MY SUPPORTS

I am fortunate to have many supports in my daily environment that are supportive to me. First and foremost my husband. He supports me and our family financially, I am blessed to be a stay at home mom. My husband is also my emotional support. We have our ups and downs, you are bound to after almost 17 years of marriage, but we have overcome the difficult times and cherished the good times together. We work as a team and face the days together.

 I come from a big family and we all live around each other. My mom and dad, sister, brothers, and sister-in-laws supports me on a daily bases, I know that they are a phone call away and will come help in a quick minute if I need them to. My kids support me too. They help me with some simple chores around the house. But more importantly they remind me to stop and have fun. That the day to day tasks can always wait till tomorrow because the time with them is so short and should be treasured.

  I am the PTA president at my son’s elementary school. We always have something going on and I have the support of the teachers and staff at the school, the parents and families, and our wonderful community. Without the supports from the school and community I would not be able to do my job as the PTA president.

The benefits of my supports is that it makes my days easier. I don’t have to get through the days all alone. With bad days, to me, is easier to get through them with help and good days it is fun to share them with others. I can honestly say the impact on my life without my supports would be extreme. I am so used to having them around I do not know what I would do without them.

A challenge I have chosen to imagine is if my husband had to transfer to a new state for his job and we knew nobody in this new city. I would luckily still have the support of my husband and children on a daily basis. I know my family would still support me from afar. It would be difficult to start over in a new place but we would begin to get involved within the new community and build our daily supports back up. The potential benefits from these supports is that they make daily living easier. My husband and I love each other but we also need our alone time and date nights without the kids.  Finding new friends to hang out and to talk with. Finding supports we trust to watch the kids. Finding places and children my children can play with and have fun being kids. Life can get lonely without supports.

My Connection to Play!

                      Quotes that summarized what play represented for me in childhood

My childhood was full of fun and adventure, real and imagined!

I played and ran free! We would eat breakfast (my brothers and I) and we would be out the door and only come back when we
were hungry or it started to get dark.



Essential play items for me when I was younger was the outdoors and my brothers!

The outdoors
my older brother
my twin brother getting married and younger brother giving a toast!

My parents supported play when I was younger. I remember playing with my brothers outside. We would go on adventures and explore the neighborhood. We would leave after breakfast, return when we were hungry or it had started to get dark. We would play games and ride bikes. We really never sat still. My mom was a stay at home mom for most of my childhood. She would take us on hikes and picnics. We would do craft projects. When I think back on my childhood I remember laughter, happiness, adventures and fun. Play is so different now from when I was a child. For one we spent most of our time outdoors running around, a lot of time nature was our toys, like sticks and rocks. We live in such a technological world that when you ask a child if they want to play they want some kind of electronic toy like video games or tablets. My hope for children in regards to play is I hope parents make sure they get the opportunity to use their imaginations and play outside. And I do not think play has to end in childhood. Adults should play outside too! Take your children to the park, go on a hike or picnic. Teach and show your children the joys and fun they can have using their imaginations!

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are vital in life. It is important to have people in your life who will celebrate with you when life is good and help and support you when it isn't. I am lucky in life, in regards to positive relationships. I come from a very big and very close family.

This is a picture of my mom, sister, sister-in-law, and myself on the underground tour in Seattle. Every relationship takes work. We work on ours with "girl days". Just all the women in the family get together and go on adventures. Where we can talk and catch up with each other.

My parents, brothers, sister-in-laws, nieces, nephews and my kids. 

nieces, nephews and kids at the Woodland Park Zoo.

2nd mother and kids. My best friend passes away 9 years ago, this is her mom. Our relationship has evolved and changed throughout the years. We have stayed in touch, talked and visit as often as we can. Through heartache and sadness we stuck together to help each other through it. She is Grandma J to my kids. 

My husband and son at cub scout camp learning about being blacksmiths. My husband is my best friend. We have been married almost 17 years. We have had our ups and downs during this time but we have communicated and worked through the bad and have cherished the good. 

My kids and I  at our lakes annual fishing derby.

My kids, Georgia and Meilo. We having fun camping and hiking!



