When I was born, I weighed 6 pounds and measured 19 inches. I have no recollection of what I looked like as an infant, but as per my mother, I was a healthy newborn. I was raised in a loving family; both of my parents were present in my life and I also had a two year older brother. …show more content…
My family ended up moving to the United States, and I had a lot of trouble adapting to the new environment. Eventually, I was able to succeed in school. I learned the English language and made a lots of new friends with different cultural backgrounds. Although I was now living in a different country with a different culture, I had my own ethnic identity. I did not think of myself as an American, I only thought of myself as a Puerto Rican, which might be referred to an assimilated ethnic identity status. Between the ages fifteen through seventeen I started to experiment new things in my life. I did not have a clique, but I had around three female friends who were very close to me. One of them was the most extrovert of our group and I was influenced by her in many positive ways, as well as the non-positive ways. I stopped being shy and started to share more with the opposite sex gender. I also began to be romantically involved with different persons and go out with my friends a lot. During this time, I should also mention that my parents also withdraw from church and eventually got divorced. Having all these processes influenced my life in so many ways, after high school, I decided to experiment life away from home and moved with my boyfriend at the …show more content…
Erikson theory emphasizes the importance of social relationships and conscious choice throughout the development of self-identity (Rathus, 2013, p. 12). Similarly, Vygotsky focuses on how the child’s social interaction with adults organizes a child’s learning experience in such a way that the child can obtain cognitive skills (Rathus, 2013, p. 24). Most stages throughout the course of my life have impacted the development of the consequent stages, including my current development. Vygotsky’s theory can be applied to most of my early childhood experiences where I received scaffolding from my mother and brother, which helped me to develop the cognitive skills that have helped me to be what I am today. Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, however, can be applied to each stage that so far I have experienced in my life. Thankfully the first three stages of Erikson’s psychosocial development ranging from the ages 0-5, I successfully developed by gaining trust, self-reliance and initiative. However, in Erikson’s fourth stage during middle childhood, industry vs. inferiority, a child feel the need to win approval by demonstrating specific accomplishments and if this initiative is not encouraged by a parent or teacher it may lead to inferiority. This might be the reason why I was inferior in math during childhood, and still feel inferior in math due to a particular teacher