They Grow Up So Fast...

As Gabriel turns 18 he seems to be on a great road in life. His physical development has come along nicely and he seems to be very advanced in his athletic skills. His love of baseball has really given him the opportunity to excel. Cognitively, he has developed greatly in these last few years. His emotional development is much better than it was when Gabriel was a child. He now comes to his friends and family with problems and seeks advice when needed instead of bottling everything up and being unhappy alone. He is also very confident in his morality and has strong opinions on what he believes is right and wrong.

I think that my constant involvement in every aspect of Gabriel’s life has made a great impact. Gabriel has always been a very social child but I don’t think that if I hadn’t encouraged him to meet new people and experience new things that he would have stuck to his few close friends and familiar experiences. He also has a lot of musical talent but if I hadn’t encouraged the development of his musical skills, he would have stopped at the middle school level. The same is true with his athletic ability and baseball. Also, I don’t think his moral development would have come also so far if Gabriel hadn’t been able to talk to me about all of his ideas and thoughts about morality and the world.

I think that Gabriel’s moodiness was probably influenced by his genes and thankfully he has learned to control his moods more now. Also, his athletic ability has probably been influenced by his genes. I think that his social personality has been influenced mostly by his genes but also by middle-class American culture. His love of material objects is partly because of his age and wanting to impress his peers.

Hello Temptation!

Gabriel has been playing piano pretty seriously over the past two years. He accompanies himself on the piano and sings very well. We encourage his musical abilities and recently he has been given the position of lead soloist in the school orchestra. Gabriel has also done well in all of his math and science classes, and now really finds 11th grade physics to be quite interesting. We are hoping that Gabriel will pursue a career in music or science as those two seem to be his favorite subjects. Whatever Gabriel decides will be fine with us.

Socially, Gabriel is extremely active and the social aspect of his life is very important to him. At 14 years old, Gabriel started coming home very upset because of the occasional fight with a friend. Once he started high school, he soon had a very busy social calendar, including hanging out with some new friends, and getting involved in a couple of social activist clubs. He would often have friends over after school. When there are problems with his friends he becomes angry or rebellious. When Gabriel turned 16, he had a break-up with his girlfriend of three months and was distraught for two weeks. His emotions are easily influenced by his social interactions.

Gabriel is adjusting to teenage life with a few bumps along the way. Recently, Gabriel came home from a party smelling of marijuana. When asked about it he replied that he would never do something that would affect his performance in baseball, and I believed him. I praised him for that attitude. He has told small lies about where he was to save himself from embarrassment and again, we remind him of our rules without punishment. Gabriel has been dating someone for 2 months now and I am a little worried about how intimate this relationship will become. Gabriel says that he's in love. My husband had a talk with Gabriel and tried to convince him that he should wait until they are more mature, and surer of the relationship to engage in sex. However, just in case, he talked to Gabriel about safe sex, condoms, and birth control. One night, Gabriel called home around 4am and asked to be picked up from a party. While I praised him for calling me and not attempting to drive home drunk, I did ground him for one week and scolded him for underage drinking, which he knew was wrong. Gabriel is also trying to exert his independence by spending time with his girlfriend without telling us where they were going. While we are lenient with Gabriel about making mistakes and learning from them, we are strict and clear in our expectations of Gabriel.

Adolescence is tough...

Since Gabriel was 12, he has been growing fast and eating a lot of food so we have bought healthier snacks to put in his backpack to promote healthier eating. He also starting going to after-school tutoring to boost his academic scores and to get help with homework in addition to his many extra-curricular activities. When Gabriel turned 14, he tried out for the high school baseball team and made it! He also went camping with some friends over the summer and learned a little tennis from his uncle.

Gabriel began to argue with my partner and me more in 7th grade. He would argue mostly about clothes, bedtime, and chores. We have since renegotiated household rules and have given him a later bedtime in exchange for more chores. Gabriel is struggling a little in school but acts bored or angry when we try to talk about it or help him with homework assignments. He has his daily ups and downs, sometimes coming home from school cheerful and friendly, and sometimes sullen and cranky. The transition to high school has been occasionally stressful for Gabriel. He sometimes gets angry or rebellious. Usually it is because of something hurtful a friend said or because of problems in school, such as lost homework. Usually he retreats to his room. My husband and I listen to the problem and provide similar stories from our own teen years to show Gabriel that his experiences are not unique. Usually we end up laughing about it. We tell Gabriel stories of what we were like as teenagers because we are hoping that he will learn from our mistakes.

They Grow Up So Fast...

