Parenting Styles and my Experience Raising a Virtual Child

The purpose of this paper is to examine and understand the behavior and reasoning of child development. My virtual child was a big part of that. My virtual child is named Jax, and he is currently 20 years old. I have experienced a lot of different phases with him. Jax has had some ups and downs from infancy until young adulthood. I learned a lot about how to navigate through my child’s life as well as using the virtual child to test how and what ways are best for parenting on different occasions.

Personally, Jax wasn’t a very hard child to raise. Like most children, he had weaknesses and strengths, and they were most academic than anything else. He was really good at reading from a young age due to my constantly reading to him. Also, as he grew older, he picked up a love for writing. However, His weakness was more so math and science; even after we got him a tutor, he still managed to not enjoy it, and it continued being one of his weaknesses.

During the infancy stage, Jax was doing well; he was being breastfed and showed signs of good motor development. By the time he was 8-9 months old, I had noticed he was able to eat different baby food, and he even started to crawl. However, according to Thomas and Chess’s classic temperamental categories, Jax was slow to warm up because he is quick to warm up to friendly faces however cries when in total strangers. Which to Thomas and Chess’s theory, a slow-to-warm-up child has low adaptability.

As Jax started hitting the 12-15 month mark, I noticed that little Jax started becoming interested in his environment. He started playing with his toys more at this point, and he would push down his toys in the tub to see if they would float back up. Towards the 2-year stage of Jax’s life, I started to see a lot of change and influence from his environment. At this point, Jax turns into a big brother, and he handles it as well as he can. He started becoming more selfish, not sharing, and would get mad pretty quickly; overall, I believe this was due to the traditional parenting style that I was using at that point in his life. I was using the John Watson idea of letting the children cry it out, which was definitely, in my child’s case, not working.

By the age of 3, I began realizing that having him engage in healthier behavior was more beneficial to him, so having him focus more and enhance his motor skills. The development of my child was okay at that point; being more open with him and talking more to him opened up to me by talking and describing things to his best ability. Also, since, at this point, I was still using the traditional parenting pattern, Jax didn’t really understand who was ‘in charge”. I noticed that Jax had a difficult time adapting to social situations at 3/4 years old. Towards Jax’s preschool to school age, Jax was still very attached to me. According to my virtual child website, he was tested on the verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, and it showed that Jax was below average for math and science and slightly above average for verbal and reading; this was when we decided that he needed a tutor.

This seemed to encourage him to try harder. As he kept getting older, he started doing better. His math and science scores increased, and he was beginning to do better with time management. Starting high school for Jax wasn’t too hard for both him or me. He began getting more creative at this stage since I was always encouraging him and keeping up his self-esteem. Jax’s ability to socialize has always been pretty good, but in high school, it improved even more.

He would always come home and tell me about his day, and I believe that being more authoritative with him made him more comfortable with communicating with me. This also had a big impact on his choices of substance abuse which, with Jax, I didn’t have to worry about because, being consistent with my parenting, he seemed to stay away from it even though his peers were infatuated with it. Just as high school graduation approached for Jax, he got accepted to in-state colleges. He decided to take a year off and work to earn money for college, which to me, showed his ability to become a responsible young adult.

At that stage, I noticed that Jax’s attachment development towards me was more ambivalent and insecure because he started showing separation anxiety when I would not around him. This continued till about he became a school-age child. The main causes of this were one, I was working, and after Jax turned 2 having another baby made him feel less secure. Also, in the beginning, using the Watson idea of letting the child cry it out instead of responding wasn’t working in my house (Heath, 2018). He would cry a little, and either my virtual husband or I would pick him up when it got extreme, so I think he picked up on that. Maybe if we were consistent with it, then maybe Jax would have a better-secured attachment with me. As mentioned before, my parenting style was more traditional, and I did notice that it didn’t work well with Jax. Instead, I slowly started changing that style into more of an authoritative pattern. As Jax entered his teenage years, his attachment grew more secure with his father and me. I saw a big improvement in his behaviors after the change of parenting pattern, and we finally got to establish a stable schedule with him.

