Zero to Three....

I was very excited to see that the zero to three website has recently updated their series of podcasts. I did have an opportunity this week to review some of them and they are very interesting to listen to and would be very informative for parents. This is a series that i would like to share with the families that i work with. I have not found any controversial information. All of the information that i find is relative to the young children and their families, and is mostly researched based.

An area of the Zero to Three website that i would like to bring attention to is the Public Policy tab. This is a resource area for government officials and anyone who has any part in creating public policies for young children. This area gives a great deal of research based information to better inform policy decision makers to better make decisions for our children. This area is simple to use and straight to the point. It lists what the goals are of the Zero to Three organization and gives a great deal of resources for people to go to in order to find our research based information about infants and toddlers. I think that more of our politicians and public officials and public policy makers need to know about these resources that are available to them.

I am constantly referring to this website in my day to day life, and i think that there is something different that catches my eye each time. There is a lot of information and many resources available through this one website and i am familiarizing myself with it more and more each day.

How does poverty affect the children of the world?

I have learned through this weeks assigned readings, as well as from researching a variety of different websites, and from reading disscussion posts from other students the many different ways that poverty can affect children here in the United States, as well as the ways that poverty affects children in other areas of the world. For children here in the United States poverty can affect test scores, how far children remain in their educational institution, how many children will attend college, behavior, illness, attentivenes, as far as many other things. There are also many programs in the United States that try to combat poverty as well as try to positively impact the possible affects of the poverty. Some of these programs are WIC, Healthy Families, Medical, Cash Assistance, free lunch, and many others that i do not know about.

I found a great deal of interesting research on the Chilhood Poverty Research and Polity Centre website located at http://www.childhoodpovery.org/. This website gives information about how many children are in poverty in several different countries as well as information about birth and death rates, official statistics, and possible reasons for the poverty. I learned that China has the greatest population, and that they have done many things that have reduced poverty in the past. The website also states that although poverty has not gone up, the reduction rate has slowed over the past 10 to 20 years due to some of the things they were doing to reduce poverty have been done less and less. I also learned that India is doing great things in order to reduce poverty, but they are still struggaling with getting thousands of children into basic primary schooling. India also struggles a great deal with illness and disease such as HIV/AIDS which adds to the poverty level. I also read about Mongolia, and how a large part of the population lives in poverty and that it is very difficult for the poor population to recieve proper medical attention and many times proper nutrition.

It is very sad learning about how many people live in poverty and how many different types of poverty that there are. I unfortunately am considered as living in poverty because the amount of my income is not enough to care for my children since my husband was laid off his job 2 years ago. Unlike many people who live in poverty in other countries my family and I still have a roof over our head, we can get free or low cost medical care, and my children get the proper nutrition that they need. It is also sad that i am considered poverty level when i have a BS degree, work 40 or more hours per week, and am able to provide for my kids as well as i do. I will not go into the problems with our economy. I just wanted to give a little peek into what poverty in the Unted States can look like. I know that when we look at poverty in other states atleast i picture the very small frail children that we see on telivision, or families that live in fort like dwellings made of grass and mud. It is very sad to know how little some children have, and how much some of them overcome in order to provide for their families.

A Closer Look at Zero To Three:

For this assignment I have subscribed to the Zero To Three website at http://www.zerotothree.org/. Of the many different online resources i have used in the past, or currently use this is my favorite. There is always a large amount of current information but it is also regularly updated. The main thing that i like about this resource is that there is information for parents and families as well as early childhood professionals. This website is also well organized and easy to navigate to the topics that you wish to read or hear about.

The main topic that cought my eye as i was researching this site for this assignment was the wealth of information provided for difficult behavior issues. Alot of parents that struggle with difficult behavior will often wonder how to handle the behavior as well as if their child is the only one that acts up. I am also the mother of a child with difficult behavior and it is often very embarasing when i find myself in public situations with a child that is acting out. This information was very helpful to me.

Because there is so much information available through this website i have yet to view it all. I will be listing to several of the webcasts that are posted and know that each will offer information that is valuable and current.