Gabriel is starting to go through puberty and it is plain to see! Gabriel has begun to argue with my husband and I more and more. He argues mostly about wanting more "cool" clothes, wanting a later bedtime, and not wanting to do his chores, but otherwise we all get along pretty well. He also seems to be acting out a little more lately and recently there was an incident with him and his friends throwing things at a passing car. He has become a lot more moody and he tends to act bored or angry when I try to talk to him or help him with homework assignments. He has his ups and downs during the week, sometimes coming home from school cheerful and friendly, and sometimes sullen and cranky. He is developing some moral principles, which I am glad about. He talks quite often about what is "fair" and "not fair". Gabriel is starting to notice girls more, but has not said anything openly about it. He has become more interested in his appearance than he ever was before and he is almost obsessed with looking cool.

I would characterize Gabriel as a resilient child. He is sullen and moody sometimes but always snaps out of it. He is a cheerful and happy child most of the time. Gabriel is self confident and relaxed in social situations and at home he has two warm parents that love to spend time with him. I don’t really think there have been any changes in this since Gabriel was younger. He has always been a very self-reliant child and can easily cope with problems.

Overall, Gabriel is still a pretty average student. He excels in the arts but his reading, writing and math are lacking. His word reading, spelling and writing skills are strong but he got C's in 7th grade English and Social Studies, as well as in Spanish. He got a C in 7th grade math and a B in Science. The teacher thought that he could do better with more studying and some tutoring in math so we decided to get him a tutor in the hopes that his grades will improve. Gabriel got all A’s in art, chorus and band, and a note of appreciation for his fine efforts from both the chorus teacher and the band director. In addition to the tutor for Gabriel, we have allowed him to subscribe to educational children’s magazines in an effort to interest him in these subjects more. We are hoping that if he is more interested in these subjects he will retain information better.

There's Still Work to Do!

Overall, I think Gabriel is pretty average academically. He seems to be doing great in reading and spelling. At 6, Gabriel could communicate in grammatically correct sentences for the most part, and had a large vocabulary. When tested at age 8 and recently at age 10, he is still showing that he "Demonstrates strength" in all areas of reading, and in spelling and "appropriate for grade level" in writing. I have tried very hard to encourage reading on a daily basis and take the time to converse about some of the funnier or more interesting moments in the books he is reading. Sometimes we read the same book and then discuss it. He has consistently struggled with speaking and listening and unfortunately is still scoring at "Requires additional support" in the areas of speaking and listening. At 6, Gabriel was working at grade level in math and science but wasn’t particularly interested in these topics in school. At 8, Gabriel's scores on math concepts and math application problems were below average, and the math computation score was slightly below average. At 10, Gabriel is still in grade-level math, and sometimes gets stuck on problems. He really just doesn’t enjoy math and despite our efforts to make it more relevant and interesting to him, he’s not doing great. He is still scoring "Appropriate for grade level" in the areas of mathematical problem solving, understanding of data, number concepts, graphical applications, and arithmetic computation. We encourage him and when he’s doing homework try to help clear up any misunderstandings. Since he was 8, Gabriel has shown some talent and interest in drawing and constructing things, and even now he always seems to be drawing interesting cartoons and sketching faces or scenes. He has consistently scored "Appropriate for grade level" in the area of art.

Gabriel has always done really well in social situations. We encourage him to play with many different children and participate in group sports. At school he is quite popular and we let him invite his friends from school over on the weekends. At home he is really good with his little sister and has gotten better at playing with girls in general. He has gone from tolerant to willing to play with girls, even if that is not his first preference. He has never shown any signs of behavior or emotional problems at home and has never shown any sign on tests.

I don’t think my parenting style has changed at all since preschool. I believe I have been consistently firm yet affectionate. I am clear to lay down the rules and what is expected of Gabriel, but at the same time I am quick to praise for good behavior and success in school. I believe in coregulation and I try to give Gabriel freedom to develop his social skills and follow his interests while still overseeing what is going on his life.

Eight is great!

