Tag: Global Children

How to build success?

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When children are learning to walk, they fall and get up time after time until they learn. They don’t make a decision to stop trying and to crawl for the rest of their lives.

They are not concerned about how much time it is going to take to get what they want. They don’t know much about time or the future. That seems to work for them. They are willing to give tasks the required time to achieve them. They live in the moment.

They might not be happy repeating all over but that does not stop them. They are not forcing happiness or positive thinking upon themselves.

Do children’s responses differ? Yes, they do. They might accept difficulties with ease but also may not. Babies process their feelings by crying. It is their way to express themselves and to sort things out. Crying does not stop them. It might even encourage to persist.

Children are patient most of the times. Sometimes they get frustrated. Does either of those two feelings stop them from trying again? The answer is “No”.

Yes, they would like approval from people around them but not at the expense of doing what that they really want to do.

How to build success? Adults need to allow children to solve their problems on their own. Children are natural explorers. They experiment and accept that things might not work out right away.

Can we as adults solve our problems as children do, please?

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How do infants and toddlers socialize?

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The infant learns what it means to socialize by interacting with family members and by engaging in activities with them.

Early on, the infant reacts to the adult’s smile and gestures by smiling back, by moving, or by vocalizing sounds. With time, the child not only reacts but also initiates social encounters even when the basic needs are taken care of.

For the socialization process to be successful, the infant needs to feel that the context is secure and safe to explore, to express own emotions, and to expect a positive response. The mother or caregiver provides the child with the emotional and physical supports to explore the surroundings thus facilitating the baby’s feeling that the world is safe to explore. Babies understand that they could refer back to the adult, if needed.

Babies experiment with their responses. By the second year, the gestures become more accurate. For example, toddlers would wave Goodbye to a person leaving. They also start to use different intonations of language for different social purposes. They learn to say “no” to assert their choices and to test how far they can get away not doing as told.

By the third year, toddlers get a refined sense of the adults’ thoughts and feelings. This skill strengthens their ability to know when it is better to respond to the adults’ requests and what could be negotiated. Toddlers are seeking to develop autonomy and independence as they go about exploring the world.

Infants and toddlers learn valuable social skills when they have siblings. As children can have different set of skills, they engage and negotiate with varying strengths. So, the rules of social play get constantly redefined. This is quite different than the interaction with the adult who models interactions with the infant in a more predictable manner.

Children who attend day care at an early age will have different levels of acceptance to the setting. This is dependent on their temperament, home interactions, and the characteristics of the caring environment. High quality service delivery ensures that the child is receiving adequate attention from a caregiver.

Peers provide social support for the toddler when there is consistency in the implementation of the rules. Parallel play is often the form where a child first engages in social interactions with another child. It starts with the children playing in close proximity to each other. This is followed by each child keeping an eye on what the other child is doing without necessarily engaging in play or initiating a verbal communication.

Children observe other peers and could imitate them. Role play is a powerful medium for children to practice the skills that they observed. This capacity will become more enhanced by 3 years of age.

As children grow older, they will engage in group play and will apply rules of successful interactions. From there begins a lifelong process of socializing that will take them to different people, places, and cultures. They will engage in a global world and develop the tools to successfully do so.

Reference:

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Oxford University Press.

 

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Pregnancy and negative environmental factors

~ futureglobalchild ~ 1 Comment

The baby in the prenatal period is called Zygote in the first 2 weeks, embryo between weeks 3 and 8, and fetus, from the 3rd month onwards, between weeks 9 and 38. The age of the baby’s viability, where the baby would survive, starts between 22 and 26 weeks.

Berk (2013) discussed many elements or factors that could negatively impact the baby prior to birth. Hereditary factors might be hard to avoid but harmful environmental factors, or teratogens, need to be taken seriously.

The negative effect of the teratogen will be more significant if the organ, structure, or body part is going through a sensitive period of development.

