Author: Andre Coleman

The aim of this assignment is to discuss critically the principles of working with vulnerable children or young people by using an anonymousness case study. The plan is to illustrate the key concepts of vulnerability and resilience, consider the impact on the child’s mental health and to look at different legislations.

Scenario

Mary is a five-year-old child who lives at home with her Mum and Dad. In view of the recent recession, Mary’s Dad has lost his job and is displaying negative emotions and this is causing friction with his wife. Mum has mild learning difficulties but is able to hold down a part time job, taking on more hours to compensate for the loss of earnings and leaving Dad to attend to Mary. Mary attends school but recently her attendance has been erratic, on several occasions Mary’s homework as not been done. School staff has noticed Mary turning up to school dirty, smelly and appears to have lost weight in recent weeks. The teacher has tried on several occasions to arrange a meeting but Mum claims to be too busy with work and Dad shows no interest.

Vulnerability

An explanation by Appleton (1994) describes vulnerability as a complex concept where there are many interacting factors. Appleton (1994) suggests vulnerability can be viewed as a scale where families at different periods in life can be more susceptible to both “internal” and “external” stress factors. In comparison, The United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (USAHCPR 1998) suggests that the environment may contribute to the vulnerability of people through various phases of life. More specifically different people may be vulnerable in a variety of ways due to health issues, age, communication problems and the house and community where they live. Equally important a recent concept of vulnerability suggests that parents or carer’s inability to provide basic needs, such as love, warmth, shelter and a healthy diet may affect the child’s all round development. (Cleaver et al 2007).

One cannot deny that everybody at some point in his or her life may be vulnerable. However, according to some experts how old you are can also be an influence. In other words, infants and children are considered more vulnerable because they rely on parents or carers to provide their basic needs. The reason for this is young children do not have the verbal language to communicate for their own needs (Aday 1993, Gitterman & Shulman 1994, Miller 1995). Nevertheless all concepts advocate a similar meaning and according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) article nineteen, states that every child has the right to be protected. Young children need to be nurtured and guided by parents or caregivers to provide them with the basic needs to develop into participating young adults in society (Cleaver et al 2007). So it is vital that all nurses, midwifes and health visitors should have the skill and knowledge to identify indicators of vulnerability in children and be responsible to pursue any concerns with the appropriate person (Stower 2000).

Resilience

In the science of human development, resilience has comprehensive and different meanings, including recovery from traumatic experience, overcoming divorce and withstanding stress to function well in the tasks of life. It is clear from those facts that resilience refers to patterns of positive adaptation or development manifested in the context of adverse experiences (Masten& Gewirtz 2006). Masten and Gewirtz (2006) suggest that resilience is a dynamic balance between risk and positive factors. In addition, how individuals, children, and families cope in the face of adversity. This led us to believe through research that early childhood is a significant time where parents can nurture the characteristics of the children in promoting and understanding resilience (Masten & Gewirtz 2006). Furthermore, Masten and Gewirtz (2006) suggest that resilience may come naturally to some children where other children may need help in acquiring those skills. One should, nevertheless consider resilience from another angle where existence of protective factors may explain why one child may cope better with adverse life events than another (Getting it Right for Every Child 2008).

Protective factors are those variables that safeguard against the effects of risk factors, the presence of one or more factors of negative outcome for a child or young person. Protective and risk factors can be divided into four groups, child, family, school, and community factors (Durlak 1998). An example of a risk factor would be insecure attachment and the protective factor would be attachment to a family (Durlak 1998). With new information and understanding of resilience in individuals there seems to be a shift from the emphasis on factors and variables to mechanisms and processes. This shift looks at how well an individual processes and copes in the face of adversity (Rutter 2007). Furthermore, this refers to mental operations, for example coping skills, as well as individual characteristics and experiences (Rutter 2007). On reflection, it seems more accurate to say that considering not only characteristics and experiences but also the age and stage of development of the child. In addition, for example children aged five and less has a reduced repertoire of coping mechanisms. Similarly, Schoon (2006) suggest resilience is not only dependent on the characteristics of the individual but interactions from the family and the wider community may also play a part. On the other hand, Brooks (2006) points out that the family is at the centre of providing care and this has the greatest influence on the development of resilience in children.

In relation to the scenario, Mary’s all round development at this moment may be vulnerable. As highlighted above how old you are can also be an influence because children aged five and less has a reduced repertoire of coping mechanisms and the increased of vulnerability in this age group in terms of physical and emotional development. Mary is dependent on her parents to provide her basic needs, food, warmth, shelter, and love. The effects of neglect can have a long-term influence on Mary’s quality of life. However, some children cope with and overcome the socio-emotional effects of child neglect. Mary may have protective factors within the family, such as a Grandmother, who may help to reduce the effects of neglect and foster resilience.

The family dynamics have changed within the family where Mum is now working full time and Dad is the main caregiver. In view of the recent recession, Mary’s Dad has lost his job and is displaying negative emotions. This may have an impact on Mary’s all round development and her mental health because are social skills and needs is not being met.

Mental Health

In relation to the scenario, Mary is showing signs of neglect. To begin with, according to Horwath (2007) there have been many publications about neglect. However, not one was able to give a clear definition on what is neglect. In addition, analysis from these definitions agrees that neglect is an omission, or failure on part of the parent or carer to provide the basic needs for the child, such as healthy diet, and love (Horwath 2007). Likewise, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC 2007) agrees that neglect is difficult to define and describes it as a “complex phenomenon”. However, both the NSPCC (2007) and Horwath (2007) agree that neglect in practice can present short term to chronic and severe neglect. Furthermore, periodic failure or one-off incidents can have a significant effect on a child. These periodic and one-off incidents may be indicative of developing neglectful behaviour. Another possibility it may be an indication that the family is suffering from stress, or a temporary crisis because of parenting issues (Horwath 2007) such as Mary’s Dad has been made redundant.

When people hear the word neglect, they usually think of parents not providing their children with food, clothes, or a safe environment to live in. Alternatively, parents can neglect their children (Horwath 2007) in other ways. Furthermore, Horwath (2007) suggests that there are a variety of parenting behaviours that may be classed as forms of neglect such as, medical, nutritional, education and emotional. Parents or carers who emotionally neglect their child fail in providing physical or emotional affection and do not develop the child’s sense of self-worth and positive identity (Horwath 2007). More specifically, it affects the child’s all round development including their mental health.

Mental health can mean different things to different people. For children to be mentally healthy they need to be loved, healthy diet, and opportunities to make choices, protection from risk, and shelter. However, the list is exhaustive but more specifically according to young minds (2002) children who live life to the full, creative and sociable lives, cope with difficulties and frustrations are mentally healthy.

The foundation for building emotional understanding skills has been found to develop within the parent-child relationship (Parke et al 1992). According Edwards, Shipman, and Brown (2005) through the parent-child relationship children learn from their parents how to label and interpret motions in different situational contexts, when it is appropriate, how to show and evade emotional experiences as culturally indicated. The ability to interpret the emotional behaviours of others may mean reading their facial expressions, by the tone of voice or body language, not necessarily words (Edwards, Shipman, and Brown 2005).

In addition, children who developed emotional development at a young age are more likely to settle well into school, work cooperatively, confidently and independently, and behave appropriately (Townley 2002). A child with poor social and emotional development is at risk of poor relationships with peers, academic problems (Horwath 2007). There is a difference between emotional neglect and emotional abuse. According to Iwaniec (1995) suggests that emotional neglect is non-deliberate where abuse is deliberate. Furthermore, parents or carers can emotionally neglect their children in a number of ways such as, inadequate attention to the child’s needs, need for affection, and lack of emotional support (Iwaniec 1995).

All children are individuals and may experience mental distress in different ways, such as the inability to cope with problems and feelings, low self-esteem and self-confidence, worsening school performance, and social withdrawal (Honeyman 2007). Emotional resilience is a valuable skill for all children. It is about being in control and believing in one’s ability to work through setbacks and risk situations in a capable, effective manner. This capacity for resilience empowers the child to develop coping behaviours, to persist in the face of failure, to bounce back with confidence and a healthy self-esteem (Townley 2002).

Children need a certain amount of resilience to be able to cope with the difficulties that occur as part of living and other strong emotions, in order to do this children develop a number of coping strategies (Landy 2002). For the first five years, children rely on their parents or caregivers to provide support in dealing with intense negative emotions and eventually learning to control or manage their emotions alone by using a range of emotional resilience or coping strategies (Landy 2002). Therefore, children need to understand how to regulate their emotions, recognize emotions in others, and handle relationships with others if they are to be well-adjusted, contented, positive, and resilient individuals (Townley 2002). They need to learn that all emotions are okay, and that they are entitled to their emotions (Cassidy et al 1992). However, it is also important children recognise that other individuals’ emotional needs can differ from their own (Horwath 2007). Another aspect to consider is how the parents socialize with their children and display emotions. If the parent or caregivers display positive life skills rather than displaying anxiety or depression therefore the child’s capacity to emotionally regulate would not be impaired (Landy 2002).

Mental health affects all aspects of life how Mary forms relationships, interact with her peers and how she copes with the rough and tumble of life. A child who is ignored may seek other ways to draw attention, and the ability to cope may be hinder leading the child to have a strong tendency to use externalizing and maladaptive coping skills. Mary’s life is loaded with tension, negative moods, unpredictable parenting at this moment in time. In addition, the school have contacted both parents to discuss issues relating to Mary’s education and well-being however, her father is not interested and Mum claims to be busy with work. The expression both parents are portraying now about school is indicating to Mary that school is not important and she may be less likely to seek emotional support from teachers or her peers. On the other hand, up to now one may assume Mary has had a stable upbringing and with additional support and with protective factors in place may help her through the present crisis within the family.

Legislations

There are different legislations in place to protect children and young people in today’s society. Such as, Protecting Children and Young People: Framework for Standards (Scottish Executive 2004), The Children (Scotland) Act 2004, and Sharing Information About Children at Risk of Abuse and Neglect: A Guide to Good Practice (Scottish Executive 2004). There are many more policies but advocates that all children have the right to be protected. According to CAMHS Standard, National Service Framework for Children, Young People, and Maternity Services (2004) suggests multi-agency services work in partnership to promote children’s mental health, provide early intervention, and meet the needs of the children that are identified with problems. It also goes on to say that, staff who are working with children and young people have sufficient knowledge, training and support to promote the psychological well-being of children, young people and their families and to identify indicators of difficulty. However, this seems not to be the case and according to Honeyman (2007), it is a much-neglected subject in child health. The Nursing and Midwifery Code (2002) states that this lack of knowledge in mental health may be seen as a barrier

When making decisions about a child it is paramount, they are at the heart of the discussion in all considerations and decisions. Professionals throughout the planning and actions taken must demonstrate this (Edinburgh and Lothian’s Inter-agency Child Protection Procedures Section 2, 2007). Furthermore, working with a family where they may be issues of the child or development professionals must co-operate to enable proper assessment of the child’s circumstances, provide any support needed, and take action to reduce the risk to the child. Sometimes this may require sharing information with other professionals. In addition, all professionals or agency’s are required to keep confidential information given by parents and must not be shared without the person’s permission (Edinburgh and Lothian’s Inter-agency Child Protection Procedures Section 2 2007).

Getting it right for every child (2008) is a network of support to promote the well-being of every child or young person to get help at the right time. This network will also include the family or carers. This may involve other agencies to be involved and if this is the case a lead professional will be nominated and they will co-ordinate help, such as making sure the family, child or young person understands what is happening and to promote teamwork between the agencies and with the family, child or young person.

The Getting it right for every child Practice Model consists of three elements, Eight Well-being Indicators, My World Triangle, and The Resilience Matrix.

The Eight Well-being Indicators, this identifies all areas where a child or young person needs to progress in order to do well now and in the future. This enables professionals to structure information that may highlight areas of concerns and needs and to structure planning (Getting it Right for Every Child, Section 4, 2008).

My World Triangle introduces a mental map, which enables the professionals to understand the whole world of the child or young person. In relation to Mary, using My World Triangle can be used at every stage to think about Mary’s world. Information may be used from other sources, possibly school, to identify the strengths and pressures in Mary’s life. This will not only identify the negatives but also the positives as well. My World Triangle looks at the whole child, physical, social, educational, emotional, spiritual, and psychological development (Getting it Right for Every Child, Section 4, 2008).

Using My World Triangle, the professionals can consider systematically how Mary is growing and developing, what Mary needs from the people around her, and the impact on Mary in the wider community, family, and friends.

To conclude the professionals may use The Resilience Matrix. The Resilience Matrix can be used in a single or multi-agency environment. This allows the professionals to gather the information on Mary, from My World Triangle and other sources and plot it on a blank matrix so that the balance between vulnerability and resilience, and adversity and protective factors can be weighed.

The City of Edinburgh Council, Guidelines for Pupil Support Groups (2004) are committed in working in partnership with the parents, Social Work, Education and others to provide integrated support to children or young people and their families. Mary is in Primary one at school and the teachers and staff are in a good position to observe Mary in her education, socialising with her peers and her general well-being.

Conclusion

Many researchers have highlighted that vulnerability and resilience are difficult to define. Through my research for this assignment, I have been introduced to a number of concepts in relation to vulnerability, resilience, and mental health in relating to a young person or child. It is the job of any paediatric nurse not to diagnose but be able to recognised symptoms of children with mental distress in order to refer them to the appropriate professional or agency. In addition, how important it is for the nurse to understand the age and stage of development the child goes through. Prolonged emotional neglect or any type of abuse may be harmful to the child. It has been highlighted through research that it may affect the child’s all round development and the presence of protective factors may explain why some children are resilient and why others are not. Resilience can be enhanced through extensive and appropriate practical and emotional support, intervention, and life chances. In order to enhance resilience professionals must establish the vulnerabilities and protective factors that exist for the child them consider the course of action to take to enhance resilience.

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This chapter looks at the major perspectives that form the basis for personality and sociocultural development during early childhood. Topics covered include coping patterns, aggression, prosocial behavior, the effects of peer interactions, and continuing development of self. Children learn to manage a wide range of feelings and emotions. The important to emotional development is the child’s ability to cope with fear and anxiety. Fear is a response to a specific situation and anxiety is a generalized emotional state. A child may experience regular and continuous feelings of unease, often without knowing why. Children can be help cope with fear and anxiety by parents reducing unnecessary stress, being a role model, seeking professional help.

Children can also cope with fear and anxiety using defense mechanism such as identification, projection, denial, reaction formation, displacement, regression, rationalization, repression, and withdrawal. Children are expected to inhibit the display of some emotions such as anger, distress, affection, joy, sensuality and sexual curiosity. Children experience developmental conflicts their needs to depend on their parents and their desire of independence dealing with compliance, mastery and competence which Erikson identified as autonomy verse shame and initiative verse guilt.

According to Erikson, children either become more independent and autonomous if their parents encourage exploration and freedom or they experience shame and self-doubt if they are restricted and overprotected. In addition, children view of themselves undergoes major change as they face conflicts between the desire to act independently of their parents and the guilt that comes from the unintended consequences of their actions. Parents who react positively can help their children avoid experiencing guilt. As children develop, their play becomes more social and engage in social pretend play involving the use of imagination, sharing of fantasies, and the inclusion of agreed upon rules. This help children deal with fears, provide companionship during periods of loneliness, and provide reassurance. Research indicates that 65% of young children have imaginary companions. Imaginary companions help children social skills and practice conversations. Children who are adept at imagination may be better at mastering symbolic representation in the real world. Children who are rejected by their peers in early childhood are likely to be rejected in middle childhood as well. They are also more likely to have adjusting problems in adolescence and adulthood. Rejected children may be aggressive or withdrawn and may be out of sync with their peers’ activities and social interaction.

Children learn to incorporate the values and morals of their society into their understanding of themselves through internalization. Children develop a self-concept, their identity, or their set of beliefs. Young children tend to describe themselves in terms of their physical characteristics, possessions, or activities. The tendency to describe themselves in terms of social connections increases. Children tend to imitate their parents. Children self esteem enhance by parent praising their children, encouraging and giving them responsibilities, allowing them to explore their potential freely, and showing them unconditional love. The sense of being a male or female is well established by the time children reach the preschool years. Children learn gender-related behavior and expectations from their observation of others’ behavior as well as from books, media, and TV. Parents play an especially important role in the development of young children, particularly with respect to how parents exert control and express warmth. Authoritarian parents tend to produce children who are withdrawn, fearful, dependent, moody, unassertive and irritable. Permissive parents tend to produce children who are rebellious, aggressive, self-indulgent, socially inept, creative and outgoing.

Authoritative parents tend to produce children who are self-reliant, self-controlled, socially competent with high self-esteem and do better in school. Indifferent parents tend to produce children who are free to give in to the most destructive impulses. How parents manage discipline is an important aspect of the effect that parents have on their children’s development. The aim of discipline is not only to control children behavior but also to help them develop emotional self control.

CHAPTER 8

Middle childhood is the span of years from age 6 to 12. At age 9, growth spurt for girls and 11 year olds for boys. Growth is influenced by activity level, exercise, nutrition, gender, and genetic factors. Gross motor skills such as running, jumping, and hopping and fine motor skills continue to develop and improve. Children begin to develop interest in sports. During middle childhood, children in developed world receive good nutrition so most height and weight differences among children are due to genetically determined factors. Children in developing world grow smaller than their counter parts in affluent advance world.

Obesity is defined as body weight that is more than 20% above the average for a person of a given height and weight. In United States, about 17% of children are obese. Most of children who are obese continue to be seriously overweight as adults. Obesity leads to high blood pressure, diabetes, and other medical problems. The cause of obesity can be a genetic factor, environmental factors, television viewing, lack of exercise and parental encouragement. The leading cause of death in middle childhood is accidents and associated injuries.

Psychological disorders and mental illness can begin in middle childhood, raising concerns about accurate diagnosis and treatment such as autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Piaget referred to middle childhood as a period of concrete operations and encourages the use of concrete objects for teaching such as blocks, rods and seeds. Piaget stress that teaching should be through showing rather than telling because children learn by doing and they are active learners who construct their own theories about how the world operates. During middle childhood, short-term memory capacity improves significantly and understandings about the processes that underlie memory emerge and improve during middle childhood. Children’s memory strategies and techniques enhance with age and develop the process of monitoring their own thinking. When children attend school, school teach facts or concepts, give directions for a particular lesson, state general rules of behavior, correct, discipline and praise children and introduce children in other miscellaneous activities. Children learn more in classes in which time on task is maximized, in which the teacher spends at least half the time on actual teaching and less on such concerns as maintaining order. The main emphasis on school are teaching learning and thinking skills, tailoring instruction to the child’s individual learning style and developmental level, and fostering independent, self-regulated, self paced learning, learning in small groups and cooperative rather than competitive learning.

