Who Am I? Developing a Sense of Self

Monique, the author of our first entry on chapter 7, loved Barney when she was a little girl -- can you tell?! She has connected her experiences with that purple dinosaur to the chapter information, and I think you'll enjoy her insight.

When I was in grade school, I remember being told that I was a bright person and that if I earned good grades, I would succeed at what ever it was that I set out to achieve. The encouragement and support that I received motivated me to do well in my studies. Did it work? Yes. I did make it far academically. The motivation and support I received are what helped me stay focused. Do I believe that my family’s encouragement helped me cognitively? Not directly. If I am taking a test their support would not help me to answer those questions correctly. Their support would, however, encourage me to study hard so that I could answer the questions correctly. All of these accomplishments were achieved through studying and doing homework. How well I understood the subject and how much I understood the material is what earned me those answers or grades. If I do not comprehend the material that is given to me, it does not matter how many times someone tells me that I am intelligent, I am not going to excel in that category. I have seen firsthand that when a child receives poor grades, it is automatically assumed that the parent is not stepping up to the plate and playing their role.

Children are different and they learn at different levels. When outside sources put added pressure on the child and the parents, the child comes to feel inadequate, and the parents begin to feel that they also are incompetent to properly guide their children. In the book, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff state that parents act as if they are the sculptors of their children’s character and self-concept, they strive to be perfect, and they believe that any shortcoming their child undergoes must be their fault. Furthermore, parents believe that if they praise their children for their intelligence, they will have children who will excel academically. I agree with the book that praise for intelligence works paradoxically. Praising children for their intelligence can cause children to become conservative learners who are afraid to push themselves to the limit when they understand that there is always a possibility of failure.

Before reading this chapter, I was unaware that babies develop self-concept from birth. I am not surprised that it does not take literacy-based toys or classes for development to take place. All it takes is everyday life experiences. I am convinced that when and if I ever have children, that playing with them and talking to them will be the best way for them to develop a sense of themselves.

In a sociology course that I took, I became familiar with the fact that gender begins in the cradle, and even before a baby is ever born. I know that in my family when the gender of the baby is announced, our family goes shopping. If it’s a boy, we’re buying blue blankets, strollers, clothing, etc. If it’s a girl the same rules apply: We are shopping for pink outfits, nursery designs, booties and bottles, and so forth.

The book is suggesting that our gender identity is shaped before we can speak for ourselves. I agree, but in my own childhood I remember things a bit differently. I was one of those children who was all for Barney. I had to have everything Barney. My room was Barney, my stuffed animals were Barney, and my bathroom was Barney. Although there was Baby Bop (the female Dinosaur), I preferred Barney. A question I asked my dad before writing this paper was, “Did I choose to have Barney, or did you all make my room to be Barney for me”? According to my dad, I liked Barney and I wanted it to be Barney. The book’s suggestion that parents are the purchasers and the outfitters that decorate their children’s rooms with many sex specific items, does not apply to my childhood situation. I am curious to find out what was happening during that stage of my development. Clearly, Barney is the male Dinosaur and Baby Bop is the female Dinosaur. However, I also had Barbie dolls, toys, and play houses. I had a boy-gendered bedroom with tons of Barbie dolls, cars, and houses.

When it came to my racial identity as a child, I was very confused. I agree with Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff that there is no off-the-shelf training program to speed this process up. It was not until I was older in age when I would identify as just an African American. It was hard for me because I was a biracial child who looked different from everyone else around me in my family. My dad raised me and he is African American, I had no connection to my Filipino culture at all, and there were always people asking questions about my ethnicity. My hair was a different texture from my cousins, and this was really confusing to me as a child. When kids at school asked me what ethnicity I was, I would say “Black,” but I had no way of explaining why my hair was so fine, curly, and very different from the other black children in the class. My grandma would comfort me the most during these times. She helped with my upbringing, so I always received the nurture and support that I needed. I was also the first grandbaby in the family, so I was highly spoiled. I suppose this nurturing helped me form my easy going temperament as it is described in the book. Grandma would sit me on her lap and we would talk and play, and just have a jolly good time.

The book describes emotional regulation as the strategies we use to adjust our emotional capacity to continue our livelihood. For example, if I was being read a book and there was a boy in the book who fell off of his bike and began to cry, I would say the boy is sad. I would use these techniques at the daycare I worked at. Asking questions about the emotions and acting them out is a helpful way to engage the children about how to express their emotions. After reading this chapter, I have come to the conclusion that in order for a child to reach their peak of intellectual development, parents should engage in play with the child, nurture the child, and accept academic achievement as a process, and not as the validation of their ability.
Not Barney