As the effect can be damaging very early in the pregnancy, it becomes vital to avoid teratogens. The embryonic period, between 3 and 8 weeks, seems to be the period where teratogens can have the most impact.  As early as week 3, teratogens can have a major impact on the central nervous system, heart, upper and lower limbs, ears, and eyes. The sensitive period for ears, eyes, and the central nervous system continues. Damage could occur in other times but might be less harmful.

Pregnant mothers need to be very careful with prescribed, non-prescribed, and illegal drugs. The danger on the baby is paramount as drugs enter the placental barrier to the baby’s bloodstream.

The use of Aspirin has been debated with some studies relating its regular use by pregnant mothers to low birth weight. The use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin puts the baby at risk for addiction, prematurity, or even death around birth.

Alcohol consumption has been related to facial abnormalities and a slow physical growth.

Smoking has been related to low birth weight, miscarriage, prematurity, and heart malfunctioning. Low birth weight and prematurity were also related to the excessive consumption of cola, tea, coffee, and cocoa.

The dosage, timing, and length of consumption/exposure of the above teratogens lead to varied effects.

Other teratogens include prenatal malnutrition, radiation, mercury, lead, viruses such as rubella (German measles), toxoplasma parasite, and AIDS.

On the other hand, a balanced nutrition and a healthy physical activity were related to increased birth weight. The Apgar Scale is used to assess the newborn’s appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration.

Caring for children before birth gives them a strong start in life. In a complex world, the best thing we could offer a child is the road to success. Prenatal care sets the way.

Reference:
Berk, L. E. (2013). Child development (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

 

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How can educators support children’s resilience?

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When children overcome difficulties, they grow up successful and resilient in the face of obstacles. The ability to be resilient involves drawing on multiple resources such as genetic makeup, temperament type, and the social supports in the environment.

Nolan et al. (2014) examined the impact of the environment and the relationships in the early childhood settings on children’s resilience. They recommended practices in the setup and the nature of relationships as follows:

Environment: The child who contributes positively to the environment needs to be acknowledged.

Educators can help children feel accepted regardless of how their feelings fluctuate in different spaces. Children explore their environment in order to check what works for them and what does not. Some children are more sociable than others. Some operate better in small groups than in large groups.

Educators can set the space, daily schedule, and activities so that children rotate among quiet and noisy spaces, small and large groups, and indoors and outdoors. Often a private space where children can rest quietly helps them develop a sense of perspective about the events surrounding them. The movement in different environments also helps children know themselves and their preferences.

As children grow up, they will navigate in different spaces. The rotations in the early childhood setting enhances children’s abilities to be resilient in diverse circumstances.

Relationships: Educators can support the children’s resilience by establishing systematic and respectful relationships with the children’s parents and by communicating the effective practices around wellbeing, emotional regulation, and modelling that have been applied in the early childhood setting.

The children need to feel that their feelings are acknowledged by parents and educators. It is the responsibility of the educator to establish a strong connection with parents so they both support children’s resilience. Children need to feel that they are not left alone in the world to fend for themselves and that there is a safe place that they can go to. They should also be encouraged to seek support when they want it and be given time to regulate their own feelings.

Depending on what children need to share about their strengths and needs, the educator can engage in a one to one conversation with them or invite them to share their story/feelings in groups of different sizes. Effective listening is the basis for a successful engagement whether in a dyadic or a group interaction.

The educator needs to observe children and document information about their personalities. Based on the documentation, the educator supports children in order to boost their confidence and social-emotional wellbeing. As children get experience in different types of relationships (dyadic/group), they develop awareness of the dynamics of each setting and apply behaviors that would help them communicate their feelings and solve their problems.

Resilience helps a person grow mentally and physically healthy. The skills, attitudes, and daily practices of resilience will ensure success in a global world.

Reference:

Nolan, A., Stagnitti, K., Taket, A., & Casey, S. (2014). Supporting resilience. In S. Garvis & D. Pendergast (Eds.), Health and wellbeing in childhood (pp. 240-252). Cambridge University Press.

