Read this Case Study as part of your W02 Activity. In this activity you will be asked to identify concepts and examples from the theories that you have studied this week.

Background information: 

Lily is a 6 year old female. She lives with her father (age 36) and mother (age 35). Lily has three siblings, ages 9, 4, and 18 months. She was born full-term with no complications during prenatal development or at birth. Lily’s family lives in a suburban neighborhood with easy access to healthcare, education, and outdoor space. Her parents work full-time. Lily attends Bayshore Elementary and is in the 1st grade. She attends school from approximately 8:30am to 3:30pm each day and then is cared for by a nanny in the afternoon hours. In the evening, her family eats dinner together and follows a structured schedule of play time, meal time, and bedtime. One night a week, Lily attends an art class. On the weekends, her family enjoys going on bike rides, visiting parks, stopping at the local library, and making yummy desserts.

Interests: 

Lily loves nature. She enjoys creating habitats for bugs in her backyard. One of her favorite pastimes is to walk to a neighborhood park and collect nature. Lily loves to play pretend with her siblings, especially “restaurant” or “tea party.” In school, Lily enjoys science the most because she gets to “try new things.”

Physical Development:

Lily is the average size of a 6 year old female. She shows no physical disability or limitations.

At the age of 6, Lily runs and plays as expected. Her gross motor skills include: somersaults, skipping, kicking a ball in a sports goal, and swinging by herself. Her fine motor skills include: writing her name, using correct utensils, and cutting out shapes and pictures.

Tying her shoes comes with some difficulty. Some mornings, her dad or mom need to sit next to her and help form the loop for Lily to finish tying. Slowly, Lily is becoming more independent at this task. 

She can often be heard saying, “I can do this all by myself.” At the playground with her peers or siblings, she tends to compare her physical abilities to others. She complains that her older sibling can successfully make it across the monkey bars and she can’t. Lily does tend to focus on her accomplishments when she succeeds at a new physical task. For example, last month, Lily learned to ride her bike with no training wheels. She told the entire neighborhood about it.

Lily struggles with not wetting the bed at night. To help with this behavior, her parents have a chart in her room. If Lily wakes up without wetting the bed, she earns a sticker. Once she reaches 10 stickers in a row, her parents plan a special outing with just Lily. Her last outing was to the library.

Cognitive Development:

Lily loves to learn. Her cognitive development appears to be normal. Currently, Lily is learning to read at school and at home. She worries about the expectations of reading compared to her older sibling. Lily gets worried that her older brother is a better reader than she is, despite the age difference. Her parents support her learning and growth in reading by setting small reading goals. Lily is working hard to complete a set of “learning to read” books. Once she reads them independently, Lily gets to go to the bookstore and pick out a new book.

At school, Lily struggles with expressing her emotions in a safe, appropriate way. She tends to act out with some aggression at certain peers. Lily’s parents believe this behavior started shortly after another child in her class acted out and pushed Lily. Unfortunately, Lily started to push her younger siblings at home. The teacher and parents are working together to help Lily show her emotions in healthy ways.

Last week, Lily became angry at school when Lily told a friend what she was going to give the friend for her birthday. Lily picked out a nice doll and dress up clothes for her friend. However, the friend told Lily that she didn’t like dolls. Lily couldn’t understand why someone couldn’t like dolls. She became upset and pushed her friend.

Psychosocial Development:

For playtime, Lily loves to play with her dolls. When she plays with them, Lily instinctively knows how to care for and nurture the dolls. Lily wants to be a mother when she grows up. Other favorite play activities for Lily include playdough, drawing pictures, and playing pretend with her siblings.

Lily’s relationships with her parents is a positive one. The parenting style mostly used in their home is authoritative. The parents bond with Lily when playing games together as well as reading books together. Lily’s parents care about Lily and her future. They want Lily to succeed into adulthood as a happy individual. Because of this desire, the parents provide the necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing for Lily and her siblings. 

With her siblings, Lily interacts with each one in different ways. Her older brother is nine years old. He and Lily enjoy drawing together. The other day, they both were drawing trees (see images below). Lily drew a picture of a tree with a trunk and green leaves. Her brother drew a tree with a trunk and leaves of red, yellow, and orange. Lily didn’t think her brother’s drawing was a tree. Only after her brother explained it was a tree with changing colors did Lily see how there were more than one type of tree.

Brother’s drawing

With her younger siblings, Lily is protective of them. She wants them to be taken care of and be happy. Lily often is found getting plates and cups out for her 4 year old sister and enjoys feeding her 18 month old brother in his chair. With her 4 year old sister, Lily enjoys playing pretend. She often plays “school” with her and creates worksheets and instructions for her sister to follow. Her 4 year old sister loves to emulate Lily and mimics many of Lily’s behaviors and verbal sayings.

Some rules in her home include: using an inside voice in the house, putting your toys away, saying please and thank you, and helping with chores on Saturday. If Lily does not follow the rules in her home, her parents discipline her. The most common form of discipline is a time out. Lily needs to stay in an area of the house with minimal distractions for 5 minutes. Then the parents have a conversation with Lily about the poor choice and how to fix or change it.

A couple examples of chores in Lily’s life include: putting her clean clothes away, wiping down the bathroom counter, and feeding the cat every day. When Lily completes these chores, she receives extra screen time on the weekends. Once a month, the family has a BIG chore day. Lily’s job on this day is to weed the garden. Her older sibling helps her as this is a big task.