During middle childhood, children are able to excel in many aspects of development that they could not have obtained before. Children starting around age seven are able to excel in their learning and cognitive development, like being able to read and enjoy going to school to learn something new. They enjoy being able to practice their new knowledge by practicing it until they get it perfect. By this age, middle school age children are able to direct their attention to a particular situation or objective and ignore everything else; this is also called selective attention, “ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring others.” (Berger, 2011, p.305) Another aspect of middle school age children, are seen to be able to control their actions or thoughts and think about the consequences before doing any given action. This can also be seen as middle school age children, who have major advances in controlling their emotions.
A development that is very important to a middle age child is the ability to use social comparison and compare people to them. During this time, children look towards their peers to compare themselves and start friendships with children that are similar to them. It is also important for the child and their parents, during this time to have a good parent-child relationship. These are all developments that a child should be able to obtain when they reach middle school age and shows that they are on the right track to be able to exceed at their education and function in society. Although it is ideal for every child to be able to grasp these goals, children like Ryan, struggle to be able to master theses skills and start falling behind.
Ryan is a young male, who is eight and is in his middle school age years. He is from a family that is considered to be in a low income family and his mother barely finished college and his dad did not even graduate from high school. Both his parents work all the time, leaving him to not have that much time with them. When they do, they are usually struggling through another night at the kitchen table trying to work on the endless homework that should not take that long to do in the first place. He struggles to be able to sit still and do the work. They go through the repeated cycle of him getting a drink of water, asking random questions, and saying he needs to go to the restroom or he forgot something in his room. This is usually answered with the parents getting frustrated and begins demanding that he sits still and do the work, which usually makes the actions worse. This can also be said for any request from the Ryan’s parents. The environment at home can be reflected into his school environment. His grades and work is poor and usually not completed all the way or is lost, so that it is never turned in. The teacher has to constantly redirect his attention back to the class work or insists that he stays in his seat instead of wondering around the room bothering other children or looking...
