Observation Toddler

Observation 1: [pic]

Jacklyn Coleman

Cd: 10G (the early years)

Section 1:) Setting:

This observation is taking place at the child's home, more specifically, in Santa Clara California, and in the Living room, of their two bedrooms, and 1 bathroom home. They currently live in a transitional housing program for teenage mothers run by Wilson center.

Describing the child:

Dariyana Marie is a 21 month old female toddler. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and very curly and short hair reaching only to about 2 inches above the top of her head. She is pigeon toed and she has trouble walking, but she is not bothered by it at all. The mother however is concerned. She is walking and talking quite a lot for her age. She is saying 'I love you', 'hi' and 'bye' very clearly. She is about 25 pounds and 41 inches tall, and she appears as a healthy little girl. It is Tuesday July 6th of 2010, and it is currently 6:40 pm. The current season is summertime, and this Observation should be ending at around 7: 30pm. The toddler's name, as mentioned above, is Dariyana. She is around 19 months old, is walking, talking, and attempting to sing.

The Physical setting at the child's home in the living room, includes creativity all around the room, wall art, very few family photos, a very stained couch, a coffee table with cushions surrounding the edges, for safety, a computer table but a computer that does not work, a recliner chair, a big TV, a bookshelf filled with books, lots of them baby books, two shelves of Cd's, a coat rack, or a jacket holder thingy as her 17 year old roommate is calling it, and a small movie shelfwith only few movies on it. The Baby things around the room consist of as follows: there is a baby bouncer, a baby swing, a playpen, a baby changing table, (although that isn't for Dariyana. She is not the only baby in the house), and a diaper genie. It isn't very homey or family oriented, however, there is a 10 gallon water jug that is being saved for Dariyana's college fund in the corner of the living room.

There is quite bit of Dirtiness around the house. The dirty part of the setting: There is food lying around everywhere. The doors are wide open and bugs are coming in, and flies are flying around. There is also dirty music videos' playing on the television, showing nakedness, cursing, and ignorance. There are dirty cups, and soda cans sitting on the coffee table and a dirty roommate. There aren't many toys present, and the very few toys that are in the visible area are noisy, have bright lights and high pitched voices.

Due to the fact that this observation is being done in the child's home, there aren't any other children that are around to be observed except one. Briana's roommate, Coralyn and her newborn baby Javeah-Starr. She is a 2 month old infant, but there isn't very much that I have observed considering she really doesn't do much, but coo, cry, poop, and spit.

Family background and the number of adults who are present in Dariyana's life: The father Darius, is African American, and Age 21. The Mom, Briana is Mexican, and African American. Dariyana is Briana's first baby. The couple has been split up since Dariyana was born. The father is mildly involved but the mother has said several times over phone conversations, that she doesn't really want him around. She says that he is a bad influence and drops in and out of Dariyana's life whenever he pleases. There is a 1:1 ratio for the toddler, due to the fact that only the mother is the only parent that is seriously involved, but there are many adults involved in the baby's life such as Aunts, cousins, uncles, two grandmas, and two grandpas, many family friends, and few neighbors. Coming from the African American heritage and background, Briana states that she is determined to keep Dariyana looking as clean, neat and presentable as possible at all times to avoid stereotypes. Due to Dariyana's unmanageable hair, Briana spends a little bit more money than necessary to keep Dariyana's hair looking nice, and keeping it manageable. Being that there is also no male role models in Dariyana's life for her to go by, her mother remains concerned for how she will get the male nurturing that she needs.

Section 2:) The running observation

For the past 20 minutes or so, she has been screaming 'ayayayayayayayayayah' every few minutes or so. The best guess as to why she is doing this would be to assume that she is having a good time, or trying to sing. She giggles a lot, and is amused by everything, and anything. She hasn't been playing with anything specific, except for maybe the television remote. She has picked it up and walked to the middle of the television screen and pointed the remote backwards, and started to push buttons. The mother and the roommate were getting frustrated. When Briana shouted 'Daughter!", Dariyana quickly dropped the remote and wobbled over to her mom. Dariyana currently looks very scared for her life. She looks as though she knows that she is in trouble. Whether or not Dariyana knows that standing in front of the TV is wrong or not, cannot be stated. After she was reprimanded by her mother, she did not return to do it again. I have observed that Dariyana is extremely interested in cell phones. Whenever one of the members of the house takes their cell phone away from her, she sets off in search for another one with intense curiosity in her eyes. Maybe