Getting to Know Your International Contacts

 Since I have had a difficult time recieving a response back from my internationtal contacts, I have choosen to complete alternate assignment.

Prior to reading this article and researching this topic I always believed that child development started in the womb and I continue to believe this theory after reading the research.  There has been insistence where during prenatal the mother endures emotional and physical abuse that it has shown to have lifelong effects on the fetus after birth. Research has shown over and over again that the unborn fetus recognizes the voice of his or her family, particularly the mother and it has often been recommended to read to the unborn fetus.  Therefore, I agree with the article and research that early childhood education should be continued at birth. Newborns should be nurtured and given social and emotional support. This support will lead to the child being confident and have a foundation for academic growth.  

Resources:

Teachers College, Columbia University. (2009). Early childhood care and education: Worlwide challenges and progress. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 11, 1–44. Retrieved from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice/Issues/11.00/PDFs/11_Complete_Issue.pdf

Sharing Web Resources

This week the weekly newsletter focused on challenging behaviors.  The article suggested that challenging behavior can mean many things to many people.  This website has  developed a set of resources to help parents and professionals understand and respond to some of the most common and typical challenges that crop up in children’s early years which includes aggression, defiance, inconsolable crying, children who are slow-to-warm-up, and sleep challenges. 

We have seen an increase in the last few years of children being diagnosed with behavior/mental disorders including a high rate of autism being diagnosed which in my opinion has created an issue of teachers maintaining a well behaved and smooth running classroom. I do understand that every child is born with his or her own temperament, but these temperaments does influences a child’s behavior and particularly in the classroom.

This newsletter suggested that it is impossible to offer one strategy or response that will work for everyone. To help you apply the information here to your individual child, think about how your child’s temperament might influence his or her behavior, and how you may adapt the strategies you read about to meet the needs of your child and your family. 

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

I have been unsuccessful at receiving back from professionals outside of the US so I choose the alternative activity, Podcast and researching the website http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/.

On the Morning Show on NBC this morning they had a piece on their about Poverty and Homelessness. The focus was on Charlotte North Carolina where they interviewed this single mother of five who has been homeless for a year and was currently living in a one bedroom apartment for homeless and displaced families.  The mother discussed the hardships of raising five children alone and trying to go to the school herself.  It was stated by the news reporter that one in every five children has or will experience homelessness sometimes in their life, which is 1.5million children. This number is astonishing and their needs to be a resolution to this ongoing problem that seems to be only getting worse with the state of our economy.

After studying this website the information according to the numbers were the same as I heard on the morning news which was an insight for me…I knew that many families were displaced, however, one out of five was heart breaking.

Another insight I gained through this website was that o 10 million children under five years old die every year from preventable diseases. As one of the most powerless groups in society, children often bear the physical and emotional costs of poverty.

The last insight I learned from this website was that I was unaware that something was being done drastically to increase poverty and homeless. The international community has committed itself to meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. This includes lowering poverty rates, cutting by two-thirds the deaths of children under five and ensuring that all children in the world complete at least primary education.

Sharing Web Resources

I initially contacted two professional individuals outside of the United States, however, I was unsuccessful at getting a response.

The name and link of the organization I selected is, Zero To Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Familieshttp://www.zerotothree.org/about-us/ 

I selected this organization because I have used this website frequently in the past for research papers as well as to gather information for personal and professional reasons. I find this website/organization to be very informative and useful. The information on the website is always updated and the information and research is recent.

Zero to Three is a national nonprofit organization that informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers. 

This week’s newsletter that I found very informative and caught my attention was a article and graph describing the development of a child from 30-36months. The graph shows one side of what the toddler should be doing and the other side states what the parent should be doing to enhance the development of the toddler.

I also liked the idea that this organization is encouraging parents to limit the number of hours a child watches TV daily because of the influence of the advertising as well as the development of the child’s cognition.