Category: Free Essays

Many males think they know their bodies but not many of them actually take the time to fully understand it. When I started this research topic I thought I knew everything there was to know about the male reproductive system but I was sadly mistaken. Join me in my quest to find out all there is to know about it.

Males can start puberty as early as ten or as late as sixteen. Puberty, a frightening but necessary experience for boys and girls, can start unexpectedly in life. Most young males are too busy playing with friends to notice that inside their bodies, hormonal change is taking place. Puberty is the time when a boy becomes a man, or a rebellious teenager.

The start of puberty is caused by the brain sending hormonal signals to the testis. During puberty growth hormone is activated and although a large growth spurt is a common occurrence for the first half of puberty it is also common to have small growth spurts in height during the second half of puberty.

Males have many physical changes while entering and during puberty. The first noticeable sign of puberty is growth in testicular size. The testis will continue growing until quite a few years after the start of puberty until they have reached the normal adult size. Right after the testis has grown for about a year the shaft of the penis starts to enlarge and lengthen. Not only do the testes produce hormones but they are also the place of creation for sperm. Boys can become fertile from as early as twelve to sixteen.

The first appearance of hair on a male in puberty originates on and around the testis, near and above the base of the penis and on the side of the inner thighs. The DNA

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they received from their parents could help in determining the surface area the hair covers and how long, thick or even the color of pubic hair in males. Following pubic hair boys usually find themselves growing underarm hair and leg hair. Chest hair and facial hair are not automatic in puberty as some men never get chest hair and facial hair might not appear on a man until ten years after puberty.

. Some males think it’s a problem that they might not have entered puberty yet. For some cases, males have started puberty as late as sixteen. This is not an issue, other than the fact that bullying might occur. It is not exactly common but happens where a male’s body isn’t ready to develop and they could be left behind while their friends are all experiencing these changes.

The dreaded cracking voice can be quite an embarrassment to males in puberty. Strings in the larynx become longer and wider and the change in the vocals usually leads to instability in controlling one’s voice. With due time, however, the male will no longer have a higher sounding voice but a lower, deeper voice.

The penis is one of the parts of the male reproductive system that is located outside of the male’s body. The other is the testis. The penis is used during intercourse to enter the vagina and release seminal fluids. A male’s penis is usually flaccid but becomes harder and longer when aroused. Most males in their younger years will get more frequent erections than that of older males.

Getting an erection involves three masses of spongy tissue resembling columns that run through it length wise. These masses are known as cavernous tissue and when the male is aroused they fill with blood. Once a male gets an erection he must either wait for

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it to go down on its own or achieve orgasm to relieve the sexual tension.

The testes lie within the scrotal sac. Their purpose is to produce sperm and male sex hormones. It produces two types of male hormone: LH, Luteinizing Hormone and FSH, Follicle-Stimulating Hormone. LH is the hormone responsible for producing testosterone which in turn is responsible for what makes males different than that of females who produce estrogen instead of testosterone. The testes are fully “dropped” before a male enters puberty.

FSH is responsible for changes in the pubic area and reproductive system. When puberty hits FSH along with LH are produced more rapidly, often causing the young male to become very hormonal. FSH causes the growth of pubic hair and growth of the testis and penis.

Most human males have two testicles surrounded by the scrotum. The scrotum is a covering of skin to protect the testis from varied temperatures. When it is cold the scrotal sac rises, bringing the testis up closer to the body to warm them. When it is warm the testis relaxes and the scrotal sac lowers to give more freedom to the testis.

The scrotal sac is almost saggy in look. One testicle within the scrotal sac usually hangs a little bit lower than the other. Pubic hair usually resides on the male scrotum but it is not like that for everyone, Just like how people have varied amounts of pubic hair than others.

The pathway of the sperm to the oocyte involves quite the process:

The testes are where sperm are manufactured in the scrotum. The epididymis is a tortuously coiled structure topping the testis, and it

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receives immature sperm from the testis and stores it several days.

When ejaculation occurs, sperm is forcefully expelled from the tail of the epididymis into the deferent duct. Sperm then travels through the deferent duct through up the spermatic cord into the pelvic cavity, over the ureter to the prostate behind the bladder. Here, the vas deferens joins with the seminal vesicle to form the ejaculatory duct, which passes through the prostate and empties into the urethra. When ejaculation occurs, rhythmic muscle movements propel the sperm forward. (E)

No one wants to find out that their genitals have a disease, not male or female. It does, however, happen in this world. There are so many different types of diseases that can affect the penis. The first I’m going to talk about is a yeast infection. Most people believe that yeast infections can only happen in women but they are wrong.

A yeast infection has the following symptoms on the male’s penis:

-Swollen

-Itchy

-Blotchy

-Red all over

-Smells, cheesy

-Flaky penis tip

-White ooze from the tip of the penis

“That is your yeasty neighbor at home on your manhood and causing you to

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ITCH.” (A) There are quite a few ways in which a person can cure or try and cure their yeast infection. Since the can be quite a few ways to obtain yeast infections such as eating moldy food, drinking alcohol or having sex with someone who has it, so naturally to cure yourself you’re going to want to stop having sex, throw away the moldy food and stop drinking. After this, go see your doctor and get yourself some anti-fungi pills or cream. Another way to rid yourself of a yeast infection is by rubbing yogurt on your genitals. You could say this is the “all natural” approach. Also, it has been proven that vinegar and warm water mixed together and poured on the genitals can help kill the infection.