School success is influenced by many factors including achievement motivation which is an acquired culturally based drive, gender, and parents of successful children who have realistic beliefs about their children, have high expectations, are authoritative parents and talk to, listen to, and read to their children. Developmental and intellectual disabilities such as mental Retardation, depression, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities children and other special needs children all have afforded educational opportunities in least restrictive environment.

CHAPTER 9

During middle childhood, according to Erikson, the central task focuses on industry versus inferiority. Children at this stage are characterized by a focus on efforts to attain competence in meeting the challenges related to parents, peers, school and other complexities of the modern world. Children self concept and self esteem continue to develop. The development of self esteem is a reciprocal process. Parents can positively influence their children’s self esteem by offering realistic praise and by encouraging them toward activities in which they can be successful. Children use social comparison to themselves to abilities, expertise, and opinions of others. When objective measures are absent children rely on social reality such as how others act, think, feel, and view the world. In middle childhood, most friends are of the same gender, and friendships during middle childhood serve many functions. Peer relationships provide emotional support and help kids to handle stress, teach children how to manage and control their emotions, teach about communication with others, foster intellectual growth and allow children to practice relationship skills.

According to Selman, friendships develop through four stages: as playmates, then awareness of another’s feelings emerges, then trust develops and finally children can look at relationship from another’s perspective. Prejudice is a negative attitude formed without adequate reason which is directed at a defined group of people. As children grow older, they become capable of thinking with greater complexity and prejudice can be reduce by enhancing through cooperative activities that are important to children and promoting equality and disconfirm negative stereotypes. Popular children are helpful and cooperative, have a good sense of humor and emotional understanding, ask for help when necessary, not overly reliant on others, adaptive to social situations, and social problem solving skill competence. Unpopular children lack social competence, are immature, are overly aggressive and overbearing, withdrawn or shy, and are unattractive, handicapped, obese, or slow academically. Several programs teach children set of social skills that underlie general social competence. Although peers become very important in to children in middle childhood, the family continues to be children most important socializing force. Effective parenting in middle childhood can involve in increasing children’s social competence through encouraging social interaction, teaching listening skills to children, making children aware that people display emotions and moods nonverbally, teaching conversational skills, including the importance of asking questions and self-disclosure and not asking children to choose teams or groups publicly.

In addition to other changes, children experience in early relationships between siblings can shape how children relate to others and choices made in later life. Also, in most cases, children fare quite well when parents are loving, are sensitive to their children’s needs, provide appropriate substitute care, and are good adjustment of their children. When parent divorce, children are most likely to exhibit behavioral difficulties, anxiety, depression, and low self esteem and they often have more problems with school. School-age children tend to blame themselves for the breakup. Twice as many children of divorced parents require psychological counseling as do children from intact families. For some children, living in a home with unhappy marriage and which is high in conflict has stronger negative consequences than divorce. Blended families include remarried couple that has at least one stepchild living with them. Living in blended family involves role ambiguity, in which roles and expectations are unclear.

CHAPTER 10

Adolescence is a remarkable time of growth and development; in just a few years, children transition dramatically towards adulthood across multiple domains. Adolescence is physically the healthiest period of the lifespan. There is a dramatic body parts grow at different rates due to higher levels of testosterone boys experience greater increases in muscle growth; girls experience an increase in body fat. Body shape differentiates as boys develop wider shoulders and girls develop wider hips. These biological, as well as cultural, factors can cause depression and anxiety in females at this age; an emphasis on exercise may help to keep females active and combat negative self-images. Primary sex characteristics include sex organs in males and females grow significantly to allow room for sperm and egg production. Secondary Sex Characteristic for both male and female includes growth of pubic hair, underarm hair, facial hair, and arm and leg hair. Skin becomes rougher and oilier, bones become harder, the voice becomes lower, and the chin, nose, and ears become more pronounced.

Hormones have a powerful effect on the brain, influencing its development. However, the emotionally often seen in teenagers results not only because a hormone action but also because of complex sociocultural and environmental factors. Adolescents have the ability to begin moving from childhood toward adulthood due to their cognitive development. This is the ability of the brain to begin processing more abstract thoughts. Some of these thoughts, indeed many of these thoughts, are focused on themselves. By being able to think abstractly, which is a new developmental ability. Now, as adolescents, the journey toward self-reflection and self-identity, may begin. By asking clear self-identity questions, they may find answers that will be enlightening, even insightful and complex. They will strive to learn to make good choices and decisions toward their future as a responsible citizen. This process is often difficult for adolescents. They may change periodically in terms of their self-concept. According to Piaget, adolescent gain the ability to think about intangible objects and methods and have the ability to see multiple aspects of one idea. As adolescents enhance their understanding of themselves, they actually become more aware of their own emotions and feelings and how these feelings affect their daily lives. By gaining some emotional understanding of themselves, they are able to change their self-identity. This is how they perceive their characteristics and abilities fit with the opportunities that are available to them. These changes are now known to continue in our American society well into emerging adulthood. But many of the identity issues that begin during adolescence determine the paths an adolescent may take including future college, vocational or career choices, as well as other aspects of their lives.

Adolescent constantly views themselves as the center of attention and certainty of an individual’s distinct personal experience and fate. Adolescence also belief that unfortunate occurrences only happen to other people which encourages risky behavior. Adolescence today continue to be highly sexually active and about 20% of sexually active teenagers have sexually transmitted disease. Teenage mothers and fathers are associated with difficult economic circumstances and personal challenges. Marriage under such circumstances generally does not produce positive outcomes in part because early marriage often leads to dropping out of school.

Chapter 11

During adolescence, young people reach physical maturity, develop a more sophisticated understanding of roles and relationships, and acquire and refine skills needed for successfully performing adult work and family roles. The developmental tasks of this period–coping with physical changes and emerging sexuality, developing interpersonal skills for opposite-sex relationships, acquiring education and training for adult work roles, becoming emotionally and behaviorally autonomous, resolving identity issues, and acquiring a set of values are all tied to successful functioning in adulthood in one way or another. The movement toward adulthood colors our expectations of adolescents, and hence our treatment of them. One expect adolescents to move away from the adult-directed activities of childhood toward the autonomy, responsibility, self-direction and independence from their parents and forming an identity.

Consistent with these expectations, adolescents are granted increased freedom of choice to varying degrees, adolescents select their academic courses, choose their friends and activities, and make plans concerning post high school education, employment, and family life. Many of these decisions have important implications for young people’s subsequent life course.

Educational decisions, such as whether to attend college or not, affect future career opportunities and vocational development. Similarly, becoming an adolescent parent often limits educational attainment and employment opportunities. Erikson viewed the critical developmental task of adolescence as identity verses identity confusion which requires the teen to sort through various choices in order to answer to questions “who am I?” Adolescents who go out with friends rather than study for an important test, who engage in unprotected intercourse or experiment with a new drug, or who ride home with an intoxicated driver may unknowingly affect the direction of their future lives. Moreover, short-term choices may evolve into regular patterns of behavior or lifestyles, which, in turn, influence future development. Thus, the choices that adolescents make and the developmental course they define can profoundly shape their later lives. Therefore, the adolescent’s movement toward autonomy entails both growth and risk. On the one hand, adolescents need to experience greater freedom of choice so they can begin to exercise self-direction.

Successful parents must provide support to teenage children. Maintaining communication helps reduce serious conflict. Parental monitoring is based on open communication and adolescent willingness to disclose the details of the adolescent’s life. The most importance of peers increases enormously during adolescence. Through social comparisons, teens compare themselves to their peers as a means of defining themselves. Early on, dating serves to give young adolescents experience without deep emotional involvement. Later, adolescents who date may develop emotional closeness and serious romantic relationship. Adolescence and emerging adulthood is often characterized by risk taking behavior. Because the brain region related to judgment and emotional control are still developing, adolescent may take risks without fully appreciating the consequences. Suicide is the third leading cause of death during adolescence, and the rate of suicide in this age group is rising. To support positive adolescent development, we should support and strengthen families, provide then with activities in which they can be successful

Chapter 12

The young adult stage is full of major changes in both physical and cognitive attributes. The body has finished fully developing and the thinking process is carried out in a more complex manner. It is during this development stage that the young adult can contemplate the views of others and put themselves in their place to gain a better understanding. Many key events in adulthood occur at relatively predictable times for most people in an age cohort. An age clock represents our internal sense of time for when major life events should occur. Physically, it is a time when one is at his or her healthiest. The brain is still increasing in size, although new neurons are no longer forming. One sense is also the keenest during this time of life. Full maturation has been reached, as well as full height. This is also the time when this age group learns to live comfortably in their own.

The young adult years are often referred to as the peak years. Young adults experience excellent health, vigor, and physical functioning. Young adults have not yet been subjected to age-related physical deterioration, such as wrinkles, weakened body systems, and reduced lung and heart capacities. Their strength, coordination, reaction time, sensation, fine motor skills, and sexual response are at a maximum. Additionally, both young men and women enjoy the benefits of society’s emphasis on youthfulness. They typically look and feel attractive and sexually appealing. Young men may have healthy skin, all or most of their hair, and well-defined muscles. Young women may have soft and supple skin, a small waistline, and toned legs, thighs, and buttocks. Early in adulthood, neither gender has truly suffered from any double standard of aging, mainly, the misconception that aging men are distinguished, but aging women are over the hill. With good looks, great health, and plenty of energy, young adults dream and plan. Adults in their 20s and 30s set many goals that they intend to accomplish, from finishing graduate school, to getting married and raising children and to becoming a millionaire. Young adulthood is a time when nothing seems impossible; with the right attitude and enough persistence and energy, anything can be achieved. Some individuals begins habits that likely will produce health problems later in life such as overeating, overuse of alcohol, drugs and lack of exercise. Physical change may come in the form of weight gain for this age group. This is the time of settling into careers which can be sedentary, compared to the activities that are done in college and high school. For many, this is the first time in taking sole responsibility for providing nourishment. Many young adults move away from home. Food intake may now consist of fast food and frozen dinners, which can really rack up the pounds. Early adulthood is often the time during which people are most sexually active, and many plan to have children. Sexually transmitted diseases affect most of the young adults such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. Aids may be least partly responsible for a shift to more caution sexual behavior.

Many young adults have developed the skill to reason logically and solve abstract problems. This is also the age when they are able to solve theoretical problems. This age group scores higher than any other on the fluid intelligence section of an IQ test. Fluid intelligence is not only the ability to think abstractly, but to deal with novel situations. This is the age that awareness of consequences develops. Piaget argued that cognitive development reaches its highest level, their thinking becomes more complex.

Chapter 1: Problem and Its BackgroundINTRODUCTION:

Savings has always been an important issue for the people to consider. People usually save some money from their income after incurring necessary expenses for the future needs. The cause of saving was not under attention in the developing countries previously, so measures to ask people to save money were very difficult to be taken. But now as time is passing by, youngsters are more into saving money and realize it to be an essential part for transforming their lives more luxurious ahead. Our elders use to tell our youngsters about the importance of money savings and that’s the reason some youngsters also prefer saving for their future needs and for other entertainment purpose. But if we ask our elders and parents regarding the youngster saving habits, we generally come to know that they don’t pay attention towards savings. And to some extend it is correct. Some of the questions arise here are: Why don’t they prefer saving? Do they know the importance of saving? Do we have the right perception regarding our youngsters saving habit? In this research we will be finding out our youngsters saving habits, its reasons and its effects.

Nowadays the youth is more aware about saving money where social media plays a vital role. Apart from this, due to the recession, parents as well encourage their children to save more and more as expenses are being incurred. Moreover, due to increasing opportunities, youngsters try to save and are well aware as to where they have to spend and where they have to stop themselves. Plus when youngsters move towards savings and are motivated towards it, so they try to adopt different ways to invest their money and for this they usually prefer to open up their bank account which also assists them to create long term relationship with the banks and become their loyal clients. This is the time when it has become our essential responsibility to know the perception of youngsters regarding money saving and what they really think about it and what makes them to save money or spend it. Here I would like to describe the meaning of perception through the definition.

According to the business dictionary website, Perception has been defined as “The process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them. Though necessarily based on the incomplete and unverified information, perception is equated with reality for most practical purposes and guides human behavior in general.”1 (Business Dictionary)

Perception usually differs from person to person and also affects the behavior of a person. It could be in the favor as well as against the situation. Moreover, perception is defined as the process of interpretation and giving meaning to that interpretation by organizing it.2 (Lindsay and Norman, 1977)

From an article regarding the saving practices a person said when he was of the age 18, his parents used to advise him to save money for future from his pocket money3 .They used to bring ceramic pots for saving the cash in it. But now more and more other alternatives have been developed for saving money like UBL Young Savers Account, Bank Al Habib Young Savers Account, and Bank of Punjab Young Lions Account etc. Moreover it not only for the adults, but youngsters’ even childe of the age two can be benefited with the services of the bank to open up an account for savings.

Now a days, progressively more banks are focusing and becoming a centre of attraction in order to enlighten people to save money especially youngsters are being targeted in this regard. Different campaigns are being made for attracting the youth for awareness. Banks like ABL and HBL are among the banks that are motivating the young generation to save money.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The statement of the problem is to know as to what the perception of youngsters is towards savings. What they really think about it whether beneficial or not. Due to the increasing expenses can they easily save money for themselves?

The objective of my of my research is to know their money saving perception. The second objective is to know the challenges faced by them in order to save money. The third objective is to know whether they feel good and comfortable to get opportunities in saving money in the current crucial time of economic shifts.

The problems on which I have worked upon are listed below:

To know the opinions and the insights of youngsters towards savings as to what is their perception regarding it?

What are the reasons they come across that don’t let them to save money?

Does saving leads them to become materialistic or gaining power is their desire?

Can their savings provide support to the economy?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

This research would really be helpful for the people who are working for the youth of Pakistan especially. Moreover, the Banks and other financial institutions can get advantage through it because these entities are now focusing youth and inviting the youth to save more and more for their future, for the country and for the humanity as a whole. Moreover, the saving schemes can also get advantage through this to know the behavior of the youth towards these campaigns. Since this research covers the perception of youngsters, related to their saving practices, so they will get to know their opinions, their requirements, their point of views and their insights towards saving.

SCOPE:

The scope of this research is prospecting. It will help us to know the beliefs of youngsters aging from 18 to 26 years. This is the age limit for the respondent that was positioned. Many banks are now working to improve and make better educational programs for the youngsters which will affect them when they would become young adults. The reason for these programs is to create awareness among the people and to help them in establishing themselves.

LIMITATIONS:

While working for this research, I got to know that most of the respondents have made up their minds to go abroad and work their instead of being a part of their country and strive for it. Some of them are more inclined to depart from here and grab the opportunities to settle abroad due to having more chances to make them able and prove themselves competent.

Many of them have got negative views for saving money.

In order to have the correct balance of the sample, I came about some problems in finding the actual respondent level.

The time period was limited and the survey size was small which would have affected the results.

Some of the respondents were uncomfortable to share their information in their information in the questionnaire which also affected the results.

The results of youngsters saving perception are not totally representative. Since it contains the replies of limited people so the results are dependent on it.

DELIMITATIONS:

Some of the delimitations of the study are s follows:

The perception of the youngsters with regard to saving may change in future

Due to access of new technology and other attractions for the youth they are likely spend money even if they plan to save it.

DEFINITIONS:
Perception:

Youngsters: It includes youngsters aging form 18 to who have enough knowledge of how to save money.

CHAPTER # 2
Chapter 2: Research Method and Procedures
Introduction of the chapter:

Chapter two of the study starts with the research design that describes the central part of the thesis. This chapter then includes research methods which explain the nature of the study conducted, after this it includes the respondents of the study which are the people who responds to the queries asked. After this comes the research instruments which are the tools needed to conduct the research. Then the sources of data which are the means through which we can get appropriate data for the study and to get actual results.

Research design:

The research design shows the type of research conducted. The type of research carried out here is causal in nature. In the causal research the relationship is proves with respect to the relationship with the variables. The reason to use this kind of research is to know the perception, behavior and insights of the youngsters towards money saving. For this certain interviews and surveys were prepared.

Research methods:

The study was carried out through both the primary and secondary data collection methods. The study conducted was causal research. From the primary data collection method, quantitative and qualitative study was conducted to present in the numeric form on the basis of opinions and survey conducted through the questionnaire from the respondents. As far as secondary method is concerned, internet and other publications were used to complete the study.

Respondents of the study:

The primary respondents of the study were the young adults who filled the questionnaire to let us know their opinions and perceptions and apart from this, the interviews conducted from bank managers also come under our primary respondents.

Moreover, I did conduct one in-depth interview. It was conducted in such a manner that the six people were in the group having the age bracket between the ages 18 to 26. They discussed their issues and perceptions in detail.

Sample:

Random sampling was done among the young adults under the age bracket of 18 to 26 years of age. The respondents could be from high school, college, university or any other level. The main reason to select this age is to know their money saving perception and to know what their opinion is regarding different factors that motivate them to save money. A total of 105 respondents were taken on to account for the survey. The sample size was 105.

Research instruments:

The research instruments are basically the tools needed to conduct the study which eventually helps the researcher to get the prior and appropriate data according to his or her preferences. The tool used in this study is the usage of a questionnaire which was filled up by the respondent who was maximum the age limit required.

Sources of data:

In order to complete the study the data requirement was one of the main constraints. So for the completion I had to conduct survey from the youngsters aging 18 to 26. Moreover, different articles, books and internet links were the sources of data. Apart from this interviews from different individuals were carried out.

Treatment of data:

The data collection was analyzed through the statistical tool of SPSS. Along with this bar charts and graphs are used to clearly discover the differences.

CHAPTER # 3
Chapter Three: Review of Related Literature and Review
INTRODUCTION OF THE CHAPTER:

In this chapter, review of all the related writings is considered. Here these writings are summarized and explained. In this chapter, local and foreign literature is included. In the local literature, reviews of the writers are written along with the sources from where they have been extracted which belongs to the local writers. In the foreign literature, reviews are added of the foreign writers.

RELATED LITERATURE:

It contains the reviews and other theories that supports the topic and tell about the pros and cons of the study through the research conducted by the researchers previously.

FOREIGN LITERATURE:
“Money, money, money – how do attitudes toward money impact vanity and materialism? – the case of young Chinese consumers” 4

A study was conducted in China among the young and the main reason to conduct the research was to know their perception regarding the money and what are the main factors that led them to save money. It is very important now to know the perception of the youth because it helps he strategists and other marketers to shape strategies for them to help them get the best out of life and provide opportunities to them by providing a platform.

