Signature Assignment

Natalie Astill Psychology 1100 Signature Assignment Assignment Reflection 04/04/2019

After thinking back on which assignment impacted me the most I determined it was chapter 14, section 3: Parenting. I found this specific section useful because I gave birth to my son in November of 2017 and prior to having him I had no experience with children. This section provided information on parenting roles, punishment, and co-parenting. The first section I find noteworthy is Parents as Managers of Children’s Lives. This section states how the parent arranges opportunities for their child. I found this encouraging and somewhat life changing for myself. For the sake of my son I have to reach out of my comfort zone to other parents and arrange play dates, get to know other children and their families, go to soccer games, help resolve disputes, and much more. As a parent it is my job to help manage my son’s life so he can have opportunities, make decisions, make personal contacts, and help him reach his full potential. Prior to reading this section I never thought about how my child would make friends or when he should have friends; I have now enrolled him in group swimming lessons so he can have social interaction. The second section I find personally innovative is Punishment. I have never believed in physical violence as a punishment, such as spanking, because I think it only causes hatred and resentment. Under the punishment section it states, “Punishment can instill fear, rage, or avoidance.” I only want to instill courage, joy, and the desire for social interactions into my son. An alternative punishment in this section, to avoid negative outcomes, was using the time out method. This punishment is simple because you just remove the child from the situation so they can calm down. I plan to use the time out method with my son as he gets older.

The third section I find useful towards my own life is co-parenting because my son’s father and I are not together. Since my son was born we have struggled to figure out custody, and now that he is nearly 2 years old, his father wants more time with him. I have a hard time separating from my son, but I know that he needs to spend time with his father so they can have a healthy relationship. The co-parenting section educated me on the importance of positive parent relationships for the sake of the child. This section even notes, “…greater father involvement in young children’s play was linked to an increase in supportive co-parenting.” Children will always see themselves as half of their mother and half of their father; if the parent’s don’t show respect, patience, and understanding with each other the child will have negative feelings about themselves. I feel that chapter 14, section 3: Parenting provided me with a wide variety of parenting roles, punishment techniques, and co-parenting advices that will better my relationship with my son. To be a better parent manager, I will reach out of my comfort zone in order to provide my son with more opportunities so he can make personal decisions, contacts, and gain the skills to reach his full potential. For effective punishment, I plan to use the time out method to help my son gain self-control. To prevent my son from having self-hatred, I am going to try and better my relationship with my son’s father while also allowing his father to have additional parenting time so they can better their relationship as well. I feel confident in my parenting choices because this section provided test studies and the results that followed around each parenting technique.