Relationships

RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships are important to me because they help make some part of who I am. Friends that have been by my side and have become like family help me be a better person. Relationships with my children help me guide them and raise them the best that I can so in the future when they are adults they can have good relationships.

There are several people in my life that I have a positive relationship with; I will start with my husband, we need to have an excellent relationship to raise happy positive children. The second person is my mother (now) it’s funny but I did not have a relationship with her when I was growing up, now that I am a mother I understand many things that she did and I can appreciate it. The last person I have an excellent relationship with is my best friend, I have known her for 15 years and she is now like my sister.

The hardest thing of having a good relationship with someone is trying to see eye to eye, we all have different personal believes that might get in the way by a comment that might be taken the wrong way.

Being good as an early childhood professional is being able to form good relationships with everyone around me; from the coworkers, to the children, to the family of the children. If relationships are not positive with any of the three parties I mentioned then the learning and growth of the children will have a positive outcome.

My children

My mother

My best friend/sister and my God daughter

Final thoughts

Another class down, and one class closer to achieving our goal. I will not say "goodbye", just a "see you later" because I know that we will see each other down the road until we finish this goal we have for ourselves. I wish everyone good luck in your daily lives and in everything they put their mind to. See you around.

Last Blog

I found a few quotes about children that I really liked and here they are for you to enjoy!!!

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher

Testing for Intelligence?

I don’t believe a child should be compared to another’s child development. Every child develops in different speeds and in different ways. For example; I am a teacher in an infant room and I have two children the same age (11 months) and one walks all over the room and the other is now barely taking two steps. I have another baby that at the age of 5 months could not turn over by himself or hold his head up for long periods of time.

I found an article about education in China that gives a little background of how education was viewed many years ago and how it is viewed in today’s society. With the founding of New China, numerous tasks had to be undertaken. In order to overcome the poverty and ignorance inherited from old China and gradually improve the standards of the material and cultural life of the people, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government attached great importance to the restoration and development of education.

In the article that I found there was also this table that explains the Chinese education and assessment process and procedures.

	Elementary Education(Compulsory Education)		Secondary Education
	Primary Schooling	Junior High Schooling	Senior High Schooling
Entrance System	Children aged over 6 years in general or over 7 years in some places without qualified facility eligible for admission of primary school.	Compulsory Education Law stipulates that primary school graduates enter the junior high school nearby without any examination.	Senior high schools select the junior high school graduates based on the examinations organized by local educational administrative departments.
Schooling Years	6 years in general; 5 years in some experimental districts	3 years in general; 4 years in some experimental districts	3 years
Checks & Examinations	term-end tests year-end tests primary school graduation examinations (Chinese and mathematics are test subjects, others are checking subjects)	term-end tests year-end tests graduation examination and examination for entering higher school, such as junior high school Local province (municipality directly under the Central Government) stipulates test subjects of junior high school graduate and entering high school examination in the graduation culture disciplines range regulated by the nation.	term-end tests year-end tests senior high school graduation examination (organized by local province or municipality directly under the Central Government) the national university entrance examination (generally implemented the test reform scheme of 3+X subjects at present) (charged by university student department in Ministry of Education)
Assessment	Term-end tests, year-end tests and primary school graduation examination are devised to examine pupils’ qualified levels.	Term-end tests, year-end tests and junior high school graduation examination are devised to examine junior high school graduates’ qualified levels. Scientific assessment for examinations of graduating and entering are organized, and the assessment system of test question are set up progressively.	Term-end tests, year-end tests and senior high school graduation examination are devised to examine senior high school graduates’ qualified levels. By national university entrance examination, the proportion of students entering higher schools are regarded as the important reference of the educational quality of one teacher and one school.

I thought that the Chinese education was rigorous, studying all day without having a child life. But after looking at this chart and reading the article I come to see that the education area is really similar to the United States.  

 Reference

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1126210664195/1636971-1126210694253/China_Skills_Assessment.pdf

Child Stressors

The stressor that I can identify with is natural disaster. When I was a child, I remember going through hurricane Hugo. It was the worst hurricane that went through Puerto Rico. It happened September 18, 1989, I was 5 years old but remember it really clearly. We lived in a wooden house, and my parents decided to stay at my aunt’s house (which was a block house). Around that time my uncles were building a second story and left concrete blocks on the roof. The wind was so powerful that it was knocking over the blocks. I can still hear the wind, and I still remember (for the small time the adults allowed us to see out the window) how everything was flying around.

The country and region that I chose to research about is Tujuana, Mexico. This is one of the worst parts of Mexico to live in, especially for a child. I found an article from 2008 were it talks about a few children that walked through a house that had many people brutally murdered.