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Language and Memory

~ futureglobalchild ~ 2 Comments

Children increasingly make sense of what they hear by strengthening their auditory perception. Auditory perception skills include the ability to memorize information and the ability to reproduce and act on what was memorized.

Children’s short- and long-term memories develop as they grow up. A preschooler can repeat two to three pieces of information with the number growing up to five pieces by age 7 (Kearns, 2017). Adults have the capacity to retain 7 +/- 2 pieces of information in their short-term memory.

To move the information into long-term memory, children need to develop recall strategies. Many nursery rhymes and children’s songs include steps, lists, and ordered numbers that help children recall accurate information and that allow them to carry out actions.

To develop a repertoire of words and detailed actions, children need to have been exposed to them early in their lives. We can help children develop a repertoire of words by engaging in conversations with and around them when they are alert. By doing so, we help children combine the words, actions, and context into a meaningful outcome.

As parents and educators, should we talk out loud whenever possible throughout the day around our young children? If the self-talk covers different topics and introduces the child to hundreds of words, then the answer is YES.

Around the world, parents communicate with children in different ways. The number of adults taking care of the child varies and could include one or more primary caregiver. In some cultures, older siblings participate in caring for the child as well. As a result, the language input is diverse and it is not surprising that the children grow up displaying different linguistic communication patterns depending on whom they are addressing than children with fewer verbal interactions.

More research is needed to understand how the relationship between memory and language development unfolds in different contexts. We constantly witness children defying the current memory capacity when applied to language development. How far can the “piece of information” captured by children’s short- and long-term memories be stretched? Is “the piece of information” one letter, one chunk, one poem, or one storybook?  It depends on how educators and parents complement the child’s genetic dispositions.

Educators and parents have a responsibility to help children succeed in a global world. Surrounding children with a rich language input is one main success strategy.

Reference:

Kearns, K. (2017). Birth to big school (4th ed.). Victoria, Australia: Cengage Learning.

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How can we help the child’s brain?

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The growth of the human brain is at its highest in the first five years of age. At birth, the brain is about 25% of the size of adult brain and, by 4 years old, it reaches 90% of the adult brain. This fact alone makes the first five years of age very important in a person’s lifespan.

Information is transmitted to the nervous system and to the rest of the body through grey nerve cells called neurons. We are born with 100 to 200 billion neurons with each neuron comprising of approximately 30,000 cells (Johnson, 2003, as cited in Garvis et al., 2019).

Neurons transmit and receive information through their endings called synapses. We are born with 2500 synapses per neuron. However, this number increases to 15000 per neuron by age 3. As we grow up, the brain eliminates the neurons and the synapses that are not used.

The elimination is a natural part of development as long as it is not due to an imbalance in stimulation. Connections thrive through rich visual, auditory, or emotional stimuli. According to Graham (2001, 2011), the process unfolds as follows:

Visual stimulation: Vision can be stimulated by exposing the child to different colors, contrasts, and levels of brightness. Problems in vision that are left unattended might cause the eye to lose its connection to the brain.

Emotional stimulation: Children develop feelings of calm, relaxation, tension, and distress early in their lives. The brain wave patterns function better when positive emotions are triggered. Unresponsive relationships with the child can negatively impact the brain’s development.

Language simulation: Infants are programmed to focus on sounds and especially the human voice. Engaging with the child verbally using different tones and maintaining eye contact helps the child register the words and the context in which they are used.

Movement stimulation: Children need to be given opportunities to develop their large as well as their fine motor skills and their eye hand coordination. Experimentation with movement registers in the brain and movements get more refined as the child grows up.

Restraining children hurts their development and makes it harder for them to grow abilities in all areas of development as their peers. On the other hand, a positive environment supports children’s brain development and widen their opportunities to succeed to in a global world.

References:

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.

Graham, J. (2001, 2011). Bulletin #4356, Children and brain development: What we know about how children learn. Retrieved from The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Website: https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/4356e/

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Hand Washing for Children and Adults: When and How

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Hand washing is important for preventing communicable and infectious diseases. Parents, educators, and children should regularly wash their hands.

