For this assignment, you will select a child you know well who today is between the ages of 4 and 18 years old and their parent. Using the model of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, analyze the ways in which the pandemic impacted them these last 3 years.
Purpose of This Assignment:
Demonstrate an understanding of the Ecological Systems Theory and how to apply it in an analysis of the effects of a worldwide chronological event, the Coronavirus pandemic, on the ecological system of a child and their family and how changes within that system affect the child, their parent’s parenting practices, and the parent-child relationship.
Instructions:
I’ve given you the event, the Coronavirus pandemic, for one level of the Ecological System Theory, the Chronosystem. You will reflect on the other 4 levels of your subjects’ ecosystems as well as other Chronosystem events the child and parent experienced during the pandemic. Your analysis should respond to the following:
1. Describe the characteristics of the child at the beginning of the pandemic, including personality/temperament, age, gender, special needs, and vulnerabilities to the virus. For the beginning of your paper focus on the child and parent before they experienced changes due to the pandemic. You may want to refer to the following link to learn more about child temperament and how it influences children’s responses to their environment.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-icWG1J2MELinks to an external site.
Heath also refers to temperament in Chapter 2 of the textbook, pages 59-60.)
2. Describe each level of the child’s ecosystem including the Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, Macrosystem, and Chronosystem as it existed at the beginning of the pandemic. Who were the people, activities, services, and environmental influences affecting the child? Families and children faced other Chronosystem events. Some were natural like new babies, and graduating from high school. Others were unexpected such as deaths, divorce, virtual school, job loss, eviction, protests, arguments about vaccination, extreme weather events, illness, and more. Describe the before and during the Pandemic thoroughly for each level. Here is a link to more information about the Ecological Systems Theory.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV4E05BnoI8Links to an external site.
The following article may give you some ideas of how the pandemic affected parents and children.
3. After collecting data on the changes that occurred, analyze how the changes in the child’s ecosystem affected the child physically, emotionally, socially, and academically. How did it affect their parent-child relationship?
4. How has the pandemic affected the parent’s Ecological System, socially, economically, medically, and/or emotionally? What changes, if any, have you observed in the parent-child relationship? Unlike the analysis of the child’s Ecological System, you do not have to create a before and after the pandemic picture of the parent’s Ecological System. Just focus on the significant changes and events the parent faced during the pandemic.
5. Share your conclusions on the effects of the Covid pandemic on the ecological system of the child and parent and how they adjusted to the changes. Discuss possible strengths and weaknesses in the way they managed the crisis. How did the family adapt to the changes that occurred?
Writing Mechanics:
All files must be saved with .doc, .docx or .pdf extensions. No other format will be accepted.
Paper is a maximum of 5 pages in length and free of grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. 1″ margins, double spaced, 11-12 point font. The style of writing facilitates communication.
Requirements: 4 pages