There were daylight shoot-outs between gangs using automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers in downtown streets and shopping malls. Kidnapping for ransom got so bad that many wealthy and middle-class families fled to the United States.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-tijuana25-2008oct25,0,2076621.story

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_finnegan#ixzz1OJxmKJ3U

Breastfeeding

The topic I chose to research and write about was breastfeeding, for this is how my three children were fed the first months of their lives. With my first son, I was only 18; I was confused on how to do it. He wanted to eat every 30 to 45 minutes and I was exhausted so I could only do it for about 2 weeks before I gave up. With my second son, I breastfed for exactly 1 year, he did not want to switch to the bottle or zippy cup. For my last one, I breastfed for months, he changed directly to the zippy cup and did not want to change back after trying it.

Because I know how much effort the hospitals in the United States give to teaching mothers on the positives of breastfeeding, I decided to research how breastfeeding is viewed on other parts of the world.

I truly believe that employers need to give time to nursing mothers, if not to nurse the child, to pump out the milk. It is a right as mothers that we have the necessary supply of milk to feed our children properly.

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), launched in 1991, is an effort by UNICEF and the World Health Organization to ensure that all maternities whether free standing or in a hospital, become centers of breastfeeding support.

In today’s society even celebrities understand and promote the positive effects of breastfeeding for young children. For example, Salma Hayek, that on a trip to Sierra Leone she breastfeed another woman’s child. The actress and producer was told by doctors in Sierra Leone that many mothers stop breastfeeding their infants within the first few months after birth because of pressure from their husbands. Tradition has it, in some areas, that it is not acceptable to have sexual relations with breast feeding women.

 

Sierra Leone has the highest infant mortality rate in the world, in part fueled by malnutrition. Physicians there told Hayek they would like to see mother’s breastfeed for a full two years but that stigma too often gets in the way.  Hayek said her decision to breastfeed another woman's child was an attempt to diminish the stigma placed on women for breast feeding.

Benefits of Breastfeeding:

• Recent studies show that babies who are exclusively breastfed for 6 months are less likely to develop ear infections, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses. They may also be less likely to develop childhood obesity.
• Breastfeeding delays the return of menstrual periods and may aid in spacing pregnancies.
• Breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
• Breastfeeding creates a strong bond between mother and child.
• Breastfeeding mothers have increased self-esteem.

Benefits of breastfeeding for families and society:

• Breastfeeding saves the family budget hundreds of dollars.
• Breastfeeding saves on health care costs.

Breastfeeding Success Stories

In Cuba, where 49 of the country's 56 hospitals and maternity facilities are baby-friendly, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at four mounths almost tripled in six years - from 25 per cent in 1990 to 72 per cent in 1996.

In the first two years of BFHI implementation at the Central Hospital of Libreville in Gabon, cases of neonatal diarrhoea fell by 15 per cent, diarrhoeal dehydration declined by 14 per cent and mortality fell by 8 per cent.

In China, which now has more than 6,000 Baby-Friendly Hospitals, exclusive breastfeeding in rural areas rose from 29 per cent in 1992 to 68 per cent in 1994; in urban areas, the increase was from 10 per cent to 48 per cent.

The Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, initiated one of the first baby-friendly hospitals. As a result, initiation of breastfeeding within the first two hours increased. With a strong Step 10, a monthly clinic, exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months increased from approximately 20% to over 60%.

Reference:

http://www.babymilk.nestle.com/breastfeeding-is-best/breastfeeding-in-developing-countries/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.unicef.org/programme/breastfeeding/facts.htm

http://www.007b.com/public-breastfeeding-world.php

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=6854285&page=1

Child Birth

Child Birth

I am mother of three wonderful boys (7, 4, 2) and each birth was completely from the others. But the one I remember the most was the birth of my first child, just because it was the only one that was natural birth. I remember the night before I had an urge to clean the entire house, bathed the dogs, and everything in between. I went to bed around midnight and right away my contractions began to come about every 3- 4 minutes. Around 1:30 am we headed to the hospital, my husband had the greatest idea to stop and get gas on the way.

During labor, I felt every pain possible because the epidural did not work for me. The anesthesiologists replaced the epidural injection twice, and still did not work.

But it was the most amazing feeling bringing a baby to this world.  

Childbearing

In Sweden, birth is seen as a woman's accomplishment. Pain medication is available, but not encouraged. The instance of epidural is lower in Sweden, most likely due to the fact that even hospital births are managed by highly trained midwives, not doctors. Prenatal care is free and the absence of it is unheard of.

Women in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula still regularly use midwives. In fact, they traditionally deliver in the matrimonial hammock, which they receive when they are married.

In Holland, pain relief during childbirth is managed entirely through breathing and relaxation techniques. Medication is strongly discouraged in the hospital, but the majority of women in Holland still give birth at home with midwives.

(http://pregnancy.families.com/blog/lets-talk-about-the-cultures-of-childbearing 2011)