Family and Community Relationships

Standard 1: Promoting Child Development and Learning

Introduction The child I chose to focus on was named P. She is five years and three months of age. The areas I have to observe concerning the character of P is her emotional maturity, her social interaction with both adults and peers and her concentration levels. I have observed P for a period of about nine months now, focusing on her personal characteristics when exposed to different environmental circumstances. The intention is to create an environment which is conducive to her development while taking into account the need to ensure the environment created is both respectful and challenging enough to spur her overall development. The observation of the children in the class I focus on is aided to a significant part by the support of a specialist. The general feedback from the specialists is that she has recorded a marked overall improvement in her social behavior, although more attention needs to be granted to her social communication skills such as inappropriate interruption of others when they speak.  The Child's Characteristics and Needs  She appears healthy, taller than her peers and looks like she has a laid back personality. During recess, I have observed that while she seems to dislike overly physical activities such as running and riding the tricycle, she engages in sedentary activities. For example, I have observed that she likes to sit in the sand and often fills up her bucket with the sand, and seems very engrossed in her work. She also talks to some children who are playing around her and sometimes, though not very often, engaged them in her playing activities. P's movements are minimal, as I have noted, and while she is reserved, she is friendly to her peers.  Multiple Influences of P to her Development and Learning I have observed that P likes to talk very intimately to her peers and she is an avid listener. As the lead teacher, whenever I am telling a story to the rest of the class, I notice that she sits at the front and is always listening and asks questions quite often. There was a time she was jostling for a place on the floor (I have them sit in a semi-circle when talking to them), and she was quick to point out the classmate to me, whom she felt was breaking one of the rules by causing a disturbance. Giving her alternatives, I informed her she would have to stop jostling with her peer for a sitting position or move to the sit at the back, makes her defensive. She is protective of her own personal space and she is overly uncomfortable when her peers are in close physical proximity. She seems to get along with the few children she talks to, and overall, her peers appear to like her.   Understanding Diverse Family and Community Characteristics and Involving the Family The reflection I will write about is based on the attendance and participation of parents I invited when I created and an event dubbed ‘Science Day.' We had just finished a topic on liquids and solids and I invited parents to work as volunteers and helped in manning the five centers I had created which involved the active exploration of liquids and solids. By having the parents in charge of the centers, it allowed them to monitor and facilitate their children's learning while also according me the ample time to walk around, observing and assisting wherever needed. The event helped me understand the complexities of the parent-child relationship, for example, some parents were unable to turn up, leaving their children crestfallen. I also noted some parents were distant with their children, which affected the learning process, while others took the opportunity to bond and enhance the learning process of their children. P's parents did not attend, and I noticed she talked to the parent of her classmate who was at their learning center and asked questions as well.  Supporting and Engaging Families and Communities  For those who were able to attend the ‘Science Day,' I thanked each one of them for their active role in facilitating their children's learning. Respectfully and diplomatically, I engaged the parents whom I noticed had a distant relationship with their children, and we engaged in objective conversation on how to rectify the situation. The majority of the parents were receptive to my ideas, while others promised to engage me as a follow-up. For the absentees, I reached out to them via e-mail, and about half of them responded, apologizing for not coming. One of them was P's parent, who like all the others who responded to my e-mail, promised to turn up next time. For those who failed to turn up and did not respond to my emails, I have gained useful insights on how best to deal with the reality to ensure a continuum of learning and development of the children.

Standard 6: Becoming a Professional

Informed Advocacy for Young Children and the Early Childhood Profession I feel that I have gained the most in this field by sharing information with others in the same professional background as me. Sharing on my part is informed by the recognition of the fact that we have to rely on others to compliment us in various fields since a single professional cannot be knowledgeable in multiple aspects of childhood development (Crosson-Tower, 2017). I am a staunch believer that each professional in our field has to find a specific aspect which excites them, and network with others in the profession to help us advocate for young children.  Integrating Knowledgeable, Reflective, and Critical Perspectives on Early Education In my opinion, integration of learning and play is important for creating a learning environment which allows for the individual development of a child, recognizing each child's set of unique values and attributes (Van Hoorn, 2014). I believe in the use of learning activities which help the critical aspects of the child to develop unhindered, such as building a 3-D graph paper city, where they use simple materials such as paper and cardboard to make a city (James, & Prout, 2015). I feel that involving the children to learn by doing will be effective in making them more interested and develop them into curious, well-rounded individuals capable of making independent decisions and act responsibly (Brookfield, 2017).

References

Brookfield, S. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons. Crosson-Tower, C. (2017). Exploring child welfare: A practice perspective. Pearson. James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (2015). Constructing and reconstructing childhood:Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. Routledge. Van Hoorn, J. L., Monighan-Nourot, P., Scales, B., & Alward, K. R. (2014). Play at the center ofthe curriculum. Pearson