Author: Andre Coleman

One basic human rights principle laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 is that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1 UDHR). However, specifically vulnerable groups such as women, indigenous people, and children have been assigned special protection by the UN legal framework (Steiner & Alston, 2000). The UN Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), 1989 remind us that children, whilst retaining their entitlement to the full range of human rights, are often marginalised or excluded, and represent a special case required additional safeguards (DCI, 1995).

In this 21st century, the status of children in Australia needs to be improved nationally and internationally for economic and political success in the future (Nyland, 1999). Teachers and caregivers have opportunities to incorporate “rights education” into any part of their program that creates openings for teaching children about rights (Waters, 1998). In this essay, I will discuss the role of early childhood settings in enacting and promoting the children rights envisaged in the UNCROC and in making these rights available to Australian children.

Children’s Rights: Setting Standards

Legal conceptions of children

The adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child marked a fundamental shift away from past conceptions of children and childhood to a new one. Until then, the law had seen a child as property – the property of the father – to be dealt with and disposed of as he saw fit (Hart & Pavlovic, 1991). However a conceptual shift took place during the 19th century, based on the perception of children as vulnerable and so in need of protection from poverty, the voices of industrialization, immigration and urban living. In addition, to being considered property, the child began to be considered as a resource to society (Hart & Pavlovic, 1991).

The human rights movement of the 20th century, previously focused for adult rights was extended to children (Hart & Pavlovic, 1991) though children were still seen as vulnerable and in need of protection but this status was subsumed in a broader understanding of children as full human beings with all the human rights and fundamental freedoms that all human beings have. Their need for protection was transformed into a right to protection. Now children are considered as rights-holders (CRC GC7, 2005) like adults.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the universal statement of this new conception of rights-holders. The United Nations General Assembly on Nov 20, 1989 adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC). In 1990 Australia ratified the UNCROC and to date 191 countries have ratified the Convention, while USA and Somalia have become signatories. The Convention is the most full and complete international legal document on children’s rights, covering their protection, growth and wellbeing (Alston, 1991). The Convention deals with child-specific needs and rights, and requires that states act in the best interests of the child (Nyland, 1999).

The objective of the Convention is to protect children from discrimination, neglect, abuse and to promote children’s rights and serves as a focus point and a useful tool for civil society and individual people (Nyland, 1999). The widespread ratification of UNCROC by the international community has made it a powerful catalyst for action on behalf of young children and has gradually become embedded within the policies and practices of all who works with children. According to Arnold (2004) “The CRC has more signatories than any other international convention, and it is important for us to recognize the legal implications of this achievement in how we position our work” (p.4).

The effect of the Convention for Children in Australia

From the ratification of the UNCROC in 1990 by Australia until the present, we can say that the Convention has realised neither the brightest hopes of its supporters nor the most terrible fears of its opponents. The ratification of an international instrument by Australia, such as the Convention, does not ipso facto make that instrument part of domestic law hence the UNCROC is not part of Australian domestic law. Therefore, it has not revolutionised public policy making for children, nevertheless it has led to many very significant initiatives and reforms. Thus for the purpose of human rights and equal opportunity, the Convention has been affirmed an international instrument relating to human rights and freedoms (Alderson, 2000). Consequently, the Convention has provided the legal and conceptual basis for the establishment of children’s commissioners in most Australian jurisdictions.

Children’s rights and early childhood settings

Early childhood, the period from birth to 6-8 years, is a significant and unique time in the life of every individual. Children mainly stay at home, schools and recreational institutions in their everyday lives during these years (Rasmusen, 2004). These environments have been created by adults therefore adults play a powerful and unique role in building quality early childhood practice. Quality experiences for each child are supported and ensured by the experience, qualification and competencies of adults, in addition to their capacity to reflect upon their role (Wyatt, 2004). This challenging and vital role in the life of the young child needs to be appropriately supported, resourced, and valued. Therefore, quality early childhood care and education must value and support the role of parents as well as that of the staff (Thorpe & Thomson, 2003). The best interest of the child is promoted by the open, honest and respectful partnership with parents.

Basing early childhood services on children’s rights

Children’s rights are relevant to early childhood education and care. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is directed towards the well-being of every child and the full development of every child to her or his full potential (Butler, 1993), and early childhood education and care settings share that direction and commitment. The Convention states that the first objective of education is “the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential” (Art. 29 (1)). Quality Early childhood education and care contributes to the full personal development of children.

Early childhood institutions contribute to implementation of the requirements of the Convention in relation to the child’s right to the highest attainable standard of health care (Art. 24), the right to education (Art. 28), the right to protection from exploitation, abuse and neglect (Art. 19), the right to play and recreational activities “appropriate to the age of the child” and to participate in cultural life (Art. 31). Institutions also have particular regard for the specific needs and rights of particular groups of children specified in the Convention: refugee and asylum seeker children (Art. 22), children with disability (Art. 24), children of ethnic and religious minorities and indigenous children (Art. 30), children placed in alternative care (Art. 20), children who are the victims of abuse and neglect (Art. 39) (Alderson, 2000).

In Australia, the importance of children’s rights to early childhood care and education is recognised in many of the key documents that express the values and goals of the sector. The first commitment to children in its Code of Ethics is to act in the best interests of the child and the second commitment is a more general one, to “respect the rights of children as enshrined in the UNCROC and commit to advocating for these rights” (ECA Code of Ethics, 2006). Its policy positions are based on principles that “reflect adherence and commitment to” the Convention on the Rights of the Child (ECA position statement consulting with young children).

Children’s rights issues for early childhood institutions

Early childhood education and care institutions address children’s immediate needs and well-being, that is, children’s lives as children (Rasmusen, 2004). They provide children with opportunities for learning, play and socialisation. They provide the foundations for literacy, numeracy, later learning, and future life opportunities. They also focus for addressing the rights of particular groups of children such as indigenous children, refugee and immigrant children, and children with disabilities.

The way children’s rights are interpreted and acted upon in early childhood institutions has some cultural/social implications (Nyland, 1999). For example, when children interact in the complex cultural environment of a day care setting that can provides us with insights into how they construct their views of the world and culture. Therefore as adults we should observe children very closely in order to understand what they are trying to tell us about their surroundings.

Mostly caregivers support children’s developmental activities on observed activities that focus mainly on the individual child and areas of development and divide children into developmental areas – which is a problem because one area or dimension can not exist by itself. Therefore practitioners should be motivated to plan for the different areas of development and therefore move away from play-based curriculum since tasks are developed to aid a particular area of development and overlook or neglect the ideal of whole child (Nyland, 1999). Another constraint of current mode of recording children behavioural observation is that we record observed behaviour – meaning something already has been done by a child (Nyland, 1999) so we look at the child of yesterday and not at the child potential in upcoming future.

In a child care centre caregivers can create an environment focusing on strengthening children’s development in a more holistic way, which will give to the caregivers a better understanding of the physical and social settings of children from where they belong. In the child care centre the caregivers can also identify culturally regulated customs (Nyland, 1999). The adult/caregiver’s role in these developmental areas/physical and social settings is one of scaffolding the child experiences through an environment that is carefully considered in relation to three metaphorical zones (Cole, 1996) i.e. zone of free movement (ZFM), the zone of promoted activity (ZPA) and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Valsiner, 1987). ZFM is understood as the child’s access to the environment, objects, events and ways of acting (Cole, 1996). ZPA covers a child’s particular action, or response which encouraged him/her to give by a more competent member of the culture or from the same physical environment (Nyland, 1999). But when the ZPA is matched to the child’s present development state which guides further development then it is referred as ZPD (Cole, 1996).

For better understanding of the role of early childhood settings for the protection of children rights, the caregiver’s role is more important and dynamic since s/he can use the metaphorical zones as guide for designing and providing space, objects and interactions. The caregiver own role can be deliberately designed for enhancing the perceived developmental potential in an articulated cultured environment. The cultural activity where development is most likely to occur in a cultured environment is known as leading activity and such activities can be accomplished through manipulation for infants and spontaneous play for children (Bodrova & Leong, 1996).

At one hand the role of caregiver demonstrates a child’s competence for understanding changes and on the other hand the early childhood setting as a learning environment. Such an approach moves away from the straitjacket of areas of development and affords the child a voice while giving the caregiver a more meaningful role within the relationship (Nyland, 1999).

Early childhood workers as leaders in children’s rights advocacy

Early childhood educators have a vital role in advocating children’s rights by taking a proactive approach for recognizing their rights and responding appropriately to policies and systems which adversely affect children’s rights. Child advocacy emphasizes on giving due status to children, increasing their self-determination and the responsiveness and accountability of institutions affecting them (Melton, 1987).

We (caregivers), then are needed as advocates for children’s well-being and not only advocates but leaders in advocacy. The basis of our advocacy should be children’s rights, as recognised in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Why we? Because as early childhood professionals, we have responsibilities and opportunities that require we to be advocates. Our responsibilities come from our role as workers with children. We know them and their needs well (Nyland, 1999). We know what promotes their development and their happiness. We know the importance of services for them being of the highest quality. We also know the consequences of children not receiving the services and support they need for their full development and the consequences of poor quality services. Advocacy cannot be left to others when we have so much expertise and experience. Since children cannot look after their own interest and grossly disadvantaged in protecting their interest, rights and freedoms, therefore, they need advocates (Australia. LRC. HREOC, 1998).

Conclusion

The legal obligations of the Australian government under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are still to be realised, almost 20 years after its ratification. We can move beyond frustration, anxiety and despair and embrace the possibility of hope if we are willing to do so. Children have few choices. We adults and professionals have many. The challenge is to choose to place ourselves at their service and in the service of their rights.

Children have the ability to construct their own images and now it is up to society to help them realize these images. The early childhood practices, like child study, provide a strategy for listening to the very young. A belief in children’s rights and an understanding of children’s strength and competence can be used as a basis for improving the quality of children’s daily lives (Nyland, 1999). By this our early childhood institutions would provide to the children with opportunities for learning, play and socialisation.

So the emerging vision is one of an actively participating and socially competent young child. This young child is ecologically situated: within family and caregiving environments; in relationship with peers; as part of a community; and as a member of society. This young child is to be considered holistically: as a being whose emotional, social physical and cognitive capacities are evolving in various social and cultural settings (CRC GC7, 2005).

Therefore require us to reconsider young, active, participant children in the broadest possible sense, both as individuals and as a constituency.

This paper explores the developmental attributes physically, cognitively and socially of two children, one male and one female, ages five and ten, respectively. This writer will identify the socio-economic status (SEC), age, gender, ethnic background, and family demographics of each of these children. The two children this writer has chosen come from similar living situations (i.e. they both live with single mothers), but have vast differences in their physical, cognitive, and social development. This paper will examine Erik Erikson’s Eight Psychosocial Stages as explained by Dacey, Fiore, Travers (2009) in an effort to explain the noticeable differences in the two children that this writer has chosen to observe. These two children were chosen because they are both being raised in a single parent household, which is something that this writer can relate to, as this writer is a single mother. This writer will also explore the Cognitive Development Approach theories of Jean Piaget and Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Learning in an attempt to further explain the significant differences in these two children.

