AN ANALYSIS OF THE CHILD AS A WHOLE: KARINA MOORE

Karina

By: Sandra Moore

Education 220

December 03, 2017

College of Southern Nevada

A screening of the physical, emotional, philosophical, social, and intellectual aspects of a

child.
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Abstract

Using a holistic analysis access the understand the psychological development of a child,

this method will help us view the child as whole and to relate directly relate different areas of

development to others and give an answer for behaviors and patterns. The approach being used,

will help us to further understand the cause-and-effect relation within the large areas of

development. Karina is a healthy, smart, intuitive nine-year-old child who is currently

developing in all areas being -physical, emotional, philosophical, social, and intellectually. With,

this analysis we will be able to view all of Karina’s areas of strength and weaknesses, her

development in each area, and how it affects the other areas.

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Karina

Karina Moore was born on 15th of September 2008, which makes her nine years old of

age. She is currently in the fourth grade at William Wright Elementary school, a highly rated

school in the Clark county school district. She is currently awaiting to be tested for the GATE

program, which is a program designed to address the learning styles of the students who have

been identified as gifted and talented. This GATE program is designed to meet the intellectual

needs of students. Karina is the oldest of three children from an interracial marriage, her father

an African-American teacher and her mother an immigrant from Colombia, South America,

housewife and student. Karina’s siblings are much younger than her, she has a brother Ryan

who, is four years old, looks up to her and enjoys learning from her. Then, follows her little sister

Ada who, is two years old. Ada also looks up to Karina and enjoys bonding with her. Karina is

also currently awaiting anxiously the arrival of a new sibling due for Christmas. She enjoys her

siblings, but has expressed great anxiety upon the arrival of her future sibling. In this anxiety and

fear she feels her parents attention, time will be too busy to pay attention to her.

Karina takes the school bus to school in the morning and afternoons and walks to her bus

stop with her neighbor friends. Her friends are mostly boys since she enjoys computer, video and

card games like them. She is currently in the industry versus inferiority stage where, her behavior

is dominated by intellectual curiosity and performance. Erickson in Childhood and Society.

(Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology Applied to Teaching, 2006.). She is encouraged by her

own perseverance and hard work to continue striving academically. Karina shows an interest to

the world around her making an observation, investigating and making assumption. She is

currently exhibiting the concrete operation stage in accordance with Paget’s stages of Cognitive

Development. (Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology Applied to Teaching, 2006.) in which she
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can solve problems by generalizing from concrete experiences. In the past year she has shown

interest in training and participating for Girls on the run a 5k distance in a group of all girl’s

grades 3rd to 5th grade. Karina has shown great improvement socially, physically and emotionally

after joining this group this reminded me of Vygotsky’s Cognitive Development (Snowman, J.,

McCown, R., Psychology Applied to Teaching, 2006.) in where her development has been aided

by interaction with advanced peers, older children, and adults who have supplied her with

advanced psychological tools needed to develop. It has given her the confidence, empowerment

and the ability to look past failure. Before this program, she always second guessing herself and

lacked self-confidence.

Based on the CDC growth chart calculator Karina is 75th percentile for stature and 25th

percentile for weight. At 56 Lb in weight and 4ft in high with a BMI of 8.6. As shown on the

graph below results are based on a group of 2 to 20-year-old girls. She is with accordance with

the physical characteristics during elementary grade (Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology

Applied to Teaching, 2006.) Karina is thin and average height for her age group. She exhibits

good eating habits and understanding of nutritional content she consumes. She consumes mostly

organic meats, fruits and vegetables. Her diet is limited to candy, sodas, and junk food. Her

mother is over protective over the food that her household eats. Since last year she has become

more active, she would rather go outside then stay indoors playing on electronics. She enjoys

arts, crafts and musical activities. Her growth has remained consistent in the past two years and

shows no hormonal imbalances.

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Karina’s emotional characteristics have changed in the last year. Her self-esteem has

improved due to the self-confidence provided by the program of Girls on the run. She’s starting

to worry more about her self-image. She worries of what she wears and worries of how others

may view her. Occasionally she gets in trouble for following the steps of others seeking to get

approval from peers. She is outgoing, talkative and likes to make new friends whatever she goes.