Other problems with the penis which men know they can get are such things like STI’s. There are so many types of venereal diseases that you can catch because you weren’t careful while having sex. Some diseases you might have had for a long time and never realized it, and others, you will know you have them from the physical signs on your genitals.

Men, it almost seems that for a majority of men, sex is a competition: Who has the most sex, who they had it with, and for some, how long it lasted.. In high school these guys may seem so cool but chances are that because they’ve given sex away so many times they picked up a few hitch hikers along the way.

Chlamydia is a disease that has to be treated as soon as possible because it can cause serious health problems. 50% of males wind up with a term known as infectious urethritis which is an infection in the urethra. Side effects of Chlamydia are painful urination, fever, swollen testis and discharge from the penis. Epididymtitis can be caused

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when Chlamydia spreads to the testicles. If this happens it is possible for sperm to become sterile if you do not get treatment within six to eight weeks.

Let’s face it, guys we have all been there, sitting in class, perhaps sleeping when you realize, uh oh! Spontaneous erection! Your face probably grew red hoping that no one notices. Well, here is the good news. It’s perfectly natural. There is nothing wrong with getting an erection.

Morning erections are a perfectly normal occurrence. Some guys have complained about this as a problem and thought that there was something wrong with them but in fact it’s actually not normal if you don’t get an erection in the morning. Why, you might ask? This is because a morning erection or “morning wood” as it’s more commonly known, is the last erection in a series of erections that happen throughout the night as men sleep. On average a male will have four to five erections during the night, averaging to last about thirty minutes a night.

A male cannot have sex if their penis is flaccid and not erect.. If you try to have coitus with a flaccid penis, it’s not going to work. There are a few reasons for this. First, you won’t be able to penetrate into the woman’s vagina during sex. Second, if you try and have sex with a flaccid penis it is not stimulated. If your penis isn’t stimulated it is going to be a very difficult thing for a man to receive pleasure during intercourse. If a man cannot get stimulated during sex then he won’t be able to reach the climax, or orgasm.

A flaccid penis should become erect once sexually aroused. The reason for not being able to get an erection is most likely because that male is suffering from an erectile

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dysfunction. If this occurs you should consult your doctor.

When it comes down to it, there are only two types of penises, circumcised and uncircumcised. Every man on earth is one or the other. For many men who are circumcised it usually wasn’t their own choice. Circumcision usually takes place during the first year of life. A baby’s parents will decide whether or not to cut the foreskin from their child’s penis.

Studies have shown that a lot of males who are circumcised wished that they weren’t circumcised. Many men who aren’t circumcised enjoy their foreskin and say that during sex it increases pleasure. There are pros and cons to both circumcised and uncircumcised penises.

Circumcised penises are cleaner and women say that they look nicer than those with foreskins. It has also been said that a circumcised penis is more pleasurable for woman during intercourse. Uncircumcised penises, however, increase pleasure for males but are harder to keep clean. If you have a foreskin you have to be sure to scrub under it to keep it clean so you don’t carry around bacteria.

The male orgasm is the climax during sex. During intercourse movements of the hips let a male bring his penis in and out of the vagina. This stimulates pleasure in the head and shaft of the penis. As this pleasure continues and increases, heart rate increases along with breath intake. The sperm will then travel through the male reproductive system, out of the urethra and be expelled in spurts along with seminal fluids.

Safe sex is good sex. If you don’t want to have a baby then you’re probably going to want to use a condom. There are a variety of different sizes and types of condoms for

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males plus the numerous brands. Condom sizes don’t necessarily have to do with the length of a man’s penis. Most condoms base their sizes off of the girth of a penis.

The main reason for a condom is to protect the female from pregnancy during intercourse and on average a condom has a 90% chance of doing this. However there is more to using a condom than just preventing pregnancy. It also helps prevent sexually transmitted infections. A condom should always be used during intercourse unless the two people who are sharing in coitus are planning on having a child.

Condoms come in many different types. The mainstream type of condom used is made of latex. Latex is an excellent protector against STI’s and helping to prevent pregnancy. If a person is allergic to latex there are other options such as condoms made out of a firmer plastic. They provide the same help and support as those made of latex do. Another type of condom is that made from lamb. They are proven to almost fully stop a person from getting pregnant but due to small pores throughout the condom it is very easy for STI’s to be contracted.

Condoms can be made in different ways to help stimulate pleasure. Some condoms may be thinner so that you feel more contact between genitals; some may have built in lube while others might even be studded. Along with this, condoms can usually be bought in different colors and even flavors.

