My Connections to Play

Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.

Diane Ackerman
Contemporary American author

Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.

Fred Rogers
American television personality
1928–2003

 I remember wanting to do nothing more than see the world (my neighborhood) on my bike.

 This was the greatest toy ever! my neighbors and I would play in the sand box for hours with the G.I. Joes, making forts, and sand pits, loved being a tom boy.

 The best place to play and get dirty at the same time!

When I was younger my grandparents always encouraged me playing as I wanted to. I know that when I came home from school there was homework first or when I was real young a small lesson or simple talk about letters or numbers things of that nature, then it was time to change into play clothes, and I was off. The type of play that was encouraged was whatever I wanted, if I wanted to ride a bike I did, If I wanted to play Barbies I did, I was never limited as to what type of play. I was brought up to believe that if a boy could do it so could I, and to this day I still believe that.

I notice with the children I see in the daycare I work at and with the children in my neighborhood, play is very different. I see a lot of violence with the boys, when they do come outside. I know I loved X Men when I was younger but we always played with a story line in our heads, today all I see is "I have a gun and I'm going to kill you". Another thing that I notice is the lack of wanting to play outside. So many kids I know would rather be in the house in front of the TV playing video games. One of friends children was told to go play outside, so he did. When we walked outside 20 min. later he was playing outside...on his DS. That bothers me to no end. Be active, ride a bike, dig a hole, something other than exercising yoiur thumbs.

My life has always revolved around play. I am constantly reminded that I am thirty going on four. I have no problem with this. Life is too short to be serious all the time. What kind of life would it be if we never cracked a smile or told a silly joke or laughed when we saw a child do something silly? I would be bored to tears. Play was always a part of life for me and I am planing on keeping it that way.

Quotes from:

The strong. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.thestrong.org/about-play/play-quotes

Relationships

relationships are important to anyone, they are important to me because they allow me to have a place to laugh, cry, "vent", they are people we can talk to.
My family relationships are importnat because they are my best link to my past and to the good memories in my childhood. My brother Stephen I care deeply for because I helped raise him. He was injured when he was very young and I took care of him and helped him through school. My parents are the reason I am here. My grandparents are THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in my life. They are the reason I am who I am today.

Positive realtionships:

Co-workers: Mary B., Mary P., Jason, Courtney, April, Ranaldo, Tony H., Darrel, Mercedes, Kathie. These people are the people I can rely on at work and the people who keep me sane throughout the day.

Friends: Carrie, Kathie, Danae, Joyce, Susan, Brandy, these are the people that I can have fun with and call whenever I am bored.

Close friends: Vanessa, Bee, Kat, these are the people that I can rely on for ANYTHING! they are alway there at the drop of a dime.

Kat

Family: Mom, Dad, Stephen, Grandma, Grandpa these are the people who will always be with me no matter where I am.

Grandma and Grandpa

    Mom and Dad

And Steven...He is my life line, my life long partener, the one who encourages me and pushes me to become a better person! His relationship is a partenership and a life long one!

Over time i have learned that friends may come and go but a single few may hold on. True relationships are ones that can give and take and stay strong.

The best characteristics in my relationships are with Steven and my Grandparents. There is love that holds strong and motivation that sometimes cuts deep, but it is always there to help.

i think by understanding how your own relationships formed can help you in beginning new ones. By knowing what makes you strong and what makes your relationships strong you can build new relatinships with families in your center. Families are the strongest link in a child care center. They are the reason we exist and the reason we need to stay positive and build new positive relationships. The biggest part og starting a new relationship is being an active listener. If you can listen and truly hear what the other person is saying then you can become a better person yourself. You will be able to help the family better and better help the center by being able to understand what the needs of the familes are.

Quotes

"Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death" Erik Ericson, This to me means that a child is being taught to live life to the fullest and should be. In order fort a child to fully develop into their full potential they must be taught that everyday is sweet and everyday must be lived to the fullest potential. This could be in school, with peers or even on the job.

