When I Think of Child Development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SUp9zGTe4k

As I am growing in my career, I am not only teaching children but also collaborate with families and teachers in supporting children. Although this course did not talk about child welfare, but throughout this course, we learned about how environment, cultural values, peers interaction, communities, family values and many more aspects effect a child’s development. Because of all these influence, it makes me think of child development is never a one person’s job. And that is why I chose this video “CB Spotlight on Collaboration in Child Welfare" to represent my current views about collaboration in supporting children’s development.

I like this quote “No one can do it alone, there’s no one agency, one answer for children and families.” from the Action Associate Commissioner from Children’s Bureau. I work at an agency that supports low-income families, which allow me to interact with families who live in poverty and understand their needs. I heard many different stories about their life and they often are associated with different agencies to get welfare. I am glad that my agency provides many services that support children and their families to grow such as job training, subsidized / free child care/ housing assistance and etc. 

I also like this quote from Dr. Seuss, “A person’s a person. No matter how small”, reminded me that no matter how old a person is, we need to respect him/her? 

             I really enjoy taking this course, our professor Dr. Davis is very supportive and knowledge! Our classmates are also supportive and respect each others opinions. 

              I would like to say special Thank You to Elizabeth, Thank you for always supporting my posts and appreciate my opinion from different background. 

            I also would like to Thank You Karen for giving me feedback in a parent perspective!All of your supports really enhanced my knowledge in child development.  I will continue to follow both of your blogs and hope will see you ladies in the next class.

          Happy Holidays everyone!! Enjoy the next two weeks before our classes start again!!

Testing for Intelligence?

 

I believe each children have their unique talent and  if we have to assess children in one way, I would say it is better to measure all the subject areas, including physical development, music ,art,  personalities and problem solving skills. Academically, it is important to know how much the children know about a subject to help them develop their interest in specify subjects. However, I do not believe a child is not smart if their academic results are not as high as the other children are. They maybe better in other way such as some children maybe an athletic or they are good at music. Moreover, personality should assess too; so that we know what kind of learning style does the child learn the best.

Nowadays, children are exposing to lots of violent in media and environment around them. Therefore, it is also important to assess their mental health as it could help children to release their stress and prevent all these tragedies happen such as shooting in school.

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I grew up in Hong Kong, China, and their education system is little bit different than the US system. In Hong Kong, children from elementary school to high school, they will have at least 4 formal examinations in a year. It happens quarterly, where you will have a week called “examination week” that you go to school just to take the exam for 2 hours or so. They do not have multiple choices, most of the exams are either comprehension, fill in the blanks, or essay questions. Student will get number grade out of 100, and in the report card, you will able to know your ranking in your class and in your grade in every subjects. They do examinations in all subjects including physical education in how many laps you can run in 20 mins, how many sit ups you can do in 3 mins and etc. They even do art and music. I do not really like this system as it may affect a student’s self-esteem if he/she sees their class ranking and overall grade ranking. 

I am not sure if there is any system to assess children’s mental health other than if anyone have concerns, but I strongly think that each child should receive a mental health assessment every year. It will support the child better and benefit to the society if the child is having negative views or stressful to be in the society, classmates, or families.

Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

Noise

I remembered one of the families I worked with had a very bad experience with noise. Little John (pretend name) and his mom who is single live in a small apartment on a busiest street in San Francisco, CA.  The street is famous with the bars, lounge and clubs. Every weekend is like a nightmare for little John and Mom because not only the music may echo to their apartment and the noise that those people who finished partying made are the most annoying stressor in their life. Mom works full time in a restaurant and they are barely having enough money to rent this apartment. Mom stressed to me that poverty is not a stressor to her, but the noise is really making her and her son’s life miserable. Little John sometimes has nightmare about monster chasing him when he was woke up by those noise.

Fortunately, we have a Family Advocate to support families in our program. The FA helped little John’s family found an affordable apartment listed on the housing list form Episcopal Community services –San Francisco. We are very fortunate that San Francisco have all these resources support the low-income families such as housing, emergency housing, food program etc.

