ACTIVITY 4: AN INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUE
Transcript
Interviewer: What is your name?
Child: Phang Zi En
Interviewer: You are 8 years old now right? How many siblings do you have?
Child: I have an older brother.
Interviewer: Then where is your school now?
Child: SJK Chung Hua Siburan.
Interviewer: So, the 17th mile.
Interviewer: Now that we know you’re 8 years old, what do you like at this age?
Child: Basketball.
Interviewer: You like basketball right now as an 8-year-old. How about before?
Child: I don’t know. I don’t remember the things when I was younger. It was a long time ago.
Interviewer: Then can you tell me what do you think is your best characteristic?
Child: Basketball.
Interviewer: Knowing how to play basketball?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you play basketball at school?
Child: No, at home. My brother taught me.
Interviewer: Oh, so your brother taught you. How old is your brother?
Child: Eleven years old. Oh no, twelve.
Interview: So he is in Primary 6?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: Alright, we can conclude that your best characteristic is that you know how to play basketball, correct?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: You can be a basketball player in the future.
Interview: You’re now 8 years old, what age do you want to be? You can either become younger or grow older.
Child: I want to become younger.
Interviewer: How young do you want to be?
Child: One years old.
Interviewer: Why?
Child: Because I can sleep whenever I want.
Interviewer: Oh, I like that. So you want to be a one-year-old so you can sleep whenever you want. You couldn’t sleep much now?
Child: No, I have to do homework.
Interviewer: Now I have another small question for you. We have a lot of emotions right? What will you do when you feel angry?
Child’s mom: What will you do when you are angry?
Interviewer: If I’m angry I usually will be quiet and think about the matter and if I’m unhappy, I will sing my heart out. Like this.
Child: When I’m angry, I will find my mom.
Interviewer: You find your mom to tell her about it?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: So you tell the things that make you angry to your mom. Alright, what do you want to be when you are older?
Child: Like my mother.
Interviewer: A teacher?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: You want to be a teacher just like your mother? Who do you want to teach? Secondary school students?
Child: Yes.
Interviewer: Good luck. Next, do you have any advice for me?
Child: You have to study hard and get prizes.
Interviewer: Alright I’ll do it. Do you have any questions?
Child: How old are you today?
Interviewer: I am 20 years old this year. I’m older than you by 12 years.
Child: What is your hobby?
Interviewer: My hobby is singing.
Child: What do you like to eat?
Interviewer: Hmm, I like too much food. Let me think about it. Right, there are food in front of us. I like the pudding here.
Interviewer: Anything else?
Child: Do you live by yourself now?
Interviewer: I usually live in the dorm, so I have a friend that live with me there.
Child: You sleep upstairs with your friend?
Interviewer: I stay at school with my friend. Right now I’m home. I know, quite weird right? Anything else?
Child’s mother: Do you have anything else you want to ask her?
Child: No.
Interviewer: You see, our interview today is really short and now we are near the end. You can have snacks after this, okay? Thank you.
Reflection
In this activity, we interviewed an 8 year-old child, who was willing to join our dialogue after getting the consent from her mother to ask questions and record a video for our activity. The girl is allowed to ask questions to the interviewer during the session. We asked a few questions such as what she likes at her age now, her best characteristic, what age she wants to be, what will she do if she is angry and her future occupation.
The child response is quite short and required more time generate her answer. She also needs encouragement from the interviewer and her mother to speak her thought as she needs time to ‘warm up’ to a new situation. The child is actually very active and talkative off-camera after the interview because she is used to the situation.
According to Three Stages of Piagetian Moral Reasoning, the children at her age has increasing flexibility and autonomy. The child is not fully under the autonomy of her parents as she can think of her own reasoning to her actions. She agreed to our interview without her mother said anything say much to her.
The child’s answers caught me by surprise a few times as we did not expect her to answered like so. She answered two of our interview questions with the same answer: basketball. The questions were what she likes at her age and her best characteristics. She likes basketball so much for her age that she considered as her most favourable characteristics. Usually, children older than 8 years old are more active in sports. However, playing sports at her age is good for her motor skills and maybe the school can help the children in this matter and provide proper training which encourage skill building instead of winning.
The next answer that caught us off-guard is that she wants to become younger instead of older. We guessed beforehand that the child will say that she wants to be older since we thought of autonomy and freedom when one gets older. However, the child said she wanted to be one-year-old because she could sleep whenever she wants.
As for the question about her emotion, she said she will get her mother when she is angry and rant about it. As an eight-year-old, what she did is actually quite mature for her age and she is not impulsive and throw a fit. From our past memories of ourselves, we usually fought the cause of our anger or became emotional.
As for her dream occupation, she wanted to be just like her mother which is understandable because her mother is the closest person to her. This affects her in a way that she follows the step of her mother that becomes her role model.
This child seems to be academically driven, probably nurtured as so since her mother is a teacher and her school which encouraged students to put effort academically by giving prizes and trophies. This can be seen as she gave advice to the interviewer which is to ‘study hard and earn prizes.
In conclusion, the child cooperated really well during the interview as she answered all of our questions and even actively asking the interviewer some questions. It is interesting to have her as our interviewee as her answers are definitely not as we predicted and we find that children’s perceptions are different and their words are usually the truths and we do not have to look too deeply to discover the meaning behind each word. The pureness and innocence that they have are what made them children.
Reference:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-child-psychology-2795067
KMF1043 Human Development Psychology Group 3 