Infants and Toddlers, Case Study Example

Brian is two years and three months old. He is the only child in the family. His father Tom works as HR manager, thus supporting the family while the child’s mother, Emily, is taking care of their son. Brian has dark brown curly hair of shoulder length, green eyes and father-like forms of face. The boy is thirty-seven inches tall, which is the average height for children of his age. Brian is active and likes playing outdoors. Child is brought up in healthy environment by loving parents, who tend to spend much of their time entertaining their kid. I have chosen this boy because he is very communicative and active. Therefore, I could easily monitor his natural behavior in a family and his interaction with other children.

As children of this age eventually become more confident with their physical abilities, they tend to test their limits. When playing outdoors, Brian is running, jumping, crying loudly, until his mother forbids him. His muscle capabilities pretty much allow child to run and to jump around for up to two hours with no visible fatigue. Brian’s poor muscle capabilities can be observed when the child is drawing. Though he is trying hard, Brian can barely draw strait lines. Moreover, the way he is holds pencils is also unnatural as he bands his palm and grasps them in palm using all five fingers. His muscles still lack accuracy when boy is performing tedious tasks. Brian’s mother keeps her son on healthy diet. Three times per day child eats fruits. During breakfast boy drinks fresh made from either oranges or pineapples. The boy gets up at seven o’clock in the morning and goes to bad at half past eight. He also goes to sleep after dinner for at least one hour. His mother also teaches him how to swim four times per week. What is unusual for his age is that Brian is already pretty good swimmer. Child’s physical growth is advancing comparing to other children of his age.

Brian exposes a vast interest to learning. He cannot read, but looks very concerned when observing pictures in magazines and newspapers and even comments them. By laughing or writhing different grimaces Brian develops his emotions and perception of the world around him. He perfectly understands language and already knows the names for most of the stuff in his room. However, when he is trying to form simple sentences, they are either senseless or hard to understand. Child stammers a little bit and does not pronounce several letters correctly. He shows his interest toward objects by simply taking them and observing. He gets easily distracted, thus he can start drawing for five minutes, stop it and begin playing toys, and in ten minutes take pencils again. He has average cognitive development. For instance, most two-year old children cannot distinguish real things from fantasy. In his drawings Brian usually depicts red people or various kinds of monsters.

Child can already express emotions and easily understand what other people feel. In fact, watching “angry” mother, boy stops doing things that Emily does not like. For instance, when child begins irritating his mother Emily usually does not yell at him, but gives him a serious grin, thus making to stop undesirable behavior at once. Brian perfectly interacts with other children, and offers his toys to other boys, which is rather rare among children of his age. Most kids tend to keep their toys and do not want to share with others. Among children of his age he feels very secure and feels unstressed when playing with them. However, Brian usually stays close to his mother when he sees adults. He is much stressed interacting with strangers, but when he meets person several times the boy becomes relaxed. Overall, Brian looks happy, smiling and laughing all the time. When his mother yells at him, Brian immediately starts crying. Child uses his emotions to make Emily stop yelling and then begins laughing again. Brian is a little bit shy with adults, but this is a norm for two-year old children.

Brian loves his parents and tends to spend a lot of time with them. While other children of his age play together and ignore their parents until they physically take them away, Brian uses to play near his mother. He often comes and gives her some of his toys and takes others back. As the size of this family is small, all care of the parents is centered on Brian. Tom and Emily live together and form an average family. Despite the fact they spend a lot of time with their child, they do not try to affect Brian’s development or provide too much control over the child. There are no unusual conditions that may affect Brian’s normal growth.

This child is advancing over other children of his age in physical and emotional development. He is communicative and opened. Thus, Brian easily makes friends with his siblings and peers. His physical development is essential. The child appears to be pretty strong and endurable taking swimming ‘classes’ with his mother.