Question

Tracy is a 10-year-old student who is heavily influenced by his parents regarding his academic activities. The pressure that he is receiving at home has caused him to withdraw from all pleasurable activities at school, including his passion for writing, arithmetic, and friends. He was once an A student but now is maintaining a C average. He has disengaged from regular activities and sits alone when he is not required to participate in group activities. It is known that the family has had some major stressors last year that has resulted in Tracy's parents contemplating divorce.

1) Identify the challenges that the student, family, or individual client may be experiencing, based on your specialization.

2) Identify any psychosocial conflicts that may be present and the transitions related to middle childhood that may be considered.

3) Choose one theory of personality development and explain how that theory helps you understand this student's behavior.

4) Describe specific ways of helping the student, family, or individual client from your professional perspective.

Answer 1

1). It is given that Tracy had withdraw from all pleasurable activities at school and is not performing well in studies, which indicates that he is manifesting the behavioural issues and facing challenges in reacting towards the internal conflict. Children are not usually mature enough to understand why some things happens (for example, divorce), which cause build-up of stress and pressure. The ways of expressing the stress and pressure may vary from child to child, some become depressed and some exhibit abnormal behaviours such as becoming aggressive, being isolated from the other mates (as in case of Tracy), etc. The parents seems facing challenges in communicate with Tracy and monitor his behaviour, may be because disturbances in their personal lives.