Autonomy

Today I finished up a module in my Intro to Psych course about Human Development and Personality. I've collected great photos over the years of our family, especially our nieces and nephews, that provide great visuals of these developmental phases. Let me be clear, family, that I'm not using you as examples of "abnormal" psychology - but using photos that exemplify our changes in our lives! :)

One of the pictures I used in my lecture today was a family favorite from Christmas of 2006, when Sarah was almost 2 years old. She was entering "preoperational" thought - that great time of magical thinking and games of "pretend", and she was in the social stage of development of autonomy, of trying to do things on her own, of her own volition, and doing things for herself. Spencer was also in that preoperational stage, and socially in the stage of initiative, learning to initiate tasks and carry out plans. And Papa, he was in the stage of generativity - where we think about our legacy through our children, grandchildren and community; and perhaps with his cancer diagnosis was even moving into the stage of "integrity" - doing a life review and ending with a sense that all was done that needed to be done. So what does all that psychology speak mean? It means a great memory, captured by our cameras, of a special moment in time. A special Christmas that will be told about for the rest of our lives! A time when an toddler and a preschooler did a rock concert for six adults, transforming their living room into a stage and us into groupies. It means a picture worth more than a MILLION words: