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Birthday
I was born at 12:03 am at UAB Hospital. This was Two years after my older sister, Mar'Lesia (born 08/23/1998). -
Infancy: Physical Development
My mom told me that around the time I learned to walk, my older sister who is two years older than me, did not want me to play with her toys so she started throwing them at me, and according to my mother, I ran for the first time that day.It encouraged my gross motor skills to give me a headstart on running. -
Infancy: Language Development
My first word was Da. My dad was who I wanted to be around most of the time according to my parents. So, "Da" being my first word is not surprising. -
Infancy: Stress
As an infant, I was addicted to my pacifier, so that was more than likely my way of calming down. -
Infancy: Piaget Sensorimotor Stage
The sensorimotor stage puts emphasis on infants using their senses to explore and understand their environment. I cried a lot when I did not have my pacifier, showing that I was beginning to understand object permanence. When I lost it, my grandfather had to go and purchase the exact same one from the store in order for me to be calmed down. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
My first memory was the day of my fourth birthday. I remember waking up and being excited that I was turning four. It was very warm and bright. My first memory occurs at exactly 4 years old, which I find funny simply due to childhood amnesia (when you don't remember the first three years of your life). -
Early Childhood: Language Development
To increase my vocabulary, my parents would point to different things and ask me to tell them what it was or correct me if I named something incorrectly. They also read to me and let me read to them. As I got older, they relied mostly on my schooling to increase my vocabulary (vocabulary tests, and spelling tests). They encouraged studying through repetition. -
Early Childhood: Emotional Development
Growing up my mom and dad differed in how they handled our emotional dilemmas. My mother was definitely emotion-coaching while my dad was emotion-dismissing. I remember learning to ride my bike, I fell. My dad told me to get up on my own, even though I was crying and asked for him to help me. He wanted his girls to be independent and tough. My mom would have babied me and kissed my bruises. -
Early Childhood: Piaget Pre-Operational
In my early childhood years, I liked to pretend cook outside use flowers and leaves as pretend food. This supports the Piagetian ideas of symbolic representation. -
Birth of younger sister, Matilda
She was my first younger sibling, born at home, unintentionally. -
Middle/Late Childhood: Piaget Concrete Operational
Going into higher level math, I would use my fingers to count and represent numbers when doing math problems. This shows that I could understand/ represent math in a physical form, not yet translating that into mental math. -
Middle/Late Childhood: Physical Development
At the beginning of middle school, my sight senses began to decline. I had to wear glasses. I am near-sighted. According to my eye doctor at the time, it was inherited from my mom who was also nearsighted. -
Middle/Late Childhood:Stress
As a child moving towards adolescence, I started to bite my nails in stressful situations like tests in order to calm down. Unfortunately, I still do this, but I am trying to combat this by wearing acrylic nails, which prevents me from biting my nails. -
Middle/Late Childhood: Physical Development
As a child and through adolescence I liked to draw. I would practice drawing by finding pictures on the internet and drawing them. Drawing increased my fine motor skills. -
Adolescence: Physical Development-Puberty
I hit puberty the summer before either 6th or 7th grade. I was not that affected because I was there when my older sister hit puberty, and it somewhat prepared me for what to expect. Among peers, for at least a year I denied having a menstrual cycle because I was embarrassed to discuss it. I was a very sweaty, acne-prone middle schooler, and I wish I could burn all the photos that exist of me at that time. -
Adolescence: Physical Development
Throughout my childhood, I was not very active, but in high school, as a desperate attempt to increase my versatility on my resume', I joined ultimate frisbee and bowling The sports allowed me to improve my gross motor movement. I also joined the creative writing club in high school. Writing increases fine motor skills. -
Adolescence: Language Development
Some jargon/slang terms we used in middle school were "swag"- a cool way of presenting oneself, "Lit"- fun, awesome, and "On Fleek"- nice or perfect. These words/phrases were used among friends and social media. -
Birth of younger brother, Isaac
He was my first brother, second younger sibling, born three months early. -
Adolescence: Cognitive Development: Memory
In high school, I used repetition to memorize biology terms. In 9th grade, my biology teacher used to give us a short quiz at least three times a week in which we had to memorize different biological terms. -
Adolescence: Emotional Development
I lost my mother at the age of 17 to cancer when she was 37 years old. It affected me emotionally, because losing someone so suddenly and so close to me, made me have to grow up and assume a more motherly role for my younger siblings. I had to learn how to deal with the loss and control my emotions in professional/ school settings. -
Early Adulthood: Health/ Sleep
I get around 6 hours of sleep each night. I wake up at 7:15 am, and I have recently been going to bed around 2:00 am. I am tired a lot during the day and take about 1-2 naps every day. I wish I didn't take that many naps because it takes away time from me being able to do homework. -
Early Adulthood: Stress
I calm down and cope with stress by cleaning things, taking showers and sleeping. -
Early Adulthood: Identity Development
I feel that my identity is in between statuses. None of them completely describe where I am right now in terms of my development. I feel identity moratorium because I am in college embarking on a new stage in my life. I feel identity foreclosure because of the pressure my family puts on me to be successful and identity achievement because I feel comfortable with the decisions I am making and the path I am on in some circumstances. -
Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development: IQ
Knowing my IQ does not affect how I feel about myself. In school, my IQ opened doors for me. I was in the gifted program in elementary school, graduated as valedictorian in the fifth grade, always made good grades, joined lots of academic societies, and graduated in the top ten percent of my high school class. -
Early Adulthood: Attachment Style
I feel that I am securely attached to my parent. Growing up, I had a mix of secure and insecure- avoidant because my dad wanted us to grow up to be self-sufficient. Being securely attached helped me to be able to leave the nest and be happy to go to college. Sometimes I would rather stay in school and no go home because I don't want the responsibility of home to fall on my shoulders. -
Early Adulthood: Health History
My family has a history of high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, asthma, and eczema. I do not do anything to combat the possibility of getting these diseases/disorders. Exercise for me is walking around campus, and I take a daily vitamin. Other than that, I am not doing a good job at preventing these diseases from making an appearance. I know that in old age because my mother had breast cancer, I am more likely to get it as well. I will get examined as needed. -
Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development: Personality
After taking the Big Five Personality test, I felt like it was a decent description of my personality. I felt like I may be nicer than it makes me out to be, but maybe not. I feel like most of my personality traits and temperament have remained consistent, except I am more reserved and introverted than I was as a child.
