ELEMENTARY YEARS

Middle Childhood

In this photo I was about 9-10 years old. I had just recently moved to a new area in San Diego where I played with my neighbors almost every day. In this stage of my life, I was slowly becoming more independent from my parents and family because I remember I was constantly asking for sleepovers. This was the beginning of my peer over parents influential shift. In addition to creating new friends, I was also meeting more peers at school since I started attending a new elementary school. My microsystem was expanding to include the new neighborhood and people I met. 

In this photo, my mother was in Colombia with my baby sister, so I assumed a "motherly" role. I think this is when I learned to be less egocentric and more aware of others' feelings because I had to take care of my two younger brothers to help my father. As Piaget would say, I was going through the concrete operational stage because I was able to grasp the concept that I'd need to help my parents out. My father took my brothers and I on a road trip up north to visit the national parks, and we were fortunate enough to ride this helicopter, as seen in the photo, over the Grand Canyon. I remember at the Grand Canyon, there was a floor made out of glass which freaked me out. However, because I was aware of conservation at this age, I was able to step on the glass platform knowing that it was a surface.