Through this research paper the author wanted to know the increased materialism among the youth of China. The factors outlined in the research paper were power and prestige, anxiety and distrust. These are some of the motivational factors that motivate the youth to save money. It stimulates them and encourages them to think about money saving.

The power and prestige factor explains that the youth save money and would like to have it because it provides them a sense of authority and they feel reputed and classy. The other factor is the anxiety factor that relates that people who don’t have enough to spend money but even then they go for purchases in order to reduce their worries. They do shopping and spend their money which provides them a feeling of relief and leisure. The distrust factor explains that they are cautious when are asked to spend money for different purchases. They think several times to spend their wealth.

As time is passing by the possession to keep the money among Chinese youth is increasing rapidly. They usually see the high class status people and learn from them that they should also acquire money because through having money and saving it, they would be regarded as powerful and role models for others.

Apart form this recent studies show that a new subculture is emerging in China by the name of Bobo which indicates that people save money and acquire it only to become an icon which reflects their personality and where they can attain the luxuries of life easily. The Chinese youth is becoming more and more materialistic in the sense that due to modern era and coming up of new attractions in the society motivate the youth to have money and then acquire things they want. They think that if they will have enough money to spend then they would be able to purchase things of their interests. Moreover in the past, the perception was not have money for spending it on the luxuries of life but now the trend ha changed and they feel good when they spend their money on the means that make them feel happier.

Apart from this other attractions to get money and save it is though the credit cards and loans provided. Different promotional campaigns can help the youth to be taught the importance of saving and having money which can assist them to take active and strong decisions as to where and how to spend their money and how they can save it for different situations.4

4Srinivas Durvasula, Steven Lysonski, (2010),”Money, money, money – how do attitudes toward money impact vanity and materialism? – the case of young Chinese consumers”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 27 Iss: 2 pp. 169 – 179

According to Berti & Bombi, Human Development theory states that:

“Children start saving money when they grow and progress. When they get the awareness and identify the advantages provided by saving money they gradually begin to save more and more. Moreover, during their growth stage, they come across biological, psychological and cognitive stages that let them learn to save, which helps them to get the clear concept of saving money”5 (Berti & Bombi, 1988 ; Strauss, 1952)

http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/WP12-23.pdf 5

“Saving for the Future- Trends, Patterns and Decision-Making Processes among Young Americans”6

The personal savings rate has been dilapidated very rapidly in the U.S. Due to the recessionary period, the situation is becoming worse day by day. People there are in debts and it has become very difficult for them to pay off. Because of this, now extreme attention is being given to the young generation of US. They are being encouraged to save money and accumulate it for their bright future. One of the main costs is for the expenses incurred by the college tuitions.

The financial highlights previews that it has now become very difficult for the people to cope up with financial catastrophe around. Some years back, people used to save money mainly to fulfill their necessities, but now the trend is changing. Apart from this much other responsibilities have emerged that include the repayment of credit card bills, tuition fees etc. But people can’t help themselves to swallow this bitter truth that whatsoever be the result, they have to undergo through such period where there is so much of difficulty and complications.

Keeping in mind the existent trend, the young generation should be aware of the consequences and should get a lesson from it. They should be taught to save money for their present and ultimately future for a better and enhanced outlook of life.

In this piece of the literature, it points out to the three main objectives for conducting the research. Firstly the form of the savings done by the young adults, secondly how do they do it, and thirdly, what policies could be implemented for the young adults to help them understand the financial knowledge and encourage them to save more money.

According to some of the findings, it was seen that young adults are more into debt than the income they get. The reason for this is the attractions that let them to spend money. They focus on their wants additionally rather than controlling themselves to spend money. They have little control over things to spend money on. It was also found that the young adults had to go through the decision making process where they have experience the five phases of decision making. As time passes by, the need of these young adults arises which inquires for more accounts to buildup their portfolio. The vigor to have more money and accounts for it remains same, but as time surpasses the characteristics or the performance progresses.

According to this literature it states that, many of the facts are available from those young adults who have already saved money, but there is no or less data available of young adults that show the challenges they face when thy have to do the money savings.

In order to educate the young adults’ proper training should be provided to them and it is very important at this point in time. It would require uphill effort to instruct them. The larger entity and other financial bodies should pay attention to it to provide counseling to the young adult and to encourage them to save money for their better future.

6Sarah Outcault, (June 2012); “Saving for the Future- Trends, Patterns and Decision-Making Processes among Young Americans”, Pardee RAND Graduate School

“Testing an Asset-Building Approach for Young People-Early Access to Savings Predicts Later Savings”7

The literature includes three parts. Firstly it includes the young people’s saving behavior towards the asset management practice. Young people are less knowledgeable regarding the strategies promoted for enhancing the asset management. Second part of the literature talk about the behavior of young people savings with regard to the models and concepts presented by the authors earlier. Mainly the neo classical theory, economic socialization theory and institutional models are quoted. Third part of the literature proves whether the money saving practices adopted by the parents in the adolescent brings out better results or when the money saving programs are in touched later in life or when time in need. For the most part the low income household’s behavior was analyzed.

Economic socialization theory talks about that if parents teach their children the money saving pattern, then eventually by their warmth and attention the children would be benefited in the later stages of life. They will have more information, more benefit and more opportunities. If parental attention towards letting child save money by giving them allowances and becoming a role model or an example for them, then they will also adopt the behavior parents commit which will eventually help them shaping their lives. It is stated that if young adults are taught to save money from their younger ages, it would not only improve their habit of saving but they will also be aware of the financial information and other concepts and programs that can help them save money for their future. Institutional model relates that if young people are made conscious of the external facilities at the earlier stages of life like money saving programs, services and products then they will also become good decision makers of their future.

From the literature it was sorted out that young adults, who are emotionally involved with their parents with regard to adoption of money saving behavior, are more experienced and know the inns and outs of it. Apart from this asset management techniques are also well learnt by those young adults whose parents are involved in it and explain to their children about it. Young adults having saving accounts can accumulate more wealth when they have appropriate knowledge about it and other products and programs if transferred to them accordingly can bring a positive impact for them.

7Terri Friedline, William Elliott, Gina Chowa, (2012), Testing an Asset-Building Approach for Young People-Early Access to Savings Predicts Later Savings, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, CSD Working Papers No. 12-12

“Contributions of Qualitative Research to Understanding Saving Theory for Children and Youth” 8

U.S and world is paying more attention towards Asset-Based programs. The main purpose of these programs is to encourage financial security and to offer positive effects throughout the life of person. But very little or no attention was paid towards children’s saving and the effects of saving for youth and children in this regard.

There are many reasons of the importance of asset accumulation for children. Some of the reasons include the saving in childhood is of longer period of time which can be invested as well as can provide greater financial return even if the amount is smaller and these returns are likely to help the children in their education as the cost of tertiary education have increased and shifted to parents and students. Second, the process of asset accumulation in early childhood helps in child development. Third, these practices not only help the children to understand complex financial knowledge and skills but also shape their money management skills. Above all it provides the security for their future needs especially educational needs.

There are several theories that provide insights on process and effects of money savings on children. These theories include human development, structural approach, socialization, behavioral economics, and institutional theory.

According to the development theory young children are capable of understanding and know that saving is beneficial for them.

Children’s cognitive abilities, increases during transitory period from childhood to adulthood but socialization increases form exposure and encouragement to gain knowledge about the financial world.

Moreover behavioral economist suggests that vigilant design of financial services and products can increase the chances of making good financial choices regardless of individual characteristics.

This paper sheds the light on how children saving are being affected by these theories and examines the evidence to understand the effect and relationship between children’s age and economic socialization.

This article’s aim was to contribute to saving theory for youth and children by using qualitative studies of three different Child Development Accounts. These accounts provide the opportunity to accumulate savings for the benefit of child. These accounts include, I Can Save a college saving program in school for elementary age children, Opportunity Passport program which provides incentivized saving account, and SEED for Oklahoma Kids, a randomize experiment of incentivized saving plan for children at birth.

1st study explored that most of the children who participated in ICS program belong to the families whose average educational level was 11th grade and reported family income were below $25000 despite the fact that the school where the research took place was racially and economically diverse.

2nd program study (Opportunity Passport) was developed by Jim Casey Youth Opportunities (JCYO) a part of JCYO Initiatives 2009 program for whole country. The participants of this study had received training in financial literacy and upon completion of training, they were provided with an Individual Development Account and a Checking Account. The participants were aged14-24 years and vary from site by site among all four sites.

The 3rd study was the large-scale study of universal Child Development Account with randomly selected babies born in Oklahoma in 2007 an experiment known as “The Seed for Oklahoma Kid (SEED OK)”. This study also reveals that most of the families who save more were having a reported income of less than $30,000 and were African Americans.

All these three studies had common theme and differences and paying particular attention we could learn about savings of different age of people. Moreover these studies can also provide the insights of how people of different age group think about saving.

The ability of participants was affected by circumstances and individual characteristics as described in three studies. Their savings abilities were also affected by some institutional factors. Individual level factors reveal that ICS participants had very low understanding of financial matters because of their elementary age but they were excited about learning it whereas in OP most of the participants had better understanding of money as compare to younger children. Despite having limited income they were engage in much higher level of saving participation for their future needs.

On the contrary, looking back to their childhood, younger children in OP and mothers in SEED OK had not learn about how to save during their transitional age towards adulthood. And because of that in OP young children had receive no or little guidance in money management and savings from their families.

Although the participants and their families learnt about saving and money management during those studies but they also identified some obstacle to saving. These obstacles include low income, high expenses, and low support in all three studies. Moreover they also identified some institutional factors as bad experience with financial institutions which also hindered them to save.

These studies found that the participant appreciated the incentives given to them for savings and had influenced them to save more and pay attention towards money management. Moreover the restricted access to their accounts forced them to save although they didn’t like it. That means incentives can take youth and their families towards saving.

Effects Of Saving

The participants of all three studies discussed their perceived effect of savings on their lives. In all three studies participants positively accepted savings but it can be tempered according to their need and desire. Some of the effects they discussed include enhanced understanding of saving services and product and its use, Savings provides positive vision of future and sense of security, improved financial skills and knowledge as they received training of financial skills and money management during Opportunity Passport program. Moreover participant provided improved understanding between future education and savings. They used their IDA accounts to pay their educational expenses or to purchase attainable assets (e.g. Laptops etc.)

These studies show that some program features have greater impact on savings depending on development stage and age group. Foster youth perceived it more positively than other groups as they face greater challenges as, higher poverty, more prior negative banking experience tenuous relationship with family. They appreciate the financial boost provided by OP program. But at the same time they required more guidance about saving and money management and the restrictions helped them to understand development task and importance of accumulation some saving. Study showed that they need more ways to generate money to deposit in to CDAs.

The U.S. internationally has never been quicker in moving towards electronic and cell-phone based financial services. Moving towards it and making innovation in it may encourage youth and children to save more. Moreover, children and youth should pay more attention in accordance with their development stage. Saving campaign and information can be designed in a way that appeals particular age groups.

As OP youth and mother of toddlers in SEED OK articulated frustration and difficulties in meeting immediate expenses programs shall be made to overcome these obstacles.

8Margaret Sherraden , Clark Peters, Kristen Wagner , Margaret Clancy , Baorong Guo (2012)- “Contributions of Qualitative Research to Understanding Saving Theory for Children and Youth” , University of Kansas School of Social Welfare and the Center for Social Development at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, CSD Working Papers No. 12-23

Areas further studies:

The areas of further studies are to know that whether youngsters will be motivated if they would be provided with some educational campaigns regarding it. Will they save money for there futures keeping in mind the crucial economic downturns? They should help the country as well by saving money and investing it in areas where the country get benefit as well the person himself.

Variables:

Independent:

Income level, economic shift, prom campaigns

Dependent variable:

Purchasing power, word of mouth,

HYPO:

Youngsters who save money learn more patience

Youngsters who save money for their education

Youngsters get the motivation to save the money from their parents

Among youngsters’ reasons for saving less money are increased expenses

Youngsters feel that in the current economic situation they can get more opportunities to save money

youngsters who think saving money is beneficial

REC:

INSTAED OF BRANSHCES, MAKE A SECTIONFOR TAREGTING THE YOUNSGTERS AND PROMOTE THEM TO CREATE AEARENESaˆ¦ THEY SHOULD GO TO C=SCHOOLS, UNI CONDUT ROAD SHOWS. TEACH THEM HOW TO SAVE FROM EARLY SATGESaˆ¦ TEACH THEM HOW TO COPE WITH THE RECESSIONARY PERIOD. AND HOW TO MAKE BUGET AND MAKE FINANCIAL.THIS WILL HELP THEM TO BE INDEPENEN. THORUGH THIS THEIR COMMUNICATIIN SKILLLS WOULD ALSO INCREASE.

THERE IS S MUCH POENTIAL AMONG YUNGSTERS, BUT SINCE NO PROPER PLAFORM IS BEING PROVIDE TO THEM SO THEY ARE EFT BEHIND. IT S ENGROSSED WITH THE TALENT. THEY SSHOULD BE MOTIVATED AND ENCOURAGED.

Commercials and posters flood our daily lives by projecting images of helpless children who are in desperate need. Many people are aware of the children living in poverty, orphans, and abusive households. The media portrays neglected children who suffer from malnutrition, starvation, and the absence of love. In return, the advertised organization seeks for a small contribution of a dollar a day to help make a child’s life better. However, what about the child who endures the exact opposite of neglect? Less attention is veered towards the silent abuse of parents who control their child to the extreme that they are actually hindering their development and performance by not allowing their child to grow and experience life healthily. Does a child who is overly cared for and overly protected by their extremely overprotective parent still possess a better life than the child who is neglected? Or is the overprotected child just as helpless as the neglected?

Significance:

The children today are the future and faces of tomorrow. A child’s future is greatly influenced by his or her parents. A parent who is abusive restricts a child from possessing a healthy lifestyle and developing healthy relationships with other individuals. However, a parent who is over controlling will limit a child from developing essential skills necessary to govern and direct their own life in a positive and healthy manner. Yet many fail to acknowledge this and assume that parents are just being loving and caring; emotions that all parents and guardians are expected to express. Therefore, many people do not listen to these children and believes that their problems are not as severe as the children who suffer from physical or verbal abuse. This is significant to human development because many children suffer from the limitations their overprotective parents impose and do not have access to the same amount of help and assistant as children with abusive parents.

Problem Statement:

Through my research, I hope to raise public awareness of this silent abuse. Most importantly, I hope to reach out to parents who are over controlling, as well as abusive, and have them place their child’s interests before their own. If a parent, who is over protective of their child, cares about their child deeply, then they should care more about their child’s wellbeing rather than their own personal desires and expectations of their child.

Literature Review:

Parents who overprotect their child to the extreme can prevent their child from acquiring the basic fundamental skills of life. As a result, the child can become emotionally handicap and rely on his or her parent throughout their life. As stated by Cossentino, “children in this situation are not able to develop a knowledge of independence and remains bound to the parent while the parent is bound in a cycle of overprotection” (The Overprotected Child). This dangerous cycle leaves the child and parent bonded together in such a way that it is unhealthy for both members. The child relies on their parent immensely that the parent is responsible to attend to every single matter of the child’s life; from basic chores, resolving a conflict, to communicating with acquaintances of the child. This often stifles the growth and development of a child, who cannot live without authority. Thus, the parent cannot leave this cycle because the parent raised the child in this manner.

“Children lack a knowledge of resolving conflicts and have a high chance of being rejected by their peers due to low confidence and an inability to stand up for oneself” (Cossentino). With parents always protecting them, the child will never be aware of how to stand up for oneself and is unable to confront the realities of life. These children have the inability to be very social among others besides their own parents, which causes them to develop a low self-esteem as well as low self-confidence.

The inability to make decisions on his or her own can cause a child to be unprepared for the future and is unable to live without a parent or authority figure. As stated by Cossentino, “children will lack life-experiences of decision making, life skills, age appropriate freedom, and conflict resolution”. An overprotected child becomes bound to a parent in a way that is similar to how a baby is bounded to its mother for the rest of its life. The child is completely unprepared for freedom and responsibility, finding it hard to exercise self-discipline and is more vulnerable to getting emotionally hurt.

As argued by Guthrie and Matthews, “Overprotecting parents can lead children to develop Peter Pan Syndrome” (No More Push Parenting, 44). The ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ affects people who do not want or feel unable to grow up. In other words, people with the body of an adult but the mind of a child. Peter Pan was a fictional character who refused to grow up and had a never-ending childhood. Those with this syndrome do not know how or do not even want to stop being children and start being adults. These people are unable to grow up and take on adult responsibilities; they see the adult world as very problematic and glorify being a child, which is why they want to stay in that state of privilege.

Children who have been neglected on the other hand are in complete control of their life and are forced to survive on their own. Neglected children do not have an authority figure and may be more likely to replace the unknown feeling of love with hate and anger. “Children tend to try and please their parents to gain affection. However, when they cannot please their parents, they become filled with rage and take their anger out destructively” (Nguyen). The violence neglected children seek for may be towards other individuals or other substances, but for some, they seek to hurt themselves. “Children repress rage only to become depressed and suicidal” (Watkins, A3). These children possess a great amount of emotion built up inside them that it becomes unbearable and hard to deal with. Thus, they try to fill the void of love in their life with other things or someone’s acceptance. As Andron stated, “Children with low self-esteem search for someone’s acceptance, which usually winds down a damaging path eventually set up for death or become life-threatening” (23). More than likely, they fall under peer pressure or experiment with drugs and alcohol, anything to make them feel accepted. Because they lack a knowledge of what is normal or who to trust, they are more vulnerable to perpetrators and are often abused by their peers.

One form of violence an individual may express is through school. For example, the University of Texas massacre in Austin left 18 dead while the Columbine High School took a death toll of fifteen, and the highest toll of thirty-three lives was the Virginia Tech massacre (Watkins, A3). When an individual commits a crime, he or she is questioned for the reason of their action. However, few people turn to the parents or even glance at the child’s home life. “Children turn to destructive manners for coping as a way to test if their parents really care for them or not” (Nguyen). By hurting oneself, an individual tests the love of a parent, or to see if anyone else bothers to really care.

Many parents are incapable of seeing the damaging effects of placing their own needs before their child’s. They fail to see the atmosphere and living situation they created and forced their child to endure. Most importantly, they fail to treat and raise their child healthily. By overprotecting to the extreme, a parent not only shields a child from pain, but also robs the child of their adulthood by keeping them from developing friendships, intimate relationships, and independent skills along their journey of life. Thus, through neglect, a child is forced to learn how to survive through life on their own without the protection of a parent, without the love and guidance a parent has to offer, and without the comfort of a real family. Therefore, what is worse: overprotection or abandonment?

