~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~My Supports~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My daily supports include my husband, my two daughters and two of my closest friends. My husband and I have been together for twenty-four years and have lived a lot of life together filled with hills and valleys. Through it all we have set goals together, achieved them most of the time and supported each other with our joint and individual goals. He has been my biggest cheerleader as far as continuing my education goes. He helps me with practical things, such as computer issues I might encounter; but even greater than that he helps to keep my motivation high, helps me through difficult academic trials and is instrumental on helping me to keep my eyes on the end goal. He does all this while going to nursing school full time and running his software company full time as well. As time permits he provides other practical supports I need such as grocery shopping, cleaning the house and shuttling children. He is truly a team player and a great person to have as a cheerleader.

My supports that come from my daughters are that they keep me grounded. They keep me from being too caught up in school or my job by constantly reminding me how fleeting life is. They help me to keep life in perspective and are instrumental in me keeping my priorities straight. They provide a lot of laughter and levity in our home as well.

My two closest friends are my mirrors and I see myself most clearly reflected in my friendships with them. They are a great moral booster and where I go to when I need to decompress and laugh until my belly aches. One of them lives in another state, but we still remain close and both of these women are truly pillars in my life. They love me and choose me to be their friend and that unconditional acceptance is very important to me.

The challenge I chose to imagine is not being able to walk after knee surgery. This might be a reality for me and I will know within about a week after I see the orthopedic doctor. I had a serious injury at work about three months ago and the resolution to part of the healing may require surgery. For awhile after surgery I would be totally dependant on other people for simple things such as meals and even getting to the bathroom. The support I would need is someone to help me with mobility issues for a few days and I am certain that would come from my husband and my daughters. I would need someone to cook, clean and take care of the cats. Again, my family, and probably my sister would step in to help with that. I would need the support of my instructor at school so I could have an extension for assignment due dates the week of my surgery. I would benefit from the support of my friends to keep me laughing and my spirits up. These supports would be very important for my healing process so I didn’t have to worry about the practical aspects of daily living and not get bored out of my mind. In a perfect world that would happen. However, I went through cancer treatment ten years ago, and many of these supports, which I hoped I could rely on, disappeared. One of my closest friends did not rise to the occasion. That was emotionally devastating for me, almost as much as the actual cancer diagnosis itself. It took years and years for that relationship to mend, mostly because that friend withdrew out of guilt. I think emotional supports are just as necessary as physical supports when going through something like this.

~~~~~My Connections to Play~~~~~~

I'd like to share a couple of quotes that resonated with me as a child about play.

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct."

Carl Jung
Swiss psychoanalyst
1875–1961

"Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child."

Joan Almon
Contemporary American educator

My mother supported me in play by buying me toys that I was interested it. I loved the Barbie doll collection and had many dolls from the Barbie family. I would play for hours with my Barbies, sometimes alone, and sometimes with neighborhood friends. My mother would also bribe me to get my hair cut by buying me a new Barbie doll. She always wanted my hair very short, cut like a boy would wear it. I wanted it long, but I also loved getting new Barbie dolls. As a result, I had very short hair until the age of about ten. My sister was instrumental in me acquiring a love for reading and she bought me many books and she took the time to read to me. She is a generation older than me and I would spend the weekends at her apartment with her sometimes, and I have memories of us reading together. My father put a swing set in our back yard as well as a small children's swimming pool, so he was instrumental in me getting some physical activity.

Play has changed from when I was a child compared to how it is for my children. I even see a difference between my children since there is eleven years age difference. When I was young we didn't have all the electronics to entice us that children have today. We had a black and white television and a rotary phone. We never talked on the phone for pleasure; only out of necessity. My friends and I played dolls, colored in coloring books, played jump rope and ball. We went to the neighbor's house and asked if we could pick their dandilions for one cent each, thus ridding their yard of the menace and making money at the same time. We rode trikes and bikes and played with hoola hoops. My oldest daughter, who is now twenty-six, played outside at the park a lot and took a variety of formal lessons in various sports and arts. Pogs, books and Disney movies were a big part of her growing up. In her teenage years a computer and the family phone were two of her best friends. My younger daughter is fourteen and a lot of time is dedicated to academics for her to help keep her at grade level. As a young teen she likes to hang with her friends at the mall, play on her phone and the computer. Television is an addiction that we have to monitor. She has had several different types of lessons, but none of them have captured her interest yet. Neither of my girls liked dolls and I had to mourn that a bit because I so looked forward to playing dolls with my daughters!

