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My observation took place at the park over the holiday weekend. There were a lot of families to observe, but there was one family in particular that stuck out more than the others. They were prime examples of everything needed to properly conduct the study. The child I observed had to be between the ages of five to six. When I first spotted this child, I had no Idea which group of parents he belonged to. He was running around as he pleased, doing whatever it was he wanted to do.
He seemed to be more on the wild side, which made sense because he was ere to run and clearly had a lot of energy to burn off. As I continued to watch the child, caught some parent/child interaction. He ran up to his mother wanting to show her his latest trick. She seemed to be preoccupied on her smart phone, but she did end up following him over to the monkey bars. As he was preparing to do his flip, he kept reminding his mother to look at him, she would nod and smile, saying, “l see you” but never glance up from her phone to watch her son in action.
She did not give any form of encouragement or gratification once her child completed his trick. From my point of view, would say that this parent displayed a rejecting- neglecting parenting style (Belles, 2010), although I cannot be completely certain because I do not know how this child’s home life is, or what is going on in the mother’s life. Not too much longer after that first incident, I witnessed the child acting in an aggressive manner toward another group of children playing on the teeter- totter.
It seemed as if he wanted to join in with the other kids and take a turn; they were not very accepting and the boy ended up pushing one of the girls off. The observed child showcased and example of exterminating tendencies Belles, 2010). Instead of walking away to find a new group of kids to play with, he acted out and was disruptive as well as aggressive (and again, the child’s mother was not being active with the child and was completely clueless on what had happened).
I believe this ties in with the behaviorism theory (Belles, 2010). At the park, there was no reinforcement of bad behavior or good behavior; although the child should know right from wrong, rules still need to be set, as well as punishments or rewards for specific behaviors. I also believe the child displayed egocentrics behavior because he was only unconcerned with how he felt about the situation and did not take the other kids’ feelings into consideration; he was unable to see their point of view (Belles, 2010).
If the child had been aware of his actions as well as the feelings of the other kids, he would have been acting on a presentational level (Belles, 2010). Perhaps the only reason he acted out was because he knew that his mother was not paying attention to him, so he knew he could get away without being punished, or maybe he was seeking out attention from his mom.