For this assignment on observing children’s behavior I will present of at least 5 toddlers in a birthday party settings. The party was organized at my grandparent’s house for my mother and her siblings. My mother’s siblings had many children of different ages, and there were 5 toddlers present in the house during that day.
The toddlers did not live together, so they had to introduce themselves to each other and then were left alone. It was necessary to note that when I was peeking through the key hole the children when left alone started to boast different things that they had, from toys, to how strong their dads were to how fast they could run or hit. At some point of time, they aligned and started to leap in order to determine who was ‘better’. The older and stronger guy won and at some point of time everyone was listening to him supporting his initiatives. When the older guy started to pick on the smallest kid, calling him a girl, because he had curly hair, everyone was supporting the leader. When I entered the room, the kids started to laugh and got somewhat embarrassed. In my presence they did not pick on the smallest kid and did not boast to each other. Once I returned to my ‘key hole’ observatory, they returned to picking on the small kid for no apparent reason, except for the fact that he was the weakest and could not physically resist other kids. The younger kid started to cry and ran out of the room complaining to his mom that other boys thought that he was a ‘girl’. The mom only laughed to her own peers and said ‘oh, those funny kids!’
During that day I had a chance to observe the toddlers in different settings whenever I could escape the adults group. After the leadership was formed the kids followed the older kid everywhere he offered them to go. Still, it is necessary to note that the leadership status of the older kid was challenged by the ‘second best’ guy who was frequently offering different games, such as who could through a rock/stick further, who could shoot the basketball better or who could run around the house faster. The ‘leader’ supported the games because he was condiment that his leadership status is not going to be disputed. Yet, whenever the ‘second best’ kid threw the basketball better than the leader, the leader stopped the game, said that it was no longer interesting and invited everyone to the house to play some computer games (where he probably expected to be the best).
To summarize, I had a very interesting opportunity to observe 5 toddlers during a major part of the day. From the observation I came up with the following hypothesis that illustrate the group yet certainly need more research to be considered as ‘true’ or ‘false’.
Hypothesis 1: Young (male) children are cruel.
Hypothesis 2: Young (male) children in the absence of adults are led by the animal-like Leader-of-the-pack principles. The leader is always challenged by the ‘second-best’ kids yet is obeyed.
Hypothesis 3: In the presence of adults, (male) children act as children are expected to act in the eyes of adults even if they hardly know that adult.
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