My hope for children regarding play these days is for there to be more physical activity than so many children get on a regular basis. Also, less structure and  fewer formal lessons so there is time for more open ended, creative play. I think to live a healthy, well rounded life, play has to be an important part of it for children as well as adults. It is vital that people take time to play and get away from the daily grind. It helps keep a person both physically and mentally healthier and allows for creativity and flow.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships and partnerships are important to me because the people I have the closest relationships with are my “mirror”. They reflect me back to me! They love me unconditionally and allow me to learn to love them unconditionally as well. My close relationships sharpen me, challenge me, tell me to keep plugging along or when to let go of something I have been dealing with. They give meaning to my life and challenge me to be a better person. The people that are the most important in my life are my husband, Dan; my two daughters, Brianne and Tessa; my sister, Barb, and my three dear friends, Suzanne, Deb and Sue. The positive aspect of my relationships with my two daughters and my sister is that they are family and they are always there for me when I need them. I am there for them as well and we all count on each other for various types of support. My marriage to Dan is positive in that we are both going the same direction in life. This is an aspect of our relationship that we have shared for the last twenty-five years. We both have goals individually and as a couple. We each support each other in those goals and encourage each other when the chips are down. Some of the time what has helped us maintain our relationship is the sheer longevity and shared history we have. Other time’s it’s that our relationship is strong and growing. Sometimes it’s somewhere in between. We lean on each other, in a healthy way, and we are there for each other when it counts.

My relationships with my female friends is a positive driving force in my life because when I am with one of them I am with someone who understands what it’s like to be a woman with massive responsibilities and that sometimes our dreams get buried under those responsibilities. When I am with them I can be silly and dissolve into delightful laughter that is hysterical to us and it leads to a good belly laugh relieves a lot of life’s stress. When I am with them I can share my concerns and be a shoulder to them when they have concerns of their own. The factors that contributed to developing and maintaining these relationships is a desire by me and by them to have closely bonded female friendships so that we may enjoy the benefits listed above.

A challenge that I have had in developing and maintaining these relationships is that it can be hard to schedule times to get together with my friends due to their schedules or the physical distance between us. One of my closest friends, Suzanne lives a day’s drive away from me. The challenge with maintaining relationships with family and my spouse is probably the same thing that makes it wonderful…familiarity. I am so familiar with them that I let my hair down with them and am not always on my best behavior! They see me at my worst, which I try not to let happen too often, but it does now and then.

I see my marriage as a partnership; one of the very best kinds of partnerships. I love this person and we are both invested in each other and both stand to gain if things go well and lose if they go poorly. We are on the same “team”!

I believe that my experience with relationships and partnerships will make me a knowledgeable and empathetic early childhood professional. Hopefully I can benefit from the victories and the mistakes I have made in my personal relationships and that in turn will make me a better early childhood professional.

A Great Quote

"No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."
~Emma Goldman, author 

The Value of Assessment

I am a proponent of viewing children holistically and realizing that they are complicated little human machines and when one thing is amiss it is wise to take a look at the whole child, including physical, emotional and mental functioning. Unfortunately, I believe that this is done far less than it should be done.

I think assessment is important for potential learning disabilities such as ADHD, autism and dyslexia. Without assessment, children, under the current system, are not able to get the additional help that they need such as an individual education plan. It is important for some children to have additional accommodations, such as taking a test in a resource room, where there are no distractions. Other accommodations might be seating a child toward the front of the class or providing additional sensory stimulation, such as swinging on a swing set during the school day. I have a family member who went through assessment for four years before the professionals got to the bottom of the learning issues this child has. This young student wouldn’t have been doing nearly as well in school as they are doing without all the assessment tools that were used and as a result, an individual education plan to implement address the learning issues.

I chose to look at the way Canadian children are assessed for learning disabilities. It seems somewhat similar to the experiences I hear about in the United States. According to (Langlois, 2011), ideally, the assessment begins with your child's classroom teacher reviewing with you your child's schoolwork, report cards, and the results of any general tests administered in the school. If there is reason to think that your child has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the teacher might also suggest a medical assessment by a pediatrician. Medical assessments within the public health system can be arranged through your family doctor. Academic assessments by an educational psychologist employed by the school board are also publicly funded. However, there may be a long wait, anywhere from five months to two years. Parents may decide to arrange and pay for a private assessment (fees range from $800 to $1,500). The faculty of education at a nearby university or the child development clinic at a hospital may offer subsidized assessments. The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, with over 60 chapters across Canada, can provide a list of recommended psychologists. If you choose this route, ensure that the school agrees to recognize the private psychologist's findings (Langlois, 2011).

My only real concern with assessment is that it tends to label children. That is a double edged sword. Labels are needed to gain the education support that is necessary. However, labels can also erode a child’s self esteem and be a reason why children are teased and shunned by other children. Even with the potential negative impact, I believe the good in having assessment as a tool outweighs the potential harm.

Resource

Langlois, C. (2011). Kids living with learning exceptionalities. Canadian Living. Retrieved from http://www.canadianliving.com/family/kids/kids_living_with_learning_exceptionalities.php

The Many Faces of Poverty

I chose to write about poverty because it is so prevalent and childhood poverty can lead to a lifetime of biosocial and emotional issues. It’s a reality that affects children in the United States as well as in other countries.

