Observation Paper #4

Class/section: FHS 1500-001

Your Name: Emma Anglin
Assignment: Observation 4

Background Information
Childs age: Adolescent (13-18 years)
Fictitious name: Sarah (this is not the teens real name)
Location: Kearns Fitness Center
Brief I interviewed one of my coworkers. I dont work with her too often so I dont
Description: know very much about her, which I thought was perfect for this observation.
I asked her a variety of questions about her life as a teen.

Physical Development

Sarah is a 16 year old Caucasian female who is 55 inches tall and

roughly 115 pounds. Sarah has blonde hair and brown eyes. Based on her
physical appearance alone, she seems like a typical teenage girl. Sarah was
born in Washington and moved here to Utah when she was 11 years old. She
is currently a junior in high school and is on her schools soccer team.

One thing that I wanted to focus on with Sarah is her sleep habits. As
an active teenage athlete, sleep is a very important part of her health. Sarah
told me that on an average school night she gets anywhere from about 5-6
hours of sleep. It is recommended that teens get at least 7-9 hours of sleep
each night, so Sarah is falling just short of the recommended amount. On the
contrary, Sarah said on the weekends she gets about 9 or 10 hours of sleep.
According to circadian, this is not healthy. Many rhythms are circadian,
which means they are on a daily cycle. That is why well-rested people tend
to wake up at the same time on the weekends as during the week and they
also get sleepy at the same time every night (Berger, 2016, p.318). In class,
we made a chart of how awake we are throughout the day, and I had Sarah
do the same thing. According to Sarahs chart, she starts the day pretty
sleepy but wakes up by about 8:00 am and then slowly gets more tired
throughout the day but totally dropping by about 2:00 or 3:00. I think this is
pretty normal for most teens, but certainly not healthy.

After getting to know Sarah more I began to ask her about

menstruation. We began by talking about her peers but she quickly opened
up about her own experience. For the most part, Sarah started puberty at
about the same time as her peers. She was in 8th grade when she began
puberty. (Berger, 2016 p.316 (chart)) She actually said that her and her best
friend started within about a month of each other, so they went through it
together.

Cognitive Development
I asked Sarah about her schooling experience and her grades, and she
told me that she has always done very well in school and has always gotten
good grades. I then asked her if she actually enjoyed going to school, her
response was an outstanding yes! She told me that her parents had always
expected her to have good grades, but they didnt force it. This made her
make the decision to want to do well in school. She said she didnt want to
disappoint her parents, so she became very interested and invested in it and
ultimately ended up really enjoying school.

I also asked Sarah about the invincibility fable by asking her if she has
ever done any risky challenges either by herself or with her peers. The
invincibility fable is the idea that they cannot be harmed by anything
dangerous. She said that she has done the cinnamon challenge and the
saltine cracker challenge. I asked her why she did it and what the aftermath
was. She said her and her friends did it because it looked fun and everyone
else was doing it. In a way, she kind of fell into peer pressure in this
situation. She said that afterwards she felt very sick and dumb for even
doing the challenge, and then said that she figured nothing bad would really
happen or else other people wouldnt be doing it. (Berger, 2016, p.330)

I also asked her about things regarding the imaginary fable, the idea
that everyone is watching and judging you. I asked her if she is ever self-
conscious about herself and her actions. She immediately said yes and felt
like she was constantly being judged for the things she said and wore. She
never had any proof that people were actually judging her. It was most likely
all in her head, which is exactly what the imaginary fable is all about.
(Berger, 2016, p.330)

Social/Emotional Development

The two questions I asked Sarah regarding her social/emotional

development were about her religious views and future career choice. Sarah
grew up in a Christian religion while she lived in Washington. When she
moved to Utah and made some new friends, her religious views changed.
She explained to me that most of her new friends that she made are LDS.
She explained that it was sort of difficult to be their friend and not have the
same religious views. She has started to become more interested in that
religion because of her friends, but this has caused some drama with her
parents. When she decided to become more involved in her friends religion,
her parents were very upset with her. She said that she never really talked to
them face to face about it, but that she knew they were upset. She got the
impression that they were disappointed she wasnt following their ways and
she was kind of conflicted for a long time.

When I asked Sarah what she wanted her career to be she hesitated
and couldnt really answer. No teenager can realistically choose among the
tens of thousands of careers available today; most adults change vocations
(not just employers) many times (Berger, 20016, p. 354). After taking some
time to think, she said that she probably wants to go into nursing because
two of her best friends are doing that. She went on to explain that going into
the same career as her friends would just be fun. She had no real, rational
reasoning for why she personally wanted to become a nurse.
An overall impression that I got of Sarah is that she allows her
friends/peers to control her thoughts, actions, beliefs, wants and decisions. I
believe that this is actually very common for most teens, and Sarah is
definitely not the only one who has fallen into this category.

Reference List

Berger, K. S. (2016). Invitation to the life span (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.