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Infancy: Cognitive Development
From the day I was born, I never took a paci. Instead, I sucked my thumb. It was a soothing method for me as a baby, kind of like coping with stress. I can remember being 7 or 8 years old and still sucking my thumb when I would hear my parents fighting because that would calm me down. -
Infancy: Physical Development
I started walking when I was around one year old. Since I was and have always been a daddy's girl, I was encouraged to walk mostly by my dad - he would stand a few feet away from me, hold out his hands and say "come to daddy!" I was also encouraged by my favorite snacks. This was a big step in developing my gross motor skills. -
Infancy: Cognitive Development
My first word was "dada".. My mom says I started babbling when I was around 3-5 months old, but she could tell that I began associating the word "dada" with my father when I was about 6 or 7 months old because I would start screaming "dada" every time I saw him. -
Infancy: Cognitive Development
My mom says I was a good sleeper when I was a baby. Up until I was about 6 weeks old I would wake up at the same time every night strictly to eat, and I would go right back to sleep. When I was around 2 months old, I started sleeping through the night, which ended up being about 9 hours uninterrupted. -
Infancy: Emotional Development
When I was a baby, my parents say I was securely attached to my dad instead of my mom. Even before I could talk, it was obvious that the person I desired to be around the most was my father. If I was ever upset, I only wanted my dad to hold me. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
When I was a toddler (3-6 years old), I had a pink blanket that I always slept with. I couldn't go anywhere without it. It was given to me when I was born, but I never really developed a need for it until I was old enough to understand object permanence. If I didn't have it with me every night and every nap time, I pitched a fit. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
My first memory occurred when I was just 4 years old. I can very vaguely remember attending my dads family reunion. My cousin and I use to sit in a hammock in the backyard of my relatives house by the lake, eat hot dogs and chips, and play with the dog. -
Early Childhood: Emotional Development
When I was a toddler, I can remember my mom being emotion-coaching and my dad being emotion-dismissing. My mom would usually explain to me why I was getting in trouble for something where as my dad would just get on to me without telling me why what I was doing was wrong. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
I did everything with my dad before I was old enough to go to school. When he wasn't teaching, I would go to softball and football practice with him, we would play outside together, and he even coached my first tee ball team in 2003. I was extremely securely attached to my dad for as long as I can remember. -
Early Childhood: Physical Development
My handwriting has always been very neat. At the start of kindergarten, I could write neater than any of the other kids in my class because my Aunt Jodi would practice writing my name with me. This was a huge step towards developing my fine motor skills. -
Middle Childhood: Emotional Development
My grandfather passed away on December 22, 2007. I was 9 years old at the time, so I understood what death was, and that my Pop was gone forever. He passed away from pancreatic cancer, so his death wasn't sudden. Personally, I didn't cry when it happened or even at his funeral. However, as I get older, I get more emotional about it. I will sometimes just go sit at his grave and cry and talk to him for hours. It's harder for me now because I wonder what my life would be like with him in it. -
Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development
I was forced to go to bed at certain times and wake up at certain times either for school or to fit my parents schedules. On average, I would get about 10 hours of sleep at night when I was in elementary school. I was also that kid that "went to bed" but didn't actually fall asleep until about an hour or so after getting in bed. -
Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development
Beginning in 3rd grade, I took AR tests (reading comprehension tests) to constantly check my reading level throughout school. I HATED reading, and still do, yet my mom and dad would make me dedicate certain amounts of time to reading every night so I could increase my vocabulary. By 5th grade, I was reading on a 7th grade level. -
Middle Childhood: Physical Development
In middle school, I took two years of piano lessons. This helped me develop my fine motor skills since it intensely involved the use of my fingers. I really enjoyed learning this skill because I have always loved music. -
Adolescence: Physical Development
I hit puberty right after I turned 13, so I was in my 7th grade year. I definitely developed more of an attitude and rebellion against my parents (which was also triggered by learning the cause of their divorce. I began to really flirt with boys all the time, and I even landed my first boyfriend that year. -
Adolescence: Emotional Development
In the fall of my 7th grade year (13 years old), I learned the reason behind my parents divorce; therefore, I became extremely insecurely attached to my mother because of how she treated my dad. Instead of building that "best-friend" relationship that most girls share with their mother, I distanced myself from he out of anger. I kept everything to myself and became extremely independent at a very young age. -
Adolescence: Cognitive Development
Middle school was really when my mom started to let me spend the night with friends or have friends over to spend the night. This was also when I got an iPhone, so you can imagine just now much I stayed up at night way later than I was suppose to. On average, I got about 8 hours of sleep during the week in this time period in my life. -
Adolescence: Cognitive Development
In high school, I used lots of different memory strategies when it came to remembering stuff I wasn't interested in. For example, to remember information for history tests, I would have to make flashcards, read my notes over and over again out loud to myself, or re-write notes. I found that I usually did better on tests in I studied the day of and the night before ONLY. If I studied more than that, I always ended up focusing too much on things that didn't matter, and I made bad grades. -
Adolescence: Physical Development
All throughout high school, I was on color guard. I loved everything about what I was a part of, from the sweaty practices to performing on Friday nights and competitions on Saturdays. I would say this activity helped in strengthening my fine motor skills with all of the dancing and flag spinning. Color guard became a passion of mine, and if I could re-live one part of high school, that is what I would choose. -
Early Adulthood: Physical Development
Cancer is common on both sides of my family. Melanoma is common on my moms side, and pancreatic cancer is common on my dads side. Knowing both of these traits have affected my family members makes me more cautious of my actions and what I put in my body. For example, I use to never wear sunscreen, but I have ever since my mom had surgery to remove melanoma on her leg about 2 years ago. -
Early Adulthood: Physical Development
Within the last year and a half, I have started to learn how to play guitar. This has helped me develop my fine motor skills in a new way because of the intricacy of each chord that I play. -
Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development
Senior year, my sleep patterns were terrible. I got to the point where it was physically impossible for me to get more than 4 hours of sleep at a time. If I went to sleep at 12am, I'd wake up at 4am. Being a full time college student now with a job, a boyfriend, and two little brothers that are year-round active in sports, its safe to say I have a very busy life. Sleep is something I get only if I have time, and on average (since starting college), I get about 5-6 hours of sleep every night. -
Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development
My IQ is 127. This is actually surprising to me. I was in gifted classes as a child (elementary school), but in middle and high school I just took general classes, so I didn't challenge myself as much as I should've. I expected to have a decent IQ because both of my parents are very smart, but 127 is in the 96th percentile. I'm proud of my score to say the least. I think this had a major effect on my schooling because I have always loved a challenge. I also do things like sudoku puzzles for fun, -
Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development
There are two things I do not agree with from the results of my Big 5 personality test. The results state I am very open-minded, conscientious, and extroverted, which I agree with. However, it also said I am emotionally negative and quick to judge people which I do not agree with. I do not get nervous/anxious very easily, and I will admit I do judge people, but I wouldn't consider myself "quick to judge".