Childhood Observation
Theories on Human Development

Many psychologists have different perspectives when it comes to analyzing theories on human development. For the purposes of these observations, this writer has chosen to take a closer look at the views of three well known psychologists. The psychological theories of development that this paper will explore are the theories of Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Albert Bandura.

First, this writer will discuss Erik Erikson and his Psychosocial Theory of Development. It is a widely accepted belief that, “Erik Erikson was the chief proponent of a psychosocial theory of development (2009).” This writer believes that Erikson had a great understanding of the human life process. Erik Erikson is best known for his ideas on Stages of Psychosocial Development and Identity Crisis. Erikson broke down the progression of human life into a series of eight stages, each of these stages being marked by a crisis that must be resolved so that the individual can move on to the next stage. It makes perfect sense that everyone should overcome a crisis in order to successfully move on to the next stage in their life. In a seminal work, “Erikson used the term crisis as a developmental term – that is a time of increased vulnerability and heightened potential (Erikson, 1968).” Erikson also contributed to our understanding of personality as it developed and shaped over the course of the lifespan. While we must combine the theories of many psychologists in order to understand the development of humans through the lifespan, Erik Erikson’s views on development seem to be the ones with which most people can closely relate.

Now, we will move our attention to Jean Piaget, a man who was well ahead of his time. It has been said that, “Jean Piaget was among the first researchers to study normal intellectual development (2009).” Jean Piaget is credited as being one of the most significant psychologists of the twentieth century. Piaget focused his attention on the roles that cognitive mechanisms play in development. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development consist of four stages: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational, and Formal operational. Piaget’s first stage is the Sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth to about two years of age. During the Sensorimotor stage, the “infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the world, beginning with reflexes and ending with complex combinations of Sensorimotor skills (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/piaget.html).” Piaget’s second stage of Cognitive Development is the Preoperational stage, which lasts from two to seven years of age. It is during this stage that children are able to make use of symbols and rapid growth of language occurs. The third stage of Piaget’s Cognitive Development is the Concrete operational stage, which lasts from seven to eleven years of age. In this stage, the child can reason about physical objects. The final stage of Piaget’s Cognitive Development is the Formal operational stage, which occurs from eleven years of age and up. During the Cognitive Development stage, “Piaget believed that abstract thinking leads to reasoning with more complex symbols. In this stage we become increasingly competent of adult-style thinking (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/piaget.html).”

Lastly, the writer would like to discuss Albert Bandura and Social Cognitive Learning. Bandura’s Social Cognitive Learning theory suggests that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. For instance, “The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation (http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html).” As Bandura and Walters (1963) noted, “children often do not do what adults tell them to do but rather what they see adults do, hence learning by observation.” There is much to be gained in the area of Social Cognitive Learning by observing others. That is, “By observing others, children may acquire new responses, including socially appropriate behaviors (2009).” Bandura’s term for observational learning is modeling. In order for effective modeling to take place, there are four conditions that must be present; these conditions include attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. That is, “Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences (http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html).”

Discussion

This writer will begin by describing the subjects of her observations. For this exercise, the researcher used her son, Aidan, and, Samantha, the daughter of her friend, both of which she has known since birth. Aidan is a 5-year-old, white male with no siblings. He is raised in a single parent household and has no contact with his father. Aidan and his mother live in a very large house with the subject’s grandfather on several acres of farm land. Aidan has extensive contact with his grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins, and close family friends that are considered ‘family.’ Up until recently, Aidan also had extremely close contact and a wonderfully close relationship with his grandmother and great-grandfather, both of whom have passed away within the last two years. In classifying the socio-economic status from which Aidan comes, this writer would describe it as a middle class socio-economic status. Aidan also attends private school with a very small class size. Thus he is privy to more one-on-one contact with his teacher, which is something that may not be available to children attending public schools.

The second subject that the writer observed is, Samantha, who is a 10-year-old girl, with one male sibling (age 4). She is being raised by her single mother and has never had any contact with her father. Samantha lives in a lower-middle class neighborhood with her mother and younger brother. Before moving into her current home, Samantha grew up in an income based housing complex. Samantha’s mother works full time in order to support her two children. Because of her mother’s busy work schedule, Samantha spends most of her time with her maternal grandparents. Samantha is of a lower socio-economic status than the other subject of this paper, attends public school and seems to have a hard time socializing with her classmates and teachers. She also appears to struggle with anger issues and has a rather severe lack of self-confidence.

Given the observations on the subjects above, the writer will now explore the developmental theories of Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Albert Bandura, respectively. First we will begin with Erik Erikson and his Psychosocial Theories of Development. Aidan, the researcher’s first subject, appears to be on track with all of Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages, within his age range. For instance, “In Erickson’s first stage, which is by far the most important, infants should develop a sense of basic trust (2009).” In Aidan’s case, this stage was successfully completed due to him being on a set schedule and being surrounded by warmth, care, consistency, and discipline. Though he faced a multitude of health problems during this phase of his development, the love and warmth that was bestowed upon him enabled him to successfully complete Erik Erikson’s first stage. Erikson’s second Psychosocial stage, Autonomy versus shame and doubt, “takes place during early childhood and is focused on children developing a greater sense of personal control (http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial.htm)”. Important events associated with this stage of Psychosocial Development include gaining more control over food choices, children wanting to dress themselves and choose their own clothing, toilet training, and control of one’s body functions. Aidan was very insistent about doing these things during this phase of his development. Interestingly enough, he displayed some of these behaviors during Erickson’s first stage of Psychosocial Development. For example, Aidan was potty trained by the time he was 18 months old, chose his own clothes, and began trying to dress himself. This brings us to Erikson’s third stage of Psychosocial Development, Initiative versus Guilt. This phase takes place during the preschool/nursery school years and is marked by “children beginning to assert their power and control over the world by directing play and other social interaction (http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial_2.htm).” Manipulation of surroundings are prevalent in this stage of a child’s development, as “they are building on the ability to control themselves, children now acquire some influence over others in the family (2009).” This is the phase of development that Aidan is in currently, and he is definitely an assertive little boy who likes to direct play and “be in charge.” Aidan can be manipulative in certain situations, such as, if mommy says no, he will immediately go ask his granddaddy. Overall, this researcher feels that Aidan has successfully completed all of Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial stages thus far.

Now, we will discuss the researcher’s second subject, Samantha. Upon the researcher’s observations, Samantha was unsuccessful in completing the Basic trust versus mistrust phase. This writer believes that this may be due to caregivers who were inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or rejecting. The afore mentioned variables could very well have contributed to feelings of mistrust in Samantha as an infant. With that stated, “Failure to develop trust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable (http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial.htm).” Samantha’s mother had her at a very young age and may have been ready to deal with the complete change of life that comes with bringing a child into the world. Because of the unsuccessful completion of this first and most important stage in Samantha’s development, she exhibited signs of inadequacy and self-doubt during the Autonomy versus Shame, Doubt phase, thus meaning that she was unsuccessful in completing the second stage as well. When Samantha reached the third stage of Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory of Development, there seemed to be a marked improvement in her behavior, however she still displayed characteristics of a child who was very hard to deal with. It was at this time that she was enrolled in a stable preschool where she remained until it was time for her to start kindergarten. This researcher believes that this was probably the stability that Samantha was longing for and so desperately needed. Before being enrolled in preschool, it was not uncommon for her to be subjected to her mother’s various relationships, which often were unsuccessful. Since Samantha has never had a “father”, she always became easily attached to these various men. This leads this researcher to believe that this may be an underlying reason for Samantha’s lack of trust and inability to fit in with others. At this point, Samantha has now moved into Erikson’s fourth stage of Psychosocial Theory of Development, Industry & Inferiority. For instance, “Children expand their horizons beyond the family and begin to explore the neighborhood (2009).” In Samantha’s case, she can best be described as a recluse. From the moment she gets home from school, she doesn’t emerge from her room until it is dinnertime. This researcher feels that this is certainly not a healthy environment, as there is no communication between mother and daughter. At times, Samantha seems to be very resentful of her mother. In this researcher’s opinion, Samantha has not successfully completed any of Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development thus far.

The writer will now explore Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development. As stated earlier, “Jean Piaget believed that cognitive development means that we form more sophisticated cognitive structures as we pass through four stages: the Sensorimotor, the Preoperational, the Concrete operational, and the Formal operational (2009).” The Sensorimotor stage, which begins at birth and goes to about 2 years of age, is marked by an infant’s ability to use their bodies to form cognitive structures. The researcher’s first subject, Aidan, had various complications that required physical and occupational therapy, as well as neck surgery all before two years of age. Due to these complications, he was somewhat delayed in moving from the Sensorimotor stage to the Preoperational stage. Once he got all of the physical and occupational therapies and neck surgery behind him, he rapidly moved into the Preoperational stage. During this stage, children ages 2 to 7 years, are able to make use of symbols and there is a rapid growth in language. Aidan, being the researcher’s son, was taught sign language from three months of age until he was about 2 years old. The reasoning for this was so that he would be able to communicate with others before he was able to talk, but when the time for rapid growth in language came, Aidan preferred to use sign language over verbalization. After a few talks and much encouragement, Aidan soon began to chatter away.

Samantha, the writer’s second subject, flourished throughout the Sensorimotor stage and Preoperational stage. She was a very active little girl with a great imagination and amazing verbal skills. It is the Concrete operational stage that Samantha struggles with. It is during this stage that accommodation occurs. “Accommodation is Piaget’s term to describe the manner by which cognitive structures change (2009).” Samantha seems to be unable to make rational judgments, which in turn causes her to be very manipulative. This researcher believes that this goes back to a very lax parenting style in which Samantha is treated as more of a burden than the gift that she is.

The final theory to be discussed is Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Learning Theory. Simply stated, Bandura believed that “we obtain information from observing other people, things, and events (2009).” Bandura stresses the importance of modeling in observational learning. In Aidan’s case, he has been surrounded by the positive influence of modeling. He is a polite, however sometimes rambunctious little boy who knows how to use his manners. Children are like sponges, always observing and soaking up everything around them. This can sometimes lead to bad behaviors or socially appropriate behaviors. In Samantha’s case, she is a product of her surroundings. This researcher believes that due to her stressful home life, Samantha only knows to act out in order to get attention. The unfortunate things about this is that the attention she gains from acting out is never the attention she desperately needs.