In a childcare, educators (most situations apply to parents as well) and children should wash their hands as follows:

  • Upon arrival to the childcare and before leaving,
  • Before and after handling food,
  • After blowing own nose or wiping a child’s nose,
  • After using the restroom,
  • After changing nappies,
  • After cleaning up, handling art materials, or collecting garbage,
  • After playing outdoors with sand or touching animals, and
  • Before and after administering medications.

(Marotz, 2015; National Health and Medical Research Council, 2013)

In addition, Marotz (2015) indicates that when handling food, hands should be washed as follows:

  • Before touching food,
  • Before wearing and after disposing of gloves,
  • After handling raw meat, poultry, seafood, or eggs,
  • After touching dirty dishes or garbage,
  • After coughing, sneezing, or blowing own nose,
  • After using tobacco, eating, or drinking,
  • After touching hair or skin such as ears, nose, or arms.

Washing procedure:

Washing thoroughly with soap and water remains the recommended method. Although alcohol-based gels are increasingly gaining popularity, they should not substitute hand washing. Alcohol-based gels could be applied when hands are not very dirty and the rubbing of the hands should continue until the hands are dry.

When rubbing hands and wrist with water and soap, the friction breaks down the germs. The rubbing should continue for 15 to 20 seconds. It is better to wet hands before applying soap, so the hands don’t get dry by repeated washing.

In the case of infants and toddlers, it is important to disinfect the floor and play areas until they develop an understanding of diseases and illnesses. The baby’s hands should be washed after crawling on the floor and before eating or sucking fingers.

How can we help children remember to wash their hands?

  • Educators and parents could post the steps in the bathroom in pictures.
  • Children could be taught a song that gets attached to hand washing.
  • Parents and educators should model washing hands and verbalize what they are doing.
  • Educators could include activities where children role play the correct procedure for hand washing.
  • Educators should communicate the importance of hand washing to parents so children listen to the same message at home and in the childcare.
  • Washing hands should be a fixed daily routine; otherwise, it is going to be difficult to implement consistently.

To build the concept of hygienic procedures for children, parents and educators could start by alerting children to wash hands before eating and to not touch eyes, ears, nose, or mouth while playing as those areas are the most common means for the spread of communicable and infectious diseases.

Hand washing should be part of an overall wellness program that highlights health promotion as a priority for children and adults. In a globally connected world, it becomes important to practise hand hygiene along with other preventive health measures.

References:

Marotz, L. R. (2015). Health, safety, and nutrition for the young child (9th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

National Health and Medical Research Council. (2013). Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services (9th ed.). Retrieved from https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/staying-healthy-preventing-infectious-diseases-early-childhood-education-and-care-services

 

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How can educators help children cope with stress?

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Children can get stressed for many reasons. Early childhood settings have an important role to play in alleviating children’s stress.

Firstly, a quality early childhood program provides children with:

  • A balanced environment with vigorous and quiet activities,
  • An engaging curriculum that addresses the needs of the individual children, and
  • Qualified staff members that act in consistent and predictable ways.

Secondly, adults should interact with stressed children and help them develop coping skills. When a child is angry or upset, it is important for the educator to acknowledge the child’s feelings and to allow the child time to process the negative emotions. The child should not be asked to get going with daily activities without having worked through the stressful issues.

Educators need to say something that they think captures the child’s feelings. They need to get down to the child’s level, have eye to eye contact with the child and, for example, say: “I understand that you are upset because of ….”.

It is important to state what the issue could be especially if the child is not the verbal type. The educator should give the child time to calm down and then take one of two approaches: either ask the child to come up with the next step depending on the age and maturity of the child; or, suggest couple options that the child can do to overcome the stress.

Sometimes holding children gently helps them calm down; at other times, children need to be left alone while being supervised. They could read a book or listen to some music.

If children can verbalize feelings, they should be given the time to do so. The educator acknowledges the feelings and helps the child move to the next step on how to cope with the situation.