Gabriel is a little below average with his verbal skills but is doing great in reading. Since second grade, Gabriel has been able to sound out almost any word, and now only occasionally gets stuck when reading aloud. His scores from the psychologist’s report were in the average to above average range in word reading, reading fluency, phonological awareness and spelling. Gabriel's scores on the Verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were: Information (8), Vocabulary (8), Similarities (7), and Comprehension (7). So we definitely still have some progress to make! Gabriel is doing reasonably well in 3rd grade math from what I can see, but he doesn't seem to like math all that much. He seems to like the hands on science experiments most of all. I think his disinterest is the reason for his low scores. Gabriel's scores on the math concepts and math application problems were below average, and the math computation score was slightly below average. Gabriel really enjoys drawing and designing things like houses and cars and he loves to work with his hands building models or things out of clay or paper mache. Gabriel's scores in spatial skills were above average. Gabriel’s affinity towards music has surprised us! He is improving in his musical skills every day. Gabriel has been taking piano lessons for two years and reads and plays well by ear. He also sings in a choir. We are so proud! Now he wants to take part in the instrumental music program at the school and we recently got him a saxophone. Gabriel has enjoyed soccer and baseball over the past two seasons, and wants to continue in both. He has always been a very active child and since he started playing organized sports we have even seen a decrease in the amount of time that Gabriel is sick.

When Gabriel was six he began to classify activities as “boy” and “girl” things. He would often play with boys only during recesses at school. While a popular child in his class, he didn’t interact with girls his age very much. He loved his little sister and spending time with her but she was still too young to actively play with him. This was pretty common at his age. He loved to imitate his father and spend time with him as much as he could, which we greatly supported, while also encouraging him to try out many different kinds of activities, not just “boy” things. At age 8, Gabriel still plays mainly with other boys but he is much more tolerant of girls than his friends. I think that this is because of our encouragement to follow his interest wherever it goes. We believe that whatever his interests are, we will support him. He is a great big brother to his little sister but still prefers “boy” activities. This is well in line with typical American attitudes and we believe that this is a result of his innate personality as well as his environment. We let Gabriel choose whatever interests suit him as well as activities that we believe will be beneficial to him in the future. He is a very active child so sports were an obvious conclusion and when he started to show an interest in music we encouraged him to follow his passion. We tend to site with the typical attitude that males should be more masculine but if that is not the case with him we let him know that we will love him regardless of his choices. This is because of our own background. My husband and I both have very liberal and supportive families that allowed us to follow whatever interested us as children.

If Gabriel has been raised by someone with a different socioeconomic or cultural background he may have much lower scores in reading, musical ability, and possible behavior problems. When Gabriel was younger his reading scores were way below average and if he had been raised by a family that didn’t place so much emphasis on reading or that didn’t have the money to supply Gabriel will lots of diverse reading materials he may not be doing as well as he is doing now. He really enjoys reading now and we attribute that to our influence. He also shows great skill in music and if he had been raised by a family that didn’t believe that music was an important skill or that didn’t have the extra income to buy Gabriel an instrument, his musical talents may never have been developed. Also, Gabriel is a very active child with a tendency toward physical activity and had he not been raised by a family with very structured rules that gave him an outlet for his energy, he may have been diagnosed with ADD or at least developed a problem with his impulsivity. If he had been raised by a family in poverty he may not have received the nutrition required to sustain such an active child. If Gabriel wasn’t exercising so regularly, he may have become sick more often and possibly obese as time went on.

Always improving!

Gabriel is doing great socially. At school he is very popular and always has a friend to talk about at home. My husband and I recently decided to engage Gabriel is some afterschool activities at the recreation center to further broaden his social network. He is great with his little sister and very rarely gets upset. He has no emotional problems, but can take a little while to calm down after getting upset. I think this is due to some recent arguments my husband and I have been having but we have assured Gabriel that we love him and his sister very much and that these arguments don’t change that. We are trying to keep these arguments from him and hoping that his behavior gets even better.

Gabriel has shown steady improvement in his cognitive skills. At 4 years old, Gabriel was a typical preschooler cognitively speaking. He didn’t really understand conservation or seriation. However, he asked questions about animals, nature, and how things work. He also liked simple board games with dice or other counting games. We wanted to accelerate Gabriel's thinking skills, so we introduced new games when we thought he would enjoy them. Now I think all that patience has paid off. At almost seven years old, Gabriel's memory is getting better. He is great at memory games such as Concentration because he remembers where the cards are located. He still has a little trouble sometimes and when he tells people about things that happened to him, he leaves a lot of details out and sometimes gets the order wrong. I try to join in the retelling of the experience, prompting Gabriel with questions, rather than just telling it myself.

His language skills have also improved. At 4 years old, Gabriel had already learned most of the letters and their sounds from watching educational TV, and from games and songs at preschool. He could write his own name and read a few words. He was very interested in listening to books. Now, Gabriel is communicating in grammatically correct sentences for the most part, and has a vocabulary that's steadily expanding. In first grade, he really seems to be taking off, and is reading first and even second grade books. We are great he has found a love of reading and encourage this whenever possible.