Childhood obesity is a real and pressing health problem in Australia. Children are spending more time doing sedentary activities such as watching television and playing computer games. These activities don’t involve much physical activity which contributes to the growing childhood obesity dilemma. According to the department of health and ageing- Australia (2007) about one in every five children is now overweight or obese, furthermore, 25% of obese six year olds will become obese adults (Rosenberg, 2005). This paper examines the importance of physical activity, the teacher’s role in addressing and preventing obesity and significant contributions that teachers can offer to help reverse child obesity. The target age group for this paper is 5-10 year olds.

Children become overweight when the energy they take in or consume is greater than the energy they expel through physical activity (Catford & Caterson, 2003). Physical activity for this age group is important because physical fitness is a habit that we learn. Children learn early to choose between sitting indoors and watching television or going outside to play ball. According to Steinback (2001) physical activity builds skills and co-ordination. It can also give personal satisfaction when achieving something new or difficult and it can help children who then become adults meet new friends with similar interests e.g. riding your bicycle in the park or playing on the swings. Exercise also produces endorphins and helps sleep patterns (Salmon, 2005).

Adults teach fitness through example. It is possible to establish healthy lifestyle choices from an early age and lay the foundation for a child’s physical activity patterns. As discussed by Lumeng (2005) there are studies to indicate that if a child as young as three is overweight, they may be on the path to obesity in adulthood.

Due to changes in family dynamics and the social and economic aspects of life, there is added responsibility on educators to provide extra services such as health education; however, teachers can only be effective if they are willing, trained and prepared to undertake such a role. Emmel (2005) suggests that schools have come a long way in the last 5 years in regards to awareness due to added pressure from parents and the community. The teacher’s role in addressing and preventing obesity is important because there are many health related problems for overweight children, including, diabetes, high blood pressure, joint problems, breathing difficulties and even social issues such as bullying and feelings of isolation from not being able to participate in physical activities (Reilly, Methren, McDowell, Hacking, Alexander, Stewart & Kelnar, 2003).

Schools provide the ideal setting for the prevention of obesity due to the number of continual and concentrated access to a large number of individuals at a developmentally appropriate age (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010). Schools can provide students with structured play and learning opportunities for promoting healthy lifestyle choices. Teachers spend a large amount of time with students especially in the early years. They are looked up to for guidance and support from the students, therefore, teachers help to shape students attitudes and beliefs. The role of the teacher in addressing childhood obesity is to encourage and provide opportunity for development.

The environment we live in which includes the school environment is the perfect playground for making choices. If our environment shapes our choices then children are perfect targets for food advertisements. Teachers can take advantage of this dominant resource to educate students on good health and physical activity. It is vital that these advertisements promote good food choices, however, there is still a long way to go before junk food advertisements are taken away (Ashton, 2004).

Snacks should be a regular part of a child’s diet. Since young children’s stomachs are still small, they eat small meals. Most children need more than three meals each day. Snacks should be nutritious, not “junk” food. Good snacks include fruit, cheese, juices, popcorn, crackers with peanut butter, fresh carrots or celery, flavoured yogurt, and bread and butter (Child & Youth health, 2010).

Three ways a teacher could assist young children in addressing or preventing obesity include;

Activities for children- involve all children regardless of body weight, so that no one child feels singled out. According to Lumeng (2005) it’s not about being on a diet or restricting food, it is a whole lifestyle change that includes eating healthy food combined with daily physical activity. It may take several attempts before children are comfortable with physical activity. Try organising one afternoon each week before school ends where each child takes a turn to choose their favourite physical activity and everyone has the opportunity to participate. Teachers can use this opportunity to encourage those who are not athletically gifted or have health care issues. They can also follow up on any students they feel need extra support.

Assignments on good nutrition and physical activities – cut out pictures in magazines of healthy food and exercise. Encouraging children and leading by example is a powerful tool. Teachers can involve parents as well so that children learn which foods to eat or how much exercise to engage in. Display the cut outs on posters designed to encourage good food choices. If children look at them long enough they may start to identify these items and choose them over chocolate or chips (Emmel, 2005). Above all activities need to be fun and stimulating.

Implementing a quality schools meal program- this includes an overhaul of the schools canteen and what parents put in lunch boxes. Only making healthy food available during school hours will encourage students to make better choices. Adopting marketing techniques to promote healthy choices is a good way to get students excited about food. This can also extend to fundraising campaigns and vending machines on school grounds. Foods defined as having minimal nutritional value such as sugary lollies, salty chips and soft drinks should be eliminated from the menu (Rosenberg, 2005).

In conclusion, there is growing recognition of the need to establish positive attitudes to healthy lifestyle practices from an early age if obesity is to be reversed later on. Without a strong contribution from schools children can grow up to have body image and weight control issues. Children need to exercise to improve endurance, strength, flexibility and social skills focussing on self-improvement rather than on comparison to others. The teacher’s role is a preventive one which is designed to improve the lives of young people through physical activity and healthy eating to reduce the obesity pandemic of the students of today and in the future.

Physical development is usually very rapid early on in the child’s development. Within weeks of being born a baby will start to smile and respond to sounds and environments around them. By 6 months as their muscles begin to develop they will reach for and hold objects which they will also put into their mouths.

By one year old they are beginning to crawl or shuffle, pulling or pushing on furniture to stand and then explore using furniture or adults for support. Sitting has progressed to unaided and they are rolling from their front to their back.

They are beginning to be curious with objects, passing them between hands, handling them in different ways and looking for things that are hiding. Their hand to eye co-ordination improves as items are passed from hand to hand. Their first teeth may start to appear and solid foods may start to be introduced.

Between one and two years walking will begin and toys will start to be pulled/pushed along whilst walking. Objects will be picked up and banged together or built to make a small tower. A preference for one hand may start to appear as they begin to hold crayons etc when mark making on paper.

They enjoy trying to feed themselves both with finger foods and with a spoon, and will drink from a cup with both hands.

Waving goodbye becomes fun, they will begin to point to what they want and shake their head to mean ‘no’.

Between the ages of 2 and 3 mark making on paper will progress to scribbles as they begin to use pencils etc. Balls start to be kicked and thrown. Bricks will be built into larger towers than before, and they will start to experiment with liquids in play by pouring.

At 3 years children begin to gain more independence. Their mobility and climbing skills will be advancing as they run, jump, catch, walk up and down stairs etc. Dexterity increases with small objects like puzzles, threading beads etc. Dressing and undressing will be assisted but more cooperative.

At 4 years boys gross motor skills tend to be more developed when it comes to throwing and aiming, building, climbing, pedalling etc, whereas girls fine motor skills tend to be more developed with the use of scissors, holding a pencil to draw and colour threading small beads sewing stitches etc.

At 5 years children will have more pencil control and will begin to copy letters and shapes, and draw people.

Ball games will develop more structure as they begin to kick with aim. They will begin to learn to hop on one foot, then the other and also to skip.

At 6 years dressing becomes independent at they learn to do buttons, laces etc. Writing becomes more fluent as copying letter shapes has progressed to words and sentences with greater pencil control.

Confidence has increased when playing outside in climbing, jumping from heights and riding a bike.

At 7 years children begin to enjoy playing team games as they are now hitting a ball, running, jumping, skipping, swinging. However until around the age of 9 they may misjudge their ability.

The age between 12 and 19, between childhood and adulthood is referred to as adolescence. Physical development during this period is very different in each child.

As some may be just beginning to mature physically, others may have already reached full physical maturity.

Sequence is the order that development happens in.

Rate is the speed that it happens for example:

sequence = a baby’s physical development may begin with rolling over then sit up, crawl, walk, run. Another may sit up, walk, run missing out rolling over & crawling. Even though elements are missed the development still proceeds in what’s viewed as an expected pattern.

rate = where one baby may achieve walking unaided at 10 months another may accomplish it at 12 months another at 16 months.

This is important because sequence is needed in order to plan effectively for children, looking at rate of development is also essential to help us to know weather a child’s rate of development is at the correct stage for their age group.

Task 2

There is a range of external and personal factors that influence the development in children and young peoples life’s:

Personal factors such as, health and disability. Health is determined by our genes , diet, environment and stress. Some children may be born with a condition that will automatically effect their life’s, such as a blood disorder. Disability can also effect a child’s development, for example if a child has a hearing impairment they may not be able to learn properly in school unless they have help from an adult.

External factors can also influence a child’s development such as, poverty and diet. Poverty affects children and their families in many different ways. Families living in poverty may not be able to afford good food which leads to poor diet. Having a poor diet can affect a child’s growth, behaviour and development.

Current practice is influenced by theories of development, such as:

aˆ? Cognitive (e.g. Piaget)

aˆ? Psychoanalytic (e.g Freud)

aˆ? Humanist (e.g. Maslow)

aˆ? Social Learning (e.g.Bandura)

aˆ? Operant conditioning (e.g. Skinner)

aˆ? Behaviourist (e.g. Watson)

Cognitive

Vygotsky like piaget posited children learn from hand on experiences. However unlike piaget he claimed that timely and sensitive invention by adults when children are learning a new task (zone of proximal development) could help children to learn new tasks. Vygotsky also stressed the importance of social interaction he felt other children can guide each other’s development as well as adults. Vygotsky also thought that children needed to be active in their own learning and that play is important for holistic learning.

Humanist

Abraham Maslow hierarchy of needs need to be met for a child to reach full potential take anything away from that and child might never reach their potential. This is taken into account daily with the child centred care and holistic approach to child care and well being. Practitioners need to look at the environmental factors such as warmth, food clothes as well as the psychological needs like promoting self esteem, and love.

Behaviourist
Bandura

Showed that children learnt through copying and observing, this can be applied today as if an early years worker with demonstrates an activity the child can learn to do it through copying. Or if a child has a good role model then they are likely to copy the behaviour. But if they see bad behaviour then they will copy the bad behaviour.

Behaviourist
Skinner

Skinners operant conditioning negative and positive reinforcement, this theory can be applied though stickers praise and reward for good behaviour and through disapproval, time out and ignoring unwanted behaviour.

Psychoanalytical
Freud

Freud’s work may not be proven but Freud’s work with unconscious actions and peoples mind skills are still used like when a child tells a lie they smile or put their hand over their mouths as if to stop the lie.

John Bowlby

Worked on attachment theories which are used in the day to day practice in education and social care at all stages they are given key workers who they build strong attachments to this helps children make transitions in their lives and to be able to make lasting friendships.

Frameworks support development including

aˆ? Social pedagogy

Social pedagogy

Is a practice concerned with human beings learning, well being and inclusion to society treating children in a child centred way and a holistic way making sure that every child’s needs are met especially those who are in need.

Task 3

There are many ways to monitor children and young people’s development, for example:

Observation: Observations can be taken during lessons or in the playground. They record what the child is doing in a subjective way. It’s most appropriate to use this method when child’s development is causing concern.

Assessment framework: It is the way in which child is assessed to decide whether they have any particular needs and what these needs may be. It is useful in deciding whether the child is reaching expected milestones of development in different areas. The assessment framework is how children are assessed in school, for example when a child reads; we write it in their reading records.

