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Learning From the Past Sarah Trump Loras CollegeAbstract Throughout my adolescent lifespan I first experienced what it was like to be different at an early age, this led me to learn that everyone develops at a different time. Learning this at such an early age in life made it easier for me to understand that everyone is different and that there is no set age and time that something has to happen. Throughout the years I have learned that you learn through the experiences that you have. There are both positive and negative consequences to experiences but it is how I looked at it and decide what needed to change that made me into the type of person that I am today. If I could go back and change anything that happened in the past, I would not change a thing because I am happy with who I am and how far I have come. The traits that I have learned from these few experiences that I share have been the experiences that will help guide me in the social work profession in the future. I am not afraid to say that I have made mistakes, but I am proud to say that I have grown and learned from the mistakes I have made. As a young kid I always looked forward to the day that I would become more mature and be like my older sister. Unfortunately for me, this day was much later than other girls my age. While my friends that were the same age as I was seemed to be maturing and changing in about 5th or 6th grade, I did not experience these stages until about 7th grade. For me at the time this was sad and emotional because all I wanted was to be like the other girls and I did not understand why my body was taking so much longer to develop. It was not until my mother explained to me that girls that participate in sports at a young age tend to get their periods later because of hormones and amount of stress that we put on our bodies. I felt different from all the other girls because while they were all developing and looking older I still thought I looked like a little kid. This time in my life has had the biggest impact on who I am today because of the changes that I went through in this stage. When I finally got my period in 7th grade, it did not take long for me to realize that I was not missing out on anything for the couple of years that my friends had theirs and I did not. My body started changing from somewhat thin to fat and my acne started to get extremely bad. Even being an athlete all year round my weight sky rocketed at this time. My nutrition was terrible, and all I ate was fast food. My acne was out of control and I did not know what to do about it. Luckily, the acne started to get better and my weight has finally equaled out over the years of puberty. Fortunately, I had just enough time to control these physical appearances before I was on my way to high school because high school brought on many more challenges for me to tackle. While I went to the same high school with many of the same kids that I went to grade school with, I set out to meet new friends. For me this was not that hard because I am a very social person and like to talk to anyone. I was really into sports and played volleyball, basketball and soccer. Being involved in sports really made it easy for me to meet friends that had the same interests that I had. It was easy for me to talk to guys because I was a huge tomboy. Sports are luckily a cross gender topic so I always had a lot to talk about with boys. It was not the friendships that I had a hard time with in high school it was the stress that was put on student athletes in the classroom. The amount of pressure by my parents and coaches to be a “straight A” student and outstanding athlete was a lot to handle. It just seemed like I could not to both it was either one or the other and this was not good enough. In addition to not feeling good enough, my parents decided to have me tested for ADD/ADHD. My self-esteem shot down really low when I was put on medication for ADD/ADHD because I did not want to be different than everyone else. I began to hang out with the wrong group of friends and did not want to listen to anyone, especially my parents. My relationship with my parents was becoming weaker at this time because I was not listening to them. It was frustrating for them to see me go down this path, but as I talked to my mom about this assignment and we talked about this part of the framework all she said was that she knew it was just a phase. She knew the problems and situations what I was going through and knew that I would realize that the people I was hanging out with and the way that I was treating my parents was not the way I was raise and was wrong. Today, I look back on these life changing events that took place at this time and see how far I have come. Getting my period a couple years after my friends seemed like such a big problem when I was young but now I am so glad I didn’t have to worry about my period at such a young age. The stress of being both a great student and outstanding athlete is a stress I would take any day. There are so many people in this would that would pray that that be the only thing they have to worry about. Being put on medication for ADD/ADHD was possibly the most life changing decision my parents made for me. Finally, my relationship with my parents is amazing now. I call my mother every day and I would consider her my best friend. All of the events and life changes that happened to me early in the adolescent time period are what has shaped me into who I am today and if I could go back and change one thing I would not. The theory that I decided to apply to my life is Watson’s and Skinner’s Learning Theories. I chose this theory, because I agree that “given the proper experiences, learning will proceed”. Trying to be a “straight A” student and an outstanding athlete was a lot of pressure especially since my basketball coach raised her standards in the classroom. The study of operant conditioning was easy to understand in this situation. Either I perform to her standards in the classroom and on the court, or I sit the bench because one of these two standards was not up to her liking. Obviously, I wanted to play so I tried my best to be the best student and basketball player I could be. Seeing the court was the best reinforcement for me. It made me feel like my hard work and dedication was not going unseen. But contrary to that, when I was punished and benched it made me feel like a failure and just wanted to quit. The feeling that I felt from the reinforcement is what kept me going when I was being punished. I knew that I could do better than I was doing and knew I had no choice but to do my best. Like I said before, while I was going through the adolescent stage in high school I started hanging out with someone of the wrong people. Even though both my mother and I knew this we both let it happen, because I was making a choice that I could learn from. This theory does not show development over time like Freud and Piaget’s theories, but it does have a sense of development as the person learns from the choices that he or she has learned from. I learned very quickly that the people that I was associating myself with were not the people that I shared common interests with. A huge problem that I had with these so called “friends” was that they very often drank and drive. Even though I was not comfortable with this and refused to get in the car with someone who was drinking, I learned by classical conditioning why I always made the right choice of why I should never get in a car with a drunk driver. One of my friends was in a bad car accident because of a drunk driver and that instilled a fear in me of how dumb of a decision it is to drive while under the influence. Not only did my friend put his life in jeopardy, but he also put many of our friends live at risk too. Now when I hear that someone is drinking and driving this feeling of fear and anger run through my body. From both of these experiences I have learned from the positive and negative consequences. My attitude and behavior in the classroom now is much different than it was when I was being punished for slacking off because I know what negative consequences comes from underachievement. Because of these experiences, I have learned for the future what to do and what not to do again. From my experiences above, I have grown into a strong, understanding, relatable person. I think that social work is the perfect profession for me, because I am an understanding person. I know what it is like to feel like the outcast and alone, but on the other hand I know what it feels like to be part of a huge social group. I am someone who loves to listen to anything someone has to say and willing to help them get to where they need to be in order to be successful. I understand people’s limits and restriction but I am willing to help them get past those obstacles. Everyone has both strengths and limitations and when it comes to my limitations I think that procrastination and personal life would my two biggest limitations of being the best social worker. Even though everyone procrastinates at times, I tend to wait until the last minute to do everything. Of course everything does get done and it gets done to the best of my ability, but it causes me to stress out a lot unnecessarily. As a future social worker, I need to learn that it will make my profession so much more fun and enjoyable if I do not wait until the last minute to do something that a client really needs. When it comes to my personal life I feel like this may be a limitation that connects with one of my strengths. I have what seems to be the “perfect” family life. My parents are happily married, I have two sisters, I live in a nice house that is in a nice neighborhood, I live very close to my grandma and relatives and went to a good high school. Many people that I am going to be working with do not have these luxuries and I will not be able to relate to family issues. A positive that comes from this limitation though, is that I will be able to explain what a good family relationship is all about. I will be able to look at my family and compare and contrast positive and negatives to make the situation for the client better. Because of the good and bad relationships that I have had with people, I will be able to guide people into a healthy relationship. The value that I find most important is positive relationships. By being around people that you associate yourself with or surround yourself, you are instinctively picking up behaviors and attitudes. If you surround yourself with negative people, in a matter of time you will start thinking negatively. I have learned this through personal experience and I am so grateful that I was a strong enough person to recognize that I did not want to be negative and by hanging out with these people that was the path I was headed down. ................
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