My parenting style has affected my current style with my child because I grew up more traditional, and I don’t feel like it was a bad approach but more so that times have changed, and children need to be spoken to because they are learning. One example would be that he is asking more questions and is more interested in things that aren’t toys. Another example would be that he is more open to speaking and retelling the story in a way that he understands. I think that Jax is spoiled and shy. He is resilient and used to getting his way at home most of the time. Also, he is shy and doesn’t like to make new friends unless he is very comfortable. Like he only has two friends, and he has a hard time adapting to the other children just yet. Being raised more traditionally, I believe that it influenced some decisions that I made with Jax because I experienced the actual parenting style, and I don’t think I turned out too bad. However, the difference was that I was also luckier to be educated on the types of styles that work best for children.

As mentioned in the textbook, the most effective parenting style was authoritative, and at the beginning of the semester, before I actually knew the cause and effects of each parenting parent, I would’ve disagreed. However, now that I see how effective it was with Jax, my virtual child, I aim to use the same approach with my real future children. This is always where I would like to mention that after experiencing this whole child development process if I was to have a child, I would stick with the consistent, authoritative parenting style. According to if I would do anything differently with my virtual child Jax, it would be to be authoritative from the very beginning. Although that sounds like a perfect life, I’m glad that I got to experience the shift of behavior due to parenting patterns. One thing that I learned from this entire course was that every child has different needs, and as long as you are consistent with your child that things usually turn out for the better as they grow. 

The purpose of this paper is to examine and understand the behavior and reasoning of child development. My virtual child was a big part of that. My virtual child is named Jax, and he is currently 20 years old. I have experienced a lot of different phases with him. Jax has had some ups and downs from infancy until young adulthood. I learned a lot about how to navigate through my child’s life as well as using the virtual child to test how and what ways are best for parenting on different occasions. Personally, Jax wasn’t a very hard child to raise. Like most children, he had weaknesses and strengths, and they were most academic than anything else. He was really good at reading from a young age due to my constantly reading to him. Also, as he grew older, he picked up a love for writing. However, His weakness was more so math and science; even after we got him a tutor, he still managed to not enjoy it, and it continued being one of his weaknesses.

During the infancy stage, Jax was doing well; he was being breastfed and showed signs of good motor development. By the time he was 8-9 months old, I had noticed he was able to eat different baby food, and he even started to crawl. However, according to Thomas and Chess’s classic temperamental categories, Jax was slow to warm up because he is quick to warm up to friendly faces however cries when in total strangers. With Thomas and Chess’s theory, a slow-to-warm-up child has low adaptability. As Jax started hitting the 12-15 month mark, I noticed that little Jax started becoming interested in his environment. He started playing with his toys more at this point, and he would push down his toys in the tub to see if they would float back up.

Towards the 2-year stage of Jax’s life, I started to see a lot of change and influence from his environment. At this point, Jax turns into a big brother, and he handles it as well as he can. He started becoming more selfish, not sharing, and would get mad pretty quickly; overall, I believe this was due to the traditional parenting style that I was using at that point in his life. I was using the John Watson idea of letting the children cry it out, which was definitely, in my child’s case, not working. By the age of 3, I began realizing that having him engage in healthier behavior was more beneficial to him, so having him focus more and enhance his motor skills. The development of my child was okay at that point. Being more open with him and talking more to him opened me up to talking and describing things to his best ability.

Also, since, at this point, I was still using the traditional parenting pattern, Jax didn’t really understand who was ‘in charge”. I noticed that Jax had a difficult time adapting to social situations at 3/4 years old. Towards Jax’s preschool to school age, Jax was still very attached to me. According to my virtual child website, he was tested on the verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, and it showed that Jax was below average for math and science and slightly above average for verbal and reading. This was when we decided that he needed a tutor. This seemed to encourage him to try harder. As he kept getting older, he started doing better; his math and science scores increased, and he was beginning to do better with time management.

Starting high school for Jax wasn’t too hard for both him or me. He began getting more creative at this stage since I was always encouraging him and keeping up his self-esteem. Jax’s ability to socialize has always been pretty good, but in high school, it improved even more. He would always come home and tell me about his day, and I believe that being more authoritative with him made him more comfortable with communicating with me. This also had a big impact on his choices of substance abuse which, with Jax, I didn’t have to worry about because, being consistent with my parenting, he seemed to stay away from it even though his peers were infatuated with it. Just as high school graduation approached for Jax, he got accepted to in-state colleges. He decided to take a year off and work to earn money for college, which to me, showed his ability to become a responsible young adult.

