Running head: MY VIRTUAL LIFE REFLECTION PAPER 1

My Virtual Life Reflection Paper

Abigail Floriano-Monarrez

Catawba College

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Psychology 1500-5, Human Development

10/14/20
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A simple decision can make a huge impact on your child’s life. My first couple thoughts

about this simulation was that it was silly, fun, and what could I possibly learn from it. As I

played along, I felt myself getting more attached to Russell (my child) as he grew cognitively,

emotionally, and physically. It felt serious but also not at the same time. I learned so much

through the experience and I also got some review about some concepts that I have heard about

before. In this paper I will be going through the different stages of development that were used in

the program (prenatal, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, middle and late childhood, and

adolescence), and describing my experiences and expectations I had while doing the simulation.

I will also be adding in my personal experience with my parents’ style of parenting and their

personal accounts of me and my siblings at these stages compared to my style of parenting used

in the simulation and my experience with my imaginary son.

During prenatal, I chose to exercise moderately, which according to American College of

Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2019) is a good way of reducing back pain, improving overall

general fitness, strengthens heart and blood vessels, and may even decrease risk of gestational

diabetes, preeclampsia, and cesarean delivery. I was also careful with what I took into my body

like eating healthy and taking vitamins. My mom mentioned that when she was pregnant with

me, she too chose to exercise and take vitamins during her pregnancy as well. I was born

naturally, so I guess the exercise helped in that sense.

Infancy was a tough area for me when having to make decisions. I was kind of scared at

first because Russell had been born prematurely and was a bit underweight. I was scared my

child would develop with complications. Lally and Valentine-French (2019) explain that children

who are born underweight are at more risk for infection and also a small increase in several

psychiatric disorders in adulthood. My mom did not have this issue when she had me and my
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siblings, on the contrary, we came out healthy and heavy and with a full head of hair. I had also

been asked if I would breastfeed Russell and I said yes. My mom and almost all the women in

my family never really liked formula, it was expensive and honestly breast milk was just

produced for free.

Toddlerhood for Russell reminds me of a cousin on my moms of the family side that

acted the same exact way. Russell was very cranky and attached to me, and my cousin was also

like this, and it frustrated me. He kind of grew out of it by age two and three but was still kind of

cranky and switched back and forth, which I blame on the terrible twos. Hoecker (2019) explains

that this behavior is due to two-year-old’s undergoing major motor, intellectual, social, and

emotional changes. They are going through all these changes, all the brain cells are starting to

mature, by age two a single neuron might have thousands of dendrites (Lally & Valentine-

French, 2019). I have a further understanding of this behavior and why it happens now due to

this assignment and also with reading the textbook. Even though this behavior is still very much

not the best, it is understandable and something you cannot really control or make any rules for

the toddler to know since they cannot really understand you yet, well fully. My mom would often

remind me (before I knew of this information) that you cannot argue with a toddler, they don’t

understand you and I had no jurisdiction on how to tell my aunt on how to raise her child. But I

did have jurisdiction with Russell, and I worked around these issues with him and he turned out

fine.

Early childhood was a bit of a struggle, especially when it came to Russell being very

shy. I was also like this at this age. I remember my mom struggling with me becoming friends

with other children, relying too much on the teachers, and not wanting to leave their side when

she would drop me off at school; Russell acted the exact same way. I used different techniques to
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get Russell to open up more, compared to my mother’s techniques. I figure that we had different

techniques, due to our different personalities. My mom is more outgoing and social, and I am

more reserved and quieter, so I know where Russell was coming from. I used my prior

experience of being a shy kid (still am a shy kid) and used it to navigate how a shy kid would

positively respond to a certain technique on helping their shyness.

Middle and late childhood were interesting times to be Russell’s mom. He was becoming

so smart and scored high on the verbal portion of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. I had

also signed up Russell for sports during this time period in order to help him with his socializing

skills. Lally and Valentine-French (2019) suggest that sports can help children build social skills,

improves physical and emotional development, and can help better academic performance.

Russell was already a smart kid; this just gave him another nudge up (even though he was not the

best at sports). My mom had also entered me into sports, such as gymnastics and cheer. Ite

helped a bit with my shyness but I was still the quiet girl in the group. Russell also started

expressing his feelings more to me and this could be due to children in this age range having

more words to use to describe things ( a more extensive vocabulary). One thing that has not

changed is Russell’s severe shyness, just like his mom at this stage.

Adolescence had highs and lows and just some crazy scenarios I never took part in, for

instance Russell ran off with his girlfriend and got matching tattoos. Nowhere was there a button

where I could ground him, it only skipped the scenario. I would not have let him off the hook

that easily, if it was me and my mom in that situation, I would have been in huge trouble. I guess

in this stage, he wanted more control, as opposed to the previous stages, I mostly made the

decisions for him. Lally and Valentine-French (2019) explain that teens are demanding greater

control in decisions that affect their daily lives. Wanting to rebel and look different was a huge
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thing for Russell. He asked for trendy clothes and wanted to try more edgier video games. I

remember when I was at this stage, I went through an ‘emo’ phase, and it still talked about at

family functions, to this day. Me and my mom struggled to meet eye-to-eye on a lot of

viewpoints during this stage, but eventually I became more mature and had more mature

conversations with her. Me and Russell struggled a bit over that, but he turned out to be a better

kid in all aspects (cognitively and emotionally).

Overall, this experience was very interesting. People often say that they have ‘baby fever’

whenever they are shown children or seen anything related to children, this experience made that

baby fever go away for me. It brought up many realistic situations where I did not know what to

pick and had to stare at the screen for a while to come up with an answer. Having a child is very

a gift, to anyone who wants to be a parent, but there is so much responsibility. You are literally

in charge of setting out another functioning human out into the world to become a part of our

society. This experience has very much opened my eyes in a sense, on how much more I need to

learn about children as they develop, before having one of my own.

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References

Hoecker, J. L. (2019). I’ve heard a lot about the terrible twos, Why are 2-year-olds so difficult?

Mayo Clinic. Retrieved October 2020 from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-

lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/expert-answers/terrible-twos/faq-20058314

Lally, M. & Valentine-French, S. (2019). Lifespan Development: A psychological Perspective

(2nd ed.) OER Resource. Retrieved January 2020 from

http://dept.clcillinois.edu/psy/LifespanDevelopment.pdf

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Exercise During Pregnancy. (2019).

Retrieved October 2020, from https://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/exercise-

during-preganancy