AP Psych students learn the ropes to parenthood

Ruhi Kaneria | The Chronicle

Students and staff may have noticed an uptick in teen parents at Mason High School this past month. 

Thanks to the Mason School Foundation (MSF), Psychology classes are now equipped with hyper-realistic babies to elevate their learning in the developmental unit as they learn how theories on trust building with babies translate to real-life experience. With a RealCare Baby® that can cry and coo, students learn to navigate parenthood as they bond with their babies.  

Psychology and Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology teacher Mollee Coffey hopes that students develop a more realistic approach to taking care of their babies. In the past, Psychology students would have ‘flour babies’ constructed from duct tape and a five-pound flour bag. In AP Psychology, students would bring their own baby, ranging from baby dolls to pineapples. 

“Now, we have the RealCare Babies® and they simulate what it is like to have a baby within the first-year range,” Coffey said. “They will cry if they are hungry, and if they need a diaper change, you have to change the diaper, and if it needs to be burped, you have to burp it and rock it.” 

The students first learned how to take care of their babies during Demo Day, where Coffey, as well as Psychology teacher Angie Johnston and members of the MSF board, revealed the babies. The Demo Day started with the adoption process, where student groups selected their baby from the set of 14. Then, they were given a birth certificate and chose the height, weight and name of their baby. Finally, Coffey and Johnston worked to help familiarize the students with how to hold it, feed it and change its diaper. Students also learned that they must tend to their baby’s needs within two minutes or it will be reported to the teacher through a computerized system. This emphasizes how proper and prompt care of your baby is vital to its development of basic trust. 

“My students, with just one day of demonstrations, now realize how demanding kids can be. With understanding, basic trust and the sensory-motor stage with development, [the babies] are able to make a real connection,” Coffey said. “If they don’t have their needs met as a baby, they have mistrust in the world as they grow older.” 

While tending to the baby is an intense and immersive experience, Coffey knows that it will be balanced by the valuable takeaways that students will have from this process. 

“I hope that they can see the psychology in it and I think it is going to open up conversations with their own family about what kind of baby they were themselves,” Coffey said. “We started the whole grant process back in March, so it is fun seeing the results of that long process of planning it and kids are having fun with it.” 

The idea of purchasing the RealCare Baby® sparked when a student mentioned how exciting the project would be with more realistic babies to take care of. Coffey and Johnston believed they could bring the idea to life, and applied to the MSF’s yearly grant in March.

After working with both the MSF and the company to order the babies, they were finally delivered over the summer. In the end, the roughly $18,000 grant included the 14 babies, three outfits, a bottle and two diapers. It also included the software and the charging ports. Since 2008, MSF has funded 469 grants and in the 2023-2024 school year alone, they have invested $123,330 back into Mason City Schools. Due to MSF granting top-of-the-line equipment, sophomore Kennedy Clingaman said this project has turned out to be one of the most memorable in which she has participated. 

“The hands-on experience has helped me understand the topics being taught because there is a difference between somebody explaining something to you versus getting to experience it,” Clingaman said. “Taking notes is not the same as actually having to deal with something like [realistic babies].” 

Clingaman also realized that there are many aspects of taking care of her baby, Stormi, that she did not initially think of during the Demo Day. Although she initially had a mix of both excitement and nerves, she did not anticipate the amount of time and preparation that the project would demand. 

“I have to figure out where to put my baby when I am in class or the hallway, and I have to think about how to protect my baby from getting bumped,” Clingaman said. “It is just an extra thing that you have to think about with everything you do.” 

While taking care of the baby requires some extra planning, Clingaman has also found that carrying the baby has become a conversation starter for others. Everywhere she goes, Clingaman has found that people are surprised about the baby, allowing Clingaman to talk about the project and what she is doing in her Psychology class. 

Like Clingaman, junior Adelle Grim also was surprised to learn that she would be getting a hyper-realistic RealCare Baby® rather than a flour baby. However, as she learned more about the process, her excitement grew.  

“It is fun because you get to understand what it is like to have a baby,” Grim said. “You get to see a little bit from the baby’s point of view on what they are going through.” 

While this process has been educational, Grim also highlights the fun side of the process, such as naming her baby. 

“His full name is William Leo Grim-Spatz,” Grim said. “Mrs. Coffey had a list on the board of the top 10 baby names, and William was on there so we picked William. My copartner Gabby wanted Leo as the name, so we made it his middle name and we hyphenated our last names to make his last name.”

From taking creative inspiration to name their baby to learning how to navigate this newfound parenthood, students have learned to balance going to school while caring for their baby. Clingaman notes that this project has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

“This has been a really unique project and it is something I have never done before,” Clingaman said. “We get to see how to take care of and help a baby develop firsthand and it gives you a deeper understanding of it because you get to live it out in real life.”