Background Information

Person’s age: School age - 6 to 12 years

Fictitious Name: I will call the children “Sandie” and “Stephanie”. (The names have
been changed for privacy purposes.)

Location: Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

Brief Description: Sandie and Stephanie were at a children’s museum where they
were interacting with multiple children.

Biological Development
“Selective attention is partly the result of maturation, but it is also greatly affected by
experience, particularly social play. School-age children not only notice various stimuli
(which is one form of attention) but also select appropriate responses when several
possibilities conflict” (Berger, 2016, p. 236). This can include activities like playing
soccer or baseball game. School age children are at a point where they can focus on
one thing they are doing. Sandie displayed this milestone when she was playing tag
with the other kids in the museum. Although there were other activities and children
around them, she was able to remember she was in the middle of a game that needed
her full attention.

I also noticed that “Peers and parents make a difference. If children see that others
routinely care for their own health, social learning pushes them to do the same… Health
habits should be established before teenage rebellion erupts, often causing resistance
to diets, pills, warning signs, and doctors (Dean et al., 2010; Naughton et al., 2014).
Ideally self-care is already routine; rebellion focuses on curfews or hairstyles, not health
habits.” (Berger, 2016, p. 234). Sandie was really attached to another girl named
Stephanie who was at the museum. There was a point where Stephanie’s mother called
her over to have a snack. She had brought out a bag of grapes and baby carrots.
Sandie followed along and had some snacks along with her. This really stood out to me
because the museum was providing snacks that day for a birthday party. They had a lot
of unhealthy treats like cake, but Sandie decided to follow in Stephani’s and her
mother’s footsteps.

Cognitive Development
“Vocabulary builds during middle childhood. Concrete operational children are logical;
they can understand prefixes, suffixes, compound words, phrases, and metaphors,
even if they have not heard them before. For example, 2-year-olds know egg, but 10-
year-olds also know egg salad, egg-drop soup, egghead, a good egg, and “last one in is
a rotten egg”... By age 10, a child who has never smelled a rotten egg, nor heard that
phrase, can figure out the meaning.” (Berger, 2016, p. 247). I found the rotten egg
example in the book really amusing because I remember when I was younger, I would
use that phrase and to this day I have never smell a rotten egg. Yet I knew exactly what
that phrase meant at that age. This was the hardest development to find, but after
observing Sandie, Stephanie and her mom at the children's museum. I finally found the
perfect example where the girls understood something they may not have heard in the
past. The museum was really busy this day and Sandie’s mother said “this place is a
zoo” where the girls were having a snack. Although taking this statement literally
wouldn’t make sense, the girls were old enough to know her mom meant it was cray in
there.

The following cognitive development for school age was really interesting to see in the
two girls. “This development is evident when a child knows which words to use with
teachers (never calling them a rotten egg) and informally with friends (who can be called
rotten eggs or worse)” (Berger, 2016, p. 247). These two girls were never really
aggressive with their language towards anyone but it was really sweet to see how they
were acting towards the facilitators. My best friend was one of them and every time they
spoke to her, they would treat her as authority.

Psychosocial Development
“Child culture includes the customs, rules, and rituals that are passed down to younger
children from slightly older ones, with no thought about the origins or implications. The
child’s goal is to join a culture and thus be part of the peer group. Jump-rope rhymes,
insults, and superstitions ensue” (Berger, 2016, p. 296). Stephanie and Sandie were
playing a patty cake hand clapping game. They knew every single word in that song, but
they weren’t thinking about backing a cake while they were playing. The girls were
mostly focused on getting the motions correctly and speeding up the speed until
someone messed up.

At this age, children begin to see who the popular and unpopular children are. I do
believe the two girl I was observing were part of the unpopular group. “As for the three
types of unpopular children, some are neglected, not rejected; they are ignored, but not
shunned. The other two types are actively rejected, either aggressive-rejected, disliked
because they are antagonistic and confrontational, or withdrawn-rejected, disliked
because they are timid and anxious” (Berger, 2016, p. 298). Stephanie and Sandie
would stay together throughout the day so at first I was confusing it with them being part
of the popular kids. My first thought was that they were together because they didn’t
want to be play with anyone else. However, as the time went on I noticed they would try
to play with other kids and join in on their games but the other children were simply not
interested. No other child was ever acting rude towards them and they would allow the
girl to join group tag games, but none of them would go out of their way to tag the girls. I
eventually put the two and two together and realized they were forced to hangout
together.
 References
Berger, K. S. (2019). Invitation to the lifespan (4th ed.). New York, NY: Worth
Publishers.