Developing and maintaining relationships is work. Relationships are give and take and this can sometimes be a challenge. The biggest challenge I believe in developing relationships is opening yourself up to a new person. You have to have a bit of trust in this new person that they will not take what you give them and end up hurting you in the end. This is true for any type of relationship/partnership. I have learned that you have to take the risk. Yes it may not work out in the end but you will never know unless you try. 

The special characteristics that I see that make these relationships into partnerships are good communicator, passionate and trustworthy, understanding, hard working, honesty and dedication. 

Relationships are vital as an early childhood professional. It is important to be able to develop and maintain positive relationships with families and children. You need to have the ability to be an active, reflective contributor in the relationships. It takes work to maintain a positive relationship, you must be willing to put the work in.

Quotes about children

                                                     Emma Goldman, author

"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."

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” 
― Margaret Mead

“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.” 
― Robert A. Heinlein

                                                

Testing for Intelligence?

                   As we have learned over and over again each and every child is unique. They will grow, develop, and learn in their own ways. If this is the case then how do we expect them to take the same standardized tests?  Some children will excel at it, while others will not. I do believe that children should be assessed and tested on all the major subject. Assessments give teachers vital information they need to see where they child is academically. Assessments show teacher’s children’s strengths and areas where students need extra help. I believe instead of making the children assimilate to the test we should assimilate the test to the children.

            I remember when I was in high school my brothers and I were all in the same grade, I have a twin and my older brother was held back a year early in elementary school when they were diagnosed with dyslexia. My brother was still struggling and failing his biology tests. My mother went to talk to the teacher to see if they can figure out what was going on because he was doing the work and studying so hard for the tests. They were all in a meeting when the teacher asked my brother questions from the test and he got every one of the questions the teacher asked him correct. From that day forward he was able to take his tests orally and passed the class with flying colors.

            I also believe that teachers should not just use one standardized test to assess a child’s knowledge. This one standardized test that starts in third grade should not be the only thing used to assess a child. Many children show they have the knowledge of the subject they are testing on but come test time the anxiety of test taking can make them sabotage themselves or they may just not test well. It is vital to test children’s knowledge but I do not think with standardized testing we accomplish the goal of truly testing each child’s knowledge.

Finland

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, ranks Finland in gold standings in public education. Even though Finland has done away with standardized testing. In Finland, during the 80’s they reformed all of their public schools. During this time they all but abolished standardized testing.  “Finland has few private schools and the rest are public and tuition is free. Virtually every school is a ‘charter school’ in the sense that teachers and principals are given the freedom to devise methods that they believe work best for the particular students in their own school” (Davidson, pg. 1, 2012). In Finland, to be a teacher you must have a Master’s degree. I believe we in the United States can learn a lot from Finland. We need to get away from all this testing mania and find ways to help children learn to their fullest potential and teach the child, not teach the test.

Brandie

Resources

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-us-can-learn-from-finland-hong-kong-on-tests-equity/2012/01/11/gIQAlVqttP_blog.html

Week 4

A stressor from childhood:

In 1992 my family and I lived in Miami Florida when hurricane Andrew came through and devastated the area, I was 12 years old at the time. It was one of the scariest things I remember going through as a child. My family and I boarded up the house, filled the bathtubs with water, and tried to stock up on supplies. I remember going in to the grocery stores and the shelves being bare or almost empty of all the perishable foods and water. I remember my mother telling me not to worry we have plenty of food and supplies at home.

We all gathered blankets and pillows, flash lights, and toys and hunkered down in the hallway. During the storm the wind was howling and things were banging into the house. The window in my parent’s room got broken out from debris. The hallway where we were hunkered down in started leaking water. I was too young at the time to understand that the roof was being torn apart from the storm. My parents were trying to find a safer spot that would fit the seven of us, a place with no windows. We went to the garage but when my dad opened the door, there was a huge hole in the garage roof and if wasn’t safe for us to go in. My dad flipped over our couches and put them against the wall and we all climbed under them like a fort. This is where we spent our time during the remainder of the storm.