When I reflected back to little John’s family, I realized that have people ever pay attention to the resident around the bar and lounge, have you ever think of how the noise we are making after a few drinks could affect to these residency? These questions were also came from a recent news from my home town.

 

 There is a street in Hong Kong closed after 6pm to 6am for citizen to present any kind of street performance like singing, dance etc. It is FREE! Many people and tourist love to come to this street to explore and enjoy the freedom to express self through art. What a nice place for people to express self through art! However, all these noisy became a serious stressor to the residents around this block. There was no voice level control on the street. Many seniors complained that they have a hard time falling asleep, children have a hard time to focus to complete their homework. There was also an incident where an senior injury at home and it took 30 minutes for the ambulance to get through all these traffic that the performance created. A week ago, the city finally restricted the street performance will only open in the weekend. Residents are so happy with this change. These made me reflect on how many time we are having fun and enjoying something while we may be affecting others life?

Reference:

Episcopal Community services –San Francisco : http://www.ecs-sf.org/programs/housing.html

Child Development and Public Health - Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding

Many studies and research found that breastfeeding benefits to both mother and the baby. Even some research said breast milk is the best food for baby! 

Benefits to babies :

1. Protects your baby against disease and infection.
2.  May reduce the risk of childhood obesity.
3. Helps prevent your baby from developing allergies.
4. It's free!

Mothers benefit from breastfeeding

1. Save time– when your baby is hungry, breastfeeding is the fastest and most accessible way to satisfy your baby. You will not need to purchase, measure and mix formula!In addition, you will not need to wash and sterilize bottles!

2. Save $$ – Formula and feeding supplies can cost well over $1,500 each year, depending on how much your baby eats. Breastfed babies are also sick less often, which can lower health care costs.( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services )

3. Help Bonding – Breastfeeding helps develop bond when mother has physical contact with her baby. The skin-to-skin contact can boost the mother’s oxytocin (OKS-ee-TOH-suhn) levels. Oxytocin is a hormone that helps milk flow and can calm the mother..( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services )

4.      Good for Mother’s health – Breastfeeding is linked to a lower risk of these health problems in women: Type 2 diabetes, Breast cancer, Ovarian cancer & Postpartum depression.

5. Mothers miss less work – Breastfeeding mothers miss fewer days from work because their infants are sick less often.

Breastfeeding vs. Taboos

As government and doctors encourage mothers to breastfeed, however, we don’t it rarely see a mother breastfeed in public. I remembered there’s a new a year ago that a mother was breastfeeding in a café, but the owner thinks that was disturbing to his/her customers and then they refused to serve her. The mother tried to talk about her rights of breastfeed and the importance of it, however, the owner still rejected her. This mother is so mad, but instead of arguing with the own, she posted this story in a mother support blog. The next day that mother and a group of mother say in the café to breastfeed. The owners senses the anxiety of the mothers and start to understand the reason of breastfeed. And this time, he didn’t refuse them, instead, he treats the mothers food and drink. Most importantly, he put a sign says “breastfeeding welcome here” in his café.

I am so proud of the mothers in this news that they are able to stand up to fight for their rights. Breastfeeding should not be a taboo in the public. It is the right of women and their babies!

I also noticed that in my hometown, Hong Kong, China, breastfeeding in public is not common in public. Regardless how government and doctor recommend breastfeeding, they suggest women to breastfeed in the women’s lounge or public nursing room. I believe it is because of the cultural difference. People are still very conservative in many ways, especially to women; they are shy and feel breastfeeding in public is rude, indecent or disturbing.  Although there is policy protects the rights of breastfeeding in public, government did not promote breastfeeding in public. 

Reference:

http://www.ccfc.ca.gov/parents/health-center/nutrition/?a=breastfeeding&t=1367450877406#/?a=breastfeeding&gclid=CO6Xlsv_1roCFVRk7AodwE8AUg

http://www.womenshealth.gov/breastfeeding/why-breastfeeding-is-important/index.html

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1150949/issue-breastfeeding-hong-kong