The Growth & Development of Matilda Wormwood

The Growth & Development of

By Justine Biag

The Wormwood The Wormwoods Family

Matilda Wormwood is a 6.5-year-old child of Harry and Zinnia Wormwood. She is a very intelligent, optimistic, brave, witty child who also can be mischievous at times. She also happened to have a 14-year-old older brother named Michael who is the favorite child and is very spoiled by their parents. Matilda grew up in a traditional nuclear family where his father, Harry, a 39-year-old used-cars salesman is the only breadwinner. While her mother, Zinnia, is a 38-year-old housewife who plays bingo and is out and about most of the time rather than take care of the household and spend time with Matilda.

Physical Appearance Matilda weighs about 20.5 kg and she’s also about 45 inches tall, which seems to be an appropriate growth for her age group. Since her mom does not really care for her, she pretty much takes care of herself. She developed a good personal hygiene as she always look prim and proper. She picks her outfit and dresses herself all on her own. Most of the time she dresses very girly as she wears a lot of dresses and ruffled and lacey socks. But she also likes wearing overalls especially when she knows she’s going to be playing outside. No matter what she wears, she always has to wear her favorite satin headbands that looks very cute with her shoulder-length brown hair.

Mr. & Mrs. Wormwood’s Parenting Style Harry and Zinnia uses permissive parenting style with Michael. He is the first child and it seems like Matilda was not a planned kid so they pretty much spoiled him and let him do whatever he wants. However, when it comes to Matilda, Harry and Zinnia uses different parenting styles. Harry uses authoritarian parenting style as he pretty much has strict rules for Matilda to follow. One time, the entire family was sitting in the living room and Matilda was reading her book but Harry wanted everyone to watch TV so Harry ended up forcing Matilda to close her book, turn off the lights and just face the TV. Aside from that, Harry also noticed that Matilda has very different interests and hobbies from the family, which is why he has strict rules for her. But other than that, Harry does not really care what Matilda does when they are not around. On the other hand, Zinnia uses uninvolved or neglectful parenting style because most of the time she does not really care for Matilda’s emotional and physical needs. She usually leaves home along with Harry and Michael, which leaves Matilda home by herself.

Friends & School: Even though Matilda’s dad enrolled her late to elementary school, she was able to make friends and was able to adjust to her new peers and environment. She met her best friend, Lavender, on her first day of school as well as her other friends, Bruce and Amanda. Matilda enjoys being with her friends and at school, as she is able to just be a 6.5 years old kid having fun.

Social Networks

Matilda also adjusted well with school with the help of Ms. Honey, her homeroom teacher. Ms. Honey assisted Matilda and helped her catch up to what the rest of the class is learning. Since Matilda has been reading quite a lot of books, she pretty much has a general knowledge of what they’re learning in class. She knew how to multiply, read and spell difficult words and recognize the different bodies of water.

Hobbies: Matilda’s favorite past time is reading. She loves going to her local library and stay there for hours just reading various books. When the librarian finally helped her to check out books, she even goes home with as many books as she possibly can fit in her little cart. She enjoys reading as this allows her to escape her reality and make her feel better when she is having a bad day. Aside from that, Matilda also likes playing with her friends on the playground and a ball game during recess.

Family: Matilda does not have many interactions with her family especially with her mom. The only time they gather as a family is when they eat dinner but most of the time they are preoccupied with the TV. With that said, Matilda has a difficult time communicating with her parents as well as her brother. Her family most often ignores her when she has something to say.

They usually do most of the talking and not listening to her either. There was this instance where Matilda told her dad that she was supposed to go to school multiple times, but Harry did not listen, which eventually resulted to her enrolling late to school. Matilda also seeks attention by pulling pranks on her dad such as when she put glue in her dad’s hat. Her mom on the other hand, usually only talks to her when she’s about to go out to tell her what meals are available for her to eat. Matilda’s relationship with her brother is not good either as they have different interests and hobbies. Michael usually calls her “nerd” because she likes to read and he doesn’t really interact with her unless it’s dinnertime. Overall, Matilda’s relationship with her family is not very healthy and she most often feels indifferent and that everything she does is wrong and not good enough.

In return, she sometimes acts out and talks back to them because she has no other way for them to really pay attention to her. When this is not the case, Matilda often just stays quiet and just keeps to herself.

Growth & Development Fine & Gross Motor Skills

Cognitive Development (Piaget)

Psychosocial Development (Erickson)

Moral Development (Kohlberg)

Matilda’s Nutritional Status

Orem’s Self-Care Requisites Family Partially Met. Matilda has a traditional nuclear family where they all live in a home together. Her parents provide her basic needs such as shelter, clothing, and food. However, her relationship with them is not very healthy as she is often ignored and neglected. They often make her feel isolated and different. They don’t even acknowledge her accomplishments at school. On a good note, Matilda found a mother-like-figure in Ms. Honey.

Friends Met. Matilda made good friends at school. She especially get along and have the same interest as her best friend, Lavender, whom she spend most of her time in school and after school. Her group of friends always likes to play together in the playground and they even like doing assignments together.

School Met. Even though Matilda started late into the first grade, she was able to catch up quickly to her classmates. She gets along really well with her classmates and she always cooperates with the classroom rules and activities. Moreover, she is showing advance cognitive development beyond her school grade. With that said, she always does her homework on time and she thoroughly enjoys doing them. Ms. Honey even recommended to her parents that she could skip ahead in school as her intelligence is definitely far more advanced.

Respect Partially Met. At home, Matilda doesn’t really show respect to her parents since they also do not respect her and most of the time they neglect her. She usually does not listen to them and she talks back to oppose them. She generally does not respect adults who she thinks are not good people because she also disrespects Ms. Trunchbull at school. However, Matilda respects the entire school faculty especially Ms. Honey. She usually behaves, listens and follows classroom rules during Ms. Honey’s class. She also respects her friends and classmates as she also exhibit good manners in front of them.

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN)

QSEN competencies make sure that patients get the best nursing care (Ward, 2014). With Matilda’s case, nurses must provide a family-centered care to ensure that she received the best care. A family-centered approach involves teaching and assessing the parents in addition to evaluating Matilda’s growth and development as well as other risk factors. Nurses must also consider Matilda’s environmental and social factors that affect her well being. Moreover, they must individualize their care for Matilda to address all the areas that need attention. Nurses should also utilize resources when teaching her parents to maximize the effectiveness of the interventions. With that said, nurses need to focus on improving the communication/interaction between Matilda and her parents, her nutritional intake, as well as safety teaching as Matilda is learning how to ride a bicycle without proper safety gears.

CONCERN, INTERVENTIONS, & ANTICIPATORY GUIDANCE

References

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