Developing through the life span

This chapter was a lot of review from what we already knew about how we are brought into and out of the life cycle, but it also presented some new and interesting ideas and theories i had never heard of before. The one that most intrigued me were the 3 different types of parenting. I think as students we can all catagorize what type we think our parents are in and it's interesting to know there are different types. I'm sure we as kids either just labled them as cool parents or strict parents. Although it may seem like mine are overly strict i think i could classify mine under the authoritative class.

I also found it interesting when the book talked about stranger anxiety in children. When there is a baby in the room it always seems like everyone wants to hold it and the baby gets passed from person to person. When the baby starts crying everyone assumes its because it is being handled so much when really there is a little psychology in there! The baby sufferes stranger anxiety when it can not put a familiar face or schema to the person holding them and becomes instantly irratable. I found that pretty cool that occurs at such a young age, because even as adults we don't genereally feel comfortable around people we dont know. So i guess it follows you all through life.

The final thing to surprise me was the attachment we make at such a young age. Of course we are going to want to surround ourselves with people we are familiar with and that take care and support us, but that attachment level goes deeper than we think! When it showed the birds flying with the machine because of the familiarity they had with it from before they were born was really a cool thing! It makes you really think. I really enjoyed this chapter even when some of the material was familiar. It caught my attention!