My older, half-sister, has vivid memories of living in poverty as a child and teenager. She is a generation older than I am and she is now seventy-four years old. I also have two other half-siblings who are seventy-two and seventy-three years of age. My mother had three children in two years and nine months and was widowed when they were just four, five and six years old. Their father, my mother’s first husband, was killed in world war two. Our mother was in her mid 20’s with three very young children and no income to support them. This was in the early 1940’s and there wasn’t any aid to dependant children programs or anything similar at that time. There were no food stamps or assisted housing programs. Though in my growing up years I would not describe my mother as a strong person, when I hear about stories from my sister’s generation and the way they managed on very little money, without a father, I see my mother as a very strong and courageous woman indeed.

Once her husband was buried the United States government offered her a one time payout of $2,000.00, which must have seemed like a fortune to a penniless widow in the 1940’s. The other option was to get $37.00 monthly for the rest of her life. She chose that small monthly installment. When I asked her why she told me that she felt she could depend on that small monthly check, regardless of how small it was, she knew she would be getting it for the rest of her life. In the long run it was a good decision because the payout was far greater over her lifespan. Still, that was her only income for awhile. My mother and her children went without basic necessities for awhile until she landed a job baking sweet rolls and pastries for the train’s cook car. She would have to wake up in the middle of the night and walk through the North Dakota snow and be at work at four in the morning and bake for a few hours before she could come home and get the kids ready for school. I cannot even imagine how difficult this must have been. She was lucky that she had the wonderful baking and cooking skills she had. She learned them from her parents, who owned a restaurant in Minnesota, when she was a young child. Charles Lindberg used to come into the restaurant to eat on a regular basis when my mother was a child and he even took her up for a plane ride before he made his famous flight!

I believe the way poverty affected my sister was that it gave her an appreciation for how different life could be. She scrimped and saved as a teenager from her babysitting jobs to put herself through secretarial school. She didn’t have much food to eat while at school, only what our mother sent back to school with her each week, after she had returned from the weekend. She landed decent jobs in her 20’s and 30’s. In her 30’s and beyond she began treating herself to things she never had, yet at the same time she was vigilant about saving money for a rainy day. She allowed herself the gift of travel and helping others out financially now and then. At age 74, now retired, she lives rather modestly, yet comfortably. She spends money on herself now and then, which I find to be very healthy since she went without nice things for so long and she is entitled to enjoy the fruits of her labor now. She also is generous in giving to me, my siblings and others in need. She continues to save, even through retirement. I really think she felt the effects of not having enough when she was young, and it has greatly influenced the way she lives today.

I chose to research poverty in India, since I have an affinity for this country due to my daughter being adopted from there. I have known for decades that poverty was rampant there but I was surprised by the statistics of the poverty level being as high as it was. Nearly fifty percent of people are living below the poverty line and illiteracy is at forty percent. Child malnutrition is very high in some regions of India (Trickle Up, 2001). I know this first hand because of all the information that was given to us through our adoption process as well as being presented with a very severely malnourished infant.

The good news is Trickle Up is an organization in India who works exclusively with women to help them have a better life by moving them from chronic food insecurity to economic self-sufficiency. This agency combines livelihood training, weekly mentoring and a Spark Grant that helps grow a family’s income. They also have a program that teaches women how to save money and overall how to become self sufficient (Trickle Up, 2011).

Resources

Trickle Up. (2011). Trickle Up India. Retrieved from http://trickleup.org/solution/asia.cfm?gclid=CI6l2fjj1KwCFQZbhwodg0uJqQ

The Importance of Proper Nutrition

The public health issue that affects children that is most meaningful to me is nutrition and malnutrition. I believe that we take for granted that all children are provided with proper nutrition, which isn’t the case. The country I chose was India to report on malnutrition.

India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) needs to undergo significant changes to address the current malnutrition crisis in India, according to a World Bank report. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, the report says. It also observes that malnutrition in India is a concentrated phenomenon. A relatively small number of states, districts, and villages account for a large share of the burden – 5 states and 50 percent of villages account for about 80 percent of the malnutrition cases (The World Bank, 2005).

This has become a personal topic for me since I adopted a severely malnourished infant from India over a decade ago. It seems that in India malnutrition is prevalent in the poorer areas and many of the non private orphanages. Even if there is knowledge about proper nutrition, there may not be enough food for all the people who need it. I found this to be the case with my adopted daughter. She came to us from India at thirteen and three quarters months of age weighing just thirteen pounds. She came with a bevy of problems that I won’t go into now, but proper nutrition played a big part in allowing her to reach the milestones she was behind in. When she arrived she was very weak and her normally sleek, straight, dark brown hair was red, course and a bit kinky. It looked very over treated by chemicals, but it was the malnutrition causing it.

I feel lucky that I work at a school where nutrition is a top priority. They are very conscious to serve a balanced, organic menu. I will be aware of the effects of malnutrition and what to look for if I find myself working in a different place eventually.

Reference

The World Bank. (2005, August). India's Undernourished Children: A Call for Reform and Action. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1147272668285/IndiaUndernourishedChildrenFinal.pdf