Methodology:

By listening to the personal stories of my volunteered subjects, I hope to obtain data that reflects whether or not both children, who are on opposite ends of the spectrum, share the same difficulties. The individuals I will choose will be children and their parents who reside in Cambodia.

Cambodia is a poverty-stricken country and the home to many neglected children who roam the streets begging for food. Sadly, because of this, it will not be difficult to find a neglected child to speak with. The difficulty will be trying to find the parent or guardian of the neglected child and persuading him or her to share their own personal story.

In addition, families who are wealthy have higher expectations for their children and try to mold their child into what they want by controlling every aspect of their child’s life. Because of this, I will listen to the stories of a child is in a more well-off family and his or her parent’s story .

Moral fester can be further attested by looking at some examples of real life problems. For instance, according to Dr. Ted (2006) the Chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, when Dakota was 12, she appeared semi naked and shot some rape scenes in her movie, Hounddog. In addition, a famous actress, Lindsay Lohan now is one of the famous town’s party-girl. Due to alcohol and drug-induced hospitalization, she misses film shoots and this irresponsible action causes a huge loss to the company. Furthermore, cases of unwanted babies being killed by their young mothers are being published in local newspapers almost every single day. It is found that hundreds of thousands of Malaysian teen girls are having premarital sex and eventually, abandon and kill their child after labour.

In a sum, a society is actually destroying itself from the inside if they overlooked its moral code (Carter 2003).

1.2 Research Question

This epidemic as well as due to different views from diverse parties regarding the causes of moral decay among youth has led to a research question:

‘To what extent are parents to be blamed on moral decay of the youth?’

Since children’s behaviour reflects the parents’, this research report is focusing on parents who being the subject of the arguments. Parents, who are workaholic, fail to discipline their children, and endow their children with less emotional attention are the ones who end up raising the moral flawed children. However, should 100% blame be placed on the parents? Some of the other undisputed factors include mass media influences, unsuitable educational system, and less futile actions by the government also have to be taken into consideration.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
2.1 Definition

Moral can be depicted as pertaining to good manner or the distinction between right or wrong behaviour (Bullough and Bullough, 1994). Its synonyms include righteous, just, virtuous, and good while decay is the gradual destruction of a society, an institution, a system and etcetera (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 7th Edition). From that, definition of moral decay relevant to this research can be identified as perish of the moral values or fading of the righteous deeds or moral decline.

2.2 Statistics

Moral decay can obviously be perceived in this era. According to statistics, teen is a group of people who portray bad habit the most. Dr. Ted Baehr (2006) revealed the US entertainment poll in his article where sexual materials in movies and in television programs has affronted 58% and 74% teen boys and girls respectively whereas Dhammananda exposed the upshot from a study that have been conducted by the Youth and Sports Ministry of Malaysia among 5,860 youths was 71% smoke, 40% watch pornographic videos, 28% gamble, 25% consume alcohol and 14% take drugs. Additionally, ten out of eleven juveniles from assorted detention centres throughout the nation are confirmed HIV carriers which cause AIDS are below age 20 (2001). These statistics which illustrate a part of the moral decay among teens at present shows that we are going to be downgraded and if this problem is not resolved, we will lose our future leaders to rule and handle this world with justice and good manner.

ARGUMENTS FOR:

Parents are the ones who are supposedly be the closest person to the children. Parents should become the child’s idols, best friends, and motivators who can implant moral principles in children thus producing a first-class society with successful adolescences. Thus, there are some arguments from several parties who blame the parents on the moral decay of our youth nowadays when they fail to play their roles well. Workaholic parents, parents who fail to discipline their youngsters as well as parents who give less emotional attention to the children are the argues for rising up spoilt teens.

Parents are workaholic

The author of ‘Life Interrupted: The Scoop on Being a Young Mom’, Tricia Goyer thinks that parents are not spent their time with their children due to the busy lifestyles. Hence, parents cannot provide loves that being craved by the children making their offspring look for it in each other (Hatch, 2010). As a result, these children opt to spend most of their times with their peers rather than their families due to lack of love and if they are exposed to a wrong group of friends, they will be influenced by the unhealthy activities. Lule and Naigino (2010), writers of the New Vision paper, point out the Vision Group CEO, Robert Kabushenga’s view that the increase in moral decay nowadays is due to the failure of the parents to shape their children’s principles. This is because the first idol children should have is their parent however; many of the parents are botched up to be one as they do not even have time to chat with the kids. Consequently, the children will feel abandon and pushed aside. Additionally, according to Roy Chapman, the headmaster of Malvern College, parents bore a superior accountability than schools for a child’s conduct but paradoxically, material goods and money are supplied as a substitute for love and concern (FRAN ABRAMS, 1996). It is believed that most of the parents think that by granting all the child’s wishes, they consider themselves as good parents. However, their hard work to earn money for the child should not be misjudged. If the child could have spent the money wisely and the parents themselves does not overlook into moral aspects, the moral decay among the youth can be reduced.

Parents are failing to discipline their children

Besides that, there are also parents who are not bother about their children’s life and future but more apprehension on their status and popularities. Referring to Baehr’s writing (2006), a bright and naive kid, Dakota, has been surrendered to the golden statue of the Academy Awards. Her own mother said that “Dakota’s ‘gritty performance’ will win her an Oscar”. In addition, some parents think that immediate school text books and maid are responsible to educate their children to be an all around entity, but in fact they cannot teach the children about morals and social values. Other than love, the form of discipline and conveying ethics should always be thought by the parents. Sadly, parents these days prefer not to discipline their children and unintentionally, spoiling them rotten and think that their children will become better as they grow older and more mature. It is alleged that a child’s behaviour can be simply corrected as long as it is done from an early age. By allowing the child to do as he wish is likely to let him end up having a messed up adult life (Yin, 2008). So, parents should be held accountable for growing up ill-bred individuals of society as parents are the one who supposed to raise children with great responsibilities. Reporter of the Canberra Times who is known as The Independent (2005) noted that some parents used to blame other parties for almost everything that is wrong in their life. Instead of willing to support teachers in enforcing discipline, they see teachers as another outside force that is letting them down when it should be making life easier for them. This proves that adults are not mature enough to take responsibility for their children. As opposed to behave professionally and portraying a good example to the kids, the parents pointing and blaming others for spoiling their kids.

3.3 Parents are endowing their children with less emotional attention

It is also true that most of the juvenile delinquents receive less emotional attention (i.e. love and care) from their parents. In Dhammananda’s piece (2001), it is stated that children can be easily preyed to unhealthy influences if their parents guide them incongruously. Those teens will involve in more serious crime as they think that they are free to do whatever they like. Therefore, parents must strengthen the family institution to withstand the demands of a changing society. This can be done by spending more time for each other in order to construct a close knit relationship among the family members. Additionally, it has also been alleged that parents do not even have little control over the negative influences assaulting their children: gangs, drug and alcohol abuse, premarital sex, and the risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases. Furthermore, it is a proven fact that kids love to watch an excessive amount of unbeneficial programs on television and eventually exposing themselves to the negative influences by the characters in such programs. Those precious times should be spent with parents, teachers, or other positive role models (The Natural Law Party, 1996). Moreover, Rob Jackson believed that parents do not evaluate the form and quantity of media permitted at home without knowing that their kids have a propensity to absorb the messages that bombard children in popular media. They ignore what the children have been listening and watching to albeit the foundational principles of sexuality and dignity of a person can be scraped by the media (2004). On the other hand, it is undeniable that there are some parents are trying their best to supervise their children but some kids do all the bad things behind their parents and portray angelic behaviour in front of them. There are also some parents who are over protective and as a result, the kids opt to rebel. Thus parents should know how to protect and monitor their children effectively yet give them some space to enjoy their teenage life.

4.0 ARGUMENTS AGAINST:

Parents cannot be blamed 100% for shooting up of moral decay among youth as there are also a lot of cases whereby a well bred, smart, and virtue kids are being raised up by workaholic or ignorant parents. If parents are the only party to be blamed, such exceptional cases would not be occurred. This shows that other factors such as mass media influence, ineffective educational system, and less futile actions by the government should also be weighed.

4.1 Mass media influence

Technologies particularly television and internet has promoted to needs from desires. Televisions and movies frequently show violence and causes trauma in some children while others tend to watch them persistently. As they grow, those actions contribute in shaping their personalities, values and beliefs. As a result, the kid will become aggressive or lose a sense of differentiating reality and fiction of what they are seeing (Rayuso, 2008). In addition, Dr. Ted Baehr explained about Lohan’s behaviour that malformed by the characters from ‘Sex & the City’ whereby those girls often change their sex partners. Lohan once mentioned that she wants her boyfriend to be loyal but she wishes to keep flirting. The author observed that young stars are trying their best to maintain their reputation and willing to do whatever it takes even if they have to appear horny in almost every movie just to be seen as celebrities as they wish to be idolised unremittingly (2006). Additionally, according to Rob Jackson (2004), amelioration of the internet has make it very difficult for parents to shield their children from pornography as most of the children spent more time online for homework or entertainment purposes. The ex-attorney general of Unites States, John Ashcroft estimated that 9 in 10 teens have been exposed to pornography and many of them are crave for porn images. Thus, indubitably internet is the fast ramp to sex addiction and as children’s minds are still in progress of maturing, addiction can happen quicker than what the parents might think. Hence, to made media possible to rise youths with high virtue, media should revolutionize their contents (Crewes, 2009). It is strongly urge that mass media have to censor their movies before release them. They must rate the movies accordingly because most of the PG or lower rated movies show things that should not be watched by small kids.

Ineffective educational system

Besides that, according to The Natural Law Party (1996), our educational system fails to instil core values in students, such as mutual respect, civility, honesty, and social responsibility. Government Chief Curriculum adviser claimed that teachers spent too little time educate children conventional moral principles. They said that they are boosting their self-esteem too much and already teaching right and wrong. However, they blamed the national curriculum and public seize for the stunting children’s spiritual development. On the other hand, neophyte teachers were so bothered about being accused of racism or sexism that they were reluctant to edify any values. Additionally, it has been reported that The Liberal Democrat education spokesman, Don Foster have been visited to schools and he found that students encounter problems in familiarizing with what they see around although they know how to differentiate between good and bad (FRAN ABRAMS, 1996). Accordingly, to resolve these issues, the educational system should provide a compulsory moral and ethics classes to all students. The teaching method should not just exam oriented based but also should incorporate some practical. A continuous education and evaluation will help too. This is because if the lesson is just for exam purposes, the students would not take the lesson seriously and they tend not to practise what they have learnt in their daily life.

Less futile actions by the government

In addition, enlargement of government has brought a politicized life and this has weakened the moral fabric of society as the government is more focus on their issues rather than the society. In Dorn’s text (n.d), it is stated that individuals lose their moral bearing and they become dependent on welfare as they are not held accountable for their behaviour. For instance, to overcome the abandon children from unmarried couples’ problems, government (particularly Germany, Japan, Pakistan, and Malaysia) has introduced a centre which allows mothers to leave their babies incognito. Supporters for this baby hatch centre claims that unmarried couples now can opt to seek for aid after having unwanted child instead of abandon them (France-Presse, 2010). However, this project is actually dwindling social moral values as it teaches couples to be irresponsible for their actions. Eventually, such implementation will contribute to custody problems, degenerate the counselling services, as well as promote a retarded emotional development of the infants (Reuters, 2007). Consequently, the internal moral compass that normally guides individual conduct and is supported by loving parents, religious teachers, and community standards will no longer function when the government ‘has pointed the needle in the wrong direction’. With a conscious effort to make public education a moral, government rewards dysfunctional behaviour by sending the message that people have a “right” to welfare (that they are entitled to other people’s money), educate children that premarital sex is all right as long as it is safe, implies that underprivileged groups should be held to a different set of moral standards than other groups because they are victims of past injustice, and tries to cultivate virtue by the force of law, moral state of the public is sure to decline (Dorn, n.d). Hence, to control the moral decay, the government themselves should portray good exemplar to the society along with introducing new legislation on ethics.

CONCLUSION:

To recapitulate, mostly all the ill bred teens are raise up by workaholic parents, having poor disciplinary exposed by the parents, and receive less emotional attention from their parents. After considering all the above arguments, it can be concluded that parents should be blamed on moral decay among youth as parents are the one who carry the responsibility to shape up the children. However, other factors that are also accountable to the shooting up of moral decay among youth comprise of mass media, ineffective educational system, and less futile actions by the government cannot be neglected. Nevertheless, if the parents are keen enough on what their children watch and listen to, such media cannot manipulate the kids. For the ineffective educational system, parents can take several actions and one of the alternative is by sending their children to extra classes (classes to deepen the religion, belief and moral of the kids) and parents should not depends on the school only. It is crucial for the parents to spend their time to teach the kids at home and show a good example and by doing this, the children can learn faster. Parents should bear in mind that not all education happen in classroom. To conclude, every party should play their important roles in order to reduce, and if possible, to overcome moral decay among youth starting by the very basic group of individuals; family.

To surmount moral problems, it starts from each and every individual himself. Limbaugh claims that as long as Americans are unwilling to take an honest look at them and shape up good society, the nation will continue its moral decay. According to Dr. Ted Baehr (2006), Melina Erkan decided to not watching MTV and VHI anymore because she cannot tolerate with women in the music video who dress really cheap as women do not actually look and act like that while Hannah Montes has stopped watching television because of all the crudity she saw. Nonetheless, parents should take the first action when there is something strange happen to their teen; illicit sexual behaviour, addiction regardless of the discomfort; awkward, embarrassed (Jackson, 2004). Adults should try listening to youth instead of laying blame on others. A proven fact – when adults listen and there is an open dialogue between parents and teen, matters are better resolved and compromises more readily reached provided adults must have to be truly honest about choices and consequences and stand behind their warnings with actions. Hence, both sides have to work toward change. Other than that, guardians should be more concern and become media wise so that young celebrities for instance Lohan and Dakota would not bring tremendous negative influences to their youngsters (Baehr, 2006)

For the government, they should legislate against media operators who publish indecent action in their publication. This is to ensure that only appropriate type of broadcasting will be televised and eventually reduces the stress of moral decay. Besides that, government should priory intend to address this moral defect rather than introducing a welfare to cover the stories behind for the sake of someone’s reputation. For instance, sex education which based on religions perspectives should be seriously implemented as opposed to baby hatches programmes. Furthermore, mass media should pay more attention on the mind control issue rather than number of viewers. Movie producers should modify at least 50% of their new family movies rated PG or lower rating and disclose in detail for any movies rating beyond PG on all packaging, movie posters, web sites, and movie trailers (Carter, 2003). It is sturdily recommend that the New World Order should be reconstructed as it promotes a lot of moral perished.

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Whether you are a parent or whether you are a teacher, the opening chapters of this book have got you and your children started on Mind Mapping. You have found that they – your children, or child, have become more creative, now study faster and more effectively, remember better, save time and see the ‘whole picture’. You agree that these reasons are absolutely huge benefits for them – and indirectly, for you.

A Mind Map has accelerated your kids’ learning and has got them to use their whole brain. It has worked in tandem with your brain and your child’s brain by using colour, images, symbols, curved lines, words, space, associations and connections to get their thought processes to flow. Children benefit from this kind of learning as it allows them to practice using their imagination and learn about things that are of interest to them, thus giving them ownership of what they are learning about.

The process of Mind mapping has evoked the best of responses from children and from their parents on account of all this. The children’s responses were literally enacted by them, through their facial expression. Parents commented that even their younger children were talking a great deal more about learning and school work at home.

All children like colourful things and love to draw. Mind Map is a fun activity for young children. And when children like to write Mind Maps, their brains learn to like it as well. The immediate result, as discussed in Chapter 1, is improved memory. The skills required in Mind Mapping can be applied to study and allows studying to be fun, as discussed in Chapter 3.

Now take a look at colour and images, symbols and use of icons, curved lines, and words

and creative space in general, as used on the Mind Map.

How children use image and graphics

You have given your child a topic. We would have to take an example at this point, and a case study. A history lesson to a six year old could have mentioned the Taj Mahal. As mentioned earlier, children love drawing. A child could symbolise the mausoleum by outlining any building shape. Another child who thinks that exact is best, could adapt it to the shape of the Taj Mahal. Yet another innovative six-year-old would save on time by cutting out a picture of the Taj Mahal from a picture book or magazine.

The three children have set the focus of the Mind Map in the centre and in their own, very individual ways. They have made decisions on how to draw or find the necessary picture. The child who cut out the picture used her fine motor skills to wield the scissors, as did the other two who drew and painted while handling a pencil and paint brush. The image of the Taj Mahal formed in the creative right brain hemispheres of all three. Tiny, accurate electrical impulses formed in the grey matter of these right hemispheres and raced through the cell axons to connect with the organizational centres on the same and in the left hemisphere of the children’s brains. Associations were formed between neurons in the children’s brain and nerve centres further down in their body systems. They sent messages to get their fine finger muscles working.

The children would go on to make dozens of images and words separately, and image labels. They would go on to perpetrate the pattern of associations which had begun in their brains.

They have looked up books in the library to be able to see what the emperor and empress who are buried in the Taj Mahal look like. Chances are, that they used cut-outs of their images to be able to portray a better likeness. They associated thoughts such as romance and marriage, death of the empress and loss. They picked up the idea of the greatest mausoleum of all times, of architectural finesse and may have wished to know about more members of the royal family.

The main theme was surrounded by interesting facets of information connected to it. The connections were make on paper with lines leading from the main theme to these pieces of pictorial and worded information. These were attached because the brain works by association, and if the lines are attached, the ideas will internally be similarly “attached.”

None of the children had to deal with a wall of hard, dry facts. They have found and associated what they were looking for. They also want to look for more, in the future. They may want to do a Mughal genealogical chart. It was fun for them and they sought and handled enlivening information. The have only to ‘see’ the little pictures on the Mind Map and the overall picture from their memory to recall the facts connected to the Taj Mahal. They look forward to history revision before a class examination.

The Taj Mahal Mind Map, like all Mind Maps, commenced in the centre because this reflects the many-hooked nature of the brain’s thinking processes, and allows more space and freedom for ideas to develop from the central core. Use of hand drawn or researched images by children fit in with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Original and borrowed pictures are applied here to boost both memory and creativity.

Illustrator: Portray Taj Mahal Mind Map. Should be hand drawn by child

You and your children know by now that Mind Maps can be drawn free-hand, or they can be made by inputs fed to Mind Map software on children’s computers and they can be printed. The computerized version has the advantage of quickly searching for images, making and printing the diagram. Some of the Mind Mapping software store images in a clip organizer and help users to select an image appropriate for the subject on hand. The disadvantage is that it detracts from children’s creativity. A computer printout is bound to appear too tidy, too organized. It’s size is limited to regular A4 printout paper. Children, on the other hand, have much more freedom through freehand drawings and pasted pictures on a sheet of chart paper.

