Analysis of Timothy's Case Study

PSYC 2700
Child Development Case Study Analysis
Capella University
March, 2014

Analysis of Timothy's Case Study

Timothy’s story is about a sequence, or timeline of events showing how being in a certain environment can help shape a child’s development. Timothy’s behavior from the beginning was a perfect example of how children model after their parents or caregiver. He was exposed to violence at a very young age from his parents, and therefore that was how he learned how to express himself. With his parents out of work and in low paying jobs, the whole family was under a lot of stress. Timothy was spanked as a result of them not dealing with their stress in a …show more content…

Once in elementary school, he was not prepared for the structure, social element, or educational level. He had trouble making friends, since he had never had a close attachment to anyone before. By the time he was an adolescent, he still was lacking in friends, and educationally he had fallen behind and as a result had to repeat a grade.
The ecological systems theory was first introduced by Urie Bronfenbrenner. This theory “views the child as developing within a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment.” This theory is broken down into 4 categories; the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. (Berk, 2012) The microsystem is made up of different events and ways of interacting in the child’s closest surroundings. In Timothy’s case, he was a temperamental child, who then received harsh discipline from his parents. Bronfenbrenner believed adults and children influence and effect each other’s actions whether negative or positive. The mesosystem consists of close family, the home, child care and playgrounds. This system exam the relationships made at each of these environments, in conjunction with the actions of the child. Timothy was unable to have healthy close relationships with people in his life. The exosystem is the environment that doesn’t directly affect the child. This could be friends, neighbors, parents’ employment, healthcare, or