Information from colleagues and carers: Parents/carers who know the child and colleagues expertise are invaluable, especially when planning for social and academic success for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. If we are concerned about child’s development it’s good to ask/share information.

Disability can affect several areas of development at the same time but early support might help minimise the effects of the disability.

Emotional reasons, if a child is not settled and having good attachments they are more likely to have low confidence and self esteem they might not try new tasks and have a lack of motivation.

Physical development might be effected by genetics this can mean physical growth difficulties or may be the child might be a slower learner.

Environmental, there are many reasons that can effect child development like poverty, where a child lives, education and their family structure can effect a child’s development.

Culturally how people bring up their children can differ vastly like in china a girl is deemed second class to a boy. Other cultures have restrictions on children’s freedoms this can adversely affect the child’s development.

Social reasons are that for children born into poverty and families whose parents are separated are likely to have negative effects of children’s development or if a family might give less time to activities which aid children’s developments like a lack of play this can also effect child development.

Learning difficulties children might have these due to genetic diseases, birth difficulties, and cognitive difficulties or might just have difficulties with writing or reading.

Communication may be affected by medical reasons such as hearing impairment or being tongue tied. These can cause communication problems, children who have communication needs find it hard to express themselves and can show aggressive behaviour when frustrated. Children who experience communication needs might have problems with reading and writing.

Speech and language can help children overcome most of their problems. By helping children gain the ability to use language they can help children gain confidence and self esteem I have seen this in my setting with children who have had communication and language needs. These children have gained confidence and their language is now at a level that they can interact with other children and not show frustration. This is because they can now express themselves.

The Senco in an educational setting give support to children and families with special needs this person/s is also responsible for identification of special needs.

Additional learning support staff works within and outside schools providing a range of services to help children who have certain specific educational needs. This might include people like teaching assistants or advisors to provide support and train staff.

Youth justice this is based on children with behavioural problems these people will work with them and social workers to help them.

Social workers are there to help vulnerable children and young people and their families this might include children on the child protection register or disabled children.

Psychologist is a professional who helps support children who have learning or behavioural difficulties. They provide teachers and practitioners with aimed support programmes for that child once they have identified the child’s needs.

A specialist nurse provides support for the family and child especially if that child suffers from medical conditions that need specialist care Also health visitors come under this title for measuring and assessing a child’s development .

A psychiatrist is a doctor who is trained in mental health problems this person works alongside other professionals to help diagnose or support children and young people with mental health problems.

Physiotherapist this professional help children with their movement especially those who have little or no movement they are trained to get the maximum movement and skill level. Referrals can take the shape of common assessment form which are filled in then in my setting passed upstairs to the health visitor, speech therapist or other health professionals that are required after being checked by the senco in the room.

Speech and language also have their own referral forms which will be filled in and checked by the senco before being passed to the speech and language therapists.

Early years action plans and plus plans are filled out and passed to the senco who will then speak to an education psychologist. With primary and secondary schools they also have school action plans which will be run through their senco and the school run individual learning plans.

Task 4

All young Children’s brains are still developing as they grow. Early identification can change the impact of any difficulty if support is provided early enough. Finding ways for children to communicate is vital for their emotional well-being as some children who have language and communication difficulties can become isolated or may develop antisocial behaviours.

once parents and carers have identified that a child needs additional support, a multi-agency approach may be used. If the parent/carer goes to see their health visitor or gp they will then help to make an appropriate referral, this may just be to help rule out hearing or visual impairments. In some cases the gp might refer the child directly to a speech and language service. Some children may need to be assessed by an educational psychologist. Once it is established what kind of support a child needs the right approach can then be carried out in order for parents and the setting to work together.

Children learn their language and communication skills by being around adults and other children especially whilst they are having fun. When children are playing and doing activities that interest them they are usually used to help support their development, language and speech because they’re being motivated; for example singing a nursery rhyme with children this will encourage speech movements and will be more engaging for the child instead of just having to repeat the movements in isolation.

Task 5

There are different types of transitions that can affect children and young people such as

aˆ? Emotional – personal experiences such as parent’s separating, bereavement, begining or leaveing a place of care.

aˆ? Physical – change in environments

aˆ? Intellectual – moving from one educational establishment to another.

aˆ? Physiological – puberty or medical conditions

An example of a transition that could affect a child could be starting a before or afterschool club, this could affect a child because they may not know any other children at the setting and also may not know any of the staff, there for it could lead to the child being anxious and scared about meeting new people. A way to resolve this is to make sure the child is entering a friendly environment and be sure to introduce them to the other children and adults so that they feel more comfortable in the setting and also maybe ask another child to show them around and be their “buddy” to help them settle in. Also the child may be given a key person to help form a positive relationship with. The idea behind a key person is so that a child has that one person who they should feel they can go to and feel secure within their company. The key person should have a warm relationship with the child and be able to reassure them should they need to, also the key person will monitor the child’s reactions in their new situation as this can provide a warning in some cases where this transition is not temporary.

Parents today don’t realize that the harm that they are doing to their children will eventually be passed down from generation to generation; their children are todays abused tomorrow’s abusers. Obviously, parents or guardians will not understand the impact that is caused to their child until they acknowledging there child’s choice in life style. In particular, child abuse is a mistreatment of a child by a parent or guardian, including neglect, beating, and, sexual molestation (Salus). Child abuse has an enormous impact among many families globally because child abuse is a detrimental aspect of a child’s life as well as the developmental stages in a child’s life, which would cause them to have physical, psychological, or behavioral consequences as they grow. Therefore, the maltreatment and neglect in child abuse is a causative factor in youth suicide, crime, homeless, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse as well as unemployment in a victims life span (info,….).

In particular, there are parents, guardians and even caregivers that would imply that an injury resulting from abuse is accidental because they did not intended to hurt the child. For example, some guardians that discipline there children could be abusing them psychologically or even physically (Asseal). Additionally, people would think that the way they discipline a child is perfectly fine because they want them to learn how to do it the proper way (Bissel). The parental or guardian will always try to make the right choice which would be either to let it go or punish the child. To summarize, people will never know how much the discipline or punishment can lead to in the long run. My expository thesis statement is child abuse is an enormous problem among many families globally because child abuse is a detrimental aspect of a child’s life as well as the developmental stages in a child’s life, which would cause them to have physical, psychological, or behavioral consequences as they grow. Indeed, many people say that child abuse should be legal because an injury resulting from physical abuse is not accidental the parent or caregiver may not have intended to hurt the child. However, child abuse shouldn’t be legalize under any certain circumstance because children can end up with physical, psychological or even behavioral consequences.

Initially, child abuse should not be legalized under any circumstance because as children get older they can generate a physical consequence. It is stated that physical abuse is among of the top three largest types of child abuse that affect the children globally. For instance, during 2003 18.9 percent of children were physically abused (Services,…). Likewise, more than one-quarter of children who had been in foster care for longer than 12 months had some lasting or recurring health problem (Bissell). As a result it has been shown, in some cases, to cause important regions of the brain to fail to form or grow properly, resulting in impaired development (Bissell). In some cases the physical effects are temporary; however, the pain and suffering they cause a child should not be discounted (Families,..). The immediate physical effects of abuse can be relatively minor like bruises or cuts or severe where there are broken bones, hemorrhage, or even death (Bissell). If this type of abuse can be prevented it should be prevented because every day three out of ten children die. Studies also state that child abuse would affect a child’s young development and are prone to physical consequences. Whereas, if the child have extremely abusive guardians the child will tends to end up with physical consequences. In summation, if children have physical consequence due the child abuse, we don’t we do more to prevent it?

Next child abuse has different consequences such as psychological which affect a child’s development mentally. Furthermore, research shows that children that are abuse will have one of the psychological consequences. About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological consequence (Salus). To illustrate, as many as 80 percent of young adults who had been abused met the diagnostic criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder at age 21 (Salus). In addition, these young adults exhibited many problems, including anxiety, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and posttraumatic stress disorder (service, …). The immediate emotional effects of abuse and neglect isolation, fear, and an inability to trust can translate into lifelong consequences, including low self-esteem, depression, and relationship difficulties (Salus). Depression and withdrawal symptoms were common among children as young as 3 who experienced emotional, physical, or environmental neglect (information,…). Due to abuse the child can have a dramatic impact on a child when they are young which means as they get older they can develop a psychological consequence. Obviously, children who experience rejection or neglect are more likely to develop antisocial traits as they grow up (PerantalRights.org). Children that have a psychological consequence due to child abuse have problems opening up to people. As a result, of child abuse that leads to psychological consequences is this research worth the cost?

For children globally, that have been abused will have behavioral consequences as they grow older. In other words, they will not know how to control the life nor the choices they are making along the way. Due to the abusers, in the long run children that have been abused will more likely appear to have behavioral consequences at a young age and as they get older. Consequently, children who experience child abuse and neglect are 59 percent more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28 percent more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30 percent more likely to commit violent crime (Bissell). In particular, studies have shown that abused and neglected children are at least 25 percent more likely to experience problems such as delinquency, teen pregnancy, low academic achievement, drug use, and mental health problems (Dawkins). Similarly, the possible consequence of child abuse can vary on the circumstance of the child’s form of abuse (Familie,…). According to a National Institute of Justice study, abused and neglected children were 11 times more likely to be arrested for criminal behavior as a juvenile and 3.1 times more likely to be arrested for one of many forms of violent crime (Asseal). Research consistently reflects an increased likelihood that abused and neglected children will smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or take illicit drugs during their lifetime (Claims…). Even though people don’t think that a behavioral consequence is possible due to child abuse it is and it will affect the child in a young stage of their life. Therefore, child abuse should be controlled so that children do not have to go through all these up’s and down with all their wrong choices.

In conclusion, child abuse shouldn’t be legalized under any certain circumstance for the reason that children can end up with physical, psychological or even behavioral consequences. Furthermore, child abuse has a great contribution in many families globally, as a result of child abuse which is be a detrimental aspect in a child’s life as well as in their developmental stages. Since, child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education. Taking one simple action and reporting child abuse will help prevent a child from being abuse. As well as giving those whom have been abused hope for a brighter future. However, child abuse does not go away, but 90 percent of those who are abused are preventable. For instance, if a parent would stop and just think for a minute about the consequences that may occur to the child in the long run, they would not think of abusing the child. Therefore, there would be just one less child being abused.

Abstract

The objectivity of this study is to improve the challenging behavior among the children in early stages of the education and the impact of behavior modification therapy for improvement in the challenging behaviors due to dsygraphia. The hypothesis of the study the implementation of behavior modification techniques gives satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia. The study will be conducted in the schools of twin cities of Pakistan (Islamabad and Rawalpindi). This study will helpful in improving handwriting skills and overcome to the behavior issues. For the evaluation the Functional Behavioral Assessment, Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children – 4th Edition (WISC-IV) and Handwriting Assessment by The McMaster Handwriting Assessment Protocol 2nd edition shall be used. The implementation of behavior modification techniques shall be applied after the evaluation.

