PSY104
WRITTEN PROPOSAL
Your community is opening a brand new community center. Now that you are an expert in the field, you
have been chosen to lead a development team that will create a proposal for interactive, fun, and
educational programming activities that will be provided for children and adolescents in this center. Utilize
problem-solving techniques in exploring developmental issues, grounded in child development, in order to
assess what activities and items should be included in each program. Once you have chosen these
features, you will present your ideas to a mock city council board (i.e. your instructor) with both a written
proposal describing the programming, as well as an interactive presentation that will illustrate your ideas
for promoting continued learning throughout childhood and adolescence.
PSY 104 Child and Adolescent Development
Introductory Paragraph:
Kelly Van Aken is community center proposed to be constructed in our community. The community
center mission is to help children become self confident and independent. The facility will provide a
platform where children will connect, interact, share, and learn. The center goal is to establish atmosphere
where child active curiosity, appreciation for nature and large motor skills are developed. We are
requesting your (City Council) support the establishment of this community center, which will cater the
following activities specific to each age group.
- Age Group #1 – Infants
This age group covers zero to 12months. The activity identified for this group is the nesting toys. The
goal for this activity is to enhance general knowledge and to improve cognitive development, physical
development, and cognitive skills. The material required for this activity includes the nesting cups and
stacking materials. The nested cups will be stuck together, and given to the toddler to play with it, to
discover what they can do with these objects. Where the toddler cannot pull the nested cups out of the
position, the toddler should be guided on how to do so. The toddler should be shown on how to build
tower, knock it down, filling the cups with cornmeal or sand and other activities that can be used with the
nested cup. This way, the physical, cognitive, and other socio emotional activities will be enhanced. This
improves parent-child relationship, and improves effective communication (O’Connor, Monk, &
Fitelson, 2013).
The second activity in this age group is the rolling balls. This is activity is geared towards physical
development as well as the development of motor skills. This involves interactive activity where the
parent sits on the floor and rolls the ball towards the toddler. This will enable the toddler to crawl towards
the ball. Different toys of different weight can be used. This cognitive development of the child is in
accordance to Jean Piaget theory that defines that child growth occurs because of processes round
them. This way, the child can learn to talk, and interact with other children (Sengsavang & Krettenauer,
2015).
Research indicates that the rolling balls are important tools because help the child develop
watchfulness, even thinking, emotions, and concentration. The child is fascinated by the turning of the
ball and other spherical objects child may become surprised, happy, or surprised that the ball runs away
from him. The rolling ball also motivates the child to move (O’Connor, Monk, & Fitelson, 2013).
The center will require over 100 rolling balls, which can be bought from Amazon. Com
http://www.amazon.com/toys/b?node=165793011
- Age Group #2 – Toddlers
This group covers 12 months to 36 months. The first activity to be considered is the “Print it” activity.
This activity was chosen because it improves toddler’s physical as well as motor skills. The activity
involves use of finger paint, finger paint paper, and washable table. The toddlers fingers are put directly
in finger paint (many colors can be used), and printing them on the paper. Toddlers should be encouraged
to be creative. This activity is messy activity and will require the toddlers to wear apron. Finger paint is
expensive. Despite the fact that it is fun and creative activity, research indicates that this activity improves
emotional development because the child enjoys the feel of the paint and watching the designs created.
When they make new designs, the toddler’s self-esteem is enhanced. It also increases the development of
manipulative skills and co-ordination as a toddler uses his or her skill to balance muscle control and
spatial awareness (Yoon, 2012).
The second activity for this group is stamps and stickers activity. This is an indoor activity, which
involves uses markers, stickers, stamps, ink, and paper. The toddler is shown how to stick the stickers on
the paper, and where sticker has a theme, the child should be explained about it. The child should paint
different things in the environment such as trees, cars, mum, and other members of the family. This
activity is important because it improves communication development, motor skills as well physical
development. This improves the relationship between a child and the caregivers as illustrated by the
attachment theory by John Bolby. This theory indicates the relationship between child and parent/
caregiver influences child development and their social relationships in their later stage of life
(Sengsavang & Krettenauer, 2015).
The child also communicates through art. This is in accordance Jean Piaget Lev Vygotsky on socio
cultural theory where children are believed to learn activities through hand on experiences (O’Connor,
Monk, & Fitelson, 2013). The city council is requested to purchase the finger paint to help the children
develop and grow socio-culturally. This is obtained in ToyRus from
http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3255200
- Age Group #3 – Early Childhood
This group includes children of about 3 to 6 years. The first activity chosen is the gather and sort
activity. The activity is geared to boosting the child intellectual knowledge. The activity involves visiting
parks, or community center surrounding and encouraging the children to collect and look closely to
objects that catch their attention. This could include rocks, flowers, and insects. The younger children
learn about the different things and their differences in terms of texture, size, state (liquid, solid, or
gaseous) and their benefits. This way, the children express themselves as they interact with the natural
environment. In fact, some children can learn to interact, lead, and communicate with others. This builds
child’s self-esteem, as they feel acknowledged and important. This is in accordance to behavioral child
development theories by Ivan Pavlov , which stipulates that development is shaped by children
experiences (Sengsavang & Krettenauer, 2015).