Thirdly, the educator can help children deal with their emotions by sharing children’s literature that focused on the same stressful issues. There are children’s books that cover the issues of loss and death, diverse families, fears, illness, and hospitalization.

There are many advantages to using children’s books. Children become aware of other children who are going through the same situation and how they navigated the associated stress. It is also useful for all children to learn about difficult life issues through children’s books even if they’re not going through it themselves so they will be equipped to cope when such time comes. In addition, the awareness of stressful issues though literature helps children develop empathy towards children going through tough times.

Fourthly, children can be encouraged to relax. Simple exercises could involve asking the children to tense each muscle then relax it. Another technique could be the use of imagery. For example, children could pretend they are leaves falling from a tree.

Lastly, role play and sociodramatic play offer valuable venues for children to express their feelings and relive their fears and anxieties in a healthy manner. Children often repeat the same scenarios until they are ready to overcome them.

The sooner children learn how to cope with stress, the more prepared they will be to navigate through complex issues as they grow up in a global world.

Reference:

Essa, E. L. (2014). Introduction to early childhood education (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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What do infants listen to?

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It is important to realize that newborns are alert and can discriminate sounds.

By one month, infants differentiate speech sounds (phonemes) such as /p/ and /b/ (Trehub & Rabinovitch, 1972). By 6 months of age, infants discriminate two syllable words such as /bada/ and /baga/ and recognize a familiar syllable inside a string of syllables (MacWhinney, 2011).

Infants also discriminate speech sounds of familiar and unfamiliar languages. However, this ability diminishes considerably for unfamiliar consonant contrasts by one year of age (Dietrich, Swingley, & Werker, 2007). Examples of contrasting consonants are pack-back; pie-buy; and rope-robe.

In one experiment, Werker, Maurer, and Yoshida (2010) showed that by 6 to 8 months, infants discriminated most foreign consonant pairs and some foreign vowel pairs. However, by 10 to 12 months, infants barely heard any of the foreign pairs. Examples of vowel pairs are boat and fruit where usually the second vowel is silent. Examples of consonant pairs are /p-b/ and /t-d/ where one letter is voiced using the vibrations of the vocal cords and the other letter isn’t.

The tone in which the language is conveyed also makes a difference. Fernald (1993) found that 5-month-old infants will respond with a smile to a positive tone and not to a negative tone even when the language was unfamiliar.

Last but not least, infants can respond to their own names by 5 months old (Newman 2005).

The above findings highlight the importance of speech interactions with the child and the role of both the environment and experience on speech perception. Widening children’s listening experiences is a window for them to learn many languages and to engage in successful communication styles. Ultimately, high quality listening experiences ensure success in a global world.

Reference:

Boyd, D., & Bee, H. (2012). The developing child (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

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How do newborns see and hear the world?

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Boyd and Bee (2012) discuss how children interact with the world around them. How do newborns use their senses and how could caregivers help them in their life journey?

Newborns can see a person located around 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 centimeters). They can also see the colors red, green, orange, and yellow in a week’s time but need a bit longer to see blue and violet (allaboutvision.com).

Babies can also track a moving object in the first few weeks. At about 6 weeks, the tracking becomes more defined with the accuracy improving dramatically by 10 weeks.

Babies’ visual acuity reaches 20/20 by 6 months of age; that is, babies can see at 20 feet – 6 meters- what other people with normal vision can see at that same distance.

With regards to their other senses, newborns hear in the general human hearing range and turn their head in the direction of the sound; they differentiate sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes; and they discriminate the smell of their mother.

To help children use their senses efficiently, it is important that the caregiver holds the newborn closely, looks in their eyes and converses with them. Caregivers should not assume that newborns don’t see them. In effect, newborns focus on and respond to the caregivers’ signs, sounds, and touch.

Caregivers need to welcome the child into this world. Positive people and nurturing environments give children the confidence and the ability to succeed in a global world.

Reference:
Boyd, D., & Bee, H. (2012). The developing child (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

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