RUNNING HEAD: PEPSI Chart Evaluation 1

PEPSI Chart Evaluation

Sarah Ashworth
College of Southern Nevada
PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 2

This PEPSI chart will be on six-year-old first grader Matz Doom. Born on October 15th

Matz was a happy chubby baby boy. There were no complications during his mother, Stacia’s,

pregnancy however once he was born he was in the NICU for thirty days due to essentially being

addicted to a medication his mother was taking for her scleroderma. After going home from the

hospital, Matz had no other complications during infancy. Matz is an only child and grew up in a

home with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather and the father has not been around ever.

Matz did not have any socialization with other children until he was two and a half years old. At

that point he had an infant cousin to bond with. Now, at age six, and the cousin aged four, there

is a significant gap between them developmentally. Surprisingly enough, the four year old has

made bigger strides in educational development over his cousin. When the aunt and uncle are

around with the cousin, Matz’s exhibits respectfulness and more obedient behavior with them

and responds to their authoritative approach.

The lack of compliance he shows with his mother and grandparents could possibly be due

to the fact that Matz’s never had a father figure to look up to. The Doom family is in the upper

middle class and they own their own company. His mother and grandparents exhibit a very

passive and permissive parenting style with Matz. Things are often not turned down to the child

and their diet is purely based on what Matz requests. The parenting is so relaxed that when he is

not in school he spends his time watching videos on his tablet rather than playing or socializing

with others. Matz has a lot of room for growth in this very crucial stage of his life. He enjoys

school and, when encouraged, has the ability to flourish in education and life.
PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 3

Physical

According to the Babycenter article “Your 6-year-old: Growing Up” the typical height is

about forty-five inches tall and average weight is about forty-five pounds for a six-year-old.

Matz is forty-one inches tall and fifty-six pounds. He is slightly overweight and has been since

the age of two. When it comes to daily activity there is little to no movement outside of school.

He is not interested in sports not even when a simple game of catch is offered. He rarely plays

outside but he sometimes will play on the trampoline for maybe fifteen minutes at a time. While

a pool is available to him, he has yet to learn how to swim and purely relies on the use of a

floatation device.

However, his fine motor skills have vastly improved over the last two years. His

handwriting is very legible and the pictures he draws are far more recognizable than they were

even last year. Matz does have some issues with speech. He often slurs words and has a very

thick speech impediment where he has difficulty pronouncing the letter r’s and x’s. Sometimes

he takes longer to finish certain words like names. When coordination and balance come into

play he is actually very capable. Matz is able to comprehend where to go when playing with

something like a baseball. His throwing skills are almost always on target, when he chooses to

participate. Matz is the most physically active about once a year when the family goes on

vacation to Imperial Beach, San Diego. When they’re there he often partakes in boogie boarding

and attempts to surf when he can. During my time with him, I got him to play outside with me

for about an hour at the park. He was very tired by the end of the visit and when we came back to

his house he almost immediately went down for a nap, which according to his mom, he rarely

naps.
PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 4

Emotional

A typical six-year-old exhibits behavior of self -awareness and awareness of others. Matz

has begun to accept and perceive other people and their feelings and behaviors. A six-year-old

“has a hard time dealing with any failure, cannot bear to lose or be criticized, loves to be flattered

and praised, can be ambivalent, may have trouble making choices, and is easily hurt

emotionally.” (Child Development By Age). Matz loves to show off his accomplishments that

occurred in school or in daily life. He will do what it takes to get out of a situation that may

possibly get him negative feedback unless he deems it to be okay. Often times when he does

something he considers to be good he tells everyone he can all day to get some sort of praise.

Overall, he understands thoughts, emotions, and is very aware of his environment. However, his

ability to regulate his own emotions is lacking.

Furthermore, he has an unhealthy connection with his tablet. When removed from his

tablet he gets very frustrated. When he is told no he gets extremely upset. Matz often will not

calm down until he is given what he wanted. When he doesn’t get it from one person he will run

off to another adult to get the answer he wanted. An adult often overrides rules that are put into

place by another adult. The aunt and uncle try their best to place rules or teach him some

manners and social skills but then the grandparents and mother get into a fight about parenting.

Matz is usually around when these fights break out. This is probable cause for his needs to get

praise often. Perhaps a lack of father figure has caused some internal turmoil, which also fuels

the need to be praised, and be the center of attention.

PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 5

Philosophical

Matz, like most other six year olds, is very inquisitive. He often seeks out answers and

has questions that are not typical. He genuinely likes to figure out why, where, how, and when

even if it is not necessarily educational. The Dooms are part of the Catholic Church but they

rarely attend and they do not follow any religious routines in their daily lifestyle. His main

motivations seem to just be the fact that he enjoys school, loves to tell others what he has

learned, and that he is generally very curious.

Matz often is sure to gain attention from all of his behavior. He loves to get praise when

something is done correctly or on his own. When he does something really good (like throwing

away his trash without being asked or picking up his room on his own) he prances around very

proud of himself and tells whoever her comes across that day. When it comes to morals, Matz

has become far more aware of himself and the world around him. He has begun to take into

consideration the consequences of his actions even if the consequences aren’t always punished.

