17 years - 18 years 1 month

1. As the program ends, what pathways does your child appear to be on in terms of physical, cognitive, social, emotional and moral development? To what extent could you have predicted these pathways based on what you knew of your child's earlier development?
Not to brag or anything, but the pathways that Peyton is on are great. Physically, Peyton wants to eat healthy and stay in shape. Socially, Peyton did stumble a couple of times with experimenting with sex, drugs, and alcohol, but each of these things only happened once. She also has good stable friends and has always been great with talking to people. Emotionally, she is doing well, I believe she is happy and enjoys life; she does have her ups and downs, but then again, who doesn’t. Her morals I think reflect my own morals and beliefs, we have a good relationship and she is able to talk to me about things whether she’s happy about it or upset or sad. Overall, I think Peyton is doing great and if she wants to move then I believe she’s ready.

2. Describe some specific ways in which you think your parenting mattered for your child’s development, based on evidence from the course regarding the contributions of parents to child development.
There are many different times I can think of that my parenting mattered in my child’s development. I think the most important thing I did was stayed consistent when disciplining her. There was one time when Peyton was around 14 years old and she noticed I was being inconsistent and she was using it against me. So I realized that staying consistent with her is very important. I rarely had a lot of trouble with her not listening to me. Also I believe that I helped her not be so shy. When she was an infant and toddler she was a little too attached to me so I realized I needed to socialize her a little bit more, so I put her in a daycare and she ended up making lots of friends. I encouraged her to bring over her friends, not only to have fun, but it was also a chance to meet her friends and their parents then I know what kind of friends she was making. There was another time when Peyton was 16 and she was experimenting with drugs or so I suspected, she smelled of marijuana one night and she told me she didn’t have any, but even though she said she didn’t have any there were signs that said otherwise. I grounded her for two weeks along with taking away driving privileges; I never had another problem with her experimenting with drugs again; however, when she was 17 she got drunk and called me up to come pick her up. I stayed consistent with her and grounded her and took away driving privileges along with giving her the trust talk and I never had to deal with that again.

3. Describe some specific ways in which your child developed that appeared to be influenced by factors outside your control, such as genes, random environmental events or the general influence of contemporary middle-class American culture.
There were several times that genes or environmental events have come into play. When Peyton was younger she was very shy and sometimes had a temper. When I was younger I was very shy, I believe she got that from me. My ex-husband had a temper when he was younger and when I was married to him, and I believe Peyton got her temper from him. However, I helped her overcome these genetic quirks. There was another time that my ex-husband and I were going through our separation and Peyton was acting out. She was talking back, arguing, not listening and very mad, but because Peyton and I have a good relationship we talked about it and she changed her attitude and actions. There weren’t too many occasions to where genes or random environmental events took play in Peyton’s life. I think I got very fortunate.