My Supports

One important support that I have daily is my husband. My husband provides emotional support, encouragement that what I’m doing is okay, and motivation to continue to grow. I am trying to be a stay at home mom while I finish graduate school and while my baby is young. I often feel that I put too much pressure on him to bring home enough money for us but he reassures me that what I am doing for our daughter balances his stresses. He helps me to keep active and involved with life by giving me his errands to run while he works and to challenge me to get other things done for me such as school work, exercising away baby weight, eating healthier, and working on my craft projects. If my husband were not as supportive I am not sure that I would be able to stay home without a great amount of guilt and I’m also not sure that our family would run as smoothly each day.

Another support that I have is from my Dad and stepmom. My husband, baby, and I currently live in their basement. They provide a great deal for us including meals and daycare whenever needed. This really helps a lot when I have quick errands to run or appointments that shouldn’t involve a baby. Living with them allows me to stay home with the baby because we can afford our bills each month with only one of us working. Without this support we would have to put the baby in daycare while we worked and this is not ideal for me.

A physical support that helps me each day is our dry erase calendar. This allows me to keep track of when my husband needs to work his jobs so I can help him get there on time and also so that I can plan my free time along with his. It also helps me keep track of what I need to accomplish each day. Without this support I would be very disorganized and I wouldn’t get nearly as much finished on time.

I imagined a challenge that could happen at any time for my little family; not having daycare available by family members and having to return to work. This is a great possibility because my husband is being trained as a manager and can be transferred once he is trained. If we were to have to pay full rent and other bills entirely on our own I would have to return to work. Unless I would work opposite of his hours, we would need to put the baby in daycare. I would need a lot of emotional support if this were to happen. I have great separation anxiety when it comes to leaving her, and that is only for a couple of hours. I would need to research a great deal of daycares and give some trial runs to find the right fit for us. Living away from family and friends would also mean we would have to find some close friends to socialize with, which can be difficult for adults with children. I imagine I would find friends with children the same age as my daughter so that we could share the delights and challenges of having children. Without that I’m afraid we would become very lonely with just each other for company. It would be very challenging to move to a new city again, as well as putting my baby in daycare, but with the right support of friends and my husband I think the transition is do-able.

Play

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

~Scott Adams

“The important things is not to stop questioning…Never lose a holy curiosity.”

~Albert Einstein

When I was a kid I had what seemed like an endless supply of legos. I was the youngest child so I had tons, literally tons, of hand-me-down, miscellaneous legos. I could build anything I could imagine and never run out. 

 

When I was a baby my aunt gave me a tiny baby doll. I apparently carried it everywhere I went until I was 6 or so. I still have it, and I bought a similar one for my daughter.

I feel sorry for many kids these days that do not have the outside free range that I had when I was growing up. We lived on the end of a quiet street and had a few acres of land. We had tall grasses, a sparse woods, and a great weeping willow out front that made an excellent tree fort/girls club.

Relationship Reflection

The first and most special relationship to me is with my husband, Marty. We have a very positive relationship where we feel safe enough to challenge each other’s opinions and are not worried about offending the other. We support each other’s decisions, however we often question why we chose to stand where we do because we feel that it more clearly states why we stand there and helps us to learn more about ourselves. Some challenges that we face is that we are both stubborn and can be argumentative. We are definitely not an opposites attract couple. Our relationship is special because we are best friends; we know each other inside and out. I feel that this relationship is really going to help me professionally because he has taught me to question my decisions and why I feel the way I do. 

Another relationship that is very special to me is with my father; my Dad. This is a positive relationship because I cannot get away with even the smallest lie. As a teenager he knew when I was out drinking and would check on me often. As an adult he knows when I need to talk through issues and when I need to deal with things on my own. This relationship will affect me in my professional life because he instilled in me my love of learning new things and the confidence a teacher needs to face her students and colleagues when a problem arises. 

(from left is my husband, Johnny holding Madelynn, and myself)

One last relationship that is important to me is a slightly borrowed relationship. This would be with my husband’s best friend, Johnny. Over the years he has become my best friend as well. He never judges us unfairly and accepts our personalities as they are. One challenge to maintaining this friendship is that we no longer live near one another. When we were pregnant with my daughter we moved in with my parents, 2 hours away. However, Johnny has been there to see Maddy grow and we are all trying our best to keep him as a strong part of her life. We made him her Godfather in October, and the additional responsibility has made us all a little closer. This relationship will help me professionally because it has taught me to persevere.

