Consequences of learning about international early childhood.....

There are few consequences that arise from gaining more knowledge accept for the realization that you are only one person in a huge world of needs, the realization that you can not save every child, and the fact that there is always more to know. To me these are the consequences for learning about international early childhood education and development, as well as learning about how great the need is for change and understanding when it comes to children and how they should be treated and educated. When you learn about how great the need is it is easy to get frustrated when you realize that there are so many needs, and you as one person could in no way ever meet all of the needs of all of the people. It is upsetting when you realize that you can not be everything to all of the children that have needs. It is also overwhelming when you see and learn all kinds of new information, but to continue learning all of the many things there are to know would be impossible because there is so much information to learn and read through.

Even through these consequences and as overwhelming as they can be it only leads me to wanting to be as much as I can and positively impact as many lives as I possibly can. I has set my goals high, and I know I will someday accomplish them one step at a time. I want to be a voice for the children in my community and possibly become a voice for the children in my county, state, and maybe even in my country someday. I will do this. I will help to form policies that are conducive to the needs of children, and not harmful to them. I will find a way for the children and families who need it to obtain quality care for their children at a price that they can afford. They will be able to work, and not have to worry about where their kids are or what they are doing. This is something that I will do. Although there are many state and federally funded programs they do not help all who need it. The main problem that I see is that only the people who fit the proper standards and work hours. The parents who work nights, or weekends, and possibly holidays, do not have any options for care. This will change in my community, I will see to it.

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization website has a wealth of information available to the public. The Motto of the UNESCO is Building Peace in the Minds of Men and Women. Education is very important to this organization and they have at least one person focused on education at each of their 52 sites. UNESCO is a worldwide organization and have sites in several different countries. Aside from education they also focus a great deal on diversity, and equity. These are two things that although often talked about few actually act upon. UNESCO is making a difference in the lives of many.

This website had a great deal of information on many different topics and several different resources that can be of assistance to families, and professionals. The website also highlights many of the things that the organization does in the different countries, this ranges from teaching about the holocaust to providing and teaching many women how to use a cell phone.

This is a website worth reviewing and taking the time to view the many different resources that it provides. I have not had time to review all of the different areas of the website but will be looking at it one area at a time.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/

Sharing Web Resources...Looking Deeper at Zero To Three

After taking a closer look at the Zero to Three website I discovered a great deal of information on challenging behaviors. This is something that I am very interested in as I have a child with challenging behaviors, as well as many that i work with on a daily basis. I found this information under the behavior and development tab. Once that tab was opened it listed several different links that would give specific information on different types of behaviors and development. I chose the challenging behaviors link.

This opened up a page that gave some helpful information on what challenging behaviors are and gave a list of the most common behaviors that are categorized as challenging. They were aggression, defiance, inconsolable crying, children who are slow-to-warm-up, and sleep challenges. It also stated that no two children are alike and the same strategies are not always successful. At the bottom of this page there were links to a question and answer page as well as to a challenging behavior tips and tools page.

The question and answer link goes to a page that lists several questions that parents and caregivers have asked concerning behaviors that they have experienced. It also gives professional answers and insights into the behaviors that the caregivers are experiencing. Reading through these questions and answers i find the information to be very helpful, positive, and informative.

The Challenging Behaviors Tips and Tools link leads to a page that lists many different behaviors with links that can be opened. This page contains information on biting, sleep challenges, aggressive behaviors, colic, self control, and defiance. Many of the links include printable handouts.

Every time i research this website I find more and more useful information. I found many resources that i will print out and share with many of the families I work with. I also found some information that i will use for myself as well.

International Child Development

I was unable to establish an international contact for Child Development, so I have researched the Global Children's Initiative website. I have found many interesting things on this website about child development in many other places around the world. The Global Children's Initiative is committed to global work, and they strive to find the needs of the children and create ways to meet the needs. They have created many different programs throughout the world. They have several different links and resources available on their website that can be informational to all people who have a desire to help others, to learn about others, or research different ideas.

The Global Children's Initiative is launching a program in Brazil to create stronger policies for the children and families in Brazil, as well as to educate the people of Brazil on the importance of understanding Child Development. The Global Children's Initiative will be working with other local agencies to achieve their goals. Some of the things they will be doing is "building a scientific agenda and community of scholars around early childhood development, synthesizing and translating scientific knowledge for application to social policy. This will include working with the center's longtime partner organization, frameworks institute, to effectively communicate the science of child development in the Brazilian cultural context. Strengthening leadership around early childhood development through an executive leadership course for policy makers. Translating and adapting the Center's existing print and multimedia resources for a Brazilian audience" (retrieved from the Global Children's Initiative Website).

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.