Child Development Students Receive Their RealCare Baby

Between Sept. 28 and Dec. 7, Child Development I students will be assigned a RealCare Baby infant simulator, in which they will care for it as their own for one weekend. They will have to wear a sensor on their wrist that only allows them to give care to their baby. FACS teacher Lori Rupp has done this assignment multiple times over her 26 years of teaching.

“I give this assignment, because it gives teens a true taste of how time consuming and frustrating it is to care for an infant,” Rupp said. “It is taken serious, because the parenthood experience is why kids take my class.”

Senior Sydney Truax was a freshman when she took the class.

“Caring for the RealCare Baby definitely opened my eyes to how hard mothering really is,” Truax said. “My baby was quiet during the day then really loud at night. She kept my brother and I up with her screaming all night.”

There have been abuse cases due to rough handling and 24 or more head snapbacks.

“I am not excited for this project, because it will take up all of my time,” junior Alexander Wittmus said. “Since that is the case, I believe this is going to help prepare me for the real thing, because actual parenting does not allow you to any alone time.”

 “If I could do something different when caring for my baby, it would be not having any friends over. They made her head snapback, which caused me to get a miscare,” Truax said. “I was so happy to get rid of it.”

Rupp teaches four separate classes of Child Development I throughout the school day. There are 30 students in each class, 26 percent are males.

 “We do sometimes get boys who drop the class as soon as the RealCare baby is mentioned. However, gender does not seem to make a difference of how the baby is cared for,” Rupp said. “I believe all students should be required to experience this.”