Blog #2

 

Adeline is not in a good situation in her home life because she has so many negative reinforcements coming from her family, especially her siblings. Their constant teasing and accusing of killing her birth mother might have caused her to have survivor’s guilt, even though her mother’s death was not her fault at all. If only her siblings and her step mother were in the picture, she might have experienced learned helplessness, where she learns to believe what her family says and takes it as her reality that she can’t change. But because of Aunt Baba and her school, who praised her for her accomplishments and gave her positive reinforcements for her hard work, Adeline did not fall into that mindset. Aunt Baba mentioning her medal as soon as she got home from school is just one of many ways to conduct positive reinforcement for a child. This is crucial because at that young age, everything is new and whatever you are exposed to becomes part of the world that you see. Adeline might have learned that being bullied by her siblings and not being recognized for her hard work by her parents was a normal thing and happened to everyone. This is why it is so important to have positive influences in your life, even at a young age, so children can grow up understanding that things are not just one thing, there is a whole spectrum of positive and negative that happens within life.