"The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.” Maria Montessori. This quote is perfect for child development. Children must be able to learn for themselves and be able to see the world as they want. This allows the child to have their own ideas and their own intuitions about how they want to live. If the environment is bleak and boring the child may not have the motivation needed to expand their minds.

testing???

Personally I do feel children should be tested but only on certain levels. I feel a "test" to enter kindergarten is silly. Someone entering kindergarten is still a small child and putting restrictions or an academic label on them is not right. I do feel that children should be given basic tests for their age group. I see that too many people put too much emphasis on the word test and children tend to freak out. Teachers and schools often do this because that is how they get their grant money by the scores their schools receive. Testing our children should not be about the money it brings in but about the quality of education that the children will leave with. I also feel that there should be some kind of stress test or an emotional test to see how our children are feeling and how they deal with every day life, how that test would work I am not sure, just think that they should be checked out in order to possibly prevent any type of bad happenings.
In Japan children are assessed on a whole other level than we are here in America. They begin their testing very young. Their tests also consist of academics that our children do not deal with. Those children's lives are based upon those tests given. It is to bring shame upon your family if you do not do well. The children are under so much pressure that it would put of SOL tests to shame. The children of Japan are tested on academics as well as their culture and traditions that are rendered in their country.
I never knew that testing could be such a harsh thing for a child until I learned the basis behind the testing. It honestly angers me to see that the only reason these types of tests are given is to bring money into the districts and the schools, so that the adults can benefit, not to better the education of our children.

stress

I guess the best way to describe the stress I am about to talk about would be isolation or even chaos. When I was about 5 years old my parents were arrested and we were removed from their custody.
It was a day just like any other, my Mom had picked me up from the school bus stop and needed to go grocery shopping. We went to the store and when we returned home the police had our house and driveway surrounded. I remember the Police pulling my brother and I out of my Mom's truck and placing us in the back of the police car. They handed my brother and I both a teddy bear and told us not to be scared. Now I don't know about you but at 5 years old I was a little frightened watching the police take my Mom from me. After that I remember being in the police station waiting for someone to come get us. We did not know who it was or when they would be there so we simply sat and waited. When my Grandparents arrived  my brother and I were curled up together on a bench in the waiting area. I know that at 5 years old I was terrified and did not know where we were going to live. My Mom and Dad had just been taken from us and we were now headed down the mountain with our Grandparents. i remember them talking about people who would keep us and in the end I am so happy that my Grandparents were the ones who got custody of my brother and I. As far as coping with the stress I guess I was the one who had to be strong and not show my fear for the sake of my brother. I asked my Grandmother about what happen and how we dealt with it she said, that I was one of the bravest girls there was. She said that I was the one who took care of my brother and made sure that he felt safe and not scared. She said that i never really seemed to have any type of depression or fear because what happen was not brought up ion general conversation. She said that if we asked she simply said that Mom and Dad were away and could not see us for a long time. I guess having the people who brought us up being ourGrandparents made the adjustment a little easier, it was more of an extended stay with Grandma and Grandpa.
The country that I chose to look into is Japan. i chose Japan because I have lived there and have a fascination with their culture. While I was living there the biggest stress factor that I noticed was education. The Japanese put such a huge weight on education that its enough to drive a person mad. While I was there I was in school and the students in my class were so much more advanced than I was, i honestly felt a little stupid. Back in the United States I was a B average student, I wasn't super smart but I wasn't an idiot either. When it came to math classes and science classes in my freshman classes I was last in grades. I wasn't failing but I was struggling. I learned that when children start what would be the equal to our kindergarten they begin to learn English as well as their native tongue. By 8th grade students are studying what we would study in our Jr. year of high school. Education was a huge stress in Japan. The way that I noticed my friends dealing with their stress was their Sunday. The children were allowed to ride the subway into the city and play. We went to arcades, not arcades like we Americans think of it but places with picture machines, video games, simulators, things that had not even reached our country yet. The students simply had a day of release.  Keep in mind that this was only if your grades were up and your homework for the week completed.
I know that the two different areas deal with two different age groups but from the time the Japanese enter school they are under so much pressure to do well that even the 5 year olds were at the arcades with us, and this was unsupervised. Over all I guess the way different cultures and nation deal with stress depends on the type of stress and the traditions within that country. 