The second activity is sack race. What is required is a sack or large pillowcases for every child, and
plenty of space. The children are divided into teams, and a turning point is designated. The first member
of team is handed a sack and race begins. The children should race to the marker and turn back to the next
individual in the team. This continues until the last person, and the wining team is the team to have all
members jump and sit. This game is classic for children development of motor skills and physical
activeness. The children also learn to work cooperatively in groups and understand that communication as
well as interaction is very important in life (Yoon, 2012).
The importance of this activity is that it improves child social interaction during activities. This will
enable identifying the child character i.e. is a child an onlooker, solitary independent, associative or eve
cooperative. This is in accordance with the social learning theory by A. Bandura in that, children learn by
watching other people that they interact. Through these activities, it is important it improve the cognitive,
social, and motor skills development. In these activities, the items required are the sack, because they can
be used as collection bags, and during sack race (O’Connor, Monk, & Fitelson, 2013). These can be
obtained from Amazon.com because they have the best quality products and in all sizes.
- Age Group #4 – Middle/Late Childhood
The activities chosen will include constructive use leisure time for 7 to 12 years children. Middle
school children will be given opportunity to take music classes by having lecture on music technique. The
children will be provided with instruments of their choice to learn. This form of art is important because it
enables the children develop discipline and high sense of responsibility. This activity improves child self
esteem and builds up their confidence as the form recitals in front of their peers, parents, and friends. This
activity also provides the most effective environment for socialization, and gives the child a platform to
explore their talents (O’Connor, Monk, & Fitelson, 2013).
The second activity is swimming activity. Statistics indicates that 37% of Americans do not know
how to swim. The total deaths attributable to drowning have been 137 children. This is the main reason as
to why the swimming program will be included. Additionally, swimming will improve the child physical
development as well as motor skills. Research indicates that swimming improves muscoskeleton activities
as well as cardiovascular activities. This activity enables the child to explore their potentials, and
simultaneously learn that the peers have different capacities as they have. The activity teaches the child to
compromise so that they can work as a team, and become disciplined on ways to handle the difficulties
when addressing the challenges as they mature from pre-adolescence to adolescence (Sengsavang &
Krettenauer, 2015).
According to sociologist, children development is not guided by vacuum but is highly influenced by
the environment they live and the challenges they undergo. These activities are chosen to keep children
away from negative influences by the social media and make them more responsible with their lives. This
is important because children in this age are expressive, very egocentric, and spontaneous. Music and
sports activity will enable them express their emotions and simultaneously develop high discipline levels
as they learn to play by the institution rules. The city council can help in buying music tools, especially
violin to help the children learn (Yoon, 2012). This can be obtained from a music stores including
Guitarcenter
- Age Group #5 – Adolescence
The center aims at establishing youth groups, which will help the adolescence, identify whom they
are. These groups will be used to discuss issues they face during their transition into adulthood. This
includes issues such as trust and leadership roles in their lives. Establishing a youth radio station could
improve lives of most adolescence in this community, who can volunteer in various activities such as
organizing group discussion, becoming radio presenter, and writing informative articles. This is important
as it will improve the socioemotional development, and improve cognitive function and educative as they
acquire new skills (Sengsavang & Krettenauer, 2015).
The second activities identified are youth activities used to train youth on building trust and
leadership. In this activity, the youth is blindfolded as the members direct them on how to find the right
path to reach the designated area. The roles are switched until all members of the team participate.
Building blocks are also important activity as the participants pool their efforts together to build an object,
which is verbally described to them by the leader. This improves cognitive function; physical
development and socioemotional development as the participants learn to work as a team, listen, and
communicate effectively (Yoon, 2012).
These activities are important as they help child development as identified by the social learning
theory. In this theory, children behavior is influenced by extrinsic and intrinsic influences, and they
determine child satisfaction, self-confidence, and accomplishment (O’Connor, Monk, & Fitelson,
2013). In this case, city council can help purchase computers, which will help with setting up radio
station activities. This can be bought from Best buy
Conclusion
For a long time, child developments in this community have been largely overlooked. Parent’s
perspective on children is that they are smaller versions of adults; and parents pay little attention to
advance the cognitive abilities of the children, communication development, and physical growth. The
community center aims at transforming lives of people and children living in this community. We are
grateful for the immense support and advice during the establishment of this beneficial activity.
REFERENCES
O’Connor, T., Monk, C., & Fitelson, E. (2013). Practitioner Review: Maternal mood in
pregnancy and child development – implications for child psychology and psychiatry.
Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry, 55(2), 99-111.
Sengsavang, S., & Krettenauer, T. (2015). Children’s Moral Self-Concept: The Role of
Aggression and Parent–Child Relationships. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 61(2), 213-235.
Yoon, Soo Jung,. (2012). The Mediating effects of teacher-child relationships on children’s
self-control and aggression. Korean journal of early childhood education, 32(5), 145-161.
