"My Connections to Play"

"When you asked me what I did in school today and I say, "I just played." Please don't misunderstand me. For you see, I am learning as I play. I am learning to enjoy and be successful in my work. Today I am a child and my work is play." -Anita Wadley

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning but for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.: -Fred Rogers



Some of my most memorable moments of play involves playing outdoors. When I was growing up, from the time my sisters, brother, and I woke up in the morning until it was time for us to come in the house once the street lights came on, we were outdoors playing and exploring the world. My mother provided us with blocks, dramatic play props, books, puzzles, art materials, and many other items that helped support our development indoors and outdooors. We played in mud making mud pies, we used wood to build houses, and we used acorns as balls and a wooden plank as a bat to play baseball. We rode our bikes in the streets, jumped rope, played games such as Red Rover, Hide and Seek, Red Light, Green Light, Stop, Simon Said, and many more games. My mother and grandmother were always outdoors playing with us and our neighborhood friends. My mother would always say, "Who wants to race me" because she ran track when she was in high school and thought that she could beat everybody in a race. We had so much fun playing together.

Play today is different from the play I was engaged in as a child. Many children today think that playing games on their phones, tablets, computers, and other electronic devices is play. They do not want to go outdoors and play games such as Ring Around the Rosy and Hide and Seek. I remember playing these types of games until I was around 15 or 16 years old. When I was growing up, we could go outside and play without our parents checking on us. But nowadays, we have to think about sending our children outside to play because of all the crimes and violence that is going on. Many parents do not feel that it is safe for their children to play outdoors. I must say, I am one of those parents even though I live in a pretty good neighborhood. My children have to play close to the house because I am very concerned about their safety.

My hope for the children today with regard to play is that they are allowed the opportunity to play. They need to have the opportunity to play by themselves and with others. I hope that parents and teachers continue to support children in play and know that play plays a huge role in supporting physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and language development.

Play played a significant role throughout my life as a child and is continuing to do so as an adult. As a child, play enhanced my social development. I was able to initiate play with my family, friends, and other peers. Play also enhanced my physical, emotional, cognitive, and language development. Play supported all aspects of my development as a child. Since my mother, grandmother, and early childhood teachers understood and supported play while I was growing up, I am now doing the same for my children at home and school. As an adult, I still love to play. I run around with my children at home and school. I climb structures, read plenty of books, play in the sand and water table, play with blocks, construction toys, play hide and seek, and much, much more.

I have a four year old son so I have to continue to be a big kid at heart!!!!

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are the most significant element of people’s lives. Relationships are important to me because they are an essential factor of happiness and health. When we have healthy relationships, we lead happy lives.

I have positive relationships with my husband, mother, and my high school teacher. My husband and I are very close. He is very supportive and loving and he is always motivating me when I think I cannot do something. He is always telling me that I can do anything I put my mind to.

My mother has played a huge role in me being the person I am today. She has always been there for me through the good and bad. We have always had a trusting and loving relationship and she has always been involved in my education. She is the reason why I decided to become a teacher because she was never able to fulfill her dream of becoming one.

My high school teacher has been in my life for many years. She is very encouraging and motivating. She is always encouraging and pushing me to go farther in life. In the past, when I thought about changing fields, she encouraged me to stay in the early childhood field because she knew that my heart was with working with children.

These people have been huge influences in my life. In order for us to maintain positive relationships with one another, we have to continue to respect and communicate with each other. If we don’t trust, respect, and communicate with one another, it will be very challenging to develop and maintain relationships. The special characteristics of these relationships that make them partnerships are honesty, trust, collaboration, respect, and support.

My experiences with relationships can impact my work as an effective early childhood professional by me continuing to be respectful, trusting, supportive, caring and open. If I continue to illustrate these positive traits, I will continue to develop and maintain positive relationships/partnerships with my family and friends. This will also benefit me as a teacher.