So far it seems that Gabriel has no special needs when it comes to these developmental areas. We are going to continue working with Gabriel to improve his skills and we believe he will continue to develop appropriately.

Gabriel has been a very physically active child since he was younger. He has always enjoyed running and playing and being rambunctious. This is still true and my husband and I have recently enrolled Gabriel in soccer and baseball to allow Gabriel a place to be active. He also continues to be avidly curious about the world around him and we continue to try to take Gabriel to new places and give him hands on activities to learn from. While Gabriel has always enjoyed music and dancing, he recently has shown great talent in music and we have enrolled him in piano and singing lessons to try to develop these skills more.

Almost Time for Kindergarten...

I would describe my parenting style as affectionate but firm. I try to give Gabriel praise often for good behavior and improving his skills, but I am clear and firm when he disobeys or displays a behavior I don’t approve of. I also try to give him every opportunity to learn from his surroundings, doing what I can to answer all questions and requests for certain activities. When Gabriel was younger, I was a little less sure about how to handle Gabriel’s misbehavior. Now that I know to be affectionate but firm, Gabriel has seen a great improvement. I also do my best to help him with his language skills because those are the skills he has the most difficulty with. One of those ways has been to read to him daily, just as my parents did with me when I was a child. We also try to take as many trips to interesting places as possible as a family so that Gabriel and his little sister bond with my husband and I while learning new things as this was tradition when I was growing up.

Some changes have occurred since Gabriel has turned 4. Gabriel is now beginning to like counting and board games and Gabriel has age-appropriate skills in counting, classifying and understanding quantitative relationships. This is a great improvement from the basic skills he had before of just categorizing objects at 20 months old. He doesn't quite understand conservation or seriation yet, but he still loves asking questions about animals, nature, and how things work. I have noticed Gabriel more and more set in his ideas about gender roles too. I believe this is an increase in his self awareness. He refuses to play with anything other than “boy toys”. While he is still below average on tests of receptive and expressive vocabulary, Gabriel’s literacy skills have grown. Gabriel has already learned most of the letters and their sounds from watching educational TV, and from games and songs at preschool. He can write his own name, read a few words, and is very interested in listening to books.

I believe that Gabriel is a resilient child. He is usually in a positive mood, and seems to be able to handle the ups and downs of the day. He seems to be able to avoid conflicts and arguments with the other children. He is also a very sweet and cooperative child. In preschool he picked up the classroom and playground rules pretty well. Occasionally he gets upset by negative events or overly excited by positive events and becomes a little wild and needs to be calmed down. If a particularly stressful situation comes up, Gabriel will get upset for a while but soon move on and forget about it. So far an amazing child!

Preschool Here We Come!

Gabriel is now 3 years, 11 months old! To promote healthy behavioral practices and an interest in physical activity, my husband and I love to play catch with Gabriel, shoot mini-basketballs and kick the mini-soccer ball. Although Gabriel is too young to follow any of the rules of these games, we figure it's a good chance to develop ball-handling skills and fitness. Gabriel is also fascinated by music and enjoys dancing. Since the age of two, we have taken Gabriel on walks around the neighborhood or in the park

Gabriel’s language development is going slowly. His scores in receptive and expressive vocabulary are below average. When asked to tell a story about a funny picture, Gabriel will give only the broad outlines without any details. Gabriel sometimes seems not to understand our directions. He is still speaking mostly in two to three word sentences, and using gestures. Sometimes Gabriel gets frustrated and throws a tantrum when he can't communicate. Gabriel likes to tell people about things he has done, but he usually leaves out some key details.

My husband and I have been urged to have more conversations with Gabriel about anything of interest, read aloud, watch educational television together and go to interesting places. Gabriel loves to watch children's educational television and we encourage this. He is learning to name some letters and numbers. He sometimes repeats what the characters on the shows say, but sometimes just sits and watches or plays with his toys. When out on our walks around the neighborhood, he seems to be curious about every fence, leaf or bird and always wants to stop and look at, touch, or talk about them so we take the time to answer all of his questions about his surroundings.

Gabriel is average in his cognitive development. He can understand quantitative descriptions like “more” or “less” and “longer” or “shorter”. He is good with classifying objects like types of animals and in solving reasoning problems. He is about average in copying designs, solving picture puzzles, and building block towers. He can now see patterns and seems to have a good idea of how familiar things happen, such as baths and restaurant visits. He often points out when someone doesn't do something in the right order. He is having a little trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality though. Gabriel seems to know that the cartoons he watches aren't real, but he gets nervous or scared when watching prime-time dramas or even "G" rated videos.