Most of her cousins are older than her so she looks up to most of them this pattern coincides with

Vygotsky believe “That children gain significantly from the knowledge and conceptual tools

handed down to them by those who are more intellectually advanced, whether they at same-age

peers, older children, or adults. (Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology Applied to Teaching,
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2006.) She is sweet, kind and polite, very rarely does she have an attitude. She does tend to get

frustrated easily by problems she may not be able to solve right away getting impatient.

Karina’s moral and philosophical development is largely influenced by both her parents.

They have a strong religious background which provides the morals, values and attitudes in the

household. Most of her family is either Christian or catholic so they share the same beliefs and

ideas. Karina has been taught based on Christian values to love, respect and forgive. She enjoys

talking about the Bible and the stories of the Bible. She is aware of the concept of wrong and

right and is always encouraging to always make the correct decisions. In accordance to Paget’s

analysis of the moral judgment of the child. (Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology Applied to

Teaching, 2006.) Karina exhibits the morality of constrain, believes rules are unchangeable and

can define her moral behavior at either right or wrong.

Karina’s social behavior just like mention previously, she is very social. She enjoys

talking to new people and making new friends. She is constantly seeking approval from

classmates. During her recess time, she enjoys playing sports like soccer, football or running laps

around the field. She seems to always become attached to a single friend that is of the same

gender and they tend to do everything together. She also highly values all her male friend’s

friendships. She still communicates, relates and enjoys activities with her friends from previous

years. She did communicate to her mother last year of a crush she had on a classmate who, is

now in a different class. She enjoys a lot of the same things as other children at her age she plays

on her kindle, enjoys computer games, Pokémon, and reading non-fiction books. Her actions and

caring, helping and cooperating of others seem to coincide with Noddings’s Care Theory

(Snowman, J., McCown, R., Psychology Applied to Teaching, 2006.)

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Karina’s technology access is censored, she does not have a cell phone nor have any

social media accounts. Her parents have explained to her that most of these outlets are too

dangerous and prey on children. She is limited from watching movies, shows and TV programs

that are not age related or may have any adult content. Her parents also don’t allow her to watch

anything referring to evil, scary or meant to create fear thus based on religion bases these should

not be encouraged to let children take part in scary activities where zombies, monsters and other

dark creatures may encourage fear.

Karina enjoys listening and singing along to music. During the holidays she often gets

together with her cousins to sing and dace. Academically she is always pushed by her parents to

keep trying and always try her best. She is aware that certain grades are not acceptable and bad

behavior will cause her to be punished away from activities she likes. Karina’s strongest subjects

are reading and math. She enjoys reading chapter books, fiction, non-fiction, comics, and

educational books. In math she likes to explore different options for problem solving, she uses

the method of constructivism (Brooks & Brook’s, 2001; Elkind, 2005; Haney & McArthur, 2002;

Yager, 2000). each time to see which way works best with the problem being solved. Her

writing is at the level it needs to be at, but its sloppy. Her parents have tried different methods to

get her to improve her writing to be neater. In the subject of science, she does well, she likes to

explore, research and learn new things that are natural and real to the environment. She is

currently concentrating on keeping all her grades at either A’s or B’s and understands the

rewards for keeping up her grades in accordance with Industry Versus Inferiority in stages of

psychological development, proposed by (Erickson in childhood and Society, 1963).

Karina’s development in overall is a healthy nine-year-old. She has gone through much

struggle throughout the years, but seem to be coming to a more self regulated personality with
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confidence to achieve any goal she sets her mind to. At her home she has strong base of her

father who, is a teacher and her mother who, is going to school to teach as well. They

continuously advocate the importance of education and they help her with any academic needs.

She has a strong relationship with both parents and is given trust based on her good behavior.
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References

MedCalc: Interactive Growth Charts: Front Page. (n.d.). Retrieved December 01, 2017, from

http://www.medcalc.com/growth/

Snowman, J., & McCown, R. (2012). Psychology Applied to Teaching (14th ed.). Stamford, CT:

Cengage Learning.