When I Think of Child Development

Do not train children to learn by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each. –Plato

Testing for Intelligence

When it comes to viewing the whole child, I think that authentic assessment should be used. According to the text, "Authentic assessment (also called classroom assessment, alternative assessment, and performance-based assessment). This type of assessment occurs in the ongoing life and daily activities of the early childhood classroom. Authentic assessment is evaluation of a child's development or performance in the context of everyday life. In a natural or "authentic" approach, the teacher observes and documents real life examples in which skills and knowledge are demonstrated tasks that are meaningful to the child. It is not a onetime event. Instead it is an ongoing process. It uses the input of teacher, parent, and child. Authentic assessment includes multiple kinds of information, collected throughout the day, while children are engaged in a range of activities including self-selected play, teacher-directed activities, routines, and transitions. In authentic assessment a variety of methods are used to record or document what children do, but the most important is teacher's observations of children engaged in meaningful activities. Photographs, videotapes and audio recordings, interviews with children and family members, and examples of children's work also can provide authentic evidence of a child's understanding and ability" (Feeney, Moravcik, Nolte, Christensen, 2010).

In England, at the moment, "most of the children start school in nursery or reception classes at the age of three or four and are taught using the Early Years Foundation Stage, a compulsory "nappy curriculum". They are assessed against targets set out in the EYFS, which covers areas such as personal and social development, communication and early numeracy, before moving on to formal lessons in the first full year of school aged five. Children are then subjected to further assessments in the three R's at the age of seven" (Paton, 2013).

I think that when we assess children, we should make sure that whatever we assess them with it should be developmentally and educationally significant for children. We should make sure that the instruments we assess them with have goals that are aligned with early learning standards, program goals, and curriculum rather than a narrow set of skills.


Feeney, S., Moravcik, E., Nolte, S., Christensen, D. (2010). Who Am I in the Lives of Children? An Introduction to Early Childhood Education. Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Paton, G. (2013). The Telegraph. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Violence Can Cause Stress

Children today are surrounded by stressful situations in child cares homes, and schools. Violence is a huge problem in the United States. Violence can affect many people, from infants to the elderly. Violence is a stressor in children’s lives that endangers their well being and life outcomes.

I had a childhood friend who was brought up in an abusive home. Her father was always beating on her mother, almost every day. We were around seven years old and I remember her always coming over to my house to let me know that her father hit on her mother. Sometimes she would be present when this happened. I did not know what to do at the time but talk to her and be her friend, which wasn’t enough. The violence she observed between her parents really affected her in many ways. She could not concentrate which caused her not to do well in school which eventually caused her to drop out. She also became depressed and started drinking alcohol and doing drugs. According to an article, “Exposure to domestic violence has also been linked to poor school performance. Children who grow up with domestic violence may have impaired ability to concentrate; difficulty in completing school work; and lower scores on measures of verbal, motor, and social skills” (NCTSN, 2013).

We lost touch when I moved, but reunited after a couple of years. She was still going through depression when we reconnected and since I was older and knew more, I suggested that she get some help with what she was going through. Now, I am happy to say that she is doing much better and is no longer depressed, drinking, or doing drugs. She earned her high school diploma and now works as a counselor.

According to an article, “Australian children single out alcohol as country’s main cause of violence. The report found that 45% of Australian children surveyed believe alcohol is a main cause of violence. Cambodia had the highest response with 90%, followed by Mongolia with 53%. An Australian child, Erin, 10, told the survey: “I think the main violence in my country is domestic violence from alcohol and drugs. Many adults have too much alcohol and drugs and hurt or treat their families in a bad way. I think we could stop this by limiting the amount of alcohol adults drink and buy” (Davis, 2013).

Cases of alcohol-related violence have been highly publicized in recent years. Awareness groups campaigning to reduce the number of alcohol-fuelled attacks have focused on incidents such as the death of the Sydney teenager Thomas Kelly (Davis, 2013).
Violence is a huge stressor around the world. Violence causes a major threat to children’s physical, emotional, social, and psychological well being, especially if the violence that is occurring is persistent.

Davis, H. (2013). The Guardian. Retrieved November 23, 2013, from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/20/australian-children-single-out-alcohol-as-countrys-main-cause-of-violence
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (2013). Children and Domestic Violence. Retrieved November 23, 2013, from http://www.nctsn.org/content/children-and-domestic-violence

Child Development and Public Health: SIDS

According to an article, “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is defined as the sudden death of an infant less than 1 year of age that cannot be explained after a thorough investigation is conducted, including a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the clinical history” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013).


