Monthly Archives: August 2018

Spotlight Post 1

--Original published at CatherinesCollegeBlog

The debate about divorce has become more popular in the US ever since the rise of divorce rates. Some believe children of divorce face no real consequences from their circumstances while others argue that divorce seriously harms the children involved.

According to Marripedia, an online encyclopedia of social science, divorce is incredibly harmful to the children of parents who split. Divorce affects all aspects of children’s health, beginning with their physical health. Children with divorced parents are more prone to reckless injuries and are at an increased risk of developing asthma. They are also more likely to engage in harmful tobacco use and alcohol abuse, which puts them at an increased risk for premature death. When the divorce occurs while the children are younger than 21, there is a 44 percent increase of mortality risk. Their psychological stability is also weakened as a result, as these children more commonly experience emotional and behavioral problems, negative feelings, high anxiety, and low self-esteem. Children watching their parents get divorced may regress back to behaviors of young kids they should have grown out of, such as bedwetting. Older children choose to look for intimacy elsewhere when their parents are not providing that support, which often leads to irresponsible sexual activity much too early on in their lives. A recent Finnish study found that sons of divorce especially experienced more conflict with supervisors and teachers, while daughters of divorce had interpersonal troubles later on in life.

An article from Psychology Today titled “Divorce Hurts Children, Even Grown Ones” also supports this side of the debate. Many children of divorce feel they are to blame for the conflict between their parents. This personal guilt is related to a loss of motivation for other aspects of life. Children may stop studying in an effort to rebel against the recent disruption in their family unit. They may become embarrassed about their home life and opt out of inviting friends over, which eliminates a helpful social outlet for children. With only one parent present after the divorce, a child’s ability to attend extracurricular activities will be more limited with the limited availability of the single parent. When one of their parents leaves, the relationships these children have with them are harmed and they are no longer being as carefully disciplined as before. These children also lose the relatives attached to the parent they lose contact with, which can be very upsetting. Some may argue that self actualization is a valid reason for adults to leave marriages, as they will be happier elsewhere. This article states the selfishness of parents who pursue this option because their children will grow up and go into a marriage thinking it is acceptable to eventually leave it. Children of divorce especially have trouble trusting people in the future and developing stable relationships, leading them to be more inclined to divorce as well.

An article from Scientific American titled “Is Divorce Bad for Children?” argues that children can endure divorce without any serious consequences. A 25-year study showed that only about 25 percent of children with divorced parents were still experiencing negative effects in their adult lives from the experience. This article points out that ten percent of children whose parents stayed married still grew up with emotional and behavioral problems. The short term negative effects mentioned earlier, like anger and anxiety, tend to disappear after the first couple of years. It helps when the parents are relatively open about any fighting, conflict, and unhappiness they are feeling in the time leading up to the divorce. The children may actually be relieved for themselves and even their parents that all the fighting and unhappiness is finally over. Children also respond more positively to a divorce when their parents fully answer any questions they may have about what exactly is happening to their family dynamic. Parents should, however, try to minimize the amount of exposure their children face with the divorce process, particularly the legal side that involves attending court dates and such.

Another article from Psychology Today titled “Yes, You Can Raise Happy Children After Divorce” agrees that children eventually recover from the initial shock of divorce. The article found that approximately 80 percent of children eventually move on from the divorce of their parents, supporting the argument that the majority are not facing serious consequences. This majority group of children grow up to be just as happy and successful without the traditional family setting many people once believed was an absolute requirement. Regardless of whether or not their parents get divorced, children do best when they have established solid relationships with each of their parents. Children just need this, as well as emotionally stable parents who are not distracted with relationship conflict, in order to move past the divorce. These ideals can be accomplished without parents actually being married and living together. The marriage is not necessarily what matters most to the well being of a child. Quality relationships and quality time with their parents are the most important, alongside having their basic necessities fulfilled.