Another consideration while on the topic of images for Mind Maps, is the overall image or Mind Map design. As with any diagram which investigates a single main topic, older children such as those closer to thirteen years of age, can move on to star and spider diagrams. Younger ones still prefer the freedom of freehand placing, drawing and joining.

Children who are ten years of age and above find that the star format provides methods that help develop their study skills still further. Taking notes, reading, doing homework and even parrot-mugging can be noted along the end points of the star.

On the other hand, if the topic involves investigating attributes associated with a single topic, and they then place the information like the branches of a tree, with associated information at the end points and with more associated knowledge arising from these in-between points, the children can use a spider diagram for their Mind Map. Example: Finding methods that help maturing children’s study skills (like taking notes, reading, memorizing, etc.), and investigating the factors involved in performing each of the methods.

Adding colour-coding and/or pictures to a Mind Map further increases the utility, grouping and readability of the visual display.

How children relate to colour

Educationists encourage children to use colour in their Mind Maps. Children themselves admit to being able to think better in colour. Use of colour rates among the top ten Mind Mapping tips and techniques for anybody.

IllustrationThe Mind Map Gurus point out that in a Mind Map, colour and images are not just decorative. They stimulate the child’s brain as he creates the map. On the other side are the children who are looking at a completed Mind Map, trying to figure it all out. Colour helps them to clarify associated ideas as they see the map and absorb consolidate and retain the information.

One criticism is that new Mind Map users could be intimidated by the colourful Mind Maps they see on the wall in class, in books or online. One Guru commented that a perfectly executed Mind Map may make a first-timer doubt his own ability in creating something as good. For someone like this, it has been explained that Mind Maps, especially among children, tend to grow easily and with least effort. They should not be held up as an achievement in themselves, but as a bridge to learning. Mind Maps don’t need to be works of art.

Scratch maps are those Mind Maps which have been created to do something quickly, or to develop and order ideas. The thought here is that colour can be used to group similar ideas together.

Going back to the star or spider diagrams which serve to organize and manage these ideas, children can think of lettering or an image placed on different bright coloured solid circles at the tips of the star or spider diagrams. Another idea is to support similar ideas by using different shades of the same colour in Mind Map diagrams.

Children have a profound sense of colour. They have an instinct about how colour can be best used to make the Mind Map vivid, memorable and unique to the subject and for you. Left to themselves, the six year olds would begin with coloured chart paper and progress through brightly coloured frames for the central theme. When older children require text or labelling for drawing and with drawings, they would reach for coloured felt pens.

Some tips when writing with coloured pens:

Use upper and lower case lettering, not normal handwriting. The youngest who have just started to write would proceed in the writing they are most familiar with. It does not have to be joined writing.

Write keywords on the branches.

Experiment with Horizontal (landscape) page format.

Larger sheets hold more information.

Colour makes the Mind Map memorable. In the same way that ideas were grouped by colour for star and spider diagrams, free floating ideas can be grouped by circling them in colour. The youngest of children love red. Important points might be marked with red.

Colour absolutely affects our lives and our children’s development. When colour is chosen with a purpose we create a balanced, harmonious environment where children can claim their birthright and reach their full potential.

Colour is the bright site of childhood. Children adore colours and respond to colour. However children’s response differs from adults’ reaction. As you accompany your children in their Mind Map exercises, colour should become your ally. Adults can do this by viewing their use of the language of colour correctly. Children start with a limited palette of the brightest colours from the bottom of the age ladder. They begin with red. Their choices expand and widen as they grow towards adolescence.

Colour is the first characteristic which babies and children distinguish in their environment. We are aware that children perceive only black and white colours (light and darkness). This may be true at birth, but as the months pass, the situation undergoes radical changes. First children start to distinguish red colour. Later they start to perceive other bright colours such as yellow, and progress to the others in the spectrum.

When little children begin to draw and colour, their works are bound to portray bright colours. Toddlers themselves tend to be attracted to brightly coloured toys and motifs. Numerous academic researches show that children’s preferences change with increasing age. Many children under ten when asked, will identify red (or pink) and yellow as their favourite colours. Those above ten say that they start preferring blue. Experts who study child development consider it to be with the process of growing up. They tell us that such changing preferences tie in with changing and improving abilities, with maturity and the perception of different moods.

Educationists have also found that colour preferences are closely connected with the gender. Numerous researches show that most little girls from the age of six onwards prefer pink, lavender or violet. Little boys like black and other dark colours more than girls of their age. Adults accustom little girls and boys to like certain colours. The question here is, are girls’ and boys’ colour choices acquired or natural/innate?

Speaking about emphasizing certain characteristics by means of colours, gender identification is only one example. If you see a child’s chart done up in bright colour, it could advantage the child who has drawn it by being not only meaningful, but memorable as well. As explained, the child’s memory of the colours used may open the door to what the colour enclosed or signified in text. Again, the child is learning by making associations.

Publishers are aware of this fact and have used colour in children’s and teenager’s books to the maximum advantage. You also can use it to teach, motivate and inspire children who draw their inspiration from you.

Colour language and children

First consider how children get acquainted with colours. They learn to distinguish them long before they know their names. Children learn the names of colours at around the age of 2-5. Girls usually identify colours earlier than boys. Of course, all children develop differently, as the process of growing up is connected with the state of nervous system.

Here are typical associations between colours and where a child can find them, in the natural form. It is helpful information as young children progress through their charted Mind Map

Yellow – bananas, lemons, sun

Red – apples, tomatoes

Blue – jeans, sky

Green – peas, grass, leaves

Grey – an elephant

Brown – a bear, tree bark

Illustration

Research has shown that, for example that if you were to paint an apple blue, show this blue apple to a child and ask him what it is, it takes him or her more time to recognize it. Come to think of it, a child could find a blue apple funny. It testifies to their sense of humour and the ability to laugh at clumsy things and things that are incorrect. If a child uses such symbolism in a Mind Map, he is expressing his sense of humour. He may also be getting some facts to stand out.

Maybe you want to learn and teach a language. Your child is having to learn one.

Some languages such as French and Hindi have more than one gender. There may be two genders-masculine and feminine; or three-masculine, feminine, and neuter. Gender is always crucial and has to be learned along with the vocabulary. The way to do

this is to add a further dimension to your mental image of each word by colouring it according to its gender. You can choose your own colours for masculine, feminine, and neuter (if necessary), but you must stick to using the same ones all the time. As you learn each new word, mentally apply the relevant colour to the image.

You might choose blue for masculine words, red for feminine. Then, if the word “dog” is

masculine, colour it blue; if the word “door” is feminine, colour it red. Let a child do this, and it could bring out the most humorous side, leading to fun and game playing – and memorizing.

Note: not true. Try Hindi words and colour them.

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Chapter 5- Fun and games in Mind Mapping

This continues from where Chapter 4 did not leave off because children like to have fun. Everyone who is six or seven or eight years old likes to play. The nine and ten year olds like to play physical and mental games as well as their interests begin to turn towards the world, towards themselves and their cohort group. This broad description is true for all children, within the varieties of their individual personalities, geographical location and material to play with.

Children in this country fit into childhood along conventional lines, then grow up with greater awareness of the opportunities at their disposal, or the lack of opportunities. It is impressed upon children in India that school work and outdoor activities should be given maximum value. Our children are taught to respect and please their elders. They are given to understand that success in the future is based on this.

There is also currently a move to ease the pressures of serious, academic school curriculum under any of the national boards. The total expected of school children is a great deal. Concerned adults have come to understand that there is more to growing up than serious study and not stepping out of line. They have come to understand that a factor such as childhood fun, has to be maintained for children. Educationists have provided a powerful tool. They have provided a concept such as Mind Maps, which allow the academically driven child to use tools such as fun and games to study. The medium of such study is the Mind Map.

The drive is towards a balance between school related activities for junior and secondary school children. It is also the reason why Mind Mapping is being picked up by parents and teachers for young children, and the reason why children are responding readily to learning through Mind Mapping.

Adults who enable children to Mind Map are aware of the nature of Mind Mapping. Children approach the process as though it is a craft which they can handle and get better at, a kind of hobby. They say that they look forward to Mind Mapping because of the fun element that it embodies. When a child of six starts out with Mind Mapping, he thinks of it as a learning game and possibly another form of child’s play.

Different types of play

Physical play

Motor play provides critical opportunities for children to develop both individual gross and fine muscle strength and assists coordination of movement and muscle, nerve, and brain functions. Recent research has confirmed the critical link between stimulating activity, logical thought (maturity) and brain development. Young children must have ample opportunities to develop physically. The process takes place through motor play and increases the young child’s confidence towards more physical activity.

Social Play

A variety of opportunities for children to engage in social play are the best mechanisms for progressing through the different social stages. Children are placed in a group with their peers in the process of attending school. By interacting with others in play settings, children learn social rules such as, give and take, reciprocity, cooperation, and sharing.

Through a range of interactions with children at different social stages, children also learn about their own wants and emotions. The interactions with their peers and older children teach them to apply modelling and to use moral reasoning to develop a mature sense of values. Children need to participate in a variety of social situations so that they can function effectively in the systems of learning and application of that learning.

Constructive Play

Constructive play is when children manipulate their environment to create things. It could take place when they play with sand and water, construct simple toys such as dolls and miniature models and draw on the floor and wall with whatever they have at hand. Constructive play allows children to experiment with objects and figure out patterns and combinations that work and don’t work. They make simple conclusions about their play and art, about song and achievement.

Constructive play gives children a sense of accomplishment and empowerment. It gives them the realization that they can make a difference to things around them, their environment. It is child’s play which provides the child with the realization that she can handle and manipulate objects for different purposes. The child with growing confidence translates these conclusions towards manipulating words, ideas and concepts.

Fantasy Play

Six and seven and eight year olds gain an understanding of mental operations and think logically about concrete events but have difficulty understanding abstract concepts. Abstract concepts are matters which can be explained and talked about, like whether the rules of a game are right or unjust. As their mental operations grow, children close to ten and above begin to think in logical ways, though they may not recognise this fact as well as their parents or teachers. They are reasoning and building on any mental operations from an earlier age.

Children teach themselves abstract symbolism. They can deconstruct from the final product of constructive play. They learn to role play and apply imagined situations. They experiment with language and formulate their own words and expressions. They are exercising their imagination and diverse relationships at home and with friends. In addition, children develop flexible thinking and learn to base information on factors beyond the immediate. Adults may think that particular children are describing the parameters of a different truth. It is just that children are trying their best to stretch the boundaries of their lives and are testing adult-given rules.

Other ideas, concepts, dreams, and histories are all part of fantasy play. In a society driven by technology and the absolute, children have to practice with any and all forms of abstraction – time, place, amount, symbols, words, and ideas. In a way, these are essential for growth for a child’s mind.

Games With Rules

Developmentally, most children progress from an egocentric view of the world to an understanding of the importance of social contracts and rules. Part of this development occurs as they participate in traditional games. In traditional societies, the girls play a different set of games e.g. rhymes set to the swing of the skipping rope. Boys wait to be included in football and any ball game, just like the boys in the more senior classes. The “games with rules” method teaches children a critically important concept – that any business in life has rules (laws).

It becomes apparent that Constructive Play comes to the fore when children Mind Map. Children work with materials of paper and pencil, they accomplish something and feel empowered when they have tackled something like a difficult lesson, completed their homework and done well in an exam thanks to the Mind Map of that topic.

At a secondary level, Social Play was involved if the children undertook the Mind Map as a team. It was fun, and also had Games with Rules. Within the free form of the Mind Map, there were steps to be taken and motor coordination as in Physical Play. The rules of the games have been researched and studied.

A Mind Map is fun for young children to make. As far as they are concerned, it is a better way to learn. It not the type of learning that imposes on their faculties. They can take any fact from their texts or a lesson taught during the week. They can look inside their minds or their texts or books from the library or from what their teacher said. They can put it down colourfully while they connect other interesting facts to the central one. They can have as much fun putting in on paper colourfully and as correctly as they can. A good idea never loses its currency and simple ideas are often the best ones.

As they become accustomed to using Mind Maps and learn in a visual way, they should be encouraged to use them for taking notes in school. The quick shorthand way of recording information carries on being a great, fun way to study. When they get to the stage of doing school tests, they should be shown how to summarize entire chapters of their schoolbooks on a single page Mind Map. Revision can be fun too, as the children grow more sure of what they know and how they will recall facts and events for the test.

Mind mappings can help revision, even if teachers’ course notes are conventional. They

condense material into a concise, memorable format. You have sown the first seeds of structured thinking and have used your kids’ natural associated memory to learn things without the pressure of getting every little bit right, without the option of exerting their own creative play options of ‘what ifaˆ¦?’

It really is that simple and your kids will thank you for this gift of learning in the years to come. Once they become addicted to using the computer, you can introduce them to electronic versions of Mind Mapping which can be bought cheaply on the internet and downloaded immediately.

Your children have accumulated data in Mind Map form. They have observed the strands of their accumulated knowledge and made more associations than in the early attempt. The completed Mind Map is a thought-generating tool and the best part of it as far as the children are concerned, was the fun they had and the games-type play they had while they went about it.

Mind Map game boards

The board games promise idea generation, fun and creativity. They sound just like Mind Maps, in fact. The game boards can be used for light-hearted fun and idea generation, both for school work and at home. As with Mind Maps, adults try them out first. The objective is to generate random new ideas in a fun way. Older children work towards team building and solution finding.

Key elements of the game contain spaces where inventive young minds can add words to elements known as ‘thought clouds.’ It includes card paper and labels. Children begin by selecting a theme and adding words to the game board. Here, the random words are selected before the main illustration. This can be placed face down. Then, a dice, coin or disc is thrown on to the Mind Map game board. The place where it lands is the prompt to be followed.

Chances are, that the dice will land on a word. The player can select a theme for words to add or select words, the meaning of which is abstract and can be used to denote a great many different things. Remember the Fantasy Play above? The potential uses are infinite.

The game boards present a fun, imaginative and creative way to utilise the Mind Map format. Fun can also be added to the game board by sharing out or selecting chores.

Using associations

Children’s and adults alike love to form links between pieces of information, building up a repertoire of associations. When any brain receives new information, it searches in its long-term memory for something the same or similar, so that it can understand what it is. This happens in less than an instant and is not a conscious process. Creating associations is the second stage of Mind Mapping as you will remember. Creating associations is also very helpful in improving memory.

By actively creating a personal link for your brain to hook on to, you give your memory

something to work with, helping it to retrieve it later. Play association games-perhaps your child will carry on with it on bus journeys to school: she will ask her companions given a word (maybe a key word from an interesting language or history lesson) what is the first thing they think of? It leads to peer group learning, but informally, out of the class room. It speeds up the process of making associations, a technique that helps to improve memory.

Memorising facts and figures

Being able to recall facts and figures improves a child’s chances of doing better in exams and also her general knowledge-and is invaluable if she want to enter quizzes or competitions. There is the Association Technique which will be described in much details later. Basically, your child learns to create an image out of each piece of information, then she learns to link them together. For example, if she wants to remember that Pt Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India in 1947, she would create an image for the year and attach it to Pt Jawaharlal Nehru giving his ‘freedom at midnight’ speech. The important thing is to create an image that is memorable for her and therefore will help her to recall the associated information.

Crossword, word and maths games

Children’s brains are always more active than adults. Exercises that keep your memory and brain active can also be undertaken by them. They would require some mental

effort. Crosswords and word games are excellent, because they are pushed to recall words that they might not use regularly. It increases their vocabulary, important in any subject and with any learning method, especially Mind Mapping. Remember the importance of key words in Mind Mapping?

Children would be encouraged to use the newly learnt words more often. That in turn makes them more articulate and confident. Children’s puzzle books such as crossword puzzle books are available in plenty in any book store. For children as young as six, it would also lead to a general love of puzzles and maybe on to participation in general knowledge quizzes. In addition, most of these puzzle books can be coloured by pencil or crayons, thereby increasing their sense of what colour means to them personally.

Play word games with your children. It will help stretch them in a fun way while keeping you on your toes. Practice mental arithmetic when you are stuck in traffic and present the problem with your children. You know the answer when you practiced it in your head.

It train children to do simple arithmetic in their heads from a young age whenever the opportunity arises. You could ask a six year old to add up the cost of the items in your

cart before you get to the checkout. Or you could ask your ten year old to divide a restaurant bill between your friends – or his. The method has an additional benefit of getting him to grasp the value of money. try You can always confirm the results on a calculator and also show him how to do this.

As your mind becomes more efficiently active at simple arithmetic, he will learn to rely on it. It keeps his short term memory agile and he appreciates how simple sums can be used in everyday life. Your child will do his maths Mind Map with small sums in the associated links in very little time.

The Mind Mapping Game

This was taken from a verified and respected blog. The contributor refers to Getting Things Done, a book by David Allen. One of the steps recommended in Getting Things Done is to brainstorm to capture all the elements necessary to complete a project.

The suggested way to do this is via Mind Mapping. The author says that when he first heard about Mind Mapping, it was in senior school and he was a snotty know-it-all who thought that he was above every concept that he did not already know. Which meant that he kind of brushed it off. He claims that now that he is an adult and a bit more mature, he is giving it a try using a piece of software.

He is not just giving it a try. He has discovered that Mind Mapping is a blast. The one random topic he picked is providing a lot of entertainment. More than this, just getting the thoughts out of his head is a rewarding experience, and it is revealing a lot of the steps necessary to complete the project. He definitely recommends giving it a try. He recommends that other adults experiment with Mind Mapping on their next project.

He just wishes that other than finding out about Mind Mapping when he was in senior school and when he did nothing about it, that he had started still earlier. He wishes that someone, anyone of the adults had made him sit down and actually do a Mind Map. He would have got a great many things done, he feels. This is his greatest regret that he has woken up to how to manage his time, improve his memory and creative instincts at his late age. He is having a blast, but he could have done that some twenty years ago with Mind Mapping.

Education under the task “Alternative”. By studying and analysing our case study on Netherlands, we seek to implement alternatives to increase parental involvement through the teaching of Sexuality Education in Singapore.

Rationale for choice

We have chosen sexuality education as our area of concern as the current methods in sexuality education is not effective in light of the modern youth culture. School-based sexuality education in Singapore is incorporated into science, health education and civics and moral education subjects. The Ministry of Education [1] (MOE) has also introduced the “Growing Years [2] (GY)” series as well as “Breaking Down Barriers [3] (BDB)” programme which is compulsory for all government schools to adopt. Parents are also given the option to opt-out their children from attending these programmes.

