Game

Here is my game. (It is directed towards the older children). In this game one must match up the stories with Erickson's stages. Moreover, each stage has two outcomes, the player must determine which outcome of the stage the person in the story will develop. *Note: These are all fictional stories that I made up.

Here is the information the children must read/ learn about first. (A.K.A. Erickson’s stages)

Erikson believes that the first stage a person goes through, from about the age of birth to 18 months, is Trust vs. Mistrust. . At this time infants need to feel a sense of safety and love from their parents and know they can depend on them to help them survive.

The next stage Eriksson believes children go through is Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt. This stage takes place from the age of 18 months to 36 months. At this time a child task is to assert their independence without being ashamed.

Erik Erikson believed that children progress into initiative vs. guilt. This occurs from about the ages of 3 to 51/2 years, what Eriksson refers to as the “play age.” Erickson believed that during this stage the child has three tasks, “(1) to imagine, to broaden his skills through active play of all sorts, including fantasy (2) to cooperate with others (3) to lead as well as to follow.” (Robert Myers, Ph.D. Dr., paragraph 5) Teri L. Elliott states, “Play is how they [children] learn about and organize the world and make sense of the new information they are learning on a daily basis. In addition, play allows children to achieve a sense of mastery over imaginary or real frustrations. Consequently, in an attempt to understand a traumatic event, children often put aspects of the situation into their play.” In other words, children learn about social relationships through play because playing allows children to mimic and practice real life and try out different social roles. Children at this age participate mostly in cooperative play (a type of play where children play with each other and are able to mimic the real world).

during adolescence, ages 13 to 20, children face the task of Identity vs. role confusion. When a traumatic event occurs during adolescence this can be particularly detrimental to development because during this time adolescents are transitioning from being dependent to independent. Adolescents are learning how to be reliant on and think for themselves. This is an important part of an individual’s life and requires a lot of work. It involves formulating how one perceives the outside world and the way one perceives oneself. It also involves learning how one thinks and feels, learning how one reacts under stressful situations, which then requires one to create his or her own emotional coping skills. . Since September 11th required such a high-efficiency coping skill, many adolescents turned to insufficient coping skills resulting in a disorder. This can be seen in adolescents engaging in drugs or sexual relationships, feeling depressed, somatization disorders, withdrawal, and apathy.

Here are the stories:

Julie is an infant. Her mom, Amanda’s, best friend was badly hurt in the attacks on sept.11th. Amanda spends lots of time alone in her room crying and at the hospital away from her daughter Julie. Amanda often stays late at the hospital. Since Julie is breast-feed sometimes Julie does not get feed when she is hungry because of Amanda’s late nights at the hospital.

Julien's father was a police officer in downtown New York City. His dad broke his arm in the commotion during September 11th. Julien feels bad that he was not at the buildings helping his father. Julien feels that if he was at the WTC cite he could have protected his father and his father would have not been hurt.

Hayley's family lived in Brooklyn but her father worked in Manhattan at the twin towers. On September 11th, Hayley's dad had to walk from downtown Manhattan to his house in Brooklyn, which took him several hours. Hayley did was worried that her dad was hurt because it took him so long to get home. When Hayley arrived back at school two of her classmates, Annabel and Dylan, played a “make believe” game called "house". In this game Annabel and Dylan pretended to be Hayley's parents. Annabel and Dylan started off the game by pretending to wake Hayley up for school. Hayley then pretended to wake up and started to scream, “Dylan don’t go to work because I am scared that you will not come home.”

Erin lived just a few blocks away from the twin towers. On September 11th Erin was on her way to her high school when she saw the plane hit the first tower. After seeing this happen Erin was very scared and upset. One day her best friend Kathy told Erin that she tried a drug, which made her feel happy. Erin wanted to be happy so she tried the drug. Erin liked the happy feeling that the drug made her feel so she started using it more and more. Soon Erin became addicted to the drug.


Ms. Greenburg is a pre-school teacher. After September 11th Ms. Greenburg had her class do an art project about how they felt during Sept. 11th. Jenny painted a picture and asked her teacher, Ms. Greenburg, if she could share it with the class. Ms. Greenburg was very pleased and the class enjoyed her project very much.

Ethan was very popular. He loved going out with his friends and having a good time. After September 11th Ethan realized he wanted to spend more time with his infant son Ken. Ethan now feeds, bathes, changes Ken's diapers, and plays with Ken. Ethan and Ken are a lot more close now.