My Supports

I am blessed to have many supports both in my personal and professional life.  My family has always been a great source of support in my life. Through their encouragement, praise and support I have been able to make through my undergraduate years at UT, away from home.  I was the first in my family to leave home for college and though I was excited I couldn't have made it through without the frequent visits and phone calls from my family.  I truly believe it was their support during these early college years that contributed to the success I have found after graduation.  I was able to find a major and career path that was meaningful to me, unlike so many of others I know who were forced into majors by their families; who were not supportive of their liberty to choose for themselves.

My husband is a great support as well. His support is evident in our home life and my work life.  I am able to work late sometimes and attend school functions because I know that our daughter is happy and taken care of at home with her daddy.  Without his support I would not have been able to return to graduate school.  Imagining myself as a single mother is terrifying. On the few days when I have to get myself and my daughter ready for school on our own, I experience what it might be like to not have my husband around. My work life would suffer because I wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time to it, and I would have to take off every time she got sick.  Having a second pair of eyes and hand around helps with the simple tasks like making dinner, getting laundry done and grocery shopping. I have to utmost respect for single parents because I don't know if I would have the strength to do it on my own.

My Connections to Play

Thinking back to my childhood, come of my most vivid memories are of me playing alone in my backyard playhouse. Being an only child, I played very well on my own. I loved have a place outside of the house that was all my own. I spent hours playing house, cooking up dinners and tending to my baby dolls.

I was lucky to have had parents that supported my play and provided me the opportunity to spend so much time playing in my backyard playhouse. I can remember my father and grandfather building the playhouse together and how I felt so special that they were working so hard to make something just for me. Play has changed so much since I was little. Now children consider play to be something you do on a computer or through a video game. While there are some good things technological games can teach, there are no opportunities for language development or social engagement. When I played in my playhouse I carried on full conversations with my baby dolls and imaginary friends and tea guests.  The thing I found best about my playhouse was that I made the rules and decisions. Nobody told me how or what to play, I always just decided to play with my baby dolls.  My choice to pursue a career in child development could very well have stemmed from the hours I spent tending to babies in my backyard playhouse. Some children play doctor or teacher, I took care of babies, there is something to be said of that.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato

“Play has been man's most useful preoccupation.” Frank Caplan

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Becoming a mother for the first time is a frightening thing. Although our pregnancy was planned, we didn't expect to be successful so soon.  I felt unprepared when we became pregnant and, like many new mothers, ran to the book store and picked up a pile of books to help me through my pregnancy. 
I learned what to eat, how to exercise and could give you weekly updates on how my fetus was developing. All of this knowledge was completely useless once my daughter was born. I couldn't believe that, despite all my readings and degree in early childhood, I was at a loss when it came to caring for a newborn.
SIDS was a HUGE source of stress for me.  I think the ambiguity of the syndrome is what scarred me the most. It was something you couldn't do much to prevent, you just had to cross your fingers and hope it didn't happen to your baby.
The more I researched the more I found that there were actually several things we could do to prevent the chances of SIDS. Keeping the temperature at 70, not letting a baby sleep on your chest and of course putting a baby to sleep on their back were all preventative measures. Still, I checked on my infant constantly to make sure I saw her little check moving up and down. She began sleeping through the night, I however was waking every 2 hours to check on her.
I hope that we will soon know more and understand more about SIDS.  sidscenter.org listed the US as having the second highest infant mortality rate due to SIDS.  The Neatherlands and Japan were raked as the lowest.

Resources

Geaprgetown University (Retrieved 2011) National Sudden and Unexpected Infant\Child Death and Pregnancy Loss. Resource Center. Retrieved from http://www.sidscenter.org/Statistics.html

Thanks to all my Wonderful Colleages

Self-esteem is the real magic wand that can form a child’s future. A child’s self-esteem affects every area of her existence, from friends she chooses, to how well she does academically in school, to what kind of job she gets, to even the person she chooses to marry.

STEPHANIE MARTSON, The Magic of Encouragement

I'd like to thank all of my wonderful collegues for sharing stories and resources this semester. I have learned so much from reading your blogs and discussions posts. Please continue making a positive impact in all the lives of the children you work with!

Happy Holidays!

Educating the Whole Student

More and more we are hearing about the "Whole Child" and what it means to address and understand all the needs a child has: intellectual, spiritual, social, physical and emotional.  In researching this topic I came across an article in which the New York State education department is outlining exactly how a school can educate the whole child.
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/sss/sedl/DRAFTguidelinesforNYSlatestversion.pdf
These guidelines walk you through the domains that should be addresses and how a school should go about doing this.  The basics are support, involvementt, outreach and intervention. It is the belief of this education department that when the "Whole Child" is considered teacher can teach more effectively, learning will happen more consistently and parents and the community will become more involved.

Other countries are already prioritizing social and emotional learning. Singapore for example, had integrated SEL (Social Emotional Learning) into their schools and consistently scores at the top of Iinternational Math and Science competitions (Barth,M. 2010).

American children deserve every opportunity for success and if social emotional learning is missing for the schools, it's worth a try.


Barth, M. (2010) Educating the Whole Child Engaging the Whole School. NYS Eduaction Department, Albany, NY.

Consequences of Stress on Child Development

Stress comes in many forms, from hunger and poverty to noise and chaos.  My husband has shared with me forms of stress that polluted his childhood. As a child of divorces he remembers plenty of noisy fighting and getting packed up in the middle of the night to stay at Grandma's - chaos. He withdrew as a child and started doing poorly in school because he said, "he just didn't care".  As a result of his childhood he struggled through life resenting his parents.  When he finally was able to leave the house for college the freedom was too much to handle and he failed out.  He keeps his emotions and feelings guarded and has a difficult time trusting. Somehow he allowed me to love him and has been a wonderful husband and father. All it took was patients,understanding and showing him that I would love him unconditionally.
Children in Africa face very different stressors. Hunger, poverty, disease, violence, and isolation.  Riddled with AIDS many children are left on their own when their parents are taken by the disease. Relief workers and missionaries volunteer their time and efforts to help these children left behind but the numbers are overwhelming. We are so blessed in this country to have the resources to help those less fortunate, yet children go hungry here everyday. Hunger is a problem that can be found in every country the world wide.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding was a lot more difficult for me that I was expecting.  I read about all the wonderful benefits and had decided during my pregnancy that I would breastfeed for the recommended year.  This all changed while I was in the hospital after having my baby.  My daughter Madison had a difficult time latching on.  I was constantly worried that she wasn't getting enough to eat, it was hard for me to not have an exact measurement. As Madison grew breastfeeding became more and more painful and frustrating.  I decided to pump exclusively, which led to decrease in production.  I finally gave up around month 4 a good 6 months shy of my goal....I felt both relief and failure.
I recently learned that the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe. UNICEF believes that this statistic is due to lack of information and promotion of "Baby Milk" or formula (UNICEF, 2010).  This is starkly different from the US.  Here it is driven into mothers to feel, as I did, like a failure for not being able to breastfeed.