In view of a more liberal and open-minded society, youths are increasingly receptive to new ideas, and are easily and most influenced by the mass media. This is supported from our primary research, where students are asked on the degree of influence of the parents, teachers/counselors, peers and the media have on them in terms of providing them with knowledge and advice regarding sex education.

The progress of mass media has overtaken the current measures initiated by MOE in embracing healthy development of sexuality amongst the younger generation in Singapore. This is further substantiated by the increasing trend [4] of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), where they are engaging in sexual activities at a far younger age.

Thus, the role of parents in sexuality education is crucial in educating their children about sex in an environment of openness, thereby enhancing children’s understanding on subject. The current approach of allowing parents to have the option of opting out their children from sexuality talks provided by the school contradicts with stand of MOE recognising that parents are the most important educator in sexuality education [5] . Referring to our primary data gathered, 66% of the students surveyed feel that parents are not doing enough and are not actively involved in their sexuality education. Thus, by providing parents with the opt-out option, it does not fully engage or include them in educating their children and hence it is an inadequate approach taken by the MOE.

As compared to parents who are still embracing the more conservative Asian values, youths have vastly conflicting values and this results in differences between their mindsets altogether. Regardless of their backgrounds, parents have to step in and be responsible in educating their children on sexuality issues. However, there is difficulty in this as most parents are uncomfortable [6] with discussing these issues with their children. This is a result of the new mindset of our generation on the topic of sexuality.

To counter the problem, the MOE should collaborate more closely with parents in order to alleviate the conflicting values of parents and youths with a more holistic curriculum that is, also, more applicable to our generation of youths. Hence, the alternatives must provide a strong and wider range of skills to teenagers in the dealing of sexuality issues. This topic is extremely important, as it addresses the younger population, who will form the bulk of our future stakeholders in Singapore.

Aims and Objectives

We aim to empower parents with better skills and knowledge in educating their children on sexuality issues. Our objectives are to:

To open up parents towards discussing the sensitive topic of sexuality to their children.

To promote effective parent-child communication.

To enable students think through the possible consequences of their decisions rather than turn them off with a moralistic approach.

Scope of project

Target Audience

Parents: Our primary target audience is parents of students from Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) and Raffles Institution (Secondary).

Students: Our secondary target audience is students from secondary schools.

Research Focus

With the main focus on increasing parental involvement in sexuality education, we plan to carry out our project over a span of 5 months through a multi-tiered approach; encapsulating both the affected group (Youth) as well as the wider community they are a part of (Families/parents and School), covering our primary aim (healthy development of sexuality for youths).

Research Methodology

Primary Data

We interviewed Mr Leo Hee Khian [7] , a student Advisor from Raffles Instituition.

Online surveys were given out to secondary school students from government and independent [8] schools. This is to ensure a better representative of the student population in Singapore as schools carrying Integrated Programmes may offer a different approach in carrying out their sexuality education program to their students.

Surveys were also distributed to parents through the Raffles Parents’ Association (RPA) [9] and Parents for Raffles Girls’ School Association (PRGS Association) [10] to gather information on their beliefs and mindsets regarding the current pedagogy and curriculum of Singapore’s sexuality education so as to help us craft a better method of instruction.

Secondary Data

As sexuality education is a sensitive yet important issue, there have been many active discussions on online forums as well as newspaper articles relating to the content of its curriculum. There are a variety of published reports and journals on all aspects of sexuality education which are available for review. We reviewed several case studies of different countries using the internet resources on how they deliver their curriculum, catering to children and youths of different age groups. The role of parents in educating their young is also studied to gather information on how they can contribute most effectively in developing their children.

CHAPTER 2 – CASE STUDY: NETHERLANDS AND USA
Netherlands

Overview

The Dutch Model was formulated, focusing on ’empowerment and mutual respect’ in a relationship among youths. aˆ¦aˆ¦ + parent involvement

Advantages

The Dutch Model provides accurate information regarding risks associated with pre-marital sex and adequate information regarding contraception and birth control methods. It focuses on values, attitudes, communications and negotiation skills. It helps youths to deal with peer and other social pressures; providing opportunities to practice communication, negotiation and assertion skills.

Disadvantages

Sexuality education syllabus might not be comprehensible to young children and hence the effectiveness of curriculum may be questioned. As sexuality is a sensitive topic, it may cause parents to opt their children out of the programme. The Dutch Model does not eliminate the risk of pregnancies or STDS as it excludes the teaching of contraceptive methods to youths.

United States of America (USA)

Overview

Sex education in USA primarily focuses on advocating abstinence, but more schools are now offering abstinence-plus curriculum [11] . There are many vendors and organizations which have various programmes [12] catered to different age group and a range of socio-economic background, such as white middle-class, African-americans, poor, parents of 11-15 years old.

Advantages

Through abstinence and abstinence-plus curriculum, the values of abstinence can play an important role in helping teenagers in resisting the media and peer pressure, as the youths are living in a sex-saturated culture where having casual sex is the norm.

The abstinence-only curriculum [13] focuses on two pronged approach: It places more emphasis on social, emotional and psychological aspects of sex; it also educates teenagers regarding love, intimacy and commitment. On the other hand, the abstinence-plus curriculum seeks to reduce teenage pregnancies and STDs as a result from “unprotected” sexual activity; hence it teaches teenagers regarding contraception methods. Coupled with direct funding [14] and support for the abstinence programme by the government, it allows more resources to be pulled in for a more effective sexuality education.

Based on surveys [15] conducted, results has shown that there is overwhelming parental support for abstinence curriculum. Furthermore, since many parents in America are Christians, coupled with the fact that the majority of the religion in America preaches abstinence (no sex until marriage), as well as many abstinence related themes (love, commitment, etc), this will mean that most parents are fully aware of what their children are being taught in schools. Thus they can complement the current sexuality curriculum, making it more effective.

Disadvantages

With the comings of our X-generation youths, the idea of abstinence may not be relevant with the modern American society and culture. Teenagers are having a more liberal mindset, mainly as a result of the mass media. Surveys [16] conducted showed that having pre-marital sex is the norm for many teenagers as a result of many factors, such as peer pressure and the modern pop culture.

While schools are largely involved in fight against teenage pregnancies, there is no standard curriculum taught to students throughout every school [17] . Not all parents are agreeable on the content of curriculum due to differing views as a result of religious or race differences as some religions [18] may not favour the abstinence or abstinence plus-approach.

Similarities drawn

USA was chosen as the second case as it is a very developed country with its people having a very liberal mindset, and this is something we aspire for Singapore to achieve, where parents and child will find it less awkward and more comfortable in discuss sexuality. Furthermore, both America and Singapore’s sexuality education both emphasises on abstinence, hence, by learning the approach and the (positive and negative) implications of America’s sexuality education, we can then apply it to Singapore’s context. Like Singapore, USA is a multi-racial nation and hence this will no doubt affect the approach to teaching sexuality education as a result of differing views.

CHAPTER 3 – SINGAPORE
Current Trends on sexuality education

MOE set a framework on the sexuality education curriculum which all schools have to comply. The key guiding principles of sexuality education are:

Parents bear the main responsibility for the sexuality education of their children;

Sexuality education is premised on the importance of the heterosexual married family as the basic unit of society;

The teaching of facts is integrated with the teaching of values, which reflect that of the mainstream society;

Students will be taught to understand and respect the attitudes, values and beliefs regarding sexuality that other communities propagate;

Specially selected and trained teachers are to teach the Growing Years package; and relevant resources in the community will be brought in to complement school resources for sexuality education.

This framework encourages parents to be actively involved in educating their children as they “bear the main responsibility”. While all government secondary schools are to adopt the Growing Years [19] series and independent schools may have their own programmes, parents are able to have the option of opting out their children from the sexuality education package.

Alternatively, schools may engage external vendors [20] approved by MOE. The current approved external organisations conduct programmes in the form of workshop and seminars as a pedagogy of teaching sexuality education, which only a few includes the participation of parents.

The need for involving parents

As parents are given the opt-in and opt-out option, this suggests that the sexuality education in Singapore is not a fool-proof plan. Essential issues involving the cognitive, emotional, social, physical and moral aspects of sexuality may be neglected by parents who chose to opt out their children from the programme. Embraced by conservative Asian values, these parents have not yet been fused with the liberal and open mindset that our world today shares. Furthermore, a large percentage, 70%, of the youths we surveyed felt that their parents were not being actively involved enough in their sexuality education.

Also, only one-quarter of the youths objected to their parents being involved in their sexuality education. Through research, we found that parents have a big influence in the decisions teens make about sex below the age of 16 [21] . However, from the results [22] we gathered from our survey, it seems that many parents are not aware of the importance on the influence they have on their children’s decision making. Hence, it is apparent that we have to bridge this gap in thinking and get the parents more actively involved in their children sexuality education programme.

Lessons Learnt
Confidence is key

Building good rapport between parents and child is important in breaking down generation gap as in enhances effective communication. This will greatly reduce the extent of differing/conflicting views and beliefs, enabling parents to provide accurate information regarding sexuality issues to their children.

Parents are found to possess skills of being an educator, and their natural role in sex education is evident. Yet many parents are not realizing their full potential as an educator due to reasons such as being uncomfortable in talking with their children about the subject and also lack of knowledge about anatomy, physiology, or other related information. Hence, they often feel shy and embarrassed to hold discussions due to the lack of confidence in educating children on sexuality. Thus, agencies should consider integrating parents fully into their health education strategies.

Creating awareness of curriculum amongst parents

While the school provides basic sex education, parents must be aware that the knowledge and information presented or taught in schools are only supplemental, and parents themselves play a pivotal role in educating their children at home, since morality issues regarding sex are mostly not covered in schools [23] . Thus moral issues and obligation must be taught by the parents of the child when it comes to sex.

The influence of mass media

Any parent can attest to the impressionable, unquestioning and imitative nature of their child, and since the mass media is one of the most prominent sources of the child’s outlook of the outside world, the constant repetition of sexual contents on the television will no doubt influence the child’s mindset to a certain extent.

Developed Strategies
Equipping parents

Schools can engage professionals, experts and even successful parents to deliver presentations or hold small workshops. Awareness is hence developed among parents on the importance of holding conversations with their children regarding sexuality education.

Parent -Teacher collaboration

To engage students through collaboration between parents and teachers in designing an effective use of pedagogy within the programme.

Engaging youths and parents on the net

Creating a forum to hold discussions enable youths to freely express their views or opinions regarding sexuality. Recognizing that most ideas conveyed by peers and the media may be misleading, we decided to rope in trainers/ counsellors qualified in the field of sexuality education to correct any misconception youths may have, and to provide proper advice to them. Also, by engaging parents to monitor these forums, they are able to contribute to the discussion by posting their views at the same time. This will benefit parents greatly, allowing them to have a general deeper understanding in youths

Proposed Alternatives
Parent Education Programs

Schools may tie-in school events with parent education programs to improve adults’ skills for educating and communicating with youth, especially about sexuality and reproductive health.

.
Reviewing the delivery of sexuality education programme

The Raffles Parents’ Association can hold a meeting with teachers every 6 months to review the pedagogy of delivering the programme. During their reviews, they should include the views of parents about the content of the sexuality education programme that ought to be taught in school. The reason being that parents have a better idea of what their adolescents’ mindset are about the topic of sex as well as the exposure that their teens have on the topic. This can be done by having feedbacks from parents online through the Raffles portal website, for ease of communication. With these feedbacks and reviews, our school can have a more efficient, relevant and effective way of delivering sexuality education messages to students as well as having a more impactful one.

Involving experts into youth online forums

As opposed to parents limiting the influx of information from the mass media which is extremely impractical, online portals (e.g. youth.sg) can be developed for adolescents to share their thoughts on the topic of sexuality. A sexuality education forum will be designed in the online portal such that open and healthy discussions can be fostered, occasionally with the advice of experts. Youths are able to pose questions and they are responded by qualified [24] trainers and counsellors in this field.

CHAPTER 4: ACTION PLAN
Parent Education Programme (PEP)
Key Players / Stakeholders

Schools

Secondary schools serve as a platform in enabling parents to participate in the programs easily as their children keep them updated with upcoming important school events. Our target group will be Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) and Raffles Institution (Secondary) in particular.

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) [25]

NGOs have the power to effect widespread change & place pressure on other key players to manage the trends. Examples of relevant expertise are the Institute of Advanced Parentology [26] (IAP), Focus on the Family [27] . Experts, professionals and facilitators in the relevant fields will be invited.

Successful parents

Parents who have successfully overcome their fear and/or embarrassment in communicating with their child regarding sexuality issues will be invited to speak.

Rationale for our proposed action plan/ course of action

Tying up with two important school functions such as Briefings to Secondary 1-4 Parents (held at the start of the every year the school principal) and Parent-Teacher Meetings (held in the second semester every year) will be useful in capturing a wide audience. This programme is to provide skills to parents to communicate with adolescents through these two interactive workshops. Parents will thus be more equipped in educating their children about healthy sexual development and decision making.

Action Plan

The organising committee of the respective school functions will include a short Parent Education Programme workshop where presentations are held by health professionals and parenting experts from various NGOs of relevant field. More male facilitators will also be invited rather than most of the time only female facilitators are present. This is to encourage more participation of fathers because same-sex parent-child communication at home tends to work better [28] . Successful parents will be engaged to share their experience on how they dealt with challenges while educating their children on sexuality issues. They will be able to provide information parents want and need as well as address the concerns and fears of the audience. These real-life examples will enable parents to acquire knowledge and information on how open communication can be cultivated in order to share their values and beliefs with their children effectively, while becoming more empowered to become effective sexuality educators of their children.

A mass mailing parents via the school describing the program will inform parents about the details of the available workshops. These workshops, tying in with school functions, will be scheduled on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) so as to avoid disturbing their work schedules during weekdays.

Feasibility

Parent talks are highly feasible as it has been done in most schools. However, it is difficult to target all parents to stay on for talks given their busy day-to-day schedules and other commitments. They may have work obligations, particularly amongst the low income groups or families with sole breadwinners, where sexuality education may not be perceived as important in such families.

Solutions

To make the programme an impactful one, innovative and interactive presentation techniques [29] can be used in conducting this workshop to captivate the interest of audience effectively. Also, incentives can be offered to encourage greater participation in workshops, including light refreshments and prizes such as vouchers and parenting books.

Reviewing the delivery of sexuality education programme
Key Players / Stakeholders

Raffles Parents’ Association (RPA) and Parents of Raffles Girls’ School Association (PRGS Association)

Parent support groups for the Raffles family. They represent the proportion of parents in Raffles, overseeing general matters in and out of the curriculum.

Teachers

They are the main source of medium in school which students get their sexuality education from. They deliver the curriculum and impart skills and knowledge to students.

Rationale for our proposed action plan/ course of action

Through the review of the curriculum, parents will have a better idea of their adolescents’ mindset on the topic of sexuality as well as the exposure that they have on the topic. Hence, parents can provide valuable feedbacks and perspectives as to what should be included or emphasised on during the teaching of sexuality education to students.

Action Plan

Feedbacks are to be collected from parents through the RPA and PRGS Association online portals for the ease of communication. Also, we can utilise our Raffles main website to link parents to the portals for more convenience. The RPA and PRGS Association will hold a meeting with teachers at least once every 6 months to review the content and the pedagogy of the sexuality education curriculum designed by the Raffles schools. Valuable and insightful feedbacks from parents should be brought forth in these meetings, to be discussed and considered amongst the teachers and members of RPA and PRGS Association.

Feasibility

For this proposed alternative to be successful, we need the cooperation of parents to be actively involved and concerned about the contents taught to their children on the topic of sexuality. They have to know that they play a big role in their sexuality education.

Additionally, boys and girls differing biological makeup and hence, some content taught may not be relevant to each gender if sexuality education is taught to youth in general. Some important segments [30] are thus left out which might be integral to the physical and psychological development of youths.

Solutions

A different curriculum can be catered to different gender to suit each gender’s needs accordingly. All schools, depending if they are co-ed schools, may adopt two curriculums catering for each gender, so that sexuality education can be taught separately for the girls and boys.

Involving experts into online forums
Key Players / Stakeholders

SgForums.com

A reputable online portal which discusses a variety of topics related to the current world today. Prominent topics are put into forums, where netizens are accessible to the latest news and discussions. There is also a forum named SgSexForums dedicated to discussion about sexuality, and we are looking at integrating sexuality education into this forum. .

Professionals and experts

They will be invited to be on the panel of forum, so as to respond to any queries or views posed by youths. They are trained experts from local sexuality education vendors which are approved by MOE, as well as consultants and professionals majoring in the development of youth.

Youths

Youths serves as an important voice for parents to have a deeper understanding on their views and concerns. This can help to narrow the communication gap between the two generations as parents are more aware of their needs and wants regarding sexuality education.

­Schools

Given primary views expressed by students in the forum, schools will work around the needs and wants of the students, giving feedbacks to the MOE. Understanding what youths are concerned with, a more convincing curriculum can then be developed to address their needs.

Rationale for our proposed action plan/ course of action

Forums generally receive much attention from the Singaporean youth communities, and web portals such as STOMP and sgforums.com are known to represent the voice of the youth society. Although earlier research findings showed that media platforms render youths susceptible to negative messages about sexuality, nonetheless we still believe that they are powerful tools through which we can put our ideas across. We are looking at reconciling mass media and healthy discussion of sexuality issues, and this can be achieved through online forums discussing about the local sexuality education. Through proper designing of the forums and engaging trained experts on the relevant topics, we believe these online forums will help to ensure a more open sexuality education barring the constraints of school curriculum, whereby youths can make themselves heard. This helps us to achieve our objective of a more open-minded society towards sexuality issues, which is instrumental in helping parents take charge of their children’s sexual well being.

Action Plan

Two separate forums will be set up in the online portal catered to both youths and parents. All posts are accessible to the public, and this allows each stakeholder to be aware of the different viewpoints that youths or parents have. Certified experts from sex education vendors will be invited to initiate unfettered discussion about sexuality, and also answer various queries that youths or parents might have. In addition, we will engage parent support groups to monitor these forums and input their own experiences, fostering healthy debate. As such, any misleading views will be corrected by qualified professionals, preventing youths from obtaining incorrect information from unreliable sources on the net.

Feasibility

Popular local web forums like STOMP (Youthphoria) and youth.sg promote unconstrained discussions about social issues, and encourage youths to share about their perceptions of the world around them. Many forums are also initiated by youths to discuss the quality of their sexuality education. One limitation, however, would be that the forums might be prone to defamatory and provocative comments by insensitive users.

Solutions

Inappropriate comments may be marked as spam by other users, automatically hiding the comment. Also, parent support groups can be tasked to take charge of these forums as administrators, primarily to fuel healthy debate about sexuality issues based on their own experiences.

