Arya’s eating, sleeping and motor development are equivalent to the normal developmental patterns that should be seen during the first 9 months of life. From 0 to 3 months, Arya was calm, in a good mood, and easy to soothe when upset. He was increasingly curious of the world around him. With regards to his eating and sleeping habits, he was tolerant to breastfeeding and occasionally had diarrhoea. From 3 to 9 months he was exposed to family and friends. Despite, being hesitant at first Arya warms up to them. An object permeance test was performed to assess motor function (McLeod 2015). He successfully found an object after it was hidden from him. This illustrated Piaget’s theory of cognitive development where by the end of the sensorimotor stage infants develop object permeance through touching and handling. Arya’s motor skills at 9 months are typical for age which was evidenced by him crawling, sitting, and standing but not yet walking. He was having difficulty sleeping at times, but with patience and cradling he fell asleep.
At 8 months of age Arya was an “easy” child. He smiled and interacted with almost everyone. There was slight curiosity and hesitation to strangers, but he eventually warmed up. He liked games and new challenges. He could be difficult when he did not want to go to bed but he was for the most part in an optimistic mood. By placing more focus on cognitive and social interactions, I could enhance his ability to interact with individual’s other than his parents.
My child’s attachment to my partner and myself is developing well. According to Bowlby and Ainsworth, infants generally enjoy human interaction. The response to caregivers are equivalent. They get distressed when an individual does not interact with them. Infants smile more at familiar faces at 3 months and can be consoled by a consistent caregiver (Bowlby 2008). We chose for Arya to be breastfed so naturally he will have more of a bond with his mother in that regard. Also, while she is at home caring for our child for 6 months to one year, I work full time at the office. However, around 8 months Arya’s mother became irritable and somewhat depressed. She complained about being at home alone a lot with the baby. We end up working out a solution where I spend time with Arya in the evenings and weekends so that she could go out with her friends and socialize. I end up playing with him, changing his diapers, and feeding him more often. This creates some alone time for my wife and bonding time for myself and the baby.
The four stages of Piaget’s cognitive development are sensorimotor (birth – 18 months), pre-operational (18 months – 7 years), concrete operational (7 years to 12 years), and formal operational (Adolescence to Adulthood). Throughout the primary stages, infants are only aware of what is directly in front of them. Their attention is on physical interactions within their immediate environment. At 8 months Arya was put through the object permanence test when he could find a hidden object repeatedly. At the age of 12 months he learned to walk and explore his environment eagerly as well as clearly understand a couple of dozen words. At 15 months of age, Arya often studied things in his environment and performs simple little “experiments” with them. For example, he throws a ball against the wall repeatedly, varying the strength or angle of throw and watches how the ball rebounds. At 18 months, Arya sometimes took on problems that were too difficult for his age level. He sometimes got frustrated and gave up. This is when I got involved and assisted him in figuring out the solution to the problem.
There are five aspects of temperament used by the virtual program to gauge my child’s activity, sociability, emotionality, aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, and self-control within the first 30 months. Arya has a moderate level of activity. He likes to play different games with various levels of challenges. Because of this, when he was approximately 8 months old he was especially restless and had difficulty sleeping. He developed his motor skills such as crawling, standing and walking at appropriate times. This lead to increased activity after each milestone was achieved. Arya went from being introverted to extroverted. During his first few months of development I was at work every day at the office and therefore leaving him in the care of his stay at home mother. During their many hours together, he grew very attachment to her. When he was first introduced to strangers he was skeptical. To try and improve my relationship with him I spent evenings and on the weekends playing, cleaning, and socializing with him. Secondly, we brought him around more family and friends which allowed Arya to engage with people other than ourselves. Around 18 months he tended to be slow to warm up to new people, but was outgoing and friendly with familiar people. Arya’s emotionality seemed to decrease when he was between the ages of 9 and 18 months. When he was younger he would have minor tantrums with very little incitement, but this propensity seemed to have lessened a great deal as he got older. The older he got the more comfortable and confident he became. He had a few tantrums in the beginning that resulted in toys being thrown but he has never been outwardly aggressive. Arya had no witnessed self-control issues that we believe could lead to attention deficit disorder. The goodness of fit is the degree in which a child’s temperament is compatible with the stresses and expectations of the social world (Thomas and Chess, 1977). Arya has a mild temperament. From the beginning, we exposed him to books, talked, played, and had him meet new people. He was always curious and wanted to find out more about a certain puzzle or activity. I never desired to change his temperament.
According the examiner’s report, Arya seemed to get along very well with the other kids, and was usually cooperative for a child of his age. The examiner thought that Arya would adapt well to the preschool environment. Arya scored above average in all aspects of language development. Motor development, age appropriate task was on par. The examiner recommended that he is ready for preschool. I believe this is likely a result of environmental factors that Arya experienced during the nurture phase. Our support and his frequent exposure to new stimuli has allowed him to develop positively into the child he is today.