They cry, they whine, they want to be fed, they need to be changed. Babies. They wake you up, they require all of your attention 24/7, and they are unpredictable. Chew on this: What if you could get a preview of Parenting 101 without the full responsibility? Well, you can! That is if you are a Cameron High School Junior or Senior enrolled in Mrs. Dawn Stuedle's Advanced Child Development Class. As a project, the students are assigned a Baby-Think-it-Over simulation baby for a weekend to care for. It is pretty low-maintenance; you don't have to feed or change it, but it is set to cry at random.

"It's just a simulation," said Mrs. Stuedle. "We never say it's a real baby; we call it the Baby-Think-it-Over. It is a program that was developed many years ago. Students take a simulator baby home Friday after school and return it Monday before school." Mrs. Stuedle has been doing the Baby-think-it-over program for 13 or 14 years. "We bought babies soon after I came here. We have about six working babies," said Mrs. Stuedle.
Junior Sierra Pulliam had to take care of one of those babies for a weekend. "I got really funny looks at the mall," said Sierra. "And at a Mongolian restaurant I was the talk of the restaurant and they all wanted to find out why I had it [the baby]. I definitely don't want to have a kid."

Unlike Sierra, Junior Pepper Young wants to have kids, but through adoption. "Once I'm out of college and have a steady career I'd like too adopt." Pepper has planned this out where it allows her time to prepare for kids, and doing this project will help her. "My mom thinks this is a good learning experience and thinks it is a good way to learn what I'm not ready for," said Pepper.

Mrs. Stuedle thinks the same. "We have three goals in this program, and basically what it's doing is showing them that babies demands are unpredictable and must be met promptly. Babies require a great deal of time and attention, and babies change a parents life profoundly. There are so many things you don't have to do for this baby. But it's still a good test for a teenager to have this simulator with them 24/7. It shows them how they have to be focused on the baby and not themselves, that becomes their main focus. It requires a lot of time and attention and the baby is unpredictable," said Mrs. Stuedle.

Bottom-line, babies are unpredictable and require a lot of time and attention. This is something to think twice about, babies are a big responsibility. So for a hands-on learning experience, enroll in Child Development and Advanced Child Development!