Keywords: behavior modification therapy, challenging behavior, Dsygraphia,
Introduction

According to Ormrod J.E Students with learning disabilities have average or above average score on intelligence test. But sometime they experience difficulty with one or more specific aspects of information processing (2009). There are 30% to 40% primary and secondary school-aged students are usually facing handwriting problems. Because of emotional, social and academic, consequences that they can usually impose on the examination of such difficulties are important. These common problems are increasing the tendency of handwriting difficulties and behavior issues in children.

The dsygraphia is characterized as a writing disorder which is associated with the writing impairment. In children, the disorder generally emerges when they are firstly introduced to writing. The term behavior refers as person response internally and externally. The challenging behavior can be attention seeking tantrums, aggressiveness and uncooperative behavior. Handwriting difficulty or dysgraphia was defined by Hamstra-Bletz & Blote (1993) as a difficulty in the production of written language which is associated with of writing impairment. Challenging behaviors give the impression to the parents-child relationship and parents become very conscious while interacting with their children. The dsygraphia or written languages learning disability including problems are copying the correct words and letters, consistence and neatness while writing, spelling consistency and written organization. The challenging behavior of the children are faced by the families, teachers and other individual and even children themselves, when they are unable to behave in the peer group and in their surrounding they often become frustrated, defeated and overwhelmed.

Behavior modification is a using a principals of learning and cognition to understand and changing the behavior of an individual. Behavior modification is an empirically demonstrated of behavior change techniques. Behavior modification therapy is very beneficial for children and successful than in adults. Due to the reason children are in a stage of forming their self-identity. The term behavior modification firstly appears by Edward Thorndike in 1911. His article Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning makes frequent use of the term “modifying behavior. The principals of Behaviorism into the classroom setting and the individual with challenging behavior, there are group of procedures collectively known as behavior modification (Ormrod J.E, 2009).

When children are not facing academic problem orally but in the written expression such as, difficult spellings, word utterance and child wants to write but unable to write. There are some possibilities that, the child may be unable to think that’s why they are unable express in written expression. Usually the children with dsygraphia able to express themselves verbally, but unable to write at a level that reflects the complexity of their thoughts. It is the children themselves that feel challenged by the situation they find themselves in; feeling frustrated, misunderstood and sometimes made to feel lazy and unexpressive in the front of adults and also the teachers who should be supporting them. If the adults around these children change their own behavior towards the children and become empathetic and supportive then the child no longer needs to feel all those negative things.

Behavior therapy focuses on the changing desire behavior, it can involve the maladaptive behavior which can be modified with help of behavior modification therapy. The study conducted by Crouch & Jukubecy (2007), simple the address the dysgraphia on a single subject to intervention in literacy instruction and motor skills. The researchers implemented handwriting and letter naming drills, as well as occupational therapeutic techniques for improvement the fine motor skills. As a results written expression slightly improved.

Another study conducted by B. E. Yeger, L.N.Yanuv and S. Rosenblum (2009) based on children perceived self- efficacy self-reporting and handwriting performance due to the dsygraphia. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between children’s performance about the writing skills and self reports, their handwriting expression and motor-perceived self-efficacy. The study conducted on Twenty-one children with dsygraphia for evaluation through Computerized Penmanship Evaluation Tool and Questionnaire for Handwriting Proficiency (CHaP) and the Perceived Efficacy and Goal Setting System (PEGS). After the evaluation of the children were able to identify and report the handwriting deficiency which and facilitated with occupational therapy intervention in class.

Behavior Modification is a type of behavioral therapy, in which principles of Operant Conditioning are used to eliminate some type of unwanted, maladaptive, behavior. Its treatment procedures and techniques are ways of rearranging an individual’s environment, to help individual function more fully in society. For example, a child is showing tantrum while writing, so every time a favorite piece of candy can use as reinforcement, for modifying the behavior with maladaptive behavior replaced. Every time child throws tantrum candy use as reward.

The behavioral therapy plays a vital role in the field of psychotherapy, the cognitive behavioral therapy one of them. Jafari A.S.A and Heidari.F (2012) investigated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the improvement of self-perception among gifted students with learning disorder. They focused on the cognitive-behavioral therapy efficiency and the improvement of self-perception among the gifted students with learning disorders. They evaluated the learning disorder through Wechsler intelligence scale for children on twenty eight students. Experimentation was conducted and cognitive-behavioral therapy administered on experimental group. The finding of experimentation was that the cognitive-behavioral therapy plays an important role for the improvement of self-perception among gifted students with learning disorder.

Aphasia is acquired language disorder due to brain damage. Rapp.B and Glucroft.B (2009) had been done a little research on the behavioral therapeutic techniques can useful for the aphasic with the dysgraphia. The Individuals with the aphasia has a language impairment which id directed associated with written language impairment. The main objective of this study was to evaluated the role and impact of behavioral intervention for dysgraphia because of primary progressive aphasia. The conclusion of this study was that the first time the behavioral intervention can give benefit to improvement in dysgraphia due to primary progressive aphasia.

Dysgraphia is an important aspect which is responsible in some contexts of challenging behaviors in the children. When they feel handwriting disorder become fun in front of their peer group and become an embracement for their parents children usually throw the tantrum and attention seeking behavior.

Another unique study by Adi-Japha, Shalev, Landau, , Gross-Tsur, Teicher, & Frenkel (2005) conducted an experimental design on ADHD students with the writing and spelling deficiencies and also identified dysgraphia. In the study the sample used for an experimental group alone with 20 male students diagnosed ADHD and in the control group 20 non-ADHD male students. The test applied, for speed, fluency and letter naming were given as a Reading tests, along with a spelling test. The analysis of the tests was for motor pattern errors, graphemic errors, and spatial disorders. Motor production was tested by having students write words with repetition. The Results indicated that both experimental group and control group performed same in speed, reading letter naming and phoneme manipulation. The experimental group performed well on the reading assessment as compared to spelling. They also omitted and transposed letters in all tests. The writing skills were inconsistent in letter and word production and font size. The experimenter concluded that word formation and spelling deficiency was due to non-linguistic deficiencies in processing and attention, and only minor affected by motor skill deficiency. The ADHD students required a special attention and additional instructional help on written expression. The use of spell-check programs for spelling deficiencies and an implementation of word processing software to aid in letter formation were suggested.

The children facing emotional difficulty in writing during class room settings, they often face emotional factors. Things are getting worse for them day by day. Usually during school work, when the child is unable to copy from board and class work remains unfinished and incomplete, usually the child experience frustration.

Methodology
Problem statement:

Can the techniques of behavior modification therapy play a vital role for improvement of challenging behavior in children with dsygraphia?

Objectivity

Due to these academic, emotional and social consequences the children are facing difficulties in learning abilities and having behavior issues. The purpose of this study is to help children for investigation and improvement in their behavior issues due to dsygraphia or poor handwriting with the help of techniques of behavioral modification therapy. It is also helpful for the teachers whose are dealing with these behaviors, they can improve their skills for handle these challenging behaviors in classroom setting and improve the handwriting in children with the help of behavior modification techniques.

Significance of this study

The Significance of this study is helpful for children’s improvement in the handwriting skills and overcome the behavior issues. It also helps children to learning the coping strategies of overcoming their behavioral issues by themselves. They come to know about their capabilities in written communication and convert the thoughts into the written expression.

Hypothesis

The implementation of behavior modification techniques gives satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia.

The implementation of behavior modification techniques does not give satiability in challenging behavior of children due to dsygraphia.

Procedure

This study will be conducted in different schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi (Pakistan). Through the participant Observation Functional Behavioral Assessment, behavioral intervention plans, and positive intervention will be use for the evaluation the challenging behaviors. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children – 4th Edition (WISC-IV) and Handwriting Assessment of The McMaster Handwriting Assessment Protocol 2nd edition shall be use for evaluation of dsygraphia.

The structured interview will be conduct with parents and teachers. After the diagnosis the behavioral modification therapeutic techniques will be applied on children with challenging behavioral issues due to dsygraphia. There shall be total 10 school finalized. From each school 10 students shall be taken 5 girls and 5 boys from third grade to sixth grade. After the assessment only 10 students shall be a part of therapeutic sessions for three months. The re-evaluation also will be conducted in the end for assessing the improvement in behavior and hand writing skills.

Participants

Ten different students of third grade to sixth grade shall be randomly select for the assessments from ten different schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Ten girls and boys shall be part of this study from different schools. After the completion of evaluation, the therapeutic sessions for three months 5 boys and 5 girls shall be a part of the further study.

Setting

The study will be conducted within the regular classroom and separate room for therapeutic implementations.

Research design

The design of a study will be descriptive, based on identification and implementations of the behavior modification techniques.

Results

The results shall be explained in the description.

Discussion

Behavior modification is very useful and empirically demonstration of behavior change techniques. It is usually used to modify the behaviors according to the environment. The behavior of an individual can be modified through the positive and negative reinforcement. All behaviors have some set of consistent rules. Behavior modification techniques can develop method of defining, observing, and measuring behaviors, and it can also design an effective interventions. Behavior modification techniques always has solutions for managing challenging behavior and those behaviors can be change , shaped and maintained by the consequences of that behavior.

Due to the dsygraphia the effective teacher training shall be very useful for these individuals. The various activates such as, an active listening, communication and interpersonal skills training for individuals who are very helpful for those whose are facing learning difficulties. The teachers should know about the students who have handwriting difficulties. The children can experience the fearful situation and become very insecure. They can also experience failure, and shameful attitudes from parents and adults. Children usually hide their academic weakness and start cheating. The parents need counseling and training in application of behavioral techniques for modification and changing their own behavior towards their children.

The skinner’s theories of reinforcement play a large role in the education discipline and for the student achievement. An impact on education his theories have been utilized for many years and play a useful role in behavior modification. Reinforcement is a positive way to achieve the goal in classroom setting and even individually if the individual facing is learning difficulties.

“In announcing on Monday that her daughter Bristol was five months pregnant, Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for a running mate, added a quick qualification that might, in another era, have eliminated the potential for embarrassment: The 17-year-old girl was to be married to the 18-year-old father of the baby”. (Kershaw, 2008)

“He would be the gentleman, she would be the lady, and with the backing of a strong family they would do what was expected of them”. Since Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin announced her daughter is pregnant, teen marriage and teen pregnancy have been hot topics among parents. But it is teenage marriage today, not teenage pregnancy that is the rarity.

Why am I writing paper on such a topic? Well I will tell you why. I chose to write my paper on teen marriages because I am very interested in how the teens get themselves early into the institution of marriage and face problems later. I’m also interested in why they divorce at such an early time in their marriage. The age and the reason of marrying today have changed dramatically over the years. Many young people today are starting to get married at a very young ages and they are doing it all for wrong reasons.