To put a condom on, you have to first open the package, never do this with scissors or your teeth for you might accidentally tear the condom. There should be a slit in the package so that you can just rip it open and pull the condom out. Once out, you take the condom’s base in one hand and place it above the head of the erect penis. Once

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overtop of the penis, it is crucial that you pinch the tip of the condom to leave room for the ejaculation. Once you have gotten hold of the tip of the condom with the other hand, roll the base of the condom until the penis is fully covered.

Some condoms may feel very uncomfortable so some people enjoy putting lubricant inside and sometimes outside of the condom. Using lubricant in your condoms also helps prevent the chances of it tearing during intercourse. Only water based lubricants should be used with condoms as oil-based lubes can damage the integrity of the condom.

Many males get to the age when they feel that they are no longer interested in having kids. They probably by now already have children or don’t feel like having any at all. There is a simple way to stop the process of impregnating a woman. A vasectomy involves a doctor making small incisions in the males scrotal sac to get to the vas deferens. The vans deferentia are then cut and cauterized or clamped shut.

A great way to protect the male reproductive system from any harm is to stay abstinent all together. Abstinence is the only way to be 100% sure that you’re not going to get a girl pregnant or wind up with a sexually transmitted disease. Most people that think they are staying abstinent try fooling around, such as mutual masturbation, where their genitals don’t come in contact but they are still being sexually stimulated. They are wrong. You are technically keeping your v card but you are at still at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and in some cases a woman will still become pregnant even when they think they are playing it safe. It only takes one sperm to enter the oocyte and cause pregnancy.

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If a person is extremely sexually active rather than instead of having sex with every pair of legs they see they could try pleasuring themselves. This is not the best solution to sex but it is better than risking all the diseases and risk of pregnancy. Many males, especially teenagers, have tried self pleasuring at least once in their lives.

Penis size is usually noted as a problem amongst males and is a big stress causer. Many guys are wondering how their penis size matches up to those of their friends. It’s not gross or a sexual thing, just plain old curiosity. The fact is penis sizes vary and no penis is going to look the same. The average size of a male’s penis is around five to six centimeters. If you have a penis size of four to five inches it’s not a terrible thing. It’s not the size; it is how you use it. On the other hand you might have an abnormally large penis. If a male has a large penis they probably feel superior to other males but the truth is, not only is it less pleasurable and less intimate for the male but it is also less pleasurable and can even hurt the female during intercourse.

The male reproductive system is part of all guys. Every guy is born with a penis and testicles. As we develop we begin to change, it’s all normal and natural. As a guy you need to accept what you have and work with it, be cool, be calm, and be yourself.

In recent days, using of Internet has totally changed the environment in which where we live, learn and work. Simultaneously, children are frequently using the Internet and all are always accessing the online. Notably, children have limited knowledge for browsing the information what they want and more difficult to search and retrieve the results than the adults. So, young children are being forced to manage the designs that require complex typing, accurate spelling, advanced reading skills, and understanding of abstract concepts or content knowledge that lies beyond their still-developing abilities (Moore and George, 1991; Solomon, 1993; Walter et al., 1996). Based on Jakob Nielsen et al. (2010), the differences between children and adult in applying the design are the children use Internet for entertainment although the adult is used for communication with people and their communities, children usually use 12, 14 point and adult use 10 point (up to 14 for seniors) for font size, children have slowly typing and poor mouse control than the adult who can do like as expert, children like animation and sound effects for their design but adult mostly disliked and age-targeted design is importance between child groups but not necessary for adult.

1.2 Investigating preferences of children

According to Dina Demner et al. (2001), children use computers and Internet for different purposes and functions which are depend on their like, dislikes, ages, interest, behavior, characteristics and habits. The group of children can be classified into four groups: 3-5 years old pre-readers (only memorize the data that they learned before a day), 5-8 years old beginning readers (start to play cooperatively with other people), 8-12 years old children (become more concentrate on connection between people) and teenagers (willing to analyze the new things but usage of Internet is less than the adult person).

Currently, developers who designed for children do not consider the children’s skills and preferences. As a result, the applications may not be easily learned and used by children who have rare knowledge (Hutchinson, Bederson, 2005). Besides that, majority of the tools available are for the expert users which are not suitable for novice users like as children particularly for children who have very limited knowledge in computer. The interactions of children with the technologies depend on their age levels. Based on (Acuff and Reiher, 1997), the children between 8 and 12 change their interests from fantasy to reality. They start to understand more abstract terms, longer terms and more complex terms. Researcher (Inkpen, 2001) studied that the children who ages from 9 to 13 like point and click rather than drag and drop. Moreover, (Read, J.C., MacFarlane, S.J., Casey, C, 2001) discussed the various kinds of text input techniques for children. This research is restricted and compared to the corresponding research for adults.

In addition, colour preference is also one of the key issues to investigate the preference of children. Colour has a great impact on our live from early childhood onwards. Colour alters, evokes emotions, and affects our perception. Besides, preferable colour can increase the cognitive processes (Boyatzis, C.J., & Varghese, R. 1993). An experiment (Chung, H. Y., et al. 2009) implemented the colour preