My most passionate hope for my future as an early childhood professional and for the children and families I work with is to keep an open mind and be as understanding. I hope parents will feel comfortable and trust me with their children. I am willing to go the extra miles needed to make sure all children are given the best education possible. After all, children are our future!
I want to thank all of my colleagues which I work with for the last eight weeks. All of the readings through the discussion boards and blogs taught me a lot as our journey continues. For most of us, our journey will end after the next class!
Take Care
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Impacts on Early Emotional Development
The area of the world I chose is Bangladesh. The reasons why: the name of this region and I was curious to learn about the children and families living in this region.
The challenges children are facing are:
Protection:Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child-marriage in the world. Thirteen-percent of children are involved in child-labour. Child labourers are frequently denied an education and are vulnerable to violence and abuse. Bandgladesh has one of the lowest rates of birth registration in the world. This makes it difficult to protect children from tracfficking, child labour, and child marriage.
Education: Only eighty-percent of students enrolled in first grade complete primary school. There are high drop out rates and poor quality teaching and learning are serious problems for primary schools. Only forty-six percent of boys and fifty-three percent of girls attend secondary school.
Over half of these families live below the poverty line. Eighty-percent of people survive on less than two-dollars a day. As food prices rise around the globe, the same income buys less and less each week. Families are working harder to meet the basic needs for their children.
The ways these experiences might effect on children's emotional well-being and emotional includes stress, uncertanity,and fear that comes with living in poverty, lack of education, working for child labour, or child trafficking. In addition, these children will grow up with emotional scars that could affect their well-being of becoming a productive adult.
The information I gained this week has helped me to be aware of the serious problems that children and families are going through. As and educator, it is important to be supportive,caring, and understanding while interacting and teaching children whether they are living inside or in another country. All children are special and deserved to be protected and treated the same.
Reference
http://unicef.org/bangladesh/overview_4841.htm?q=printme
The challenges children are facing are:
Protection:Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child-marriage in the world. Thirteen-percent of children are involved in child-labour. Child labourers are frequently denied an education and are vulnerable to violence and abuse. Bandgladesh has one of the lowest rates of birth registration in the world. This makes it difficult to protect children from tracfficking, child labour, and child marriage.
Education: Only eighty-percent of students enrolled in first grade complete primary school. There are high drop out rates and poor quality teaching and learning are serious problems for primary schools. Only forty-six percent of boys and fifty-three percent of girls attend secondary school.
Over half of these families live below the poverty line. Eighty-percent of people survive on less than two-dollars a day. As food prices rise around the globe, the same income buys less and less each week. Families are working harder to meet the basic needs for their children.
The ways these experiences might effect on children's emotional well-being and emotional includes stress, uncertanity,and fear that comes with living in poverty, lack of education, working for child labour, or child trafficking. In addition, these children will grow up with emotional scars that could affect their well-being of becoming a productive adult.
The information I gained this week has helped me to be aware of the serious problems that children and families are going through. As and educator, it is important to be supportive,caring, and understanding while interacting and teaching children whether they are living inside or in another country. All children are special and deserved to be protected and treated the same.
Reference
http://unicef.org/bangladesh/overview_4841.htm?q=printme
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Sexualization of Early Childhood
We are not alarmed that today's children are learning about sex and sexuality. We are all sexual beings from birth, and this is to be celebrated. Children have always been curious about sex and sexuality from an early age, and it is good for parents and schools to give them honest and age-appropriate information. However, the sexualization of childhood is having a profoundly distrubing impact on children's understanding of gender, sexuality, and relationships (Levin & Kilbourne(2009).
Personally, this article just reminded me how young children living in today's society are mislead and easy influenced by the toys, media, internet, and other children about their sexuality. I see the way some parents dress yooung girls and boys inappropriately. Most of the young girls that I work with in pre-k, wear tight jeans, high heels shoes, and booty shorts. The young boys are wearing boxers shorts for underwear, baggy pants and shorts, and oversized shirts like their daddies are wearing. This is a drastic change of dressing compared to when I was growing up as a child. The toys have changed too. Most young girls play with bratz dolls which are dressed liked adults who wear a lot of make-up, wear short dresses and skirts, and wear high-heels shoes,too. Another example would be through music that young children listen too. For example, one day during outside time in pre-k, I heard a group are girls singing and dancing to a song called "Slap them thighs". I was shock to hear and see a group of young girls singing and dancing to this type of song. When I asked the question, where did you hear and learn this song? One of the girls said, my mama and we sing and dance a lot to this song. This helped me to see that the parents in my community need to be educated on what type of music, clothes, and toys are appropriate for young children to be exposed too.
As an early childhood professional, this article on sexualization of early childhood has opened my eyes to just how much our parents and young children are depending on us as educators to help them learn and work to change this negative epidemic is hurting our children from having positive healthy experiences they need for healthy development.
Reference
Levin, D. E. & Kilbourne, J. (2009), So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8), New York:Ballantine Books, Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf
Personally, this article just reminded me how young children living in today's society are mislead and easy influenced by the toys, media, internet, and other children about their sexuality. I see the way some parents dress yooung girls and boys inappropriately. Most of the young girls that I work with in pre-k, wear tight jeans, high heels shoes, and booty shorts. The young boys are wearing boxers shorts for underwear, baggy pants and shorts, and oversized shirts like their daddies are wearing. This is a drastic change of dressing compared to when I was growing up as a child. The toys have changed too. Most young girls play with bratz dolls which are dressed liked adults who wear a lot of make-up, wear short dresses and skirts, and wear high-heels shoes,too. Another example would be through music that young children listen too. For example, one day during outside time in pre-k, I heard a group are girls singing and dancing to a song called "Slap them thighs". I was shock to hear and see a group of young girls singing and dancing to this type of song. When I asked the question, where did you hear and learn this song? One of the girls said, my mama and we sing and dance a lot to this song. This helped me to see that the parents in my community need to be educated on what type of music, clothes, and toys are appropriate for young children to be exposed too.
As an early childhood professional, this article on sexualization of early childhood has opened my eyes to just how much our parents and young children are depending on us as educators to help them learn and work to change this negative epidemic is hurting our children from having positive healthy experiences they need for healthy development.
Reference
Levin, D. E. & Kilbourne, J. (2009), So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8), New York:Ballantine Books, Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf
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