Young generations today rush into marriage without even understanding what they are getting into. Marriage is a lifetime commitment which the teenagers don’t take seriously. Today’s teenagers don’t believe in the name of trust, faith and love. Teenage marriage has become a challenge in the today’s era.

Instead of just talking about how much fun it will be to live together, talk about the aspects of daily life that won’t be so much fun, and how you will deal with that. Some teens want to get married because they feel that it will give them more control over their partner to crush a lot of jealousy issues. One should understand that marriage is a partnership, it’s not about control. Various reasons leading to teen marriage would be pregnancy, freedom, ensuring relationship, religion, living in together, etc. As a consequence of which, teen marriage serves to be a problem when a couple has disagreements over money, over children and also physical or mental abuse.

Today’s youngsters are married young, but their marriage doesn’t last as long. For example, my friends, Mehraze and his ex wife Khushnaz, married at the age of 17, but they are divorced at the age of 19. Their marriage lasted for just 2 years after they realized that their love for each other was just a toss. According to me, they should not have thought of marriage at that age and that time of their life. Both of them were busy in their own lives and both had decided their future goals. Neither of them had thought of getting married at 17. They took such a step because they thought that they were in love and should just go ahead and take an extra step to get married.

I am not saying that getting married at such a young age is wrong. What I am against are the reasons which one chooses to get married. Reasons mentioned earlier are not enough. People take love as a reason for granted, on which most of the marriages are based on. But, unfortunately, it’s not.

“Oh no, there’s a baby on the way. We have to get married”. This is one of the topmost reasons for getting married. Teen pregnancy rate is very high in U.S. Christie Silvers wrote in her article “Can a teen marriage last?” that in the U.S “there are 1.3 million babies born out-of-wedlock each year. Of course this doesn’t include all of the babies born in a teen marriage”. “Overall, 71.5 pregnancies per 1000 women aged 15-19 occurred in 2006”. (Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2010). Guys normally think that if they get their girlfriend pregnant, then it’s their responsibility to marry and take care of her, which should never be the case. If you are not ready enough to take the big step of getting married and supporting each other, the feeling of taking care of your child should not come to mind. This will only cause confusion for the child and may in turn lead the child to hate their parents. Marriage is not a solution to an unplanned pregnancy.

In the book called Teens at risk, Isabel Sawhill argues that encouraging teenage parents to marry will not solve the problems associated with teen pregnancy. She grants that children fare better when their parents are married than when they are not married, but notes that teenage marriages have an extremely high failure rate. In addition, she claims that by focusing their efforts on getting teen parents to wed, government programs fail to address why teenagers get pregnant in the first place. The best way to reduce the problems associated with teenage pregnancy, according to Sawhill, is to encourage abstinence, but also to teach teens about birth control.

Births to teens have increased in recent years. “10% (Ten percent) of all U.S. births are to teens”. (Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2010). According to the data from the Natality Data Sets, National Vital Statistics System, “Teenagers accounted for 23% of nonmarital births in 2007”.

Another most common reason for the teens to consider marriage is freedom. They want to get out of their parent’s home. Most teens do not like listening to their parents and feel they know more than their parents. Teenagers don’t like the rules set by our parents. They have a feeling that parents expect a lot from them. If parents have denial for certain person, they might have their own reasons why they think that way. However, many teenagers fail to understand that their parents are really trying to help them. They think that parents are making their life miserable and not giving them enough freedom. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the importance of parents.

Being married is definitely not about freedom. A person has a lot of responsibility including household work, paying bills, etc. and most importantly responsibility and commitment to another person. If couple argues, none can just walk away and leave home. You won’t have the liberty to go in and out as you did before because other person will also be involved in his/her decisions.

Some teens may also want to marry to ensure their relationship. They may feel that marriage would not lead the other person to ditch them. Well, that is not the case. The high divorce rates are sufficient enough to nullify this assumption. “Figures released from the National Center for Health Statistics found nearly half of marriages in which the bride is 18 or younger end in separation or divorce within 10 years”. (Chan, 2002) Eleanor H. Ayer’s writes in her book, Teen Marriage, that: “A girl married at 17 is twice as likely to be divorced as a girl 18 or 19. If a girl waits until she is 25 the chances that her marriage will last are 4 times better.

Another reason why people marry so young may be because of religious reasons. This means having sex the right way. They figure out that if they are going to have sex then they might do it the right way by getting married. This should not be the reason for getting married. Marriage should be based on how much you love each other and not expecting something from each other. Marriages don’t succeed this way.

Another different reason for teen marriage would be of living in together. Teen may want to live in together before marriage but their parents may not agree to the same. This reason would sometimes encourage their parents to sign the papers for their children to get married because they fear the teens will live together anyway.

Tradition and cultures in some countries have also led to teen marriage. For example, the Brahmin community in India is known to practice early marriages. In this community, a girl is searched for a suitable suitor the moment she is born. The girl’s family negotiates for dowry and once the girl is eleven or twelve, she is forced into early marriages to perhaps a man of forty of fifty years. This trend is however on a decline with the government passing “The Child Marriage Restrain Act, 1929”.

Some marriages work and some don’t. Today’s generation live their lives differently. Many marriages between the ages of 16-21 usually don’t last very long. The reason is nothing but the rush for marriage without realizing the outcomes of it. For example: When teenagers under the age of 18 get married, they are just leaving their parents care and are not accustomed t taking care of themselves such as paying bills, groceries, car insurance, etc. Money is the most common which leads to divorce among young adults. Things change when one gets married. Never rush into marriage if you are not ready otherwise the worst is the future. The happiness of the marriage may not last longer when one understands and recognizes the consequences of it.

The first and the main problem that shakes a teen marriage are over money. Marriage consumes money and time of both the partners. According to an old saying, “Money does not buy happiness” but the fact can’t be ignored that tight monetary situations could create tensions between couples. Youngsters will have to set up a home of their own and bear all the costs of running the house and taking care of the family. They generally do not like to take help from their parents as they have decided to venture out on their own. It is not easy for teens to bear all the financial expenses at such an early age, as they are not so educated to earn a lot of money. As a consequence of which teen marriage turns out to be a costly affair. Also, if one person is frugal and the other is free-spending, the conflict that arises can be extremely difficult to manage.

Financial problems in a teen marriage would often lead to them staying in poverty. Living in poverty would affect the future offspring of the teenage couple. The health and psychological states of the children of teen couples would be affected. It is important to think carefully before getting into an early relationship so that such monetary problems can’t destroy what could otherwise be a very beautiful relationship.

Unplanned pregnancy is the most common problem that the teenagers face. Teen’s body is not ready for pregnancy at such a young age which may be dangerous for the mother. Brides of early marriage are at an extremely high risk for fistulas and they have a higher risk of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases and at an increased risk of chronic anemia and obesity. Francis Hosein states in his article, “Relationship – Teen Marriages” that “Some teens are having sex at an early age of 12 and becoming pregnant and having kids.” He further states to “imagine kids having kids and they (many of them) are having difficulty in taking responsibility for raising their children”.

Lack of experience in bringing up children could generate ill-feelings towards each other. Having to live on their own and with no guidance from adults can cause much strain on the young couple, who have to handle children at an early age. Young women don’t do very well when raising a family. The responsibility that comes in with the birth of a new life is not tolerated by the teens. How can they be responsible for their child if they are not settled in their own lives?

Another problem faced by the teenagers is that of physical and mental abuse. Physical abuse in the context of dating relationships includes punching, biting, slapping, stabbing, and any other method that one person can use to physically harm another with or without the aid of a weapon. Teens at this age are not mature enough. Immaturity often becomes a cause for a broken marriage. Lack of personal maturity can make it difficult for teenagers to handle situations. They often quarrel over petty issues, and sometimes end up in an early divorce. Lack of maturity or self confidence and trust may also lead to jealousy and anger. Jealousy becomes a sufficient reason for broken marriage. Trust is the key in any relationship. Young teen brains are still maturing and they are working through the different steps of growth. Household problems may often lead to physical abuse, which may in turn lead to an unsuccessful marriage.

The next issue that they are likely to face is the problem of housing. Where are they going to live? Will they have enough money to buy or rent a house? Then the realization comes that marriage in their teens would involve the taking up of adult responsibilities and giving up the joys of youth. Teenagers lose out on fun and play by marrying early. Since they have to shoulder responsibility at an early age, they do not have time for leisure and relaxation. Emotional and psychological stress due to inexperience can create disharmony between the young couple. Handling everything on own at such an early age can be difficult and demanding.

Another important problem arising out of teenage marriage is that the teens have to give up on their education after marriage. They are unable to get the time to devote for studies. They miss out on many opportunities in life on account of this. The added responsibilities of family budget deprive them of focusing on their education. Lack of education also doesn’t provide teenagers with good employment opportunities. The partners would have a hard time looking for a well-paying job to support a family because of the absence of a diploma. They are not offered with high paid jobs, since their education level is low.

Teenagers should take into consideration that marriage comes in with lots of responsibilities and that handling these responsibilities is not easy. Teenagers feel very grown up and decide their life on their own. They often feel marriage can strengthen their relationship and solve the problem of teenage pregnancy. It all sounds very cool, but definitely there are many problems to be faced. They would be an added burden to the society if they do not consider the implications of such an early marriage.

Involving into marriage is a real adjustment and even a significant challenge for many couples. Think about yourself at 15. How much had you changed by 18? By 21? By 25? Those 10 years between 15 and 25 are so critical to learning, to development of one’s self, and to life success. It is easy to see why those who attempt the giant step of marriage in the same time period may well be in for a rough road ahead.

The Department of Health and Human Services is showing efforts to reduce teen pregnancies through abstinence from sex. The department initiated programs such as the abstinence education program, grants for community-based abstinence education, adolescent family life program, community coalition prevention demonstrations, and school-based prevention work groups, among others (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).

According to Christie Silvers, teens should consider some premarital counseling. This would help them take an important decision whether they should be married or not. She also states that the prospective bride and the groom should talk to other experienced teens. This would give them insight on what consequences would their marriage have. She also suggests reading teenage books as a handy solution.

Teenagers do become responsible with time. They do eventually grow and change. Some will grow apart once they are older. Some will learn that they really did not love their spouse as much as they thought they did. Some may also regret the decision of getting married.

The best way to deal with this problem is to wait until you are older, mature and more established in life. One doesn’t want to regret the feeling of lost teen days. One should consider all the fun things that one gets to do if one marries few years later in life. Marrying young won’t make one feel what it’s like to live by oneself or to do things with friends that one won’t do as a couple.

It’s not necessary that teen marriage has to fail. But getting married is not a game. As a stated fact, life is tough for married teens. So it’s a wise decision to be taken in the end. If you enter this phase of life slowly and know what to expect, then teen marriages can be as successful as other marriages.

