Kayla 8 years, 11 months

Kayla continues developing into a wonderful girl. She does very well in reading and language arts at school. Also, she is in the 4th grade math group even though she is in 3rd grade and seems quick with computations. Her favorite subject is still science and so she has joined an after-school science camp right on the school campus. Kayla also enjoys drawing and designing things like houses, cars, airplanes, and likes to work with her hands building models or things out of clay, papier mache, or blocks. Sometimes she and her sister will come up with these elaborate creations out of basic household items like cardboard boxes and toilet paper tubes, and I enjoy saving items for them to create with. Kayla has also been taking piano for the last two years and now wants to be part of the instrumental music program at school so she chose a flute at the music store for her to try. She is still singing in the choir, busy girl but she chooses to be so involved in these activities and still gets her homework done. We had a psychologist interview her and do some intelligence tests on her over the summer. She was quiet and reserved with the examiner, and did not offer a lot of information spontaneously. She seemed a little nervous during the testing, particularly on the harder items, but remained cooperative and hard-working throughout the IQ and achievement testing. We found out that she is average and above average in word reading, reading fluency, phonological awareness and spelling. Kayla's scores on the Verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (where 7 is one standard deviation below the mean, 10 is the mean and 13 is one standard deviation above the mean): Information (9), Vocabulary (10), Similarities (10), Comprehension (11). Her scores on the math concepts, math application problems, and math computation tests were well above average. The psychologist said that she should clearly be placed in 7th grade math, and possibly in a gifted math program, but he recommended further testing

We have noticed some of Kayla’s behavior fall into typical American gender role socialization like how well she ‘mothers’ her little sister or helps with the chores around the house. She likes to help me in the kitchen too. But she has some girlfriends that come over from time to time and I have noticed that most of her friends tend to be somewhat tomboyish although two of the girls do have older brothers. Kayla enjoys playing sports with the brothers, and sometimes Kayla will also play sports with some of the neighborhood boys. I think this is ok because she seems to be well balanced and it is the same way I was raised.

Kayla has been participating in softball and soccer and we finally got that puppy she has been asking for. She has a real sense of what is expected of her at home and at school, and follows the rules quite well. She gets along well with Mom, Dad and sister, and seems to have good friends at school, in after-school activities and other situations. Kayla's best friend is also a real likeable kid so we figured this was the right time for the enjoyment and responsibility of a pet. We got Max from the neighborhood animal shelter! It's a poodle/terrier mix and we are all having a lot of fun with him. We took Max to obedience school, and Kayla participates and proudly shows off the dog's tricks to anyone who will watch. Kayla and her sister love taking Max to the park. Even though it is still the middle of summer, we went shopping for school supplies and some school clothes. It will also be Kayla's 9th birthday in a couple of weeks and we have been preparing for a party of a dozen kids at a family fun center that has go-karts, video games, prizes, and expensive pizza. We remind Kayla how lucky she is to be raised in a family that can provide her with so many opportunities and that our socioeconomic status (our education, jobs, and income) provide her with these opportunities. We aren’t affluent by any means but can allow our children access to extra programs and athletics that have helped them develop into well rounded successful children. The U.S. has the highest percentage of extremely poor children (Berk, 49) and we just wanted our children to know that they are lucky to not be in that category and to continue to do well in school and their activities so they can be successful as well.