You observe a child at a local playground. His name is Chris. There are many chi

Question

You observe a child at a local playground. His name is Chris. There are many children of both genders and various apparent age ranges in the playground area. Many adults are sitting around the perimeter of the playground. You do not know how old Chris is but see him do the following...

When you first see Chris he is playing with a toy dump truck and some action figures in a sandbox, making engine noises, making the action figures "talk to each other", and digging and loading/unloading the truck. Initially, there are some other boys in the sandbox who have various other vehicle toys and action figures. Eventually, several of the boys (including Chris) start digging a hole together, having their figures tell each other what to do--saying "good job", and asking for help when one of their action figures gets "stuck" at the bottom of the hole, etc. A boy from outside the sandbox runs in and snatches one of Chris' action figures. Chris yells, gets up and chases the boy, pushes him down and takes the toy back, saying "that's mine." One of the monitoring adults calls out to Chris, "Chris no pushing, say you are sorry or else we'll have to leave." He whines back, "But the boy took it without asking". In a very exasperated tone of voice he complies and says he is sorry. Chris helps the boy up off the ground and then returns to the sandbox. When he gets back to the sandbox, he whispers to one of his playmates, "I didn't mean to hurt him but darn he made me mad. He should have asked instead of just snatching my toy." While Chris and the other children are in the sandbox a man dressed in a clown suit comes onto the playground as part of a little girl's birthday party going on. Some of the children run to their parents, clearly fearful, but Chris and the other boys in the sandbox just laugh. "Look at that clown! He's goofy. He really scared those girls bad!", the boys then resume their play. Chris decides to share some of the marbles in his pocket with his new found friends. He pulls them out and counts the total number. The marbles are different colors and sizes. At first he arranges them in a line based on their size, from smallest to largest as he considers how to divide them. Ultimately, he decides to give each new friend all the marbles of a particular color. One of the boy's marbles gets lost in the sand, and he starts to cry. Chris tells him it will be OK and helps him start looking for the marble. They eventually find it, and Chris and the others start pretending that the marbles are big boulders that they have to move with their trucks. Chris feels a sense of pride that he was nice to this new friend and helped him. One of the boys suggests playing a new game in which he hides his marbles somewhere in the playground while the other boys close their eyes. He does so. Then the boy comes back and draws a map of the playground in the sand with the location of the marbles indicated by an X. They play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to go first and Chris wins. He excitedly looks over the map and has little trouble finding the marbles that the boy had hidden under a bush next to the "little kids' slide". Then it is Chris' turn to hide the marbles and draw a new map. He realizes that a few of the boys aren't as good at using the map to find things so he places the marbles in a very easy place so they will be more likely to succeed.

Based on these observations, do you think Chris is more likely to be considered in early or middle childhood? Use more than 3 specific pieces of information from your text to support and explain your position. To support your claim you must describe the theory and how it relates to your answer. You should be specific and detailed in your defense.

Explanation / Answer

Answer- According to me Chris is more likely to be considered in middle childhood. During this period, a child's cognitive, social, emotional, physical and language development take place. Middle childhood also includes the qualities of self discipline, ability to make good decisions, conflict negotiation, good relations with family and friends etc.

At the starting of the paragraph, Chris is playing with a toy dump truck and some action figures in a sand box, making engine noises, making the action figures, digging and loading or unloading the truck. Chris also participates with other boys in the process of digging hole and use words like 'good job' to action figures. During middle childhood, children generally develop new capabilities and responsibilities towards the roles given to them and Chris is also responsible towards the role given to him during the play. Another example from the text is when a child snatches Chris' toy and he gets angry and takes it back from him. But at the same time, he says sorry also because he does not want to let them go. But Chris thinks that he has not committed any mistake and tells this to another friend secretly.

Other piece of the information from the text includes that Chris helps a child to find out his marble and also shows the ability to arrange the marbles on the basis of their sizes and colours. At the end of the paragraph, he also uses logical thinking by creating an easy map for children to find out the marbles easily. All these qualities of Chris refers that he is in the period of middle childhood. Many child psychologists have given their views on different stages of childhood but the major theoretical views have been given by Jean Piaget. According to his theory, children are capable of logical thinking, reasoning and problem solving in different tasks during middle childhood. The children in early childhood are not so organized but in middle childhood stage children more logical and systematic. They are more responsible and mature than the children of early childhood stage. On the basis of above discussion, we can say that Chris is considered to be in middle childhood.

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