I noticed that Jax’s attachment development towards me was more ambivalent and insecure because he started showing separation anxiety when I would not around him as a preschooler. According to the website, Jax was uncertain about being in a group of children and observed them before joining. After a while, he latched on to a couple of the other children and had a good time. By the end of the session, they were smiling and imitating each other. This continued till about he became a school-age child. The main causes of this were one, I was working, and after Jax turned 2 having another baby made him feel less secure.

Also, in the beginning, using the Watson idea of letting the child cry it out instead of responding wasn’t working in my house (Heath, 2018). He would cry a little, and either my virtual husband or I would pick him up when it got extreme, so I think he picked up on that. Maybe if we were consistent with it, then maybe Jax would have a better-secured attachment with me. As mentioned before, my parenting style was more traditional, and I did notice that it didn’t work well with Jax. Instead, I slowly started changing that style into more of an authoritative pattern. As Jax entered his teenage years, his attachment grew more secure with his father and me. I saw a big improvement in his behaviors after the change of parenting pattern, and we finally got to establish a stable schedule with him.

My parenting style has affected my current style with my child because I grew up more traditional, and I don’t feel like it was a bad approach but more so that times have changed, and children need to be spoken to because they are learning. One example would be that he is asking more questions and is more interested in things that aren’t toys. Another example would be that he is more open to speaking and retelling the story in a way that he understands. I think that Jax is spoiled and shy. He is resilient and used to getting his way at home most of the time. Also, he is shy and doesn’t like to make new friends unless he is very comfortable. Like he only has two friends, and he has a hard time adapting to the other children just yet. Being raised more traditionally, I believe that it influenced some decisions that I made with Jax because I experienced the actual parenting style, and I don’t think I turned out too bad.

However, the difference was that I was also luckier to be educated on the types of styles that work best for children. As mentioned in the textbook, the most effective parenting style was authoritative, and at the beginning of the semester, before I actually knew the cause and effects of each parenting parent, I would’ve disagreed (Heath, 2018). However, now that I see how effective it was with Jax, my virtual child, I aim to use the same approach with my real future children. This is always where I would like to mention that after experiencing this whole child development process if I was to have a child, I would stick with the consistent, authoritative parenting style. According to if I would do anything differently with my virtual child Jax, it would be to be authoritative from the very beginning. Although that sounds like a perfect life, I’m glad that I got to experience the shift of behavior due to parenting patterns. One thing that I learned from this entire course was that every child has different needs, and as long as you are consistent with your child that things usually turn out for the better as they grow. 

After analyzing practices that I’ve used and or learned, I see that it is very important to establish a good secure attachment from Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s theory. The reason is that I feel like if I established a consistent attachment with my child and husband that things would be different, as in he could’ve prevailed in more than just writing and reading. I’m glad that I stayed away from John Watson’s idea of questioning the autocratic parent when I experienced it with my virtual child and how much it caused an improvement in school and at home with Jax. He also learned morals after me, as his mother became more autocratic instead of non-autocratic. For me to continue using the belief of children being passive learners as what Piaget and Vygotsky would agree on could actually be beneficial.

I feel like after taking Jax to the library and the museums; it didn’t really make a huge difference. Instead, getting him someone that understood the concepts he was trying to learn and directly instructing those concepts to him actually benefitted him, especially when it was time to take his SATs. After I said that, I don’t believe that one theory is superior to another; instead of that, combining theories causes work for child development for both the parent and child. The social learning theory is a theory that I do expect to rely on just because it has been shown that children learn from their environment, and we all know that once you say one bad word, they absorb it so quickly and begin to repeat it. As I believe that this theory has some truth to it because with Jax, I would read to him since he was in my belly, and we continued the nightly readings up until his adolescent stage. His loving and excelling in reading and verbal exams and tests proved to me that children learning from observation are actually beneficial.

Something that I would love to add to reflect on my virtual child experience is that I wish that there was an option or that I got the option to raise two kids with different needs and if I would change parenting styles between the children or if I would stay the same for both, and how this would affect each of my children. Another thing that I would like to mention that I learned was that not one age is more important than another. The reason I say this is because after actually raising my child, I noticed that there were key components in each stage and that it affected the next stage and on. I underwent some experiences that I probably wouldn’t have gone through if I was doing things differently with Jax. Also, I would like to point out that I am actually really proud of how my child turned out.

Something that I would love to add to reflect on my virtual child experience is that I wish that there was an option or that I got the option to raise two kids with different needs and if I would change parenting styles between the children or if I would stay the same for both, and how this would affect each of my children.

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