MY VIRTUAL CHILD

CAIDEN APOLLO AT 12 MONTHS OLD

Virtual Child uses five dimensions of temperament to describe the child's behavior in the first 30 months. These dimensions are influenced by your questionnaire responses, and change gradually over time in response to events and parenting decisions. They include four dimensions that overlap with the Big Five personality traits, Sociability (extraversion/introversion), Emotionality (neuroticism), Aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness (agreeableness), and Self-control (conscientiousness), and a fifth dimension, Activity level. Twin, adoption and longitudinal studies indicate there are genetic and environmental influences on the five types of traits in the program. 

ACTIVITY refers to the physical and mental energy level of the child. Highly active children may sleep less, be more restless, and engage in more physical activity. Less active children may sleep more, enjoy quiet pastimes, and show less interest in vigorous physical activity. 

SOCIABILITY refers to the child's friendliness and desire for social interaction (ranging from low to high) 

EMOTIONALITY refers to the intensity of emotion experienced by the child. Highly emotional children may show more of everything (anger, joy, sadness) and more fluctuation in moods. Less emotional children may show less extreme emotions and less fluctuation over periods of time. 

AGGRESSIVENESS VS. COOPERATIVENESS refers to the tendency of the child to be aggressive in social situations with the parent, day-care provider or other children. Highly aggressive children may be quite resistant to parental demands and throw tantrums or even lash out at the parent or other children. Less aggressive children tend to be more cooperative, or to whine and fuss rather than actively resist the parent. Research indicates that boys are somewhat more aggressive than girls, but there is a great deal of overlap between the sexes, and this is reflected in Virtual Child. 

SELF-CONTROL refers to the child's ability to control his or her behavior, delay gratification, plan out a course of action, or inhibit responses to a typical situations. This is not exactly the same thing as aggressiveness or emotionality. For example, a child with low self control might take a cookie when asked to wait, not out of a spirit of lack of cooperation, but just due to low impulse control. Children who are extreme on this dimension may fit typical criteria for attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. The Virtual Child has a 5% chance of having moderate to severe ADHD and a 5% chance of having mild ADHD. 

GOODNESS OF FIT is a concept that is closely related to temperament. It refers to the tendency of the parent to adapt his/her behavior to the child's temperament. For example, suppose you have a very active child, and you are trying to promote exploration and learning. Rather than "going against the grain" and attempting to quiet the child down to look at a book about bugs, you might appeal to the child's active nature and choose to go on a walk and talk about the bugs you see. Goodness of fit also applies to developmental level. For example, at 6-8 months most infants are at least somewhat anxious around strangers, so you would want to introduce the child to a new person gradually rather than thrusting the child into the person's arms. Parents desiring to change their child's temperament, or help their child develop a particular skill, can benefit from the principle of goodness of fit, and the related concept of moderate novelty. Parents desiring to encourage growth in their child should introduce moderately novel activities and experiences, because children are more likely to pay attention to and profit from such experiences.

1. When strangers come to visit, they think Caiden Apollo is really cute so they want to hold Caiden Apollo. But he starts crying and is inconsolable until the person returns him to you. In response to this you typically:

Hold Caiden and go on talking with the person while holding him, as this might get him more used to people.

• This is the right thing to do because a child is comfortable with me and holding him with me while talking to others might convince him that there is nothing bad that’s gonna happen if he let himself mingle with others.

At nine months old, Caiden Apollo began to understand a few words and point to something he wanted. At twelve months old, Caiden Apollo now clearly understands a couple of dozen words. In fact, Caiden Apollo just recently pronounced his first clear word and pointed at the object in question....  

It was a dog.

2. Caiden Apollo can have positive or negative reactions to new settings, toys or foods. He has a wide range of moods, but only gets really upset when hungry, tired, wet, etc. You:

Try to introduce Caiden to new things only when he seems to be in the mood.

• Since my child gets upset when he is uncomfortable, I prefer to introduce him to knoew things when he is in the mood, this way, he can react positively on whatever the new thins are. I will set him to mood by feeding him when I sense that he is hungry, letting him fall asleep or take a nap, and constantly change his diapers when he is wetting himself.

Caiden Apollo wants to crawl up the stairs, such as the carpeted ones inside your apartment.

Either you or your partner tries to provide the right amount of assistance to avoid a bad fall, but you install a baby gate on both ends, so Caiden Apollo can't go up or down on his own.

3. Caiden Apollo has been in pretty good health, except for the occasional cold or brief bout of indigestion.

You follow general precautions of not exposing him to people who might be sick.

• This is obviously the right thing to do because duhh diseases nowadays is contagious in many ways, and if a sick person is near my child, he my catch the virus and get sick also. This is necessary even though it was just a general precautions. Prevention is better than cure.

Your partner has received an advancement and a pay raise.

The three of you celebrate, and Caiden Apollo is very happy, but doesn't have a clue what the party is about.

4. Caiden Apollo is able to imitate new words and actions now, so you focus on:

Teaching him new motor skills, such as drinking from a cup, turning pages in books, etc.

• Teaching him those stuff while he is still young is a very delicate thing to do. Caiden in his early months must know how to execute simple motor skills so that he wont be delayed in learning those This way, it also teaches him how to be independent on the basic skills that he would do everyday when he grows up.

Caiden Apollo's first birthday is coming in a few days! 

You invite all the relatives over and throw a big party.

5. You notice recently Caiden Apollo is becoming more emotionally attached to your partner.

Encouraged by this, you think it's time for Caiden to branch out and get to know more people, so you arrange to leave him with different people (next door neighbor, grandma, aunt) for several hours at a time.

• To prevent Caiden from getting too much clingy and needy on me, I must do those little steps. Through that, I'm also teaching him to gain trust on people around him.

             You try the object permanence test again. This time, Caiden Apollo is able to find the object even after long delays and seems to think this is a great game!

 You set up two hiding places for the object and hide it under one of the two covers repeatedly. When you switch it to the second hiding place, he no longer has the problem you saw earlier of searching at the more common of the two hiding places. You can't even trick him by hiding it in your hand. Caiden Apollo likes this game and wants to play it over and over.

6. Caiden Apollo learned to walk recently and you are very excited! He is also an efficient crawler, and is exploring his environment eagerly. When he does something potentially dangerous, such as walking out into the street or crawling up onto the back of the couch, you:

Say "No!", remove Caiden from the situation, and encourage him to do something in a safe area.

• Obviously because those areas are dangerous for the well being of my child, he might cut himself or lose balance and fall. I will try my best as much as possible to watch him all day all night whenever it is his turn on playing. H e needs discipline and that is one way to teach him that.

7. Caiden Apollo enjoys throwing every toy out of his crib and watching what happens. Caiden Apollo seems to expect you to keep putting them back!

You pick up the toys a few times, but don't want Caiden to learn to manipulate you, so you stop responding after the first few times.

• That is true, I will pick up he toys just so that he will not make any mess around his crib, after that, I will ignore what he is doing and will not tolerate him manipulating me, I will teach him a lesson that when something slips in your hand, you might not be able to get that back.

8. Caiden Apollo and you seem to be getting more and more in sync. Caiden Apollo is happier and more willing to try new things when you are around. You:

And your partner provide the amount of support you think Caiden needs when trying new activities.

• I want to let Apollo feel that we are always here for him no matter what the situation is. We will nourish him with our time and we will not let him feel down even just for a while. This will motivate him to always try new things because he knows that we got his back in every decision he makes.

Mary Laurenz J. Barbaton, Ryan Audrey Cordova, Edel Rose Rivera

BSPT-2C