Malnutrition

I chose this topic only because I get heated everytime I hear of a child not having enough food and then listen to those telling the story complain because their blu ray player stopped working. Children around the world we know are starving and I hate to admit it but as much as we would like the hunger issue will never end. The issue that does concern me is the children who live right here in my own city whose parents are more willing to spend money on drugs or alcohol than feeding their children. The children need food to survive, thats a given, and I would love for everyone to have a healthy diet, fruits vegetables etc... but that is not realistic. I struggle to buy the "healthy" stuff for me and my boyfriend, so if you are on welfare or just cant afford it I know how that feels. The bottom line is that even if yoiu can not afford apple and oranges buy the children ramen noodles, they are no more than $.20 at any given market. It may not be the greatest food but the child will not be hungry and they will stand a better chance of surviving. I could go on for days about people who wont feed their children, I do feel bad for those who cant, but those who wont drive me nuts. I know how it feels to be on welfare and not have the food that my friends had but I always knew that my mom would make sure that we had something to eat, no matter how hungry her or my dad were!
As far as around the world I have a friend from Cambodia and asked his parents about the conditions in their home town. They told me that the malnutrition in Cambodia is severe and they did everything they could to eat what was available. They also said that they had both lost siblings to malnutrition. They were some of the fortunate ones who were able to receive passage to America and made themselves a life here. They now are fighting to get other family to America so they may have the opportunities that they have been able to experience.
Knowing how many children in Richmond are hungry I have multiple food drives every year to raise food for the local food bank. I also have work in many centers where the parents are on social services money for the day care and they struggled to buy food, any time that was a factor I made sure to keep them anonomous and raise food for that family. I hate to see hungry children and will do anything in my power to stop what I can.

Birthing experiences

I personally have not had the privilege of giving birth yet in my life, I have not been able to participate in any and obviously do not remember my own. I asked a friend about her birthing experience and the following is what she said;
Kathyrn gave birth to twins on Oct. 9, 2005. She had already been through two births, having two older boys. She said that when she gave birth to the twins that it was a whole different experience. The twins took much longer to arrive than the other children did. Kathryn said that the labor pains seemed about the same as far as how much it hurt, she said that it just seemed to take much longer. Her new baby boy Jaden arrived first. He was healthy and had no complications, roughly 7 minutes later Asia arrive and had given the Dr.'s cause for concern. She was so big that they were afraid they would have to open Kathryn up at the last min. and get Asia that way. (thankfully they did not).
I chose this example because I think that it is interesting to hear people talk about how the first child or the last child was either harder or easier to give birth to. Kathryn now has 4 beautiful children, and even after all the modern medication and advances, I am still not ready to deal with the pain that I have heard so many women describe.
I have heard many people discuss how they gave birth but if I had to chose today how I would do it, I am not sure. I suppose I would chose to go to a hospital. An at home birth frightens me and the under water birth does too. I would be afraid something would go wrong and the child would get hurt.
I chose to talk about Japan in the birthing experience. I instant messaged my old host family and asked about their traditions from Japan. She told me that the majority of Japanese women give birth in a hospital setting much like the U.S. She said that there is a percentage of women who still work the field and live in the old country that give birth at home, but that percentage is small. My host mother also told me that many women do not allow the man to be present during the birth, in the old country, that is something for only other women to assist with. I found that odd. i would personally want my significant other present.
As far as I can see the two I have spoken about above may not have that much different in the impact of the development of the child. The Japanese are also a modern country like us and have much higher rating when it comes to schools scores, etc... So the impact of birth in these two countries I am not sure affects the child, it is probably more of the way the children are taught and brought up.