The most important reasons of this phenomena are poverty, ignorance and poor living conditions, lack of adequate health care, in addition to housing in densely populated areas, It does not have the necessary services where children are forced and under these circumstances to escape to the street, where awaits them criminals who influence them direct their behavior and orientation and often delinquency and homelessness and begging and all that away from parental care and guidance, and the children who are leaving their villages to the cities in search of a living often find themselves vulnerable to delinquency and begging and homelessness due to the scarcity of jobs and lack of competencies educational and the absence of a designated work ,care and guidance Add to these factors prominently the emergence of the child in the family of disjointed decadent moral child who lives atmosphere family decadent whether caused by deviation father or mother must and it will be influenced by and pay towards deviation and homelessness and begging and do not forget here the role of the school, which plays a key role in the proper direction and care, and also the media of books and magazines and radio and television affect children if its purpose is just profit only in exchange for pornographic images and propaganda rave and programs falling and downlink films that often influence children and lead them toward mimicry of delinquency ..

Staggering statistics and other floating and innovative methods in begging and vagrancy invade the streets of Arab cities:

Egypt considers the phenomenon of street children as a ticking time bomb waiting explode from time to time, indicates where the report of the General Authority for Child Protection that their numbers reached in 1999 to 2 million children and continues to increase, making them prone to adopt criminal behavior in the Egyptian society. The statistics General Directorate of Social Defense blame increase the size of misdemeanors related to exposure of street children to violate the law, and including exposure to homelessness by 16.5%, and begging by 13.9%, has been exacerbated begging uniformed worn by workers cleaning companies in Egypt, where not without street of months Egyptian streets or highways, especially in affluent suburb of dozens of these beggars who only several jobs they have on this outfit, in addition to a broomstick represents the role of cleaning the street, has joined them other numbers of beggars in various forms including: sharpening knives, and put medical dressings or carrying an elderly or disabled boy in a wheelchair!

In Jordan, where showed statistically Ministry of Social Development of Jordan issued in 2006 that the number of beggars during the year 2006 amounted to (710) children; (424) male, (286) than females, have proven the existence of organized gangs responsible for the operation of child beggars, for example, was thrown arrested a gang owns bus gathering where beggars young, were seen bus during the distribution of these in different regions in Oman. Overall, 95% of whom almost working under the command of the gang their parents know that they are working these kind of jobs. In Iraq studies indicate special child protection that the phenomenon of homeless children has worsened in recent number increased after the events of the war, where numbered more than 100 thousand displaced children in Iraq, according to figures developed by some humanitarian organizations, and in Morocco has become a phenomenon of street children concern community Civil especially against Tnamea and the increasing number of street children in cities major Moroccan where he scored in the city of Casablanca alone in 2002 approximately 5300 children tramp, where most of these beggars are thus at traffic lights and parking lots and near restaurants.

This situation is rapidly worsening stresses the urgency of finding solutions and processors of this phenomenon and must begin these solutions by knowing the reasons for the arrival of beggars young to the street and how to address them, and by creating legislation militant to reduce divorce and polygamy and what subsequent displacement events, as well as Find the hand for beggars young after the implementation of their judgments and in order to prevent their return to homelessness and begging, as well as licensing of associations of private and civil to turn towards beggars children and most of all cooperation with the Ministry of Education to reduce the phenomenon of school drop-out, as well as from the most important ways to address them media awareness campaigns in this area and that the allocation of television programs and radio host specialists for children beggars and vagrants to study this problem and find solutions to them, as well as holding educational sessions have indicative nature, and research in how to fight begging to solve the problem of poverty and unemployment by adopting by adopting nations and Arab governments deliberate plans that will prohibit the deepening crises .

Street children want the freedom from abuse by parents; nevertheless, their lives seem not so easy. They want working in some odd jobs; if they have no job, the steal to eat, and if they have extra money, they buy drugs. In general, street children’s lives are rather short. They are in bad health, because of their abuse of drugs, venereal disease.

First, street child is a term used to describe those kids who live and work in streets. There are more street children around the world than the whole populations in Egypt and United States, there are currently 100 million children living on streets. In turn this sector population it is increasing through the years, because of the economic crisis, family disintegration. Wherefore they are more inclined to drugs, not only bringing troubles to the society, also problems to their health. When we talk about street children, we are talking about young people who face poverty, hunger, disease, violence and homelessness. We are talking about children who have resorted to all sorts of drugs because they think this is the only way they can remain happy under their difficult circumstances. These children that have been allowed to live on the streets are on a daily basis exposed to diseases of all sorts. We have seen some of these children on the streets a result of poor people since access to food is another problem for them. These children live in the street because they do not have anything to call a home.Street child are children between five and seventeen years old who live in parks, or light stop sign. In the same way they are deprived of family protection. Children on the street divide themselves into groups who can sell things to people and who can steal money from people car. The street kids do whatever they can to earn money. Whereas that more than 20 million of kids are living on the streets, we can see the, drugs as a normal activity in the streets. The reality begins talking about food, because they only eat what they find in the garbage or what they can steal. Likewise they steal money or drugs to forget hunger. Those kids do all of these activities in order to forget about street troubles, but they feel that these activities are necessarily to survive, so it makes them more inclined to drugs.

In addition to that, Street child commit illegal in America. It means if a child’s get in the street without any reason the police have to take them. That called breaking the law because it’s not legal to do it. Each child in America have chance to work and get more also they can learn in the school without any more. United states havedrug policy and Alcohol too. If the police saw any one who drink and child fewer than 18 they will take this child to the police station. But in Egypt child can’t go to school without pay more for their books Because of the high cost of services many street children are unable to go to school .Even in countries where schools are free they are unable to buy books, uniforms and shoes that are required to attend., also they do not have any chance to work to get money. The money is an important factor in their lives that can determinate important things in their daily life like eating or not.

Likewise, the drugs affect not only their thoughts but also affect their health. A street kid, they cannot imagine their daily live in the streets without using drugs. In the other hand the main problem is that most of types of substance consume by street kids are legal, so they can find it easily. The drug abuse is the worst problem for them and it brings them health problems. Those kids do all of these activities in order to forget about street troubles.

Therefore, a lot of country have this problem too, The problem of street children in Vietnam, a country rapidly growing and integrating with the world, arises from the interaction of traditional causes such as the loss or divorce of parents and new causes such as economic incentive. We then propose a new typology of street children based on causes and situations. Causes are classified into broken family, mindset problem, and economic migration. Situations are divided into current protection and future investment. It is shown that the broken family group is most difficult to assist while the economic migration group often shows strong desire for study and better life. Since street children are not a homogenous group, intervention must also be diversified according to the needs of each type of children.

Also, there is a lot of country that effected by street child such as; Russia consists of two million street children. Officially, the number of Russian children without supervision is more than 7 million. Also china the number of street children population continues to grow at 15 million and India is home to 4 million-8 million street children. The republic of India is the seventh largest populated country in the world. Due to the economic growth has appeared.

Consequently, Vietnam is the country that has from 21 thousand in 2003 to 8 thousand in 2007 street child. Not just these countries had effected by the population of street children there are more and more had effected by this population. Which is going to affect all people life and future and countries future too? In a poor developing country, a child will have disabilities to learn how come he will learn without any money and when the children think about their future, they will find out that there are no work no future and they can’t connect with their family too. Poor country gives children scary future.

Moreover, Children who drop out of school due to the wrong attitude of the parents are less deprived, relatively speaking, in the current situation than the first group since their parents can look after them. They are relatively well fed and protected. It is rare to see them severely by street joining them. The biggest problem with this group, however, is the strong opposition of the parents when someone (teacher, social worker, or the children themselves) proposes an education for them.

There are many causes of there being street children: Poverty, Neglect, Disease, War, Famine, Social, and Family Breakups. From another of perspective on the word “causes”, the causes they or others on their behalf fight for are the reasons that they become street children in the first instance and to provide ways out of their problems through things like providing shelter and education them with their families.so they find the way to get themselves freedom from home and school. Do whatever they want to do.

The causes of children to the street can be divided into two main groups which we shall call broken family and mindset problem. First, children with extremely difficult family situations such as being abandoned as a result of the death. This is the traditional cause of street children which exists in any developing country with or without economic growth. Also the parents continue to take care of them. Children abandoned as a result of parents’ divorce have to undergo an even greater emotional shock. Being left with relatives or grandparents, such children are easily discouraged from study and lured by bad friends. Most of the street children who have left home because of domestic violence are spiritually and emotionally impaired.

Second causes where the family enjoys relatively unbroken relations and an average or at least not so destitute standard of living but still sends children to work in the street due to the wrong attitude of the parents or the children themselves. Some children leave home because they are lured by friends or because they want to freedom instead of going to school. Seemingly exciting life in big cities and friends who already know the street life are the pulling force. For such children, earning money is not the main purpose. However, the mindset problem most often arises on the parent side. Some parents think that cash income is more important than children’s education.

How we solve the problem for the street children with their home and family?

For the children and their families, being on the street is not a problem. It is their solution to a number of problems. Crowded living conditions are a problem. A young lad, who shares a single-room with his mother and two grown-up sisters with children of their own, solves a problem by finding somewhere to sleep with his friends. He remains attached to his family and visits them regularly. He is integrated with them and does not need to be reintegrated. But it is better for him to sleep out than to stay at home. When he finds a group of friends with whom he can stay at night, his situation has improved. He becomes visible as a street child and part of our problem, but for him, being on the streets solves the problem of sharing an overcrowded room.

For the families and the children, it is the solution to the problem of not having enough money to feed and clothe the children. Child can be a problem. If a child is forced to work all day for an adult who takes most of the child’s earnings as sometimes happens with refugee children who are afraid .It may be a problem for children to have to do hours of manual at school, or to spend much of their day in misery learning useless and boring information. Somehow, we always accept child if it is enforced in the respectable environment of the school. But spending a few hours earning a bit of extra money for himself or the family can be quite fun.

Sometimes the children have to adopt the tough culture of the streets. When they are with their friends from the street, they have to act and speak as if they enjoy street life. All children should have security. They should be able to play games and have fun. They should be improving themselves at school. Children should not have to earn their own living. They should be clean and wash regularly. They should be healthy, and get help immediately when they are sick. These we regard as the fundamental rights of children and street children appear to all of these rights. This is there life and they should enjoy it.

What happen to today’s street children when they grow older. Are they going to affect their countries or they are going to affect us. These children can grow up and constitute nuisance in the society. They will make government’s project fail. They won’t do these because they enjoy it, but because that is all they have grown to know and love. At the end, nothing will work because they will fight back because we had a chance to give them good lives but we failed to do it.

All children should have security. They should be able to play games and have fun. They should be improving themselves at school. Children should not have to earn their own living. They should be clean and wash regularly. They should be healthy, and get help immediately when they are sick. These we regard as the fundamental rights of children and street children appear to all of these rights. This is there life and they should enjoy it.