My new daughter

This is my god-daughter Gabrielle and my brand new daughter Madelynn. 

She will be two weeks old tomorrow!

Walt Disney
"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children"

 

Resources

Khurana, S. (2012). A select collection of quotes about children. Retrieved August 18, 2012 from http://quotations.about.com/cs/inspirationquotes/a/Children1.htm

School-Aged Assessments

I think the best way to assess children is to start by observing them in their natural environments; on the playground, in the classroom, taking a test, in gym/art/music class, and at lunch. I think that these areas are all important and need to be taken into account because each child has their own strengths and weaknesses that may not necessarily show on a typical standardized test. I think that standardized tests can be useful in seeing, generally, where a child stands in comparison to their peers. But I do not think that this information should be used alone to assess any child. 

England has a school system similar to ours in our assessments of our children. They currently assess their children at ages 5, 7, 11, and then 14 (Department for education, 2012). These assessments tell teachers where the children stand, and what needs to be improved upon. Since all children must take these various tests, there are accommodations made for children with special needs as well as children with illnesses (one example is a student with a broken arm). This is similar to how the U.S. conducts their assessments. For example both countries may read the test to the student and have them answer verbally, or more time may be allotted for children that are still struggling to read. 

I think that assessments are really over used in our school systems. They have gotten so out of control that now a teachers' job could be on the line based on how their students perform.  I think there is an appropriate time and place for standardized tests, but fourth grade is not the place.

References

Department for education. (2012). Testing and assessment. Retrieved August 3, 2012 from http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/assessment

Isolation in early childhood

The early childhood stressor I chose to focus on is neglect or isolation. My parents are involved in foster care. One child that came through our home had been left for long spans of time in his crib, other than when he was sleeping. He had experienced this for the first three years of his life. When the child was found and taken from the mother, he did not show interest in walking or even crawling, though he was old enough for both. He also had trouble making eye contact, had little to no language, and had to be introduced to solid foods. The child ended up surviving and is now doing quite well, minus some behavioral problems, but not every child that suffers through this is so lucky. It took a lot of love, patience, and modeling for this child to make it as far as he has.

In 1976 in the United Kingdom, Emperor Frederick II, “conducted an experiment in which babies were deliberately subjected to institution-like experiences, being raised by nurses and foster mothers who were not permitted to speak to them. The Emperor's purpose for such drastic action was to find out which language the children would instinctively speak. The unforeseen outcome of his experiment was that the children died” (Rogers, 1976).  Such experiments could not be done with today’s child protective laws, but incidents of isolation and neglect still occur in individual cases.

Roger does note one proposal for change that he knew happened in other parts of the world, “In France and else where it is possible for mothers to be paid a salary for the first two years of their children’s lives to enable them to stay at home with them” (Rogers, 1976). Rogers feels that this would give mothers not only the resources to take care of their children but also the support that many mothers desperately need.

References

Rogers, S. (May 1976). Isolation in early childhood. Paper presented to the Select committee on violence in the family, The house of Commons, United Kingdom. 14.

Breastfeeding

I chose to focus on a combination of breastfeeding and malnutrition, since they seem to go hand in hand in many places. One such place is in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. I chose this topic because being pregnant myself I am constantly asked if I plan to breastfeed and why. Research tells us that breastmilk is best; it gives babies all of mom’s antibodies, as well as helps to protect them from a variety of things such as diabetes, asthma, allergies, and obesity.

I visited the WHO website for the Eastern Mediterranean Region. One fact that hit home hard was as follows, “Around 50% of deaths in children under five in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region are attributable to mild to moderate malnutrition” (WHO, 2012). WHO suggests infants being exclusively breastfed for at least the first six months, and complement other foods along with breastfeeding for up to two years.

 “Many countries in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region report high rates (>60%) of early initiation of breastfeeding of infants and more than 60% of infants continue to be breastfed at one year. However, rates of exclusive breastfeeding seem to have declined, with only 40% or less of infants under six months in countries of the Region being exclusively breastfed” (WHO, 2012).

References

World Health Organization. (2012). Regional office for the eastern Mediterranean. Retrieved July 7, 2012 from http://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/infant-nutrition/.