Matz knows more of what is right and wrong and does want to do the right thing more often than

not. He of course plays the field a bit with knowing what each adult will consider good or bad

and will definitely take advantage of any slack. According to J'Anne Ellsworth’s PEPSI reading

most children will show signs of guilt after doing something bad or getting into trouble but, Matz

usually does not. However, when other people are involved he does still struggle with being

selfish over being selfless. He is impressionable and with the right influences he will be able to

overcome that and truly be open to all experiences either by himself or with others.
PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 6

Social

Matz has a severe lack in social skill. He does not really make friends in school and

rarely does he have play dates or go to birthday parties of his classmates. He only interacts with

the cousin at least weekly. His main source of socialization is his tablet and the relationships he

thinks he is bonding with the characters on the videos. When placed into social interactions,

Matz shows interest and clearly wants to have more of a social life however his temper that he

has attained from the many years of getting his way often gets him in rough spots with other

children. He has sharing issues, more so than a typical child. He also often feels that any item

that he likes can automatically be his just because he wants it. Between him and the cousin,

Matz’s mom often buys two of each item so that Matz will not start a fight with his cousin

because he wants the item.

During our time at the park, he approached many children but often scared them away

with his demands or pushiness. His cousin, whom I have taken to the park before, also seeks out

children but is able to play and socialize with them normally with little to no issues. When they

are together at the park, Matz often makes the rules between him and his cousin and bosses the

younger child around. Sometimes Matz can get aggressive without realizing it and he also slips

up and uses curse words in day-to-day conversations. He will even say them randomly on their

own but he clearly knows what the bad words mean. To my knowledge, there has been no effort

by the family members in his home to stop such behavior.

In school settings, according to his mother, he gets along with his classmates for the most

part and enjoys spending time with them. He particularly likes group activities and recess. Rarely

does Matz prefer to work alone.

PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 7

Intellectual

Aside from the lack of social and physical skill, Matz seems to flourish while in school.

However, these skills do not seem to translate over into his home life. He gets average grades

and benchmarks in school and according to his mom he does like to recount what he learned that

day. Other than describing what he has discovered at school, he does not often exhibit or use the

new information. He does, however, like to draw and write words out more than he did when he

was five. His understanding of material seems to be pretty high. The main area that needed work

is the lack of focus Matz can have sometimes. It could have been the environment but he seems

easily distracted and not too interested in listening to direction. He is far more in a hurry to begin

the game/lesson/activity over listening or viewing a presentation on it. This may possibly suggest

that in this stage of life he is a kinesthetic learner. Often times, kids in this age are hands on

learners because their fine motor skills are refining more at this point.

He is able to recollect things he has learned throughout the year and even demonstrate it

when he wants to. When I prompted him to show me what he learned that day he did not seem to

recall but he was also not in the mood to do it at that time. About an hour or two later, when he

deemed it to be the right time, he suddenly began to recite to me their vocabulary words and

some of their definitions. Of course, we were in the middle of doing a puzzle and the timing was

very interesting but, it did show that the information had been retained he just was not ready to

recall it yet. As far as the puzzle, he did most of it himself and only asked me to sort the pieces

by colors to help him. Matz exhibits great potential with his intellect and I have no doubt that he

will excel when given the right motivation and tools.

PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 8

PEPSI Chart

Age Average

Physical Emotional Philosophical Social Intellectual

PEPSI CHART EVALUATION 9

Recommendations for Parents/Teachers

Overall, most of my recommendations are for the parents/adult figures in Matz’s home.

The main thing that should happen after knowing this information is a change in parenting style.

At this point Matz seems to run the house and it is nothing but chaos. The parental figures need

to establish that they are the rule makers in the family and that a certain level of hierarchy is in

the home. Less screen time with any electronics (tablet, television, games) should be reduced.

Another step that should be taken is change in diet and level of physical activity. There is not

enough offering to get the child out of the home, thus he rarely chooses to do so. If more

opportunities are given to Matz to be physically and socially active, he would most likely choose

that option. As for diet, there should be more consideration taken to what is being consumed. Of

the few days I was there, I never saw one vegetable or even fruit. Most meals were order-in and

takeout.

For educators, Matz seems to highly enjoy school. The largest issue that may occur while

he is in school is that of social interactions. Even while he is under the authority of an adult who

approaches him with a more authoritative attitude, they will run into issues of him not

communicating with others correctly and often throwing fits of rage when he does not get his

way. Otherwise, when given instruction, rules, and school material he fairs well in the

educational environment. A major focus should be that of socialization and teamwork. His

interest in school is always high and is easily entertained and enthralled by the lessons given to

him currently. Matz may be in need of some special one-on-one for his speech issues. It is

possible he may need to be placed in special education pullout classes to better fine-tune his

speech and pronunciations. Matz is in a very crucial part of his development in his life. Now is
PEPSI CHART EVALUATION
10

the time to make the correct changes to improve upon his skills and education. Having a more

balanced and active lifestyle will no doubt improve his overall development in the future.
 PEPSI CHART EVALUATION
11

References

2018, L. U. (n.d.). Your 6-year-old: Growing up. Retrieved December 10, 2018, from

https://www.babycenter.com/6_your-6-year-old-growing-up_10329817.bc

Child Development by Age. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2018, from

https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/child-development/child-development-

by-age/#six

Ellsworth, J. (n.d.). P.E.P.S.I. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jde7/ese504/class/essentials/reading1-1-1.html