My passion is to make a difference in each child's life by showing them respect, listening to them, supporting them, building pride in themselves and in their culture, and letting them know that I am there for them and will always stand-up for what is right. I also want to form partnerships with each family so I can make them visible in the classroom and to let them know that their culture, their needs and wants for their child is respected, and that they are welcomed into my classroom at anytime as I am always there to help. I want to have that trust with the families that I am out to do what is right for their children and I want to help them grow and flourish into beautiful, respectful people.
I would like to thank all of my colleagues for helping me learn so much throughout this course. The discussion boards and blogs each of you posted provided different points of views and gave me more insight to each topic. I want to wish you all good luck in the future and God Bless!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Impacts on Early Emotional Development
I chose to look into the Latin American and Caribbean region and focus in on Jamaica because I remember a woman talking at work that she and her husband went there on vacation one summer and they stayed at the Sandals Resort, which was beautiful, but the rest of the area was very poor looking. So, this drew my interest into looking more into this area.
-There are 313,656 children aged 0-5 living in Jamaica
- Immunization rates for all vaccines have been declining steadily since 2001 due to: difficulties in accessing health services, inadequate transportation, violence, limited health staff for vaccinations and financial restraints.
-Poor nutritional status are reflected in low birth weight, low height for age and low weight for height
-Pediatric deaths to Aids declined in 2003 by 17.3% due to the The Health Ministry which improved services provided through the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission Program and improved care and treatment of infected children.
- Quality of education, stimulation, and care offered in some facilities leaves much to be desired. In some institutes staff are untrained, classrooms are crowded, lack of resources and inappropriate curricula.
-The children of Jamaica are also faced with violence, abuse, and exploitation. Children are being murdered, stabbed, sexual assaulted, and shot.
These children are faced with some much fear and trauma in their lives. They are fighting to live their life, but so many challenges face them. This leaves children emotionally and physically damaged. The lack of adequate health care, protection from abuse and violence, and appropriate education. There are facilities available to them, but they are so over crowded that children are not receiving the individual attention they need to be successful. To address the main threats of Jamaican childhood-HIV/Aids, violence, and exclusion-UNICEF and partners work together to ensure all children get the best start in life, receive a quality basic education and grow up protected against violence, abuse, and discrimination.
I am personally saddened to see children faced with such harmful challenges in their lives at such young ages. These children didn't ask to be brought into a life such as this, but it is what they are forced to live. I couldn't imagine waking up every morning with the thought of my child being harmed by another or losing a battle to an illness due to lack of resources available to us. I believe this makes you thankful for what we have because you never know what someone else may be facing in their life. Life should never be taken for granite.
Professionally, I believe we should be advocates for these children that are faced with a life of hopelessness, trauma, and fear. All children deserve to live a life free from harm and have medical treatment available to them and provided with an education where they can hopefully overcome the life they are living now. We should never give up on the children. We should provide them with comfort, love, and acceptance and to let them know we are there to help them in anyway that we can. If not we are in the wrong field.
www.unicef.org/jamaica/index.html
-There are 313,656 children aged 0-5 living in Jamaica
- Immunization rates for all vaccines have been declining steadily since 2001 due to: difficulties in accessing health services, inadequate transportation, violence, limited health staff for vaccinations and financial restraints.
-Poor nutritional status are reflected in low birth weight, low height for age and low weight for height
-Pediatric deaths to Aids declined in 2003 by 17.3% due to the The Health Ministry which improved services provided through the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission Program and improved care and treatment of infected children.
- Quality of education, stimulation, and care offered in some facilities leaves much to be desired. In some institutes staff are untrained, classrooms are crowded, lack of resources and inappropriate curricula.
-The children of Jamaica are also faced with violence, abuse, and exploitation. Children are being murdered, stabbed, sexual assaulted, and shot.
These children are faced with some much fear and trauma in their lives. They are fighting to live their life, but so many challenges face them. This leaves children emotionally and physically damaged. The lack of adequate health care, protection from abuse and violence, and appropriate education. There are facilities available to them, but they are so over crowded that children are not receiving the individual attention they need to be successful. To address the main threats of Jamaican childhood-HIV/Aids, violence, and exclusion-UNICEF and partners work together to ensure all children get the best start in life, receive a quality basic education and grow up protected against violence, abuse, and discrimination.
I am personally saddened to see children faced with such harmful challenges in their lives at such young ages. These children didn't ask to be brought into a life such as this, but it is what they are forced to live. I couldn't imagine waking up every morning with the thought of my child being harmed by another or losing a battle to an illness due to lack of resources available to us. I believe this makes you thankful for what we have because you never know what someone else may be facing in their life. Life should never be taken for granite.
Professionally, I believe we should be advocates for these children that are faced with a life of hopelessness, trauma, and fear. All children deserve to live a life free from harm and have medical treatment available to them and provided with an education where they can hopefully overcome the life they are living now. We should never give up on the children. We should provide them with comfort, love, and acceptance and to let them know we are there to help them in anyway that we can. If not we are in the wrong field.
www.unicef.org/jamaica/index.html
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Sexualization of Early Childhood
This week I had the opportunity to read the article, So Sexy So Soon and it was very eye opening to me due to the fact that it was true. Children are forced to grow up to fast because of society and influence. The media exposes children to sex and violence through movies, music, toys, and ads. Levin and Kilbourne (2009) said, children are surrounded by a sexualized environment, which shows children they have to be beautiful and willing to make it in this world. However, in my opinion media is not the only thing to blame. Children learn a great deal from family and others in their lives. Think about it who is buying their clothes and letting them go out looking like they are older than they are, who is letting them put tons of make-up on, letting them listen to music that shows women as sex objects, or watch movies they are not for their viewing-the parents! I think they should have to take some of the blame because they are teaching these young girls that looks are what matters and that is very harmful to young children.