I think the reason behind Gabriel’s short responses is that my husband and I are not being clear enough in our responses to Gabriel’s questions and not asking enough open-ended questions. If we give him more opportunities to use his vocabulary, maybe his language skills will improve. We are also being very careful about what we let Gabriel watch on T.V. I think we may need to find a particular show that captures his interest to fully use his interest to our advantage. When Gabriel is telling us about something he has done, we need to listen to his telling of the story with enthusiasm and ask questions to prompt him to fill in a few details he missed.

Outside our home, Gabriel is quite self-confident in new social situations and seems to be well-liked by several children. He has several little friends in preschool and is somewhat of a group leader in free play activities, such as imaginary play or riding trikes. We also have new neighbors two doors down. Gabriel has struck up a friendship with the four-year old boy that lives there. They have fun riding trikes on the sidewalk, playing superheroes and villains, and other games. Gabriel generally seems to want to please adults. He is rarely aggressive to adults or other children but sometimes he forgets to pick up or he doesn't listen. At home, Gabriel loves interacting with his new baby sister. Gabriel really wanted to have his sister in the room, and normally is able to sleep through the baby's crying at night, so we moved the crib into Gabriel's room. Gabriel also loves to talk about his friends from Preschool at home.

Gabriel’s behavioral problems right now are lying and behavior properly in public. Gabriel has begun occasionally lying to us about accidents or rule violations. The lies are pretty small and we realize this is a sign of a theory of mind. We wait until we catch him in the act, explain that lying is wrong, and put him in time-out. For good measure, we also explain that being lied to makes people feel bad. Gabriel is not generally able to sit still or stay quiet through an entire meal at a fast food restaurant but we are very clear about what we expect of him and remind him often during these outings. I think that Gabriel has not been exposed to enough of these experiences to know how to behave and that with firm guidance, these problems will be resolved.

Gabriel is 30 Months Old!

Gabriel’s environment has influenced him greatly. At nine months old, Gabriel could understand a few words and point to something he wanted but at twelve months old, Gabriel could clearly understand a couple of dozen words. I think that this is partly due to the fact that me, my husband, and Gabriel started regularly visiting grandma and grandpa's house on weekends. Gabriel loves to play with their little dog, and gets a lot of attention from grandma and grandpa. In fact, Gabriel’s first words were the name of grandma and grandpa’s dog. I think that these chances for Gabriel to socialize with extended family and learn new words on a regular basis greatly increased Gabriel’s socialization, vocabulary and language skills. I have also been showing Gabriel how to take care of the growing number of plants we have on the sunny balcony of the apartment to give Gabriel a chance to further bond with me and work on his fine motor skills. Gabriel is very interested in music, and we have often danced with him. He has clapped and sang along with the TV. We have also taught him some short little preschool songs and enjoy dancing or moving around together to music. I think these experiences have helped Gabriel become above average in his gross motor skills. I believe the lack of experiences with other children have contributed to Gabriel’s below average skills in language.

Gabriel is now able to focus on tasks and show self control for long periods of time. I have heard that this is unusually good for his age. He is pretty cooperative with other children, but can become a little aggressive over a favorite toy, and needs to be reminded to share. Gabriel is toilet trained now, and rarely has any accidents. When the occasional accident does occur he is embarrassed and is showing signs of self awareness. He is communicating better, but has difficulty understanding other people's perspectives and using plural and past tenses. Gabriel knows he is a boy now, and has begun to categorize behavior and objects as made for boys or girls. He prefers playing with boys, but gets along pretty well with girls. We are still working on socialization with other children.

My husband and I are big believers in aspects of social learning theory. We are careful to make sure that our actions are appropriate and beneficial for Gabriel at all times and we love to set a good example for Gabriel. As mentioned above, Gabriel loves to help me take care of our plants and models the way that I water them. He also loves to dance the way that we do. Money is tight for us right now because we are saving to buy a house but we love to do inexpensive activities with Gabriel so that he can learn from us in new situations such as going to the zoo, the petting farm, museums and the park. We also keep our actions in mind when following elements of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. We make sure that we talk to Gabriel a lot and attempt to pass on our information to him about the world around him. Gabriel loves to follow me around the house and I teach him about everything I do. We also talk to Gabriel about the importance of values like sharing with the other children he plays with, listening to his teachers, etc. In addition, we recognize aspects of information processing theory. We try to give Gabriel interesting stimuli and encourage positive behavior.