Week 1- Journet

 In Chapter 1: Life Span Development, we read about lifespan development which refers to an examination of the biological,cognitive/psychological and social changes that happen over the course of a human life.  Development being the process of changing and the changes that happen through the lifespan.  We as humans go through similar stages in life. Those stages are as follow: The Prenatal Period (Conception to Birth), Infancy  ( birth-age 2), Early Childhood (ages 3-6), Middle Childhood (ages 7-11), Adolescence (puberty:ages 12-18), Early Adulthood (19-34), Middle Adulthood (ages 35-64) and Late Adulthood (65 and over).   Although we all go through these periods in our life, we can agree that we are all very different.  We may have things in common or not much in common at all.  Why is that?  Well it is a combination of things.  Nature (our innate being) and Nurture(our environment) have a huge influence on who we become.  Our culture has a major influence, our faith, our gender, and many more factors play a role in who we are, how we perceive the world and how we react to it.  Chapter one calls all these factors Biopsychosocial Interactions which is the influence of genetic, biological, psychological, and social/environmental factors and processes.  

While I read some of my classmates "getting to know each other" posts.  It is very evident that all have diverse backgrounds. We all currently have this class in common.  Some of us are going into teaching, We may have other similarities like sports or cooking and perhaps Faith.  However, we all went through so many differences in our life to get to this point.  Some went through normal deliveries at birth and perhaps some of us went through a hard or complicated birth.  Our child hood may have been a happy one or a dreadful one.  We may come from single parent homes or a huge extended family.   Our genes may be healthy or may carry inherited diseases.  High school may have been a breeze for some of us or maybe some of us wish to forget that period in our life.  Some of us are married or single by choice or by life events.  Some of us have children and some of us still feel like children.  I can go on and on about all the factors and interactions that we have gone through that have shape who we are today.  This is how I understood the The Biopsychosocial Model on page 13 in our LifeSmart Book.

I also understood that not everyone who has gone through tough times in their past especially in childhood is a "bad apple".  In other words because someone has lived in poverty,lacked resources, or grew up in a violent environment, this does not necessarily mean that this person is destined for a tough adulthood as well.  Yes, I know statistics show the correlations between a negative childhood and a negative adulthood.  However, Resiliency is powerful and you may have an individual that will overcome the negative factors and knock down the stereotypes and step all over those statistics to achieve great things in life. 

 Examples:  Helen Keller (became deaf /blind by age 2) went on to receive her Bachelors degree from Radcliff College and gave many speeches lobbying for equality, women's rights and disabled students among other things,  Richard Branson (dyslexia) developed Virgin Records. Oprah Winfrey (was repeatedly sexually abused) is now one of the most famous and wealthiest woman on Earth.  

On the opposite end, You can have an individual who grew up in the lap of luxury, came from a "good home" , had an overflow of resources, a nuclear family dynamic with loving parents. Everything pointed to the fact that this person will do great things in life and who knows they end up abusing drugs or killing people.  People are left scratching their heads of what may have gone wrong with this person.

Examples: Robert Bale (good kid, upbringing seemed good) pleaded guilty to murdering 16 civilians in Afghanistan while he was enlisted in the Army)
Ted Kaczynski- was considered a math prodigy, skipped 2 grades in school, attended Harvard at 16 and graduated.  We now now him as the Unibomber, He plead guilty to 13 federal bombings that killed 3 people and wounded 23.

There is no specific mold that determines who becomes good, bad, or normal as an adult.  However, the biopsychosocial interactions and processes do have a major influences on our individual human development.