Lastly, street children problem always cause a lot of terrible to people who walk in the street and they can’t be save from street child also this children they need a future to be better people and they can help their country. If we help these children they can help us in the future. For example if a child from the street get a good job in the future and he got a lot of money that give his country a better future and his family too and himself. He will be better than anyone who lives in the street. Inside of steal money from people and ate from the street , he can now eat a health food and get a good family that carry his name and his good future.

Overall, streets children are poor and as a result they are untaught. As a result, they have bad food and unhealthy body system. The street children are kids who live and work in streets and homeless people. Furthermore, they use drugs as a way to forget about their harsh reality. Lastly, they steal money in order to get food and survive. Although, they can be educated children with the government help, but they got used to their life as a children streets.

Child exploitation is defined as taking a child’s advantages in an unfairly manner. It is a problem all of us know much of or have heard much about. Sexual abuse, pornography, kidnapping children and selling children into prostitution, child beggars are examples of child exploitation (Judy H. Wright, 2006). Child beggar is a massive problem in all countries of the world. They often come shoeless, dressed in dirty, scruffy, smelly clothes. It is heart-rending to see little children begging on busy roads. They often scrounge for alms all over the city. They are everywhere, at traffic signals, streets, night markets, peering into vehicle windows, bedraggled, haggard and breaking into a sudden smile when a few coins are dropped into their palms. Sometimes they would narrate and tell a pathetic story to collect more money.

Child beggars are swarmed around us, and often they bearing the marks of abuse, these children work all day, only to earn barely enough to live on. The earnings that they make, child beggars often forced to surrender their wages to the “boss” who will take their money and rob them of their dignity, shoving them right back into never-ending cycle of begging. How much they earn will be the consequences of their marks of abuse. The problem of child beggars is longstanding. What causes this issue? Poverty is the primary cause of this issue. It is claimed that it is poverty that makes parents send their children to prostitute, it is the poverty that make parents sell their children for child trafficking, it is the poverty that makes parents deny their children education and make them work day and night. All forms of child exploitation linked to poverty (xxx). Children from poor families are living in fragile environments, with no clean water supplies and no food. They are forced to work or beg for money to supplement household income. If they didn’t choose to beg for money, for girls, they might fall victim to sexual and physical abuse by family members.

Poverty results in a large number of children not getting the opportunity to join school. They missed the chances to being educated because of poverty. Many poor countries have over the years developed innovative and creative programmes to curb poverty but the programmes always failed. Some NGOs have proposed that the government should fix a monthly grant for the deserving beggars so that the problem could be solved permanently. However, it always failed (xxx).

Apart from that, parents are the secondary cause of child beggars. They play a vital role in numbers of child beggars increasing rapidly. Children brought out to crowded places, but parents did not pay attention on their child give human trafficking organization good opportunity to take away their children and sent to nowhere, make them as child beggars. Many of these children are victimized by human trafficking organization. Children and toddlers are also used as beggars to extract money from pity-filled passersby. In order to elicit sympathy to collect more money, children usually have one or more of their limbs cruelly amputated. Parents are no concern on their child’s attitude and action make the situation worse. Child is easy to attract by something for example food or toys. If a child is targeted by a trafficking organization, the person will attracts the child with food, sweets, or toys. If every parents pay attention and hold their children’s hands tight when they are in crowded places, it will have no chance for others to take away their child.

Furthermore, in poor countries, children are sold by parents to the trade to attain basic living necessities. Parents shows irresponsibility attitude because they didn’t bother what will happen to their child after selling off to these organization. Also, in rural area, where many parents are illiterate, some organization set the title of bringing their child out from the town to city to have education, better knowledge in order to live better. But after the organization took away their child, parents didn’t bother or care much what will happen to their child or where are they being send. These happens because lack of protection of parents on their children.

In addition, uncontrolled birth is also the cause of child beggars. Children from poor family, that their parents have no income, they usually send their children to beg or even sell them off. Children become profitable tool for supporting family life. Unplanned and uncontrolled birth brings trouble to poor family which they feel that they have too many children, and it is fine for them to sell some of their child to collect money and have better living for the elderly children. It is certainly unfair for these children as it is not their fault to be the burden of the family members. It is the uncontrolled birth that causes parents selling off their child, therefore increase numbers of child beggars.

Besides that, increasing numbers of trafficking organization causes increase numbers of child beggars. These human trafficking organizations are cold hearted. They organized crime target children result in children become victims of child trafficking and forced begging. Some of the organization even established working patterns, ‘sales strategies’ to makes child beggars collects more money. According to The Week “Where are our kids?” July 19th, 2009), one child goes missing every hour in Delhi while the police avoid accountability by registering only 20% of missing cases. Most of the missing children are from families without financial resources to follow-up on the cases (xxx).

Last but not least, another cause of child beggars is the lack of free, compulsory education. According to Elena Arnal, parental education plays an important role. Educated parents are less likely to send their children off or selling them off than non-educated parents (xxx). In poor countries, peoples mostly are illiterate. Parents didn’t know they should send their children to schools. Despite the fact that The Child Rights Act (2003: Section 1) that stated a child must join schools when they are at suitable age, in poor family that has no income, they don’t have enough money to buy food and support the livings; therefore, they will just ignore the laws and send them children to beg for money. Forced begging brings continuous derivation on the children who do not see their families, do not go to school and never has the chance to rest. Sooner or later, the children are likely to become a machines and this is definitely a very bad thing for children themselves.

In a nutshell, plenty of children become beggars because they are poor. No alms will change that; they will just make it worse. What we peoples can do is try to change the circumstances that cause their poverty (xxx). Effective operations from time to time are underway to eliminate child beggars all around the world. Children welfare organization should do something to alleviate their plight instead of just giving money to child beggars. Besides that, it is a must to report to the authorities when you see child beggars hanging at the streets. Missing children exploited as child beggars or drug smugglers, these cases have been happening in all countries. To avoid unfortunate cases from happening, everyone have great responsibility.

A kid’s childhood should be filled with happy moments, laughter and lovely toys, not memories that make one shudder even at the thought of it. Being a child should not be a painful journey. After all, children are equal holders of human rights and they should not be denied a safe environment to grow and mature. However, many adults have failed to see the importance of ensuring the well-being of these young innocent kids. Every single day, almost five children die as a result of child abuse and at least one report of child abuse is made every ten seconds (“National”). Child abuse may take the form of physical, sexual, emotional or neglect, with physical abuse being the most common (“Child”). The incidence of parents and other guardians consciously, or even willfully, committing acts that harm the children they’re supposed to be nurturing is a sad fact of human society that cuts across all borders of ethnicity and class (Joseph). It’s high time for us to dig deep into the roots of this evil and look for solutions to combat the issue, before it continues to bring detrimental impacts to both the abused victims, and also, the society.

Behind any actions, there is always a reason. Same goes to child abuse. Child abuse is triggered by many factors. According to Dr. Joel Akande, among all the contributing factors, lack of insight is the main culprit. Child abusers lack insight into the value of the children and this leads to sexual, verbal or physical exploitation of these kids (Akande). This may be due to the fact that the children are unwanted from unplanned pregnancy or they may be physically or mentally impaired (Akande). When these adults are engulfed in frustration or anger, children become their easy targets as they are vulnerable objects. If they were to value their precious kids dearly, they would always place the children’s happiness as their utmost priority. A responsible parent will try his very best to protect his child from any form of danger at all times. Apart from that, some caregivers lack parenting skills and they might have unrealistic expectations about child care (Saisan et. al). Child care is a daunting task, especially for working adults who have the heavy responsibilities to juggle between career and family. Without necessary parenting skills and support from others, caring for a child can be very stressful. Caregivers who are unable to handle child care stress tend to abuse their children as an outlet of their emotions (Gibson). They unleash their anger on the children to make themselves feel better as they have little control over their own emotions. This is especially evident in teen parents who have unrealistic and immature expectations about how much care babies and small children need (Saisan et. al). Also, parents under the power of drugs and alcohol can be abusive and easily neglect their children (Gibson). Drugs and alcohol abuse increases the likelihood of violence, because it interferes with communication among family members and abusers have lower abilities in controlling their behaviors (Miller et.al 357). Underestimation of the consequences of violence takes place at the same time as a result of interference with the brain centers that control socially unacceptable behaviors when adults abuse drugs and alcohol (Miller et.al). They lose their ability to judge what’s right or wrong when they are not sober. Parents who come home drunk or high on drugs are unable to take good care of their children, make good judgments and have control over often-dangerous compulsions (Saisan et.al). The neglected children are often left to fend for themselves and scavenge for their basic needs such as food under such harsh environment.

Herbert Ward once said, “Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime”. Indeed, it is true that child abuse leaves deep and long-lasting impacts on the victims, be it physically or emotionally. Physical abuse leaves visible signs, such as frequent physical injuries or unexplained bruises, cuts and wounds. This is often done by slapping, spanking and caning by the caregivers. Some may even resort to harsher means such as using hot iron and leather belt to harm their children. The visible physical scars and wounds will heal someday, but the emotional scarring will be embedded deep down in the children’s hearts throughout their lives. Victims of violence may face trouble developing self-confidence and a sense of self in them. It is difficult to overcome the core feelings of being worthless and hopeless, if a child is being repeatedly told that he is good for nothing since young (Saisan et. al). They no longer believe that they worth more or stand a place in the society. Abused children also cannot regulate and express their emotions effectively, in turn leads to unexplained anxiety, depression and anger in adult survivors of abuse (Saisan et.al). In addition, child abuse is a vicious cycle. Based on a literature review, Kaufman and Zigler have estimated that inter-generational transmission rate of child abuse is approximately 30 percent (186). This signifies that three out of ten people who were neglected in childhood will abuse their own children in the future. They are more likely to raise their children in the way they have experienced as a child, repeating the horrible cycle unconsciously. This causes unfavorable effects to the society as a whole, as the future leaders of tomorrow are not empowered to fulfill their potential as productive human beings, said Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, the prime minister’s wife of Malaysia (“Getting”).

Hence, it is essential to put a halt to this terrible chain of abuse. First things first, caregivers have to be equipped with good parenting skills and it is vital to be mentally prepared for all the child care stress and challenges that follow. Parents should set realistic expectations of what children can handle at certain stages of development as it can help avoid frustrations and anger at normal child behavior (Saisan et.al). Emotional control and developing emotional intelligence is equally critical especially when one needs to handle children with special needs. Society has a pivotal role to play in combating this issue as well. The mindset of not wanting to encroach into other people’s lives should be discarded. One should not be reluctant to make a report to the authority if a child is suspected being abused by his caregivers. Society must realize that a small act of kindness can actually bring light into the darkness of a child’s life. The earlier the victims get help, the higher chance they have to recover from the abuse and not perpetuate the vicious cycle (“Child”).

“Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind.”