Impacts of Early Emotional Development

The area of the world that I chose is Eastern and Southern Africa.  I chose this area because I wanted to learn more about the conditions and well-being of the children that live in this area.  I wanted to learn more about their environment was affecting their developmental domains.  I wanted to gain more insights how children in this area thrived or faced challenges when it comes to their emotional development.

The challenges that the children in this region of the world are confronted with are measles, poverty, starvation, disabilities, polio, lack of Vitamin A supplements, and worms.  On the Day of the African Child 2012, UNICEF calls on families, communities and governments throughout the continent to protect children with disabilities from discrimination, violence and neglect, and to provide them with access to all the services they need to grow up healthy and live up to their potential (UNICEF, 2012).  In this area of Africa, children with disabilities are the most excluded group. With the lack of proper medicine and antibiotics, children die because of pneumonia.  Pneumonia claimed 1.3 million lives in 2011 alone, and was responsible for nearly one in five global child deaths (USA, November 13, 2012).  If the medicines and antibiotics were supplied then maybe lesser children would have died.

 

These experiences may have an effect on children’s emotional well-being and development because it will cause them to be delayed in certain areas, have healthy relationships, and become productive citizens as they become older. Living in these conditions will also have an impact on them having the inability to form their own identity and gain self-concept and self-esteem about themselves.  Most likely they will continue to live in poverty and face the same challenges if there are funds and support provided to this country.

The insights that I gained from reading and exploring the regional area of the living conditions of children gave me a better understanding of the challenges that children face.  From reading this website I was influenced to think about my own career path. In life we should not take the simple things for granted.  I know that children all over the world suffer.  However, there are career paths to take that make me want to be an advocate for children globally.  Children should be able to enjoy life and not be stereotyped or be ignored because of who they are.  Globally children deserve to have proper health care, live in clean and sanitize environments, eat healthy foods, have proper shelter, and be able to thrive in all developmental domains.  I knew that certain areas of the world and the conditions for children were severe, but when you read articles it makes you want to be a part of a change of the lives of young children. Personally, my heart goes out to young children who struggle and have to deal with childhood illness and malnutrition.  Professionally, I know that I can take the steps to help make the lives of these children a lot less stressful.

References

UNICEF. (2012). Day of the African Child: UNICEF calls for the social inclusion of children with disabilities.

USA. (November 13, 2012). Pnemonia still number one killer.

 

The Sexualization of Early Childhood

    My reaction is that sexualization in early childhood is that is has definitely surfaced in the appearance and vocabulary of young children.

 
Children are more technology evolved and they see young children with makeup and sexy clothes on.  They see models and teenagers acting provocatively and they want to become a part of this culture.  Sexualization is a growing trend in the early childhood field and amongst young children.  In my opinion, they want to be grown to fast and by wearing the sexy clothes, makeup and big girl earrings they feel a sense of worth.  Children these ages will go through normal sexual development as they develop into teens, but the modern technology has exposed sexualization to a new level. Sexualization can have a negative impact on a child’s social and emotional development.  Children tend to react to children who dress a sexy way.  This can later affect the child’s self-esteem.

  Three years ago, I had a little girl in my class whose mom would let her wear revealing clothes.  Her mom also made the notion that she did not want her daughter to plat because she did not want her clothes to get dirty.

     The second example is a little girl in class would always wear skirts and would get mad when we told her to sit appropriately, sit with her legs clothes.  She would not play with the little girls but enjoyed bossing the boys around in class.


    Recently, I had a relative to call me and tell her that another parent had confronted her about her child.  The girls are seven and the parent told my relative that her little girl was bringing makeup to school and they were changing their appearances by the time they made it to school.  My relative told the parent that she would handle the situation and that both girls were makeup would not be an issue again.

      As a early childhood professional, it is valued to be aware of sexualization.  As professionals we need to find the appropriate strategies to deal with this topic.  I believe that is important to have dress codes in classrooms that will help omit sexulaization in the classroom.

 

 

EVALUATING IMPACTS ON PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

As adults we play a major role in a child’s social interactions with other.  It is critical for us to be aware of own actions, so that we will not have a negative impact on a child’s social’, emotional, and cognitive growth.  We also play a significant role in helping young children form their own social identities. I believe that if I was experiencing racism from others who were being prejudice toward me then it would hurt.  I believe that if I took these personal problems to work then my problems will definitely impact the child’s well -being. For example, if a parent was being prejudice toward me, and I had to deal with a classroom of children, I am pretty sure the children would sense my mood. My behavior and attitude could have an impact on how the children treat each other and how they would respond to me.   “Ism” can have a negative impact on a child’s development.  By me being their teacher and their role model, then they would begin to struggle with their own social skills with other races and cultures.  They would struggle with their cognitive development because they would begin to question why people are mean to each other, because they are different.  They would show emotional conflicts if they see I am upset because of someone being prejudice toward me. I am hoping that I do not have to encounter an “ism” or prejudice or a stereotype within my own personal life, because I do not want to have a negative influence on a child’s developmental outcome or a relationship with a parent.  Therefore, by being prepared to be anti-bias teacher and create an anti-bias educational setting, I am hoping that I can deal with bias issues in an educational setting, furthermore be able to keep my personal insights and feelings of how others feel toward me out of the classroom.  My goal is to maintain a professional attitude at all times.  If I am positive, then a child a child will thrive.  If I am negative, then a child may struggle in one of their developmental domains.