My parents tried during the duration of the storm to take our minds off of what was going on by telling stories and playing games. The talked to us about what was happening and told us not to worry that they would take care of us and keep us safe. After the hurricane our neighborhood and the surrounding areas were devastated. We were lucky and our house was still livable but many of our neighbors their houses where a complete loss. We were without power or clean water for a while. We gathered supplies, batteries and bottled water and helped deliver them to people in need. We helped cleaned up our neighborhood and where ever it was needed. It was a very stressful time. My parents helped us through this time by talking to us and letting us talk to them.

Stressors in other country/region:

There are many stressors children have to face in Africa such as, communal violence/armed conflict and HIV/AIDS. “The Research Program on Children and Global Adversity (RPCGA) works to close the global implementation gap between the realities facing children and families in adversity…the program operates at the crossroads between research, policy and program design, implementation and evaluation.  The RPCGA is engaged in applied research to contribute to stronger and evidence-based interventions to serve children and families in adversity worldwide.” (The Research Program on Children and Global Adversity [RPCGA], 2012, p. 1).  They have many current projects ongoing. In Rwanda they have a family strengthening intervention going on for families and children affected by HIV/AIDS. The Longitudinal Study of War-Affected Youth – Sierra Leon, the Somali Bantu Refugee Community Project, and the SAFE Project (RPCGA, 2012). These programs study the affect stressors have on children but also offer ways to help reduce the stressors in the children’s lives.

References

The Research Program on Children and Global Adversity. (2012). Program goals. Retrieved from http://fxb.harvard.edu/research-program-on-children-and-global-adversity/

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

SIDS is a topic that is very meaningful to me. When my children were babies my biggest fear was something unexplainable would happen to them while they slept. I have a friend who lost their daughter to sudden infant death syndrome and it is devastating. There is still no explanation or way to totally prevent SIDS but there are things for you to do to lessen your risks of it happening. Putting babies to sleep on their back has proven to decrease the risks of SIDS. Other risks that may cause SIDS are low birth weight, cigarette smoke in the household, soft blankets or pillow, and bed-sharing. Bed-sharing is when the baby sleeps with the parent(s).

SIDS in the UK

In the affluent West, SIDS is the most common cause of death of children between the ages of 1 month and 1 year,[2] with the majority of the deaths occurring between the ages of 4 and 6 months.[2] The true incidence may be masked due to discrepancies in the diagnosis used on death certificates - for example, accidental suffocation being misdiagnosed as suffocation and vice versa.

“In the affluent West, SIDS is the most common cause of death of children between the ages of 1 month and 1 year,^] with the majority of the deaths occurring between the ages of 4 and 6 months. The true incidence may be masked due to discrepancies in the diagnosis used on death certificates - for example, accidental suffocation being misdiagnosed as suffocation and vice versa.

·         More than 300 babies per year die from SIDS in the UK.

·         Among industrialized nations, Japan has the lowest reported SIDS rate (0.09 cases per 1,000) whilst New Zealand has the highest rate (0.8 cases per 1,000).

·         The UK rate for SIDS is 0.41 per 1,000 live births.

·         Cot death is more common in male infants (about 60%) of cases.

·         The number and rate of SIDS cases has been falling since 1989. This fall was most marked between 1991 and 1992, when the 'Reduce the Risk' campaign was launched. The USA implemented a similar campaign - 'Back to Sleep'.

·         In 2009, 78% of all SIDS cases were in infants aged less than 3 months. 90% of SIDS deaths occur in the first six months of life.

·         In 2009, babies with a low birth weight (less than 2500 g) were five times more likely to die than those of normal birth weight.

·         The most common season is the winter and the most common time is early morning. This may be related to changing sleep patterns as the infant matures, increased risk of respiratory infections in the colder months” (Patient UK, 2015, p. 2).

This information is vital to my future work with children. If I am working with infants I want to keep them safe while they are in my care. I can do this by following the recommendations on what to do to prevent SIDS. It is also essential to inform parents of these risks also and how they can help to try to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

                                                                     References

Patient UK. (2015). Sudden infant death syndrome. Retrieved from http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/sudden-infant-death-syndrome