I believe with this side of the debate, arguing that children are able to overcome the divorce of their parents. As nice as it may be to have parents who are happily married, I think it is just as good for a child to have two parents who are happily separated. Children are initially more worried about their immediate needs, like attention, support, food, shelter, love, and happiness. Single parents are just as capable of providing these things for their children as married parents are. Even if a child only has one of the two parents providing these things, this may benefit the relationship between that sole parent and his or her child even further. The problems associated with divorce may actually just be a result of how the parents are handling the split with their children, not the actual separation itself. Marripedia is credible as a source for this blog post because encyclopedias are known for providing factual information. Scientific American is credible because the articles reference legitimate scientific research and evidence-based studies. Psychology Today is credible for the same reason, despite the tendency to include certain biases about the topic being discussed. There is still factual information included in the articles regarding the scientific studies they reference, so readers must simply ignore the bias when trying to develop their own opinions and conclusions about the topic.

http://marripedia.org/effects_of_divorce_on_children_s_health

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teenage-mind/201110/divorce-hurts-children-even-grown-ones

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-divorce-bad-for-children/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/splitopia/201503/yes-you-can-raise-happy-children-after-divorce

Chapter 3

--Original published at Loretta Gabrielle

For this chapters prompt I picked option 4 regarding how college students sleep. When looking at my own sleeping habits in college I have several things to prioritize. With classes, volunteering, work, social life, and playing a sport, my sleep habits normally suffer as a result. This coming semester I have 5 classes to take equaling 20 credits. I have three business classes and two intensive social work classes. Part of my social work requirement is 40 hour service learning for the fall semester. To try and have a healthy sleeping schedule I have organized my service learning for before I begin practice for winter track. I have myself finishing my volunteering in the first 5-6 weeks of the school year. This will help with maintaining my schedule. The majority of my classes are on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s which is also when I work. I will be working or in class for roughly 12 hours on those days while I have service learning on M and W along with only 1 class. On these days I will be able to accomplish all the work I need for the current week along with the following week. My social work classes are pretty good with having set assignments where business has several ‘pop-up’ work which is hard to plan for in advance. Knowing this, I am able to prioritize and have my homework for my social work class completed for two weeks ahead of schedule. When my work is completed I can focus on working out, work, social life, and this balances my sleeping schedule. For this semester I am striving to get 6.5-8 hours a sleep a night.

Currently I am working a lot. I have work normally from 7:15-6 and either come home and work on psychology homework or go straight to babysitting. I have already taken one summer class and the balancing with statistics was easier to manage but it also led to mild procrastination since I didn’t have to complete homework until 11:59 as it was due at midnight every other day. My sleep schedule for the summer has me aim to get 8 hours of sleep a night. I normally come home from work, eat quickly, do my homework for the next day, shower, finish my homework and study, and aim to go to sleep around 10 and wake up at 6am. The system I had at the beginning of the summer had me sleeping 8 hours every day and I am currently adjusting to it now.

This coming semester I hope to reach my goal of 6.5-8 hours of sleep per night since there is a large difference I notice when I don’t. The major notice I feel is struggling to wake up. Sometimes I get to go to sleep at 9:30 rather than 10 and it is a huge difference similarly to if I go to sleep at 11pm rather than 10. I also find that napping may help but I try to avoid it so I can accomplish my work early and then go to sleep earlier rather than procrastinating work in general by napping.

