Running Head: PEPSI SCREENING 1

PEPSI Screening

Theaira Ellison

College of Sothern Nevada

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Biography

The child that I chose for this paper is my niece. She is eleven years old. She is African

American from her biological father’s side and of Dominican descent from her mother’s (my

sister) side. My niece is in the 5th grade, when I asked her how she likes it she says “it is alright”.

I think it is amazing watching her at this age, seeing how fast she grows. Her favorite classes are

writing, science, and social studies which she says are her best subjects. She is also a very artistic

child, which I’m proud to say that she takes after me. As a baby, she was constantly watching me

draw and paint, and as soon as she was able to hold a pencil she was drawing as well.

Physical Development

From the beginning, my sister, my niece’s mother believed that having her child in sports

would benefit her daughter. My sister played sports, so she is a firm believer that children should

play a sport or be involved in some activity. According to Bunker:

All areas of fitness are affected by regular exercise but three that seem to be especially

impacted by regular physical activity are muscular fitness, cardiovascular fitness (aerobic

fitness), and anaerobic power. Benefits in muscular fitness including muscle strength and

endurance as a result of physical activity and sport are well documented for both girls and

boys. For most girls, muscular fitness increases at a linear rate until about age 14, but for

sedentary girls, it may slow more rapidly or even decrease (Bunker, 1998, p. 4).

Although my niece is in many sports, she does not like to do many other active things. It

is hard to get her to go outside and play or do her chores. To say that she has lazy tendencies is

pretty accurate. There have been many times that I would have to coax her to do something by

bribing her. Or I would have to result to asking her little brother to do what is needed, to get any
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response from her. “The great thing about this age group is the children have developed

attachment to things or activities. A threat to end the activity or take away a prized possession,

could be just the trick to getting the child to behave. However, this will only work for a short

period of time and cause more harm than good in the long run” (Johnson, 2009). When it comes

to taking things away from my niece like her phone or her privileges do seem to work, though

only momentarily.

From the age of four, my niece began to shooting up in height, and it became clear that

she would be tall. This led to her joining her a pewee team basketball team early age. My sister

played when she was younger as well, so it had been an obvious choice for her daughter. At the

age of four, she was one of the tallest children on her coed(mixed-sex) team.

The physical changes that accompany maturation are characterized by an increase

in fat mass by approximately 22% which is not matched by an increase in muscle

mass or skeletal tissue, along with changes in body shape and size that are

generally opposed to physical activity participation (Knowles, Niven, Fawkner,

Henretty 2009, p 556).

Now six years later my niece is 5’4” and has joined several other sports including

basketball, flag football, cheer, baseball, and volleyball this fall. As the years passed, it was

obvious that compared to many of the other children she entered puberty early. This cased a bit

of tension with the other parents, who assumed purely on her physical description that she was

older. Compared to her teammates my niece towered over most.

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Emotional Development

Emotionally my niece is very sensitive, not just in the sense that her feelings are easily hurt

which is true. But in the sense that she feels very deep inwardly, of how she sees and feels

towards herself. According to (Siegel, Shaughnessy, 2021, p.unk) “Prior to adolescence, children

do not look extensively toward the future. Usually, they are self- and ego-centered in the present.

As adolescents they can perceive a future, but the future they perceive may be identical to the

present. How they feel today is how they think they will feel tomorrow”.

Depression runs in our female family line. Many of the women in our family have

suffered from depression or expressed low self-image thoughts about themselves. This is

something that has sadly shown itself in my niece.

“… Behavioral genetics research has documented that the risk of depression following

stressful events is increased for individuals at high genetic risk (i.e. those with genetically

related individuals who have been diagnosed with a mood disorder), relative to those with

low levels of genetic risk (Kendler et al., 1995). At the same time, the critical role of

environment has also been supported by investigations with genetically sensitive designs.

(Gartsein, Bateman, 2008, p.227).

She is easily frustrated and is hard to persuade from negative feelings when upset.

Despite this once she has the time to calm down, she is willing to listen to adults when trying to

comfort her. She can bounce back from her upsets, almost as if they had never happened. I have

also observed that when frustrated or upset, she very rarely resolves to violence. According to

Malti (2020) not all children follow the same trajectory when it comes to violence. Most children

show low levels of violence threw their development. Thought small some show high, stable
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levels over time, while others show higher levels that gradually decrease. That being said, though

when my niece is interacting with her younger brother, there are moments that she would push or

shove, which can be contributed to normal roughhousing with siblings. There is no violence

beyond that.

Philosophical Development

For me, it was a bit hard to judge my niece's philosophical state, so I decided to ask a few

questions that I believe best exhibited her philosophical state of mind. The majority of the

questions centered around how she views herself and her life, how she treats others and how she

sees the world around her as well as her understanding of right and wrong. After studying my

niece's answers, I’ve concluded that she has a basic understanding of life around her. She knows

there are things she can and cannot do because of her age. She also understands that she can be a

nice person, while at the same time not so nice when others aren’t nice to her. Joyce (2014) says

that “…Children learn ethical values by watching the actions of adults they respect. They also

learn values by thinking through ethical dilemmas with adults, e.g…

I also noted that lot of her answers focused on her family, and friends, and school. When

asked questions that dealt with the world as a whole, she did not seem to understand. Her

answers generally centered around things or people closer to home. The answers she gave to the

questions that dealt with rights and wrongs still showed how young she is, and how she dose not

always look at the whole picture when dealing with a problem.

“We live in an extraordinarily child-centered age,” says Richard Weissbourd, a

psychologist and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Parents

organize themselves around their children’s every need. They have an allergy to kids
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experiencing adversity.” As a result, kids develop self-absorption and entitlement, and

they lose the ability to develop resilience and coping strategies, which, says Weissbourd,

can cause them to feel as if the world revolves around them. (Conry, 2016)

Though I believe it was because it was me asking her these questions, she has no fear that

I will judge or reprimand her for being honest. One of the questions asked if she would ever

cheat, and answered yes depending on what the cheating was for. I honestly do not believe that

my niece would cheat on anything, not only because I want to believe it but because of the fact

that my niece has a low tolerance for holding in her guilt. Marin (2021) says, “Eleven-year-olds

are also beginning to realize that there are multiple ways to look at a piece of information,

situation, or issue and start to understand that there is a gray area where there was previously

only black and white”. Meaning that my niece is at the stage that she should understand that the

world is not in fact black and white, and there may be gray (not so good, or bad) areas.

Social Development

According to Ellsworth (1999), children at the age of eleven are very likely to be

argumentative towards adults and seek the approval of their peers. I find that my niece fits this

description perfectly. My observation shows that at the age of eleven, my niece has shown that

she is quite hungry for companionship and the approval of her peers. This is something that I

find worrying because although I know that companionship is good for all children, not all

children are the best influence on each other. “Although peer relationships provide an essential

milieu in which adolescents can develop social skills and learn appropriate social behavior,

adolescent conformity to the negative norms of some of their peers also serves as a major risk

factor for outcomes from delinquency and substance use to risky sexual behavior” (Allen,

Chango, Szwedo, Schad, Marston, 2012, p 337).

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Also, she is more likely to argue, with the adult on why she cannot or did not do

something she was told to. Preferring to argue her point while getting frustrated and confused

when she gets into trouble, ignoring the simple solution of just doing what she was told. This I

notice is a pattern, she gets upset when she sees other kids are allowed to do something she

knows she would not be allowed to. Which upsets my sister greatly, when she knows she’s doing

her best to provide for her child, it is frustrating to see and hear her daughter upset things that as

a adult we know are menial, and or simple to fix or change. According to Ellsworth (1996) “Few

parents have a clear understanding of the ever-evolving development of autonomy (self-interest,

self as controller) and heteronomy (interest in others, socialization interest and skills) in the

child.” With that being said, my niece is a very agreeable child, and more often than not she

prefers to be alone when not actively interacting with family or friends. She tends to drift off to

be alone if left to her own devices, and she is often found sitting in a corner drawing or on her

phone. This is a learned trait she has gained from the women in her family who are all introverts

in some form.

Intellectual Development

When it comes to my niece’s intelligence, I believe she is between average and above-

average depending on the subject and or the level of interest the subject holds to her. When it

comes to her school work and academics, she is consecutively on AB honor roll. There is really

only one concern when it comes to my niece’s schooling, which is her communication skills.

“The underlying assumption here is that if a student understands something, he or she can

explain it—and that deficient explanation signals deficient understanding. But this raises yet

another question: What constitutes a satisfactory explanation? (Beals, Garelick, 2015)” Although

she clearly understands the subjects and work, being able to communicate how she knows
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something. Being unable to explain how she got the answer to her math problems, or what

happens in a book she reads is a recurring theme.

This is something I have observed with my niece, outside of school as well. Though, I

concluded that, if given the right prompting and time she can explain herself just fine it's her

self-doubt and nervousness that makes her hesitate when explaining herself. Gagne (2020)

advisees that when trying to get your child to talk, its best to be as calm and natural as posable.

This will keep your child from panicking or thinking what they are trying to tell you is bad.

On the other hand, my niece’s teacher believes, that if she reads more that her vocabulary

would get better and this would help her with being able to explain and express herself. This I do

not find any fault with thi. Although my niece is a good reader, she does not like to read. When

she does, it is hard for her to tell us what happened in the story without prompting and this makes

me realize she is not truly grasping the story. Anthony (2021) says that “As a result of cognitive

development and brain changes, 11-13 year olds demonstrate an increased ability to look beyond

literal interpretations and understand the metaphoric uses of language. They are able to

comprehend proverbs and detect sarcasm.” This I think though might not contribute to her

communicating silks, but dose probably explain why she is having trouble of putting pieces

together in the wright words, or in a way that others can understand while she is explaining

herself.

Recommendations
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My recommendations are on emotional, and philosophical developmental support.

During my observations, and while writing this screening I have notice that my concerns really

center on her understanding of herself, and the world around her. She shows that when she

doubts herself or believe that others see something wrong in her, she is very likely to take it to

heart. This leads to having to calm her down, because of how upset it makes her. Leaving the

adult unable to talk to her until she is calm. That being said, once the child is calm, she is willing

to listen to concerns and take advice, as long as the adult is calm and she does not think she is in

trouble.

When it comes to her physical, social, and intellectual development I find that the first

two are doing well for her age group. She has plenty opportunity to stay healthy and active

playing her sports, while at the same time interacting with other children her age. When it comes

to her intelligence, it is also clear that she is doing well. But I do find concern in her

communication, but I think that has also to do with her emotional state as well. I think that

therapy, consoling would be a good idea for her. Possibly even a family member would do, I

believe she be able to about her worries and doubts without feeling like there would be

consequences for how she feels and give Graph 1 her ways to deal with her emotions.

Subject
Averag
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