Tuesday, April 27, 2010
If children receive care too late will it be too late for them?
It is not mandatory for non-elementary children to be at a certain place every week where they are cared for, taught, and provided opportunities to play and socialize with their peers. Many children enjoy attending school and often look forward to seeing their friends or going on excursions. On the other hand there are many children who do not enjoy school so much and often will choose not to go. There are many reasons why children would not want to go to school but often the reason is because they do not feel confident in their academics. Perhaps this could be from a lack of help outside of school or a late start. By late start I mean not receiving such skills and information that many children do early on in life. This kind of scenario is often seen in low-income families, Families who have to work to survive and sometimes there is not enough time to help children with schoolwork or pay for a private preschool or day care for younger children. These children are often in frustrating situations, as they may not always be receiving sufficient care due to their financial situation. This is very discouraging because early development is so vital to a child’s success. If it is never to early to learn then why do children have to wait until they are in Kindergarten before they provide and require the children with care and an education? That is 5 years of time that could have been spent working on developing children’s perceptions, skills and abilities. All children should be provided with adequate care especially the younger they are. There are many families that are aware of their role and do things such as play their unborn baby classical music in the womb and are able to pay for childcare and a preschool education and then there are others who are just not able to go to such lengths. It should be mandatory for all children to be provided with sufficient childcare as early as they need it. If a child does not receive sufficient help early on in life, there is a very good chance there will be some academic and non-academic struggles later on in life.
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I agree that early care should be available to all those who need it. As you suggest, many families cannot afford quality care for their child so what happens when the family is working? I have heard of some child "care" places that have extremely high ratios and plonk the children in front of the tv...but they are cheap! How can we, as a world leader, allow this to happen? Where we choose to place value today affects tomorrow. How can we help shift the emphasis to our children?
ReplyDeleteHi Kawai,
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the relationship between child and a parent or guardian. If there is not support for a child to bond with an important adult in her or his life, what might be the impact? Without support for paid maternity or paternity leave across all socioeconomic levels, many children do have the chance for developing this bond or engaging in these child-adult interactions. Does this limit the possibilities for these children or make the child-teacher relationship even more important?
In my own research, I study child-teacher conversations and the importance of relationship in these conversations in order for children to express themselves. I am now wondering about the relationship between parent/guardian and child and if this initial relationship impacts children's conversations. What if the child-teacher relationship is the first deep relationship? How does this define the role of the teacher?
Jeanne
Hi Kawai,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about children who look forward to going to school because of those extra activities that are offered to them and for those who don't really like school may be the one who are having a hard time or they just don't enjoy school. I also agree that all children including low income families can provide their child with the support from financial aide or other support groups to get educated. When do you think it's too late for a child to get educated?
Hello Kawai,
ReplyDeleteI can't agree with you more. Young children need to develop their skills through age appropriate activities offering by experienced/ well-trained educators. Also young children need to interact with teachers and peers at school to learn how to deal with problems.
I had 1 kid in my class whose mother was laid off, so she could not afford the tuition anymore. In the middle of the semester she dropped him out of the preschool. One day I met her at workshop and found that she would be giving a birth soon. she told me that the boy misses friends and teachers a lot but she has to keep him at home with her boy friend house with other family members. I did not know what to respond.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI do agree with providing early childhood education for every child. Our children are the future. They are the one's who going to find a cure for cancer or for AIDS. Only if we do something about this situation. But how do we provide funding for families? How can we make our whole country see that education should be one of the top funding for our country? It is never too late to make change for the better but it's always to late for trying then just doing it.
I wonder why to low income families don't find care for their children? it is important to develop those skills early on in life and those first years are crucial. But it makes me think if it could be the lack of knowledge. Maybe these families just don't know how important it is to develop those skills. There are still subsidies out there for low income families and maybe the problem could be that those families don't know where or how to take advantage of these programs.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to remember that we are not the one and only means that a child learns social skills, physically develops, etc. Families can and have been providing the right amount of support for developing children at home. There are also many FREE programs available to families where they can get the same or similar type of program the child would experience at a daycare. Part of our job as professionals is to make sure we know about these other types of programs and relay that info to the families. For example, there are many playgroups out there for children to attend when they cannot afford childcare but want their children to be involved in a preschool.
ReplyDelete