Chapter 3 First Impression Post

--Original published at CatherinesCollegeBlog

I chose option four about college students and their sleeping habits for this post. My sleep habits have changed since I started college, at first becoming much worse, but then improving exponentially. During the first few months of my freshman year, I took some time getting used to the amount of work and activities I had to somehow fit into each day. Since I am on the women’s soccer team for our school, right from the start I had to balance practices and games with classes and clubs and my social life. It was difficult at first, as it seemed that I never left enough time for myself to complete the amount of work or studying I wanted to for my classes. In order to finish assignments and study to a point of confidence in the material, I would stay up too late, sometimes even all night. I definitely saw the negative effects that sleep deprivation had on my body, my energy, my patience, and my capacity to learn during class those days after getting no sleep. A few times the exhaustion was so extreme that I would become sick because my body did not receive enough time the night before to recover and prepare for the next day. I realized I would not be able to last with these habits for the rest of my college career so I made some minor changes that made the biggest difference. Since time management seemed to be an issue in terms of completing coursework on time, I tried to organize my classes and their assignments into a planner. This allowed me to see when my busiest days or weeks were going to be, which helped with planning my other activities. Laying out all of my coursework in an organized calendar helped me recognize exactly how much time I would be able to devote to certain assignments, especially when I had soccer practice or club meetings labeled on that same calendar to show my entire schedule. I also placed more of an emphasis on getting the sleep I needed. My soccer coach consistently emphasizes that we must get at least eight hours of sleep each night, so I made this a priority. I continued to remind myself about how much worse I would feel the next day or two after a night of no sleep, and that it was not worth it to stress about a small assignment or hang out with friends for just another hour. Without enough sleep, I am practically useless the next day. I have no motivation to participate in class, my coordination is off during practice, I have very little patience with friends, and my overall energy is lacking. These consequences from a lack of sleep were just not worth it to me. I believe that with enough prior planning, eight hours of sleep per night is a realistic goal for college students. There will still be those occasional nights when perhaps a professor surprises the class with a quiz the next day that they now must prepare for. I think it is important to just remember the importance of physical and mental health, and to make sure these aspects are not compromised repeatedly because of assignments that do not make that much of a difference in the long run.

Chapter 8 First Impression Post

--Original published at Jenna'sPSY105blog

For this week’s first impression post, I decided to do option one about study habits. When assessing my study habits, I definitely excel in some areas, but there is also a lot of room for improvement.

I have a crazy good memory- I always have. Now I admit, it was a lot better when I was younger. As a child I had a photographic memory. I could look at something and take a mental picture of it and never forget it. As I got older, that ability kind of went away, but not completely. There are things about my childhood that I vividly remember, and a lot of times when looking back at past events, I can remember the super intricate details of it- down to what clothes people were wearing that day. This skill comes in handy when I study. For example, when I read through textbooks or take notes, if I eventually need to look back at a piece of information, a lot of times I can picture what the page I wrote/read it on looks like (what is around it, pictures, location on the page, etc.) so that it is easy for me to refer back to it. This is also useful for tests because if it sounds like something I read or wrote, a lot of times I can picture it in my head and I can remember it. The photographic memory, or just good memory in general, also translates when studying with flashcards, which is a method of studying I really like. It is easy for me to memorize what is on each flashcard, so I can retain information better when studying.

This skill, while proven to be very useful, sometimes does more harm than good. I can become too overly confident that I know enough of the information and I don’t need to study anymore. I get to the point where I have memorized what is on the back of each flashcard verbatim and I just associate the definition with the word so that three words in I know which answer it is. And for my notes, I read them over and over again until they have stuck in my brain. But when I get to the tests, the wording of the question isn’t always the same as my notes or the book, or it’s an application question, and I’m stuck not knowing the answer. This really hurt me freshman year when I was taking molecular biology because almost none of the test questions were knowledge-based.

These are the things that I did and the mistakes I made when studying for the first exam in this class. I read over my notes over and over again until I felt I knew all of the information, and I read over some Quizlets that I eventually had memorized all of the answers too. For the next exam, I would like to be better prepared and do some things differently. For starters, I need to take notes from the book too, because right now I’m just reading it and then watching the lectures and taking notes on them. Also, I would like to test myself more to really make sure I can answer questions. At the end of each chapter in the book, there are key concepts and a few sample questions that I can refer to that will maybe help. Hopefully these changes in my studying habits instead of just memorizing will benefit me and translate on the next exam!