Consequences of Stress on Children's Development

This week we were asked to pick one stressor that affects and impacts child development. Since I work with children whose parents are in the military, I witness children dealing with war and deployments on a regular basis. Having grown up on a military base myself, I have dealt with same situations as a child. In today's society it is being raised in a single parent household is becomming more common. As if that isn't stressful enough for a child, adding the worry and stress of war can be very deetramental to a child and their development. Most of the children that I work with have experienced a parent delploying at least once, some on several occaisions. I can see an instant change in child's personality when their parent gets sent off to a warzone. It is saddening and disheartening to watch however we try to offer the best support that we can. We have many programs that offer different activities that the children can engage in while their parent is away. We even have our computer lab equipped with Skype so the children can get on and see and speak with their parent.

Child Development and Public Health

Public Health continues to be an important subject around the world. When speaking to my friends and parents, they always have strong opinions regarding public health and their children. I have several friends who are against immunizing their children and I have several friends who don't believe in breastfeeding. These are all things that I find very interesting, at least finding out what causes people to choose one side or the other. Since I do not have children of my own, it is difficult to relate to some of the topics within the public health sector. However, I do have opinions and thoughts as to how I would raise my own children and what things I would focus on as being important. Nutrition is something that jumps out at my because I believe it is something that our society struggles with not just with our children, but even with our adults. When I think of nutrition, I don't automatically think of starving children in Africa, I think about America and what our society makes of nutrition. As a child, my parents were always very particular about what my sisters and I ate. Well-rounded meals were always encouraged and we always focused on consuming lean meats and vegetables. These habits have stuck with me through adulthood and I still find myself being very cautious about what I eat, especially since I gain weight extremely fast. It saddens me because at my work, the youth come in with all sorts of sodas and candy bars and they are not limited on their consumption or how frequently it is provided for them. I always try and find out why their parents are so easy to give them junk food but I really think they eat it just because they can. I did an experiment last week and offered free fruit one day and the children who would normally spend 5 or so dollars on candy and sodas at the snack bar opted for the free fruit. While we run a for profit snack bar (full of junk), I would much rather have fruit for the kids rather than giving them the option to buy junk. It was my recommendation to my boss that we get rid of our snack bar and just offer fruit to the kids on a daily basis. As technology improves, people are becoming more likely to eat based on convenience rather than health. There are often days when I work 12 hours or so and then go to the gym after work only to come home to find that I am not motivated to cook. I try and pre plan my meals so I don't make a habit of this because it would be very easy to fall into a bad pattern of take out and microwavable meals. Our children are just picking up our bad habits from watching the convenience of junk food take over our lives.

Early Childhood Development - Week 1

How exciting! It is time for a new class, and I’m very thrilled about this particular class. Early Childhood Development is something that I am eager to learn more about because I am less familiar with it and I find it so interesting. For our first week’s blog assignment, we were asked to write about a personal birthing experience. Since I do not have children of my own, I’m going to have to take a different approach than most of my colleagues. The only birthing event that I was privileged to take part in was the birth of my second niece Caroline. It was very exciting and nerve wrecking. My sister had been in labor for several hours before going to the hospital and by the time we got there, Caroline was on her way out. From the time we got to the hospital to the delivery time, it took a total of 8 minutes. This was somewhat of a relief because I had always heard stories about women in labor for 22 hours and I all I could think about was holding my baby niece. Because my sister was so far along when we got to the hospital, the nurses were unable to give her and medicine to help with the pain. Watching my sister go through that was difficult. I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like other than extremely painful and uncomfortable. Lucky for her, it didn’t take very long. Before this experience, I had always heard people talk about giving birth and the birthing process as something really beautiful. I started to feel bad and wonder if something was wrong with me because I didn’t find it to be any of those things. It looked painful and uncomfortable and almost unnatural. My niece, on the other hand, she was absolutely perfect once she arrived. It definitely opened my eyes and allowed me to see, first hand, the gift of life. The birthing process is so crucial on child development because this is when a child in brought into the world for the first time. From birth, this is when we shape the lives of the little ones in our lives.

Finding information about other countries and their birthing customs was very interesting. I chose to research Europe and more specifically Germany. I spent a great deal of my life living in Germany. 16 years to be exact. As a child, I always noticed their birthing practices to be somewhat different than American practices based or stories from my childhood friends. One custom that is very popular in Germany and most parts of Europe is the use of a mid-wife during pregnancy and the birth process. It is actually common to make a bigger deal about your mid-wife than your doctor. In Germany, you don’t even need to have a doctor present during the birthing process; you can choose to have one in addition to the mid-wife. I suppose I acted as my sister’s mid-wife in a sense when she was giving birth to my sister. I was there giving her support and talking her through the process, until I looked under the cover and began to feel a bit queasy.