Compare the major developmental theories you have become familiar with from readings and content from Lesson 5. Compose thoughtful answers to the following "developmental difficulties." Explain how you would use your understanding of one of the major theories (focusing particularly on Piaget and Erikson) to deal with each of the difficulties listed below more constructively.

1. Your eight-year old son is failing P.E. and growing obese; all he cares about is Nintendo.

2. Your teenager has decided not to attend college in favor of joining the stage crew for a touring rock band.

3. Your nine-year old son is being victimized by the class bully OR your nine-year old son IS the class bully. NOTE: Respond to both of these situations.

4. Your two-year old daughter refuses to wear the clothes you pick for her every morning making getting dressed a twenty-minute pitched battle.

5. Your thirty-six-year old friend is showing symptoms of the classic "mid-life crisis," buying a trendy new sports car, flirting dangerously, and alluding to leaving his wife.

6. Your sixty-eight-year old neighbor is chronically depressed, feeling she has wasted her life.