Benefits of our plan

Primary Data

We managed to get results from a relevant yet wide spectrum of the population. This is evident from the ages of the respondents, which range from 13-18 as well as their educational level which include students from the secondary level and junior colleges. There is also an almost equal mix of responses from both males and females as well. With this, we can make sure that we can make sure that the spread across the population is not biased

A human is a social animal. In social life gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt their roles in the society that are not fair and same for both sexes. As children reach into adolescence, they are exposed to the different layers of the social life, this exploration knowledge has been gained through different sources among these sources, their parents are the main sources of their knowledge. Parents are the most influential personality for their children. Social life is categorized in many functions layers that a person has to perform in the particular era of his age. Every child have to play his gender role in the society as it grow up and passes through various stage of its growth life cycle.(Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990).

INTRODUCTION

Children learn often very soon what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society through numerous activities, encouragements, discouragements, opportunities, overt behaviors, covert suggestions, and various forms of guidance, children experience the process of gender role socialization. This is very difficult for a child to grow to the adulthood without experiencing some form of the limitations and privileges that a gender does have in our society. These privileges and limitations are called the gender roles that a human being has to play based on relation with the same gender. (Martin, Wood, & Little, 1990).

A child’s mushrooming sense of self, or self-concept, is a result of the whole host of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs to which he or she is exposed and the knowledge stream flow around the child surroundings. This surrounding has been initiated from the parents and then it widens with the growth of the children.(Santrock, 1994).

As children moves in the larger world their social circle widens and they include the friends and other members of family and teachers and so many people who make them realize their social responsibilities and rights.

Parental Influence

A child’s earliest exposure to what it means to be male or female comes from parents (Lauer & Lauer, 1994; Santrock, 1994; Kaplan, 1991). The parents treat their children male or female in different manners when they are babies. The discrimination has been made in the style of dressing, type of dressing, colors of the dresses and their toys and expecting different behavior from the children belonging to different genders.(Thorne, 1993). One study indicates that parents have differential expectations of sons and daughters as early as 24 hours after birth (Rubin, Provenzano, & Luria, 1974).

Children began to respond the internal messages of their parents belonging to their gender roles of social life when they are just of two years old. (Weinraub et al., 1984). A research has resulted with a conclusion that children of the age of two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to generalize gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Fagot, Leinbach, & OBoyle, 1992; Cowan & Hoffman, 1986).

Parents provide first glimpse of social behavior to his child. They instruct their child how to converse with each class and category of the social components of the whole society. Parents are the first social teachers of their children; they teach them how to react and how to resolve the conflicts of the life and how to advance in social life. (Fagot, Leinbach, & OBoyle, 1992; Cowan & Hoffman, 1986).

Role Models

The most important influence on the social life of a child that the parents have is the role modeling. Parents are the first role models for the child. This is proven fact that visualization and practical implications have deeper effects on the mind in comparison of listening. When the children observe the practical behavior of their parents towards different people relating to their social circle they learn the same and implement in their upcoming life. For example, if a child observes a polite behavior of his parents towards the home servants, they would also start to respect and polite attitude with them and if their parents would be rude with them, they would be like wise. This also have been researched that the children of the shy and non-confident parents remain shy and non-confient and unsuccessful and the children of sharp and intelligent parents become socially strong and confident. This is all because of role modeling effect. (Hoffman, 1977).

Instilling Confidence:C:Documents and SettingsNaveedDesktopindex.jpg

Socialization revolves around the globe of confidence. Confidence is the key to achieve success in every portion of life. Parents can instill confidence in their children in a number of ways. Parents can instill confidence in their children through allowing them in independence and providing them friendly and cooperative environment.. As the children grows up and enter his feet in the Middle School or high school this concept become so important. Children start to build the basis of their career and social life from this age. Children with great deal of confidence become the team players and team leaders depending on their level of confidence that have been given through their parents. If a parent has taught her child that the sky is the limit and has promoted his self confidence, he will be more likely to act upon that, leading him to make friends easier and stand up for himself. But here is a very important factor to consider by the parents the independence would be folded in the social and moral limits. Independence does not mean to be unsocial or beyond the limits of the morality and modesty. (Haslett, Geis, & Carter, 1992).

Social Image and Ambition Building:

Many studies have shown that parents treat sons and daughters differently (Jacldin, DiF’ietro, & Maccoby; Woolett, White, & Lyon; Parke & O’Leary, in Hargreaves & Colley, 1986; Snow, Jacklin, & Maccoby, 1983; Power, 1981). However, parents play vital role in the development of the sense of ambition about the social status for the children. For example, if the parents are constantly encouraging the child and seeking to mold its attitude towards someone great, the child is more likely to believe that this fate is possible. So the children will be confident enough to speak with college admissions counselors or potential employers, because all of her life he or she has had a support system that told her she could do it. On the other end the children who are taught the limitations of destiny ad fate, they always would be least confident and put all their lack of efforts at the fate and luck and would not try much in life to attain the expected social and professional expectations imposed by his or her parents. . (Miller & Lane in Ber- ryman-Fink et al., 1993).

Conclusion:

Parents are the key elements in the social life of the children. As the consolidated and strong base ensures a strong and reliable building. Likewise, parents are start of the social life of the children and they are role model to their children. Their social behavior would be developed with observation of their parents social behaviors. Children first friend would depend on the social circle of their parents. Their per-school and school, their field of study and their social status would all be dependent on their parents.

When growing up I loved playing outside, in the local park or being taken to many country parks by my father. I class myself as being lucky to have grown up in a generation where playing outdoors was a regular occurrence, where boys and girls played together in mixed ability and mixed age groups. Having had two children myself I wanted to continue the great experiences that I had in the outdoors with my father. However I noticed a difference in the way that they and their friends accessed the outdoors. Both my children are boys but they still accessed the outdoors differently from each other and girls that they played with also had sufficiently different ideas about the outdoors. Having discovered that boys and girls all seemed to have different ideas about the outdoors I wanted to investigate this further. I particularly wanted to understand any differences in the way they accessed the outdoors as I remember being distinctly referred to as a ‘tom boy’.

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

There has been much research focused on the outdoors, outdoor play, and outdoor education including sustainability and recreation activities. Taylor and Morris (1996) suggest that

‘Outdoor learning is an important and integral part of a high-quality early childhood education curriculum’. (pp 153)

There are many skills encompassed within the term outdoor play or outdoor learning, therefore before starting there is the need to try and define the term outdoor play or outdoor learning. The Institute for Outdoor Learning (IOL) (2009) suggests that the term outdoor learning is a broad expression that can encompass play, education, skills, sustainability and the natural environment and may be referred to as experiential learning for children which takes place within the outdoors. Additionally The Collins English Dictionary (2009) refers to outdoor as ‘the open air’ (pp 412), to play as ‘occupying oneself in a game or recreation’ (pp 442) and to learning as ‘gaining a skill or knowledge by practice’ (pp 337) therefore outdoor play could be defined as engaging oneself in a game or activity outside where you can gain new skills and knowledge. Consequently throughout this study the term outdoor learning will be used to refer to outdoor education, outdoor play and outdoor recreation activities.

This study will encompass the role of outdoor learning including its importance for children’s development, the safety and risk involved in children’s outdoor learning and the anxiety that this causes for carers, gender issues relating to how boys and girls use the outdoor learning environment, and geographical, community and social perspectives focusing on the impact that they can have on a child’s involvement with outdoor learning. To begin with we will cover the role of outdoor learning.

The importance of outdoor learning and the beliefs that it contributes to children’s development and progress date back to Rousseau (1762) and Froebel (1826). These beliefs have been continued, explored and researched in depth with new emphasis being placed on Forest Schools and outdoor learning. Philosophies and theories about outdoor learning tend to focus on the natural environment and the effect that this can have on children’s development. (Frost 1992, Fjortoft, 2001and 2004, Bilton, 2004, Lester and Maudsley 2006, Forest Education Initiative 2007, Tovey 2007, and White 2008a)

Boyd (1963) writes of Rousseau and how he was one of the first people who advocated developmentally appropriate education. Rousseau (1762) also wrote of the importance of growing up in the countryside and how this would create a more natural and healthy environment than the city. Froebel (1826) advocates the need for children to be provided with places to play where they can be nurtured and developed through experiences with the natural environment. Stevinson (1923) and Macmillan (1927, 1930) also promote the need for children to be in the outdoor environment. MacMillan’s ‘The nursery school’ and ‘The nursery school garden’ articulates the need for children to have free movement and experiences within the natural world around them.

Much attention has also been given to the need for children to play and learn in the natural environment and the important role that outdoor learning plays in children’s growth, development and social skills. (Stevinson 1932, Fjortoft and Sageie 2000, Riley 2003, Bilton 1994, 2004, Callaway 2005, Moore and Wong 2007, Joyce 2007, Shackell et al. 2008, and Balls and Burnham 2008) Stevinson (1932), McMillan (1930) and more recently Frankel (2007) have stated that natural outdoor environments are good for the health and development of children and the improvement that playing outside has on children’s concentration, behaviour and speaking and listening. They have also suggested that we should provide suitable provocative environments where new provocations and opportunities are made possible.

Studies have also been made and have shown that children benefit in other physical ways from playing in the outdoors and the natural environment. Positive effects and implications on motor development such as balance and co-ordination which will help children master their own bodies’ abilities in relation to the natural physical environment have also been recognised (Fjortoft 2001; Lester and Maudsley 2006). Dowling (2006) believes that outdoor learning can support children’s development and is a natural way of learning in an environment which is full of sensory experiences. The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) (2004) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2005 and 2008a) have also stated that outdoor learning can give depth to the curriculum and can enhance children’s physical, social and emotional development. Although much has been written that advocates the role of outdoor education it has been difficult to find a study that disputes the role of outdoor learning in the development and education of children.

Despite this evidence Edgington (2002) and Fjortoft (2004) believe that much of the developed world and on a micro-level; some practitioners have neglected the use of the outdoor environment. They suggest that this can be due to both weather related issues and concerns over the potential risks involved with playing and learning within the outdoors. Certainly, my own experiences in settings have shown that when the weather is bad the practitioners and the children stay inside, on only one occasion have I seen practitioners and children outside regardless of the weather. Additionally consideration needs to be placed on children’s safety when involved in outdoor learning.

Numerous people have suggested that today’s children do not have free access to the outdoors due to parent’s concerns over safety and risk. Perceived problems such as traffic and fear of crime or abduction have led to parent anxiety which can have a profound effect on children’s play and has led to many children being kept at home ‘safe from harm’ (Ball 2002, Portwood 2005, Palmer 2006, Tovey 2007, Carruthers 2007, DCSF 2008b, and White and Stoecklin 2008).

Nevertheless there is considerable discourse about the need for children to encounter risk. However we should also consider the difference between risk and hazard in terms of children’s safety and development. RoSPA (2010) identifies a hazard as something that has the potential to cause harm and risk as the likelihood that harm from a particular activity or hazard will actually be realised. By helping children to understand the risks involved in certain activities they can begin to make informed choices regarding their actions as Cook and Heseltine (1999) state

“Children need challenge so that they can learn about risk, their own capabilities and to develop the mechanism for judging it in controlled settings” (Cook and Heseltine, 1999, pp 4).

Joyce (2007) also states that encountering risk helps children to learn about responsibility. The DCSF (2007, 2008c, and 2008d) express the need for children to experience a balance between risks and fun. They suggest that not everything should be made safe and that children need to recognise and understand about risk as it is an essential part of growing up. Conversely Stine (1997) and Knight (2009) suggest that we should try to make things as safe as possible but still facilitate children’s risk taking. They acknowledge that by allowing children to take risks we will enable them to learn respect for the environment, keep themselves safe and develop competence. However Stephenson (2003), Carruthers (2007) and Sandester (2009) have suggested that too many safety issues about risks within children’s play are leading to too many rules and regulations which have made it difficult for practitioners to provide suitable activities, implicating that making a setting hazard free will make it challenge free. Despite this fact many other researchers have discussed the importance of rules, regulations and risk assessments. They agree that using risk assessments and involving children within this process will ensure children’ s safety, whilst still allowing practitioners to offer adventurous and risk taking activities. (Bilton 2002, 2004, Callaway 2005, White 2008a, and Knight 2009) Nevertheless Bache (2006) comments that risks are exaggerated and that all children no matter how well supervised will undertake some risk. Furthermore where a child lives may impact on their attitudes towards outdoor learning.

Within the literature reference is also made to geographical, community and social issues in relation to outdoor play or the lack of it. Hart (1979), Nabhan and Trimble (1994) and Garrick (2004) have all commented on and researched children’s outdoor play and their findings showed that geographical perspectives such as having access to wild areas or a simple garden played a part in the way children accessed the outdoors within their immediate and wider environment. They also highlighted the importance of having experiences with nature and the emotional experiences and intimacy children can develop from this such as a sense of place and belonging. Additionally Valentine and McKendrick (1997) suggest that although many cities and towns provide children with formal facilities such as playgrounds most children would prefer to play in ‘flexible’ environments such as open spaces and waste ground. However we should also consider the social factors in regards to children’s outdoor play.

In reference to social issues Tizard, et al. (1976) conducted a study that showed children from working class backgrounds opted to spend 75% of their time outside and that their co-operative play was more evident outside than inside. They also wrote of how working class children were more likely to play outside than middle class children. Millard and Whey (1997) also conducted studies on children in English housing estates and findings from their interviews and observations of children highlighted children’s enjoyment of physical active outdoor play and the opportunities that it gave them to socialise. However Carruthers (2007) writes of how many children no matter of their class; outside of school hours and without adult supervision; would naturally gravitate towards outdoor spaces and the natural environment where they would make their own games. Saracho and Spodek (1998) have also written about social classes and outdoor play and how children from working class backgrounds are more mature in their outdoor play and that their attention spans and concentration are much greater when playing outside than those of children from middle and upper class backgrounds. However these are only two perspectives and there is no other research evidence to either support or disclaim these findings. Besides which deliberation of children’s gender should also be taken into account in terms of outdoor learning.

Gender focused studies have highlighted play choices made by boys and girls when playing and learning outside and inside. Many have concluded that boys undertake more physical play outdoors, whilst girls are more sedate. Suggestions have also been made that boys sometimes tend to dominate the outdoor space and that there can be danger that outdoor spaces can come to be seen as boy’s territory. This has reflected gender stereotyping found in other studies about how boys and girls make choices within their play. (Tizard et al. 1976, Sanders and Harper 1976, Braggio et al. 1978, Hart 1978, Lott 1978, Henninger 1985, Bates 1986, Hutt et al. 1989, McNaughton 1992, Cullen 1993, Bilton 2004, Jarvis 2007, and Maynard and Waters 2007) There has been insufficient research to disclaim these findings and all found research has shown that there are gender differences in the way children play.

The literature suggests that great importance has been placed on the outdoor and natural environment and how it provides rich opportunities for the growth and development of children. There has also been much written about the adults role and the type of environment that practitioners should provide. This has not been covered within this literature review but we need to take note that these play a significant role in the way children will access the outdoor learning environment. There has been some reference to social and geographical issues and how these could aid or hinder children’s views of what the outdoors may provide for them. Significant research has also been placed on risks and safety and whether both parent’s issues and beliefs and practitioner’s beliefs have had an impact on the way that children within our society are accessing the outdoors. However gender issues have only touched upon the choices that children make when playing outdoors. This has led to me believing that there is a need to understand if there are differences in the way that girls and boys actually access the outdoors; do boys spend more time outside than girls? Are the children hindered by what is on offer?

This study is focused on gaining a deeper understanding on each of these issues in two early years’ settings.

Chapter 3 – Methodology

This chapter will identify the methods and techniques that have been used to gather the primary research for this study and the context in which the study was undertaken. Firstly the overall methods that have been used to collect data will be discussed and explained using a rationale. Next it will address any issues of validity and reliability during the research process. Finally the ethical issues which may arise will be identified and any measures that have been taken to address these will be discussed.

This research study will use both quantitative and qualitative methods to discover whether there are any differences in the ways that boys and girls access outdoor learning. The qualitative research will be obtained through semi-structured interviews with foundation stage practitioners and non-participant observations of children engaged in outdoor learning. Bell (1987) refers to qualitative data as

‘Understanding individuals’ perceptions of the world’. (Bell, pp 4)

Bell (1987) has identified one way in which qualitative research may be suited to this study. Through the use of interviews and non-participant observation this study will be concerned with listening to, observing and ‘understanding individuals’. Nixon (1981) suggests that studies involving children should be most appropriately researched using qualitative methods such as observations and interviews. As this study is child based using interviews and observations will provide rich and deep data which in turn will enable me to fully comprehend both practitioners’ perceptions and children’s integration with outdoor learning.

Despite this two quantitative methods (questionnaire and tally chart ) were also used within this study in order to gain numerical data in regards to the amount of time spent outdoor learning by both boys and girls and the types of activities that they undertook when outdoor learning.

As discussed this study uses four different methods of data collection; interviews, non-participant observations, questionnaires and tallies. Therefore my study encompasses different sources of evidence to compare and combine in order to reach a better understanding of my research question. Cohen (et al.) (2000) refer to this as triangulation. Roberts-Holmes (2005) suggests that

‘Triangulation gives the researcher the opportunity to check out their evidence from a range of sources’ (Roberts-Holmes, 2005, pp 40)

By using triangulation within this study I will be able to back up and enrich numerical data with information about the participants and their explanations and understandings. The data collection methods for this study will now be discussed in more detail outlining the advantages, disadvantages and rationale for each.

3.1 Observations

The first and second methods of data collection for this study were qualitative and quantitative observations. These observations were carried out in two different settings in Kettering; these were a Nursery setting and a Reception setting within a primary school. Nisbet and Entwistle (1974) suggest that when undertaking observations the observer needs to make them self invisible so that they do not affect the observed. To do this you need to have previously met the children and as closely as possible follow the same procedures for observation as the setting you are conducting your research in. Therefore the researcher made sure that she attended the settings on a number of occasions before conducting the research so that she was able to build relationships with the children beforehand and reduce the reactivity effect.

Greig et al. (2007) believe that observations are helpful in two ways;

‘observing a child in the natural environment will give the research a ‘real world’ edge ………direct experience facilitates the researchers’ ability to understand complex individuals and situations’ (Greig et al. 2007, pp 122)

As this research was designed to find out how individual children access outdoor learning, observation provides an ideal base to start from. They will also provide many insights into the first hand experiences of the children.