“SIDS is the leading cause of death among infants aged 1–12 months, and is the third leading cause overall of infant mortality in the United States. Although the overall rate of SIDS in the United States has declined by more than 50% since 1990, rates for non-Hispanic black and American Indian/Alaska Native infants remain disproportionately higher than the rest of the population. Reducing the risk of SIDS remains an important public health priority” (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). Today, SIDS rate is very low because many people are being educated about this problem.


This topic is meaningful to me because I had a cousin who died of SIDS many years ago. She was being placed in a crib on her stomach and the mattress she was sleeping on was not firm. She also had toys, soft bears, pillows, blankets, and bumper pads in the crib. The doctor informed my cousin that placing the baby on her stomach and all of the items that she had in the baby’s crib contributed to her death.


I did the same thing with my first child. I placed him on his stomach occasionally but mostly on his side. In his crib, he also had bumper pads, blankets, pillows, soft bears, and other items in his crib. After attending a class and becoming more educated about SIDS, I immediately put a stop to it and started placing my children on their backs and nothing was allowed in their cribs, just a firm mattress and a fitted sheet.


According to an article, “The infant mortality rate (the number of infant deaths per thousand births) in Australia in 1901 was a little over a hundred. Mind you, this was better than England and Wales (128 per 1000), France (144) and Russia (272). The big killers in those days were the childhood infectious diseases like whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles” (Lavelle, 2013).


“Today the infant mortality rate in Australia stands at just under six per thousand, thanks to better nutrition and sanitation, immunization, and antibiotics. In Australia, SIDS causes one death in about 1000 live births, or about 250 babies each year.
It's most common between the ages of two to four months, though it can happen to younger and older infants – it's rare over the age of 12 months. About 60 percent of cases involve boys and 40 per cent are girls” (Lavelle, 2013).


I used to work in the infant classroom (6 weeks to 12 months) for Early Head Start and parents were always asking me why the babies had to be placed on their backs because at home they were placing the babies on their stomachs. They told me that they thought their babies sleep better on their stomachs. I was always informing my parents about SIDS and how many babies are dying from it. The information I have learned about SIDS has helped me and I will continue to educate parents about placing their babies on their back instead of their stomachs. Also, my plans in the future is to own a childcare center. I will be able to educate caregivers, who will be working with the infants, on SIDS.


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Sudden Unexpected Infant Death and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from http://www.cdc.gov/sids/


Lavelle, P. (2013). ABC Health & Wellbeing. SIDS. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from http://www.abc.net.au/health/library/stories/2003/05/29/1831797.htm

Childbirth In My Life and Around The World

I have four children and each birth took place in a hospital. I thought about giving birth at home but was scared something would go wrong. I remember when I gave birth to my first son. It was incredible from the beginning to the end. Even though I was in pain, it was an incredible and awesome experience. I remember my mother and husband sitting by my bed in the hospital. After I woke up from my nap, I remember her asking me, “How can you sleep through all that pain?” But when the pain became unbearable, I remember having her in the headlock, don’t ask me how that happened, and I also remember beating my husband’s hand against the bedrail. I did not want an epidural because I wanted to have a natural birth without any medication and I also wanted to experience the good, the bad, and the ugly with my first birth. In Beijing, delivering in the hospital is their main option. As stated in an article, “Home births are not a viable option in Beijing, as there is no support system in place that allows a woman to deliver her baby outside of a hospital. Midwives are generally not available, and no health care provider is legally able to participate in a home birth. There are many hospitals that are willing to respect your no- or low-intervention birth plan. A hospital environment does increase the possibility of unnecessary medical intervention; therefore it is imperative for mothers to be informed about the natural birthing process. It should be noted that Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU) is the only international hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit” (Rodriguez, 2011). My thought regarding birth and its impact on child development is, from the time babies are born, they are able to communicate and give little signals when they are tired or hungry. Newborn babies’ brains develop rapidly. Their social, emotional, cognitive, physical, and language development increases month to month. Parents should interact and communicate with their newborns daily to enhance their development. Rodriguez, M. (2011). Giving Birth, Naturally. Beijing Kids Magazine. Retrieved November 2, 2013, from http://www.drmelissarodriguez.com/media.asp?cid=28&id=72