Baby Book PSY5C.02 Alice Oh
~Section 1. Prenatal Development~ Overall, my mother enjoyed her pregnancy as she had no morning sickness let alone no postpartum depression - very good baby I was! Since I was her first baby, my mother did her best to have a natural delivery instead of cesarean. As my mother believed that babies suffer more than mothers inside womb, she wanted to go through the same birth pain by having natural delivery without any injection to reduce pain. She mentioned that the pain was well rewarded when she saw me first time in this world - the happiest person she was!
오정민 OH Jung Min : honest and united 오유경 OH Yookyung : kind, gentle and shiny Someone who is kind and gently shine to give a hope to everyone like sunshine. To have a kind daughter who gives a hope to everyone, my parents chose 오유경 OH Yookyung for me.
My mother stopped working for Cathay Pacific after 1 month pregnancy and took 1 year maternity leave. As my mother has a license as a nutritionist, she only chose good diet like healthy, fresh and natural ingredient as well as taking daily breathing and stretching exercise course for pregnant women let alone listening classical music for unborn baby - me! At the same time, she took a lot of classes like cooking class for good diet, Japanese language class, swimming class and photography class in order to have healthy and versatile baby!
~Section 2. Birth and Care for Newborn~ Umbiliced cord was around my neck when I was born. As such, my doctor had to untangle the cord first. Then put me upside down and patted me gently so that I could cry for this new world! My mother was in labor for 9 hours starting from 7 a.m. till 4 p.m. It was 4:12 p.m. by the time I was born. There was the biggest merger ever happened in Americs between Time Warner and AOL.
I was more attached to my mom although my mom was not at home frequently due to her job. I cried a lot as a child when my mom left home. In Ainsworth's attachment theory, I was securely attached to my mom. I used to be upset when my mother departed and was happy when my mom returned. According to my mom, I explored freely with my mom around me. She said I was able to adapt into the environment without her, but it took some time for me to settle down.
~Section 3. Development of self ~ Nature 1) Thinking too much (Keeping all thoughts) 2) Dimple when smiling
Nurture 1) Relatively quiet 2) Calm
The nature elements of myself is that I think too much. More specifically, I kept every thoughts in my heart since I was young. Another nature element is physical characteristic that I have a dimple when smiling. My nurture element is that I'm relatively quiet and calm. As a child, I moved to my aunt's house since both of my parents were busy with thier jobs. Since all of my aunt's family members were all quiet, I learned from the environment that I should be quiet and calm. As a child, I cried quite often and each time, my uncle got angry. So, I developed my personality to be calm. Unlike my parents, my aunt's family nurtured me in an authoritarian parenting style. Due to their parenting style, I learned to behave properly. Every weekend, I went out to play with my parents. My parents had authoritative parenting style. My mom always tried to make me understand the reason why I should behave in certain ways. We had many family discussion and my mom loved me to suggest my ideas when we were making some rules.
When I was a toddler, I was very a happy child. I was really outgoing and I smiled for most of the time. As a toddler, my personality type was ENTJ. My family suggested me to become a news announcer. After spending about 12 years in my aunt’s house, I became very quiet and my personality changed to be ISTJ. My teachers in Korea told me that I was too quiet. After I moved to Hong Kong, my personality changed to be ESFJ as I started to participate to the society and involve service and leadership opportunities.
ESFJ aligned with my current personality as I start to like to stay with people more than before. Changing personality brought significant changes for the relationship that I have with people. Since I want to do jobs in global business and management, these personality traits would definitely help me with my future career. Few suggestions are made for ESFJ personality. Some of these jobs are teachers, police officer, hotel manager, public relations manager, and office manager. These jobs are focused primarily on serving the society. I like these jobs and similar to the job that I want, which is international business manager and marketer.
~Section 4. Cognitive Development~ When I went to kindergarten, I started to learn English. From there, we learned through playing. As a kid, it was more interesting and easier to understand.
Learning in this kindergarten experience incorporate the ideas of both Piaget and Vygotsky. As suggested by Piaget's theory of cognitive development, our kindergarten teachers allowed us to learn through playing and feeling. Throughout this learning process, I learned to assimilate and accommodate. All of us had active interactions. Not only learning by playing, we learned through having conversations with teachers, This learning method is supported by Vygotsky's theory. Sometimes, I worked myself or with friends, we were doing some tasks that was difficult for us to do in that age. When I was learning English and Korean in kindergarten, I learned much quicker through playing. This learning method also taught me of human interactions.
These are the pictures of my cousins. They are the people who also influenced me with learning.
My art teacher encouraged me with drawing. This painting was my first piece of art and I won the best prize in a city.
~Section 5. Language Development~ As a baby, I coo and gurgle on the 25th of February. The first word that I said was "mama" when my mother was feeding me at home around 11 to 12 months. Funny sound I made was "Poo- Poo-" which means and indicates that it would rain soon. As a child, I didn't experience any challenges during language formation.
As a child, I really loved to make funny sound or say words that didn't exist.
~Section 6. Social Development~
Although my mom wasn’t staying with me for the whole time, my mom was the most influential person in my life to model. When she was teaching me about how to well-behave, she always maintained the same eye level and had eye contact with her. For example, she was teaching me that I shouldn't leave any food behind as there's always people who are suffering from hunger. She always reminded me that I should be happy with what I have.
As I grow, my mom emphasized the importance of becoming a good human being rather than just focusing on reading books. She wanted me to explore the world and do whatever I want except things that harm others.
In my childhood, I always reminded myself to well-behave. For example, when I went to supermarket, I saw a doll that I want, but I didn't cry to claim that I want it. I think I matured much quicker compared to other kids. In Kohlberg's stages of moral development, I was in between conventional and post-conventional. I think my current moral reasoning is slightly more matured than during my childhood.
In Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, I was struggling in stage four - industry and inferiority. I always thought myself as stupid. I felt very inferior when I first failed my scient test in elementary school. I overcome this challenge by forming study group community within my friends group, and I got good score that brought me confidence.
~Section 7. Adolescence~
This is a picture of myself when I was in elementary school as 12 years old.
"Dear future Alice, I know you tried so hard to get into Hong Kong university and you finally graduated from there. You are now working in a big company as a manager and I can see how hard you're living. You are having successful outcome in your job and you're having happy relationship with people. Keep up your hard work. Your life would be even more successful.
"
From your first supporter, Alice
Currently, I’m at Erikson’s adolescent stage at Identity versus role confusion. Through my junior high and high school years, I met many new people and I had to go through lots of emotional challenges, and thought about who I am. By looking at my peers, I was confused about what should I do in order to be succeeded. By looking at how my friends are succeeding with their school life, I started to set goals that I can achieve for better future. Also, having relationships with people made me to think about my personal values and beliefs.