carting her around and playing with the new baby. As I mentioned before, Don and Sheila were heavily involved in their religion. This caused Don especially to be away quite often. A fathers involvement can affect and infants well-being as well as a mother. (Berger 2010 Ch 4 pp. 128) In early development the fathers behavior toward the mother affects her stress level, and her state of high or low stress is transmitted to the baby. Well, I explained the dynamics between Don and Sheila in the beginning, so you can only imagine how this behavior rubbed off onto Ann. Sheila suffered from

post-partum depression, and because Don didnt do a whole lot to acknowledge the situation, it only worsened the situation. Its possible that Sheilas depression may have been passed down genetically or during Anns upbringing, but later on in life it started to be something Ann struggled with as well. As Ann continued to age, she began to prefer the use of her left hand for most tasks, a process referred to as lateralization. She also demonstrated a strong propensity for artistic endeavors and creative writing, behaviors that are not at all uncommon for left-handed people (Berger 2010 Ch 5 pp. 167). Her fathers love for music had spread throughout the family, and she started to learn to play the piano, and found it to be something that she cherished above everything else. She cherished it not only because of her own love for music, but it also seemed to give her a sort of spiritual bond with her father, who was a normally man of so few words, and what seemed like the only bond that Ann was able to have with him. Unfortunately, even the bond Ann and her father shared wasnt strong enough, and she began to feel isolated and alone. As the youngest of seven children, she often felt as if no one had time for her, and that no one cared about anything she wanted to do. During her teenage years she expressed a love for volleyball and the clarinet. She had begged her parents to allow her to participate in the school band and the school volleyball team, and much to dismay her parents would not allow it, telling her that it would cost too much money. Soon after, her mother fell ill and was on the brink of death for many months (Berger 2010 Ch 8 p289). This devastated the entire family, but none more so than Don. He began to spend all of his time caring for Sheila, leaving his seven children to care for themselves. Even after Sheila returned

home, the financial burden of caring for that many children had forced her to return to work, leaving Ann all alone once again (Berger 2010 Ch 8 p288). She began to seek ways to get any kind of attention from either of her parents. No matter what she did, Ann could not seem to get even an iota of positive reinforcement from either parent. Ann didnt realize this at the time, but she was a perfect example of neglectful/uninvolved parenting. No matter what she did, her parents were simply not involved with anything she did (Berger 2010 Ch 6 p. 211). Desperate, she started to act out. Her grades in her classes plummeted, failing all but one class. She spiraled further and further out of control, and without her parental support there was no stopping it. Being a strictly LDS family, there were certain things that were expected of each family member. Ann had different opinions of things and liked certain things that the church didnt really approve of, causing Ann to become became more and more detached. She started to lose interest in her church activities and get togethers. Rather than seeing her bad grades and straying from the church as a cry for help, not only her parents and siblings attributed it to rebellion, but so did everyone around her, thinking that it was just a teenage phase and that there was no need for intervention. Even her teachers wrote her off as one of those students that just didnt care when nothing was further from the truth. Her inattentiveness was perceived as some misguided teenage rebellion, when in fact it was something that was easily treatable, had someone taken the time to help. Ann found out much later in life that she had Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). No matter what she tried, she simply couldnt focus on anything that required her to concentrate, especially her homework. She also struggled with emotional management from being stifled her entire life. The simple prescription of a stimulant like Adderall or Ritalin could have prevented a lot of the

bad experiences that Ann had to experience, and could have avoided the psychological damage it caused her to have. (Berger 2010 Ch 7 P 264) Anns troubles culminated with her dropping out of high school. Her grades had gotten to the point of no return, and rather than the schools administration reaching out to help her, they thought that the best solution to aid a troubled teen would be to remove her from school, so they simply told her not to come back. That didnt set Ann back for long though, because although her relationship with her dad suffered, she did learn a lot from his example, and knew that with hard work anything was possible. As a personal goal, and to surprise her dad who figured it would never happen, she went back to school shortly thereafter and obtained her diploma (Berger 2010 Ch 9 P 241). She wrapped up her diploma and shared it with him for Christmas; it was one of the only times Ann had seen her dad cry. She had started to understand her limitations and weaknesses. She had learned that she was an extremely impulsive individual, and rather than listen to advice from her father (who was more often than not, absolutely correct), she would dismiss his advice and ultimately prove him right. Her deductive reasoning skills were as good as any other teenager, but like so many others her age she just found it easier to ignore rational thought and act impulsively. (Berger 2010 Ch 9 P 331) She continues to learn new things about herself every day, and is learning how to cope with having ADHD and how to use it to her advantage rather than a handicap.

All citations refer to Invitation to the Life Span, by Kathleen Berger