Sep
21
Normal Childhood Behaviour Misconstrued Between Separated Parents
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There is a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. So too of childhood behaviour and incidents; they may be simply within the range of normal childhood life. However, in the context of high conflict separated parents, the simple explanation can get transplanted with extraordinary suspicions and theories.
Normal childhood development has toddler-age children exploring their bodies, discovering the genitals and anus and taking pleasure from self-touching. They are at the toilet training stage of life and hence are drawn by normal parenting behaviour to attend to these body parts. In intact families as children are observed to engage in self-stimulation and genital play, they are simply redirected to either stop, or to engage privately at appropriate time and place. In the context of high conflict separated parents, there is a risk to ascribe these childhood behaviours to sinister behaviour on the part of one of the parents. So a parent may inadvertently bring greater attention to the child’s behaviour and thus actually reinforce the concerning behaviour themselves while at the same time alleging sexual abuse at the hands of the other parent.
As preschoolers, children take flight on playground equipment. They may be learning to ride their two-wheeler. Hence this is a time of childhood injuries, particularly bruises, bumped heads and broken arms. In the context of high conflict separated parents, a parent may be suspicious of child-abuse in view of injuries and use the situation to allege physical abuse or at least neglect. However, and again, even in intact families, children can get hurt; bump their heads and fall from bikes and playground equipment.
Sep
5
Early Childhood Activities
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Early childhood activities can be an absolute joy if you are an involved parent educator. Unfortunately, if you’re not into early childhood games and not willing to take the time to engage your child’s mind while they are growing, It can be difficult for both you and your child. The lack of early childhood activity can result in huge problems, some of which last a lifetime. Kids who are under-stimulated often suffer from learning problems, behavioral problems, and emotional problems. Taking the time to plan out some great early childhood activities is not only a great thing to do as a mother or father, but an investment in the life of your family and your child.
The great thing about early childhood education activity is that it includes almost every game you play with your child. You see, for a child, play is work. The best early childhood activities are designed not only to entertain children, but also to stimulate their growing minds. Every early childhood activity recommended by educators, whether it is storytelling, playing with bricks and blocks, or team building games, teaches the child an important skill. One early childhood activity might help them to understand how to play with others. Another one might help them to understand how different shapes go together, and thus to improve their spacial reasoning skills.
Aug
28
Early Childhood Education: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
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Product Description
This is the first volume in a four book series in Early Childhood Education. All four volumes will be released simultaneosly, allowing instructors the opportunity to mix and match books into customized teaching package…. More >>
Early Childhood Education: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Aug
16
Introduction to Early Childhood Education: Preschool Through Primary Grades
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Product Description
This book is a thorough examination of day—to-day aspects of standards-based, developmentally appropriate teaching of young children. Using student-friendly, readable language, Jo Ann Brewer demonstrat… More >>
Introduction to Early Childhood Education: Preschool Through Primary Grades
Jul
27
Causes of Childhood Obesity
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Obesity is defined as an excessive accumulation of body fat. Obesity is present when total body weight is more than 25 percent fat in boys and more than 32 percent fat in girls. There are various medicines like Phentermine, Adipex etc. which aid in the weight loss for adults but these medicines are definitely not meant for children.
Causes of Childhood Obesity:
- Family: A child whose both parents are obese has a higher chance of developing obesity as compared to other children. This can happen for a variety of reasons like genetic factors or may be the sedentary lifestyle of the parents or the lack of exercise in their daily routine. This can make the child born with obesity.
- Inactive Life: Children these days spend more of their time on playing video games and watching T.V. This has prevented the children of today to engage in some healthy ground activities like sports. Hence children are gradually becoming couch potatoes. Leading an inactive life has made them grow into an obese from just being overweight.
- Heredity: Since not all children leading a sedentary lifestyle, watching more of television, and eating just about anything does not make every child obese therefore researchers are working upon the reasons that why it is so. Heredity has recently been shown to influence fatness, regional fat distribution, and response to overfeeding. In addition, infants born to overweight mothers have been found to be less active and to gain more weight by age three months when compared with infants of normal weight mothers, suggesting a possible inborn drive to conserve energy.
Jul
23
Effectiveness Of Schooling In The Early Childhood Phase
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Are you eager to jumpstart your child’s early schooling? You are right to assume that at an early age your child can start learning. His or her mind is ready to soak up new experiences and information. Since children are impressionistic, the right educational method and learning environment should be selected in order to maximize the effectiveness of schooling in the early childhood phase. Give Your Child the Edge Evidence shows the importance of education during the early phase of childhood is unquestionable. It is through education that a child can achieve his whole potential and be whatever he/she desires to become. Early childhood is the right time to spur him along. The effectiveness of schooling in the early childhood phase is also unquestionable, especially as it relates to the child’s personal development. However, it is correct to question the effectiveness of early educational programs or tools used, and how it suits the child’s learning style. Does your child learn faster by doing? Listening? Or observing? Researchers on the issue have established that not all educational tools for early education are equally effective in the advancement of development and learning of young children. It is safe to say that the effectiveness of schooling in the early childhood phase is greatly dependent upon the following: Environment, quality staff, appropriate curriculum & teaching tools, appropriate grouping practices, parental involvement, and enforcement of consistent schedules. Key Areas to Consider Studies show that long term benefits of early childhood education are only evident in high-quality programs. Thus, you have to look into certain areas such as trained teaching staff, the style of administrative leadership, curriculum, ratio of class to teacher, competency of teaching assistants, and rapport between parents and teachers. As a parent, play it by ear. Talk to the teachers and get the feel of the school and find out if the learning environment involves the children in meaningful and active learning. Find out if their program is developmentally appropriate for different age groups and different learning styles and temperament. Talk to parents of young children already enrolled to find out what opinions they have on the effectiveness of the schooling provided for their child. If you receive the answers you need to hear, then you may have found a school that can effectively teach your child in the early childhood development phase. In many cases, early childhood learning in a classroom setting will prepare your child for the future, both emotionally and academically.
Jun
29
According to developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, he suggests that the logic of children is completely different from that of adults. He believed that children move through four stages of development between infancy and adolescence. The four stages incorporated in his theory are sensorimotor stage, perioperational stage, concrete operation stage and formal operation stage. The domains associated with these stages are the child’s physical, social, intellectual, creative and emotions which influence the way the child thinks and talks.
Early childhood care and education was introduced to help parents better understand their children’s developmental skills; by this we mean their motor and cognitive skills coherently. The programme aims at exploring the child’s learning and developmental capabilities, as well as it builds a stronger foundation of the skills that they possess.
This programme is vital as it allows the child to build and form new relationships with their peers and family members rather than be quiet and shy. Secondly, exposing the child to various stimulants encourages them to ask more questions for a better understanding of how the world works.
Apart from that, it is important for the child to be able to differentiate what is right and wrong, as these days there are increasing events of children being abused and neglected by adults. In most of these cases, the child is unable to speak up because of fear of their parents and their lack of education. Hence, this will help curb and reduce the incidence of child abuse in the country because the child will have moral and ethical values inculcated.
Jun
21
Benefits of Early Childhood Brain Stimulation and why it should be Implemented in every African American Community
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Over the last four decades, there has been a myriad of studies on early childhood brain development. All of these studies have produced astonishing results in regards to how children learn, how their brains develop from infancy. These studies also revealed the negative impact on children not receiving adequate childhood brain stimulation.
One of the studies that had really caught my attention is the Carolina Abecedarian Project. The Carolina Abecedarian Project is an intensive early childhood intervention program. The Abecedarian Project focuses on low-income, at-risk children between the ages of six weeks and five years.
The Abecedarian Project came about as a result of a small group of scientist in 1966, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who were committed to improving the lives of children and their families through research, teaching and other social services. The Abecedarian Project initially started with a group of preschoolers. The program enrolled 111 infants between 1972 and 1977. Fifty-Seven of these infants were randomly assigned to receive center-based early educational intervention. The remaining Fifty-Four infants were placed in a control group.
The curriculum entailed educational “games” that emphasized development skills in cognition and language. For example, infant games were age appropriate adult-child interactions that included talking to the child, showing pictures or toys, and offering infants a chance to react to their environment. Activities were individualized for each child. As children aged, the “games” became more conceptual and skill-based, but the program always emphasized individual development. Children also received their healthcare on site from a staff pediatrician.