There are so much emphasis put on young girls looks and how boys have to be "macho" and how they judge and treat girls (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Children are being devalued and their innocence taken away from them and for what reason. Sexualization in early childhood is a big issue because children are still developing themselves and some much pressure is put on their looks and their bodies, so what are we teaching our children.
My little cousin was forced to grow up to fast due to the influence of her family. Her older cousins would dress her up and put make-up on her, have her nails done, and have her hair all done up because they thought it was cute, but it wasn't. She just turned thirteen and she wears belly shirts, short skirts, skin tight jeans, her nails done, spray tans and so forth and I blame no one but her parents.. They let her do all of this and they paid to let her do it. She has never really had a childhood and now she acts well beyond her age and doing things well beyond her age.
Parents are putting their children in beauty pageants to display how beautiful their girls are. My friend at work is obsessed with putting her two little girls in pageants all the time and she gets upset if they don't win and she goes as far as talking about the other little girls in them. I ask her why she does that to her girls and she says because they like it. They are 3 and 1 year old. I don't think they can say I like to be in pageants please put me in one. Parents are forcing their children to grow up to fast, making them look older than they are, and putting to much pressure on them to be beautiful. This picture above shows a little girl dressed up as Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman "a prostitute". What kind of message is that sending to people.
Last I hear little children singing songs that is first to old for them to even be listening to, but for them to know the words to them. These songs are degrading to women and so much is put on their looks, their body, and the things they do for their men.
I think it is so important for professionals to have meeting with parents to discuss with them the importance of letting children be children. Share this article with them to shed some light on the situation at hand. I also think they should be a dress code for children to follow to help cut back on the older looking clothes. We need to advocate to let children be children. To grow, laugh, and learn at their own pace and let them have the time to just be a child.
Reference:
Levin, D.E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books.
There are so much emphasis put on young girls looks and how boys have to be "macho" and how they judge and treat girls (Levin & Kilbourne, 2009). Children are being devalued and their innocence taken away from them and for what reason. Sexualization in early childhood is a big issue because children are still developing themselves and some much pressure is put on their looks and their bodies, so what are we teaching our children.
My little cousin was forced to grow up to fast due to the influence of her family. Her older cousins would dress her up and put make-up on her, have her nails done, and have her hair all done up because they thought it was cute, but it wasn't. She just turned thirteen and she wears belly shirts, short skirts, skin tight jeans, her nails done, spray tans and so forth and I blame no one but her parents.. They let her do all of this and they paid to let her do it. She has never really had a childhood and now she acts well beyond her age and doing things well beyond her age.
Parents are putting their children in beauty pageants to display how beautiful their girls are. My friend at work is obsessed with putting her two little girls in pageants all the time and she gets upset if they don't win and she goes as far as talking about the other little girls in them. I ask her why she does that to her girls and she says because they like it. They are 3 and 1 year old. I don't think they can say I like to be in pageants please put me in one. Parents are forcing their children to grow up to fast, making them look older than they are, and putting to much pressure on them to be beautiful. This picture above shows a little girl dressed up as Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman "a prostitute". What kind of message is that sending to people.
Last I hear little children singing songs that is first to old for them to even be listening to, but for them to know the words to them. These songs are degrading to women and so much is put on their looks, their body, and the things they do for their men.
I think it is so important for professionals to have meeting with parents to discuss with them the importance of letting children be children. Share this article with them to shed some light on the situation at hand. I also think they should be a dress code for children to follow to help cut back on the older looking clothes. We need to advocate to let children be children. To grow, laugh, and learn at their own pace and let them have the time to just be a child.
Reference:
Levin, D.E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Week 5: Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice
I am a very shy and quiet turned person until I really get to know someone and at times people get the impression that I am snobby or better than them because I don't speak first to people and make direct contact. This really hurts my feelings when people jump to these assumptions without even knowing me because I am a very friendly and kind person.
I can imagine working in an early childhood setting and children coming up to me and asking me if I'm better than them because I am white, are you better than my family because you make more money than them, do you have better things than my family, or even why don't you talk to my family that much, do you not like them. These questions can really make me feel bad because that is the last impression I want to make. This would lower my self-esteem because I would then worry about how to approach the children and their families. This could also make the families and children feel ashamed and embarrassed of who they are and what they have in life and I don't want that. I want both the children and families to know that I am approachable, kind, caring, and there for them. I want to have a trusting relationship with each family and to let them know how important their child's care and education is to me.
In such a case I would really need to take a step back and look at my non-verbal cues because I am sending the wrong message to people. Also my communication skills needs to be worked on so I am more open, talkative, approachable, and make eye contact while talking. Children and families need to know that not one person or group is better than any other and I want that known in my classroom by making it welcoming, comfortable, and displaying a variety of cultures around the room.
I can imagine working in an early childhood setting and children coming up to me and asking me if I'm better than them because I am white, are you better than my family because you make more money than them, do you have better things than my family, or even why don't you talk to my family that much, do you not like them. These questions can really make me feel bad because that is the last impression I want to make. This would lower my self-esteem because I would then worry about how to approach the children and their families. This could also make the families and children feel ashamed and embarrassed of who they are and what they have in life and I don't want that. I want both the children and families to know that I am approachable, kind, caring, and there for them. I want to have a trusting relationship with each family and to let them know how important their child's care and education is to me.
In such a case I would really need to take a step back and look at my non-verbal cues because I am sending the wrong message to people. Also my communication skills needs to be worked on so I am more open, talkative, approachable, and make eye contact while talking. Children and families need to know that not one person or group is better than any other and I want that known in my classroom by making it welcoming, comfortable, and displaying a variety of cultures around the room.
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