However as Scott and Morrison (2006) propose observations may be

‘Affected by the values and judgements brought to the observation by the observer’ (Scott and Morrison, 2006, pp 168)

The observer may have a specific agenda and see what they want to see, however the researcher in this case had conducted many previous observations and was able to observe the children naturally leaving the specific agenda of differences between boys and girls behind. The observations were carried out in a way that all children were treated as and observed as individuals. Despite the many disadvantages of observations especially the amount of time consumed writing the observations up they did enable the researcher to gain an insight into the children’s outdoor learning. The use of quantitative observations in the form of tally charts also enabled the researcher to gain numerical data which added more depth to the study.

3.2 Semi-Structured Interviews

The second method of data collection for this study was semi-structured interviews. These were conducted with the practitioners at each setting where the research was carried out. The interviews aimed to find out the practitioners views of the way the children within their care accessed outdoor learning and if they had noted any specific differences between boys and girls. One of the important reasons for choosing semi-structured interviews as a research method was that they can provide a more personalised approach and as Bell (2005) suggests adaptability. By using a semi-structured approach to interviews the researcher was able to take on the role of facilitator by asking set questions but also allowing the development of any issues as they arise throughout the interview.

Roberts-Holmes (2005) recommends that when conducting an interview you must have a sound knowledge of the subject that you are researching so that you can remain focused and conduct an informed interview. Through completion of the literature review the researcher was able to identify key areas which would need clarifying during the interview process. Also by conducting a face to face interview any misunderstandings on the part of the interviewer or interviewee could be checked and clarified immediately.

However a disadvantage of the semi-structured interview according to Opie (2004) and Bell (2005) is ‘the danger of bias creeping in’ (pp 166). They suggest that this can occur in many ways either intentionally or unintentionally and by selecting questions which are phrased to support your argument. This was a difficult process to go through and the questions were written and re-written many times to ensure that they were not pre-conceived in anyway. Therefore this issue was addressed within the research process.

Additionally there is also the issue of the time involved in scribing the interviews, arranging times to suit all the individuals involved and gaining informed consent. These issues were addressed by firstly writing to the settings involved and asking for their consent to be interviewed. (See appendix) Furthermore arranging times and places which would suit the individuals helped in the process of the interview. In regards to time related issues although transcribing the interviews was time consuming, the researcher did however gain particular insight into the way these practitioners identified outdoor learning in terms of the children in their care.

3.3 Questionnaires

The third method of data collection for this study was questionnaires. These were sent to parents of children within the two settings used for this study. The questionnaires aimed to give numerical data to this study. This data was gained by asking closed questions stating amounts of time children spent outdoors and how they played when outdoors. However open questions were also used so that parents or carers could expand on their findings, therefore resulting in more detailed data and also possibly identifying other issues which may not have been addressed by the researcher. Furthermore the researcher used questionnaires as they seemed to be less time consuming especially within a time limited study such as this. Moreover it could be suggested that questionnaires are unbiased as the researcher is not able to influence the answers. However, Scott and Morrison (2006) suggest that there is the potential for questionnaires to have potential bias built into them through the researchers’ agenda. When drafting the questionnaire there were extreme difficulties in phrasing the questions so that they were not biased towards the researchers own agenda. However after many draft copies and conducting a pilot of the questionnaire the questions became less biased and more open towards the respondents.

Bell (2005) suggests that a further disadvantage of the questionnaire is the non-response. However in this instance the researcher sent out one hundred questionnaires and received seventy five back this in itself could be seen as a disadvantage in terms of the time needed to collate all of the data. Despite the disadvantages of this method of research, the high response to the questionnaires enabled the researcher to obtain numerical and qualitative data.

3.4 Selecting the Settings and sample children

The researcher chose to carry out the research in two early years settings which gave children free flow access to the outdoors. This allowed the researcher to observe children without any limitations in regards to the way children access the outdoor learning that is available to them.

The settings were a sure start nursery and a reception unit within a primary school, which gave the researcher access to a range of ages of children to observe, as there may also have been differences regarding age as to how the children accessed outdoor learning.

The settings were also chosen as they were known to the researcher which meant that professional relations had already been built with staff at the settings. However, although these relationships were already in place, this was not regular and there was no personal contact with the researcher which may have biased the study.

The practitioners involved in the interview process were also chosen from the two settings involved within the study. The practitioners involved had many years of experience within the early years and in regards to children’s development. This meant that they were able to give the researcher a deeper insight and understanding in to the way they had seen children access outdoor learning in their prospective settings.

The children involved in the research were randomly chosen from the children whom the researcher had been given permission to observe. However to ensure an even mix of children within the research two boys and two girls were chosen from each setting which meant that eight children were involved overall. After the eight children were chosen their parents/carers were informed again and they were also made aware of their right to withdraw their child at anytime.

3.5 Validity and Reliability

Cohen et al. (2007) define validity as an

‘Important key to effective research for if a piece of research is invalid then it is worthless’ (pp 133)

They suggest that validity can be addressed through the depth and scope of the data attained and in the extent to which triangulation has been used. Therefore the issue of validity has been addressed through the use of many different techniques to research the study. This will give the researcher greater confidence in their findings especially if they all result in the same conclusion.

Additionally in terms of qualitative data consideration needs to be given in regards of respondents answers to questionnaires as their opinions and perspectives will contribute a degree of bias within the study. However Agar (1986) argues that the in-depth responses and involvement of respondents in the research will secure a sufficient level off reliability and validity. On the other hand Cohen et al. (2007) argue that this may be insufficient and therefore the data collected must be representative in terms of the question to be answered in order to have validity. This issue of validity has been addressed in terms of the types of questions asked in both the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

As this study involves both qualitative and quantitative data and Cohen et al. (2007) suggest that in terms of reliability these are both different, the researcher will strive to address issues in both contexts. In regards to quantitative data both Bell (2005) and Cohen et al. (2007) suggest that the type of data collection used needs to be able to be reproduced and present similar findings in order for it to be reliable. The questionnaires used in this study are easily reproduced and may give similar findings, however there may also be the case that the results may not be entirely similar as they represent individuals’ opinions which will differ on every occasion that the questionnaires are reproduced.

Brock-Utne (1996) promotes the use of qualitative research and recognises the holistic approach that it gives to research studies and suggests that the reliability in this case can be seen as dependability. Moreover Cohen et al. (2005) suggest that observations if carried out especially if they can be repeated and are given the same interpretations can also be reliable. Therefore the methods of observations and interviews can be both reliable and dependable; however again there is always the possibility that different outcomes may be gathered depending on the times, settings and individuals involved in the observations.

The research within this study can be deemed both valid and reliable due to the triangulation methods used and that each method of research used can be easily replicated and completed again and again with the majority showing similar findings. Additionally all of the research methods used are directly related to the question identified and as Burton et al. (2008) promote the validity and reliability of any research carried out

‘Will be largely determined by the extent to which the findings are directly related to the issues or problems identified at the outset………..the selection of appropriate methods and how systematically the have been employed’ (pp 168)

Also the disadvantages and advantages of each method of data collection used in the study have been carefully considered before being used within the context of this study.

3.6 Ethical Issues

Any researcher should consider ethical issues when conducting primary research with people as Burton et al. (2008) advise all researchers have one shared responsibility and that is a ‘duty of care’ to all individuals involved in the research process. BERA (2004) is an association which sets out specific guidelines for researchers who are undertaking educational research they to propose that researchers need to ensure that no harm comes to the participants. BERA (2004) also establishes that the researcher should ensure that all participants within the research are fully aware of their rights and roles. Bell (2005) agrees with this and also suggests that researchers need to gain informed consent from all participants involved within the study. This issue was addressed by communicating with all participants their rights and confidentiality before the research was undertaken. Letters were sent to each setting included within the study which clearly outlined the study and asked for consent to carry out interviews and observations (Appendix ), telephone calls were also conducting in regards to arranging times. Another ethical issue outlined by BERA (2004) is that

‘In the case of participants whose age…….may limit the extent to which they can be expected to understand or agree voluntarily to undertake their role……In such circumstances researchers must also seek the collaboration and approval of those who act in guardianship’ (pp 7)

This issue was addressed by the researcher sending out letters to all parents/carers or guardians of the children within each setting asking for their consent for their child to be observed. The letters outlined the study, confidentiality and anonymity, and the right to say no or to withdraw from the study at anytime. Parents/ carers or guardians were also informed again if their child was chosen for the research and again were informed of their right to withdraw their child at any time. (Appendix )

BERA (2004) and Bell (2005) also recognise the importance of making sure that any participants involved in the study are not put under any stress, discomfort or intrusion during the research process. This issue was addressed by the researcher visiting both settings on a number of occasions so as to reduce intrusion and for the children to become familiar with another adult in their setting.

Consideration also needs to be given to the questionnaires used and the ethical issues surrounding this. The researcher made contact with the participants of the questionnaire through covering letters. These letters fully informed the participants of the outline of the study and how the data collected from the questionnaires would be used; participants also had the right not to reply and to withdraw their information at any time throughout the process of the study.

In conclusion due to the time limitations and small scale of this study there are bound to be limitations of the research process, some of which were discussed previously. However much deliberation and careful consideration was given to the reliability and suitability of the research methods used, which provided both q

Activity is important part of different types of learning activities that young children need to experience in order to understand the world around them. Some of the activities and experiences includes singing, cooking, going for walks, group activities and interacting with visitors to the setting, listening to stories and re-telling stories. It is essential for children to be able to access a whole range of learning opportunities, as they learn from watching and imitating others as well as by experimenting and exploring. Children also need to take part in adult-initiated and child-led activities, which may be planned from observations of children’s interests and activities during their play.

‘Children’s Creativity must be extended by the provision of support for their curiosity, exploration and play. They must be provided with opportunities to explore and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings, for example, through a variety of art, music, movement, dance, imaginative and role-play activities, mathematics, and design technology.’

(The Early Years Foundation Stage 2007)

The EYFS has stated that a child need to play in order to learn and it is an important part in the foundation stage and I think this is very true as children learn by exploring and miming what other do.

2. Age range of children (in months)

The age range of the children I was working with was 30-60 months. The range is wide and the older children help the younger ones in the setting. The high ability children were able to carry out the activity with out any prompting. Children for whom English is an additional language used pictures provided to understanding what they were going to do.

What you planned to do and why
The activity I planned involved leaving out Lego blocks and seeing what the children came up with. I left some pictures of Lego houses (Appendix 1) to see what the children would make of this. The reason for doing an activity using Lego blocks was because there are more boys than girls in the setting. The girls also like to build and they join in with the boys when they start to build things. Bruce (2001), has stated that the rights of the children to play; this is about helping children to learn through play from their early years of life and with this in mind, the children were observed carefully in order to identify their interest, needs and stages of development. This allows for provision of appropriate resources, including floor space and equipment.

After observing the children for the first week I realised that the best activity to get the children learning and getting them interested would be to do an activity with the Lego blocks. The children who are in the setting all learn through play. According to the National Strategy (2008),

‘Play is vital for children. Quite literally, it’s through play that babies and young children learn, grow and have fun. It helps them understand the world and to develop socially and emotionally.’

I had to plan a child initiated activity carefully by organising the environment for learning and I also had to think about the resources that were required and available at the setting as well as plan the session so that the children had enough time to become involved in their play.

‘Children learn when they are given appropriate responsibility, allowed to make errors, decisions and choices, and are respected as autonomous and competent learners.’

(DfES, 2002)

Everyone has to be motivated to learn, this also applied to the children when they play, especially when they are given a choice. They will persist with the activity they were doing if they have chosen it themselves and feel a real sense of achievement once they have succeeded in doing what they wanted to do. This is due to the learning styles the children have. All children are individuals and learn in their own way. Their understanding of the problems is unique to them and it will give them great satisfaction when they complete their project without any help from the adults around them. Children need to learn through experience and doing; and they are very active in their play, because it is through action that new connections are made and reinforced in the brain.

The Curriculum for the Foundation Stage requires children to explore their environments – knowledge and understanding of the world, it builds on children’s natural curiosity and asks questions about their environment and this activity makes the children explore different types of houses around the world.

The content knowledge was intended to enhance and increase children’s problem solving skills and extend their interest through practical involvement. Children also learn to work as a group as they were building their houses.

To make certain I was working within the ethical guidelines I had to seek permission from my placement tutor, parents and children. The parents were involved by signing consent forms, which clearly states what I will be doing with their children. Safety issues were taken into account for the activity which was carried out. Scott et al (2008) has highlighted the importance of ethical and health and safety issues when working with children.
4. What happened when you carried out the work?

After looking at the pictures of the Lego houses the children decided that they wanted to build their own house from the Lego provided. They all worked together to assemble the pieces to put as the foundation of the house. There was a discussion (appendix 2) on what type of house they wanted and how many floors they all wanted. The activity I carried out was a success as the children involved made a house with a garden on the roof. They worked out the logistics themselves with very little input from me. They also made furniture and built in stairs from the ground floor to the first floor and then had a winding stair to the roof, which was already provided in the blocks. They talked about putting the winding stairs inside the house but found out after many tries that it was not possible to put it in the first floor, but would be good to put outside the house so that it leads to the roof garden. The children felt a real sense of achievement and describe to me how they built their house.

Child initiated activity gives us an opportunity to get to know the children you are taking care of at your setting. You need to observe and listen to them when they are playing. Watch carefully who they play with and what they say, when they are talking to each other.

By supporting child-initiated activities, we as practitioners can make sure that resources and opportunities are provided for extended learning for the children. It is easier to plan adult initiated activities, after observing child initiated activities, in order to extend the thinking and understanding of the children. We can base the activities to motivate the children to take part in the activities fully.

This is creative play, Sigmund Freud (1958) suggested that every child at play “behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, that is, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him. . . . The creative writer does the same as the child at play. The child creates a world of fantasy, which he takes very seriously – in which he invests a very large amount of emotion”. (pp. 143-144) Moreover, Moyles (2005) sees creativity as fundamental to successful learning, being creative allows children to make associations between one area of learning to another and to broaden their understanding and stresses that this area should be developed in early childhood settings.

5. Your assessment of the effectiveness of the activity

Play comes naturally and instinctively to most children, though some need adult support. There are guidelines for adult involvement during child initiated activities and they are planning, resource and challenging environment where children’s play can be supported and extended; it is the job of a practitioner to extend and develop children’s language and communication in their play through sensitive observation and appropriate intervention.

According to the EEL (Effective Early Learning) study, which was carried out by Pascal and Bertram on the children’s well being and involvement, there were three main features about adult behaviour that helped to promote children’s learning and thinking. They were about how an adult supports and encourages the children when they are upset and are feeling insecure. What they provide the children with to stimulate the children’s learning. It must be positive and exciting and they must be willing to join in with the children by either asking open ended question or prompting them into thinking about what they are doing and how to improve it. The children must be given the freedom to express themselves and experiment through play. We must support the children’s decisions and judgements by encourage the expression of ideas, and involve children in rule-making for everyone’s safety and wellbeing.

When giving children child initiated tasks at this early age, we are asking children to be responsible for their learning at a very early age as they have to plan and review what they are doing. This is very motivating and raises their confidence, self esteem and independence. This makes children take ownership of their own learning and I think it is a good way of teaching children to be independent and also be more responsible. Handscomb (2006) believes that when children think that the outcome of a situation depends on their own actions, they work harder to make a success of the activity and their self-esteem and social competence increase. This proves the theory that children should have more control over the learning activities in which they are engaged.

Laevers (1999) associates involvement with the idea of flow and suggests that Involvement, motivation and fascination are interconnected. He added that the most important is the satisfaction that goes with involvement stems from one source, the need to explore and experience.

The children noticed and commented on how the houses were built in the pictures and this is the Knowledge and understanding in the EYFS. They used their imagination to build their houses – Creative development. They also involved and interacted with others throughout the activity- Personal and social development.

I believe that there is a close connection between play and healthy cognitive growth. It forms a foundation for academic success in reading and writing.

6. Your personal learning

I have found out that child initiated activity provides opportunities to apply learning to everything that they do at the setting, but also helps children to develop skills, concentration, perseverance and the ability to work together in groups, which can be applied to all the learning that takes place in school, at home and in all aspects of life. You can learn a lot about children when you watch and listen. You have to allow children to follow their interests. I also learnt that you, as a practitioner cannot make assumptions about what part of the activity the child enjoyed.

I have discovered that by providing children with real experiences, gives them opportunities to use their curiosity and talk about things that are important to their everyday lives. This recognises the importance, to which Laevers (2000) believed that the deep involvement of children in such contexts facilitates their overall development. He defined involvement as a quality of human activity, which is characterised by a high level of motivation, concentration and persistence. He states that these are key indicators of quality learning outcomes for young children’s learning and educational achievement. In Laevers’s view, found constant higher levels of involvement when children instigated their own activity. Involvement occurs in the small area in which the activity, matches the capability of the person that is in the zone of proximal development and this view is widely stressed by others theorists such as Vygotsky (1978). On this basis, young children must for that reason engage actively in the learning process to make sure that effective learning takes place.

The Effective Provision for the Pre-School Education (EPPE) project (2003), during their investigation of pre-school education, identified five areas which were important when working with children. The quality of adult-child interactions promotes continuous thinking in effective settings, particularly environments that encourage sustained shared thinking between adults and children. This makes more cognitive, linguistic and social behavioural progress. I have learnt that children do best when they are engaged in activities that involves deep thinking, making mistakes and correcting them.

This task was based on planning and setting up an activity for a child – initiated learning. It was meant to provide an in-depth analysis of a practice experience using a model of reflection. The model consists of a series of questions, which assisted me in analysing my practice and framed my learning through reflection.

Child-initiated play helps children to take control of their own learning and ensure future academic success. Children learn to interact with others, develop language skills, recognise and solve problems, and discover their human potential and express themselves through play. Play helps young children make sense of and find their place in the world.

Young children are capable of surprisingly, being very independent and if the play area is organised suitably and expectations are high they will get on with their own activities and learn as they go. It is the role of the practitioner to decide on strategies for encouraging this independence. The practitioner should focus on providing a suitable framework for exploration and allow the children to develop at their own pace in child initiated learning.

According to Laevers (2005), when children are bored, it means that the level of involvement is very low and we, as practitioners should be worried. If we want deep level of learning from the children, we must provide activities that are of interest to the children and the level of involvement will become a lot higher.

It is important to know that in child initiated activities, we have to create an educationally rich environment for the children. Providing a well-organised stimulating learning environment, this enhances children’s learning where they are encouraged to explore and take risks.

I think the activity went really well and to further extend the children’s learning, I think we can do an activity on how we can build our own Lego town. I can get the children to discuss what they think we should have in our town e.g. doctor’s surgery, shops, park for the children to play in, schools etc.

After reflecting on the whole activity I have found that my use of interpersonal skills, active listening and building empathy with the children, was essential to children’s well-being, as it is recommended by many theorists.