Middle Childhood

Spending time with young children is something that I have always particularly enjoyed, and now that I live with my brother and his two daughters I am able to spend all the time in the world with them. I chose to interview and observe my oldest niece, Alyssa for my paper on middle childhood.

Deciding to start with questions pertaining to her physical development, I asked Alyssa, who is seven years old, if she has gotten any taller or any heavier since she was six, and she told me that she doesn’t think so because she still fits into all over her clothes from first grade still. When I asked her mother about this, she verified that she hasn’t changed much at all, and her growth spurt happened right before first grade. I also asked Alyssa if she has ever tried to diet or lose weight, and she said “Yes I have, I ate lose-weight waffles for a couple of weeks, but it was really because they were there and they didn’t taste like lose-weight waffles with lots of syrup.” I think that she was under the impression that just because she ate low-fat food, she was trying to lose weight.

Alyssa used her fingers to feel around in her mouth the teeth that felt “bigger” and came to the conclusion that she has lost nine teeth so far. When she gets home from school, Alyssa goes to her babysitter’s house, where she has snacks and draws until someone picks her and her sister up.

Soccer is one of Alyssa’s physical activities, and she has been on the soccer team for two years now, and is planning to join for a third year this summer. When I asked her how many hours of television she watched she told me twenty-four at first, then confessed that she really didn’t know. Her favorite shows are The Suite Life of Zach and Cody and Hannah Montana. Alyssa’s mother later told me that she sometimes doesn’t watch any television in a day, but other days she will sit there and watch anywhere from one to three hours worth.

Next, I moved on to the questions concerning her cognitive development, and started out by asking Alyssa how long it took her to get to school. She told me it takes twenty minutes, which is just a little bit off. Her trek to school usually takes about ten to fifteen minutes depending on how cooperative both kids are to get out of the house.

When I asked her how many outfits she could make, she first asked me if there were any belts, then she said she could make three whole outfits out of three pants, three shirts and 3 pairs of shoes. She knows you can have other outfits, but “since the clothes might actually belong to a different outfit, the other outfits aren’t real outfits.”

Alyssa told me that she absolutely likes nothing about school, and she dislikes reading, math, and music class very much. Her favorite joke to tell is “Spell ICUP!” And when I did the liquid conservation experiment on her, she told me that the tall glass had more because it was taller.

Moving on to the psychosocial section of the observation/interview I asked Alyssa what she thought about herself, she replied “I think I’m gorgeous and I think I’m different.” and singing “drawling”, designing bedrooms and designing clothes were the things that she considers herself good at, although she wishes she could be better at basketball, skateboarding, and skiing.

Shopping, make-up, purses, jewelry, and fashion are the things that Alyssa is interested in, which fits well with what she wants to be when she grows up, which is a fashion designer.

The definition of a good friend, according to seven year old Alyssa is “Being truthful, not letting you down, not saying you are going to do something and don’t, and not lying.” And she said that she experiences peer pressure at school when “Lindsay pressures everyone to play cheerleading on the playground.”

I asked Alyssa who’s sweater she would choose between her mom’s and her best friend’s, and she didn’t skip a beat before telling me that she would pick her best friend’s, because “Hers is a lot cuter! Morgan’s sweaters are more in style, now, this century.” And when I asked her if her parents let her do anything different now that she was seven that they wouldn’t let her do when she was six, she told me no, because “they won’t let me pretty much do anything until I’m like ten.”

Alyssa is from a blended family, that is more traditional than blended, and she informed me that she doesn’t get along with her sister very much because she feels like her sister gets more attention than her.

I wish I could trade all of my stress for my niece’s stress, which is merely stressing over a girl at school who is bossy and rude.