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Case Study of Emma

Madison Smith
College of Southern Nevada

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Case Study of Emma

Children used to spend sunrise to sunset outside riding bikes, playing at the park, and just
enjoying the sun. I was once one of those kids. Today kids will go outside and take selfies, to
give the allusion that they spend time outside, but then go back in and play video games until all
hours of the night. Emma, a twelve year-old seventh grader, is no different, she will occasionally
go outside with some persuading on her familys part. Emma is my younger sister so I used what
I already knew about her for part of the observations and I casually took more interest in her
throughout the month of February. I also asked her mother, my step-mom, questions pertaining to
where she is developmentally within the sections of Physical, Intellectual, Social, Emotional, and
Moral. Emma is on track with her development, according to DSHS, with a few quirks here and
there.
Physical
Emma is a young girl who just wants to fit in and like her peers, she too, is right in the
middle of puberty and this can be a very awkward time in her life. Chris Calloway states in his
Livestrong article that twelve year old girls, such as Emma, should average to be 59 inches tall
and 92 pounds (Calloway 2013). Emma is 62 inches and she is quite taller than most of her
friends. Emma has reached just passed 100 pounds, which I consider to still be an average girl
her age, however she sees differently given the look society considers to be acceptable for
young women. Emma continues to develop in the typical fashion that her age group develops,
although there are a few kinks in the process.
While it is typical for young boys and girls Emmas age to have a large appetite, I do
worry about her eating habbits. Emmas mother has her eating pretty healthy, but as a way to
rebel when her mother is not looking, she eat as much processed food as she can. This is not

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necessarily a problem now, but as she continues this her weight does change slightly, which in
turn causes her to skip a meal or not eat at all that day. Women in magazines put forth this image
that girls must be slim, which causes young girls to use poor eating practices such as crash diets
and pills (Ellsworth 1999). Emma is already exhibiting these signs and believe that these fads
can work, but from here on out she plans to be smarter while eating and partake in a healthier
diet.

Intellectual
Emma is intellectually normal developmentally with a typical twelve year old. However,
sometimes she does something just from the pressure of her mother telling her to do certain
things. Though her mother pressures her she does it with Emmas best interest at heart, Lev
Vygotsky assumed that every function in a childs cultural development appears twice: first, on
the social level and later on the individual level; first between people and then inside the child
(Woolfolk 63). Her mother makes her do something enough times eventually Emma will just
automatically do it, and it makes her a better person as she continues to grow.
Emmas biggest struggle is that she has no desire to help anyone outside of her family,
even then she can be a bit selfish. Her desire to help out in her community and make money from
hard work is slim to none. Emma will start to earn money and willingly help out within her
community. She hopes to become passionate about partaking in community service. Then if she
were to earn money rather than expect to receive it, then what she buys with it should be more
rewarding, and she will take care of it better.
Social
Emma is a twelve going on eighteen, or at least she wants to be. As she gets older her
mother gives her more independence, but she sometimes asks for too much independence. She

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has many friends and most of which she has made on her volleyball team. Up until Emma joined
volleyball two years ago she never really liked sports or stuck with them for too long. Given it
was her mothers original idea to join, Emma really enjoys it and is good at the sport. Emma has
both positive and negative outlooks within her social development, At each stage Erik Erikson
suggests that the individual faces a developmental crisis. Each crisis can be resolved by
embracing an extreme position or by the healthier and more productive stance of finding a
balance between the extreme responses (Woolfolk 99). Erikson would look at Emmas team
sportsmanship as a positive to her original negative of not wanting to join, but being forced by
her mother.
Referring back to Erik Erikson and his suggestion to the developmental crisis, he would
also describes Emmas attitude and the way she treats others as a negative extreme. Emma is
often mean and says hurtful things to her family members. According to DSHS (DSHS, 1993)
Emma being obnoxious and critical is normal, however being one of the family members to live
with her and see her day to day actions, they can be a bit much. If this does continue and can hurt
her relationship with her family members and these actions can start happening outside of the
home, for instance being rude to her friends. Being that this is a negative extreme Emma will
begin to reflect on her actions and think before she speaks. In the hopes that as she moves from
this developmental age group to the next she will not pass this trait along with her.
Emotional
Emma has a long time until she has to make any major life decisions on her own,
however, this does not stop her from worrying about the future. This typically what every twelve
year old worries about during development. The biggest thing I notice with Emma, while
observing her and just from living with her, was that her emotional attachment to a boy band was

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a little bizarre. She cries often, although most of her tears shed are for this boy band. Her Life
revolves around them and if anyone were to take them away from her she would get way over
dramatic. Emma has always been over dramatic often stomping around and slamming doors until
she gets her way, but her biggest problem lately is that she does not take responsibility for
herself.
Emma will sometimes get too emotional and in a rash decision, while she is getting in
trouble for some mistake she made, she will blame someone else even if they had no idea of the
situation. Karen DeBord, with a PHD in child development, gave some advice to parents about
their adolescents: parents should talk about self-control and making good decisions, they must
also learn from criticism, and one should ask how could you do that differently next time?
(DeBord 2015). Emma does well with receiving criticism and using that to make herself a better
person with some help she can get over this. Emma will have to learn how to take on her own
responsibility, but if her parents heed these words and help Emma to overcome this, then this will
become just another phase to eventually be forgotten.
Moral
This biggest observation that I had made from Emma, was that Emma is no longer
Emma. She changes and does things just because her friends do them or think they are cool.
This then also leads to her being rude to her family because she thinks it will impress her friends,
which means it is possible this could lead to bullying at school. Being rude to her family is a
gateway to being rude to her peers, which may make her popular with her friends, but in the long
run has life time consequences.
In the conventional level, stage three, of Lawrence Kohlbergs theory of moral
development, states that pleasing others means being good and nice (Woolfolk 2014). By this

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statement Emma is actually hurting herself. Then long run consequences of this attitude is that
her friends would no longer accept her. Emma is a good person and is very nice, but with the
way society gives off this image of needing to be cool, her will to be herself gets pushed aside in
order to fit in. However, being herself is going to get her farther in life and more true friends.
Conclusion
One would think that they know their own sisters, however I learned a lot about her while
observing her. I was worried I would be biased, her being my sister, but I felt I was able to push
through most of the bias. Emma is developing just how she should and I look forward to
watching her continue to develop.

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References

Calloway, C. (2013, August 16). The Average Height and Weight by Age. Retrieved from
Livestrong:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/328220-the-average-height-and-weightby-age/
DeBord, K. (2015, March 7). Childhood Years Ages six through twelve. Retrieved from
University of Michigan Health System:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/pdfs/fcs465.pdf
DSHS. (1993). Eleven to Twelve Years. Retrieved from Child Development Guide:
http://depts.washington.edu/allcwe2/fosterparents/training/cdevguid/cdg13.htm
Ellsworth, J. (2015, March 10). Early Adolescence. Retrieved from ESE 504 Methods and
Materials in Special Education:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/pepsi/reading2-1-1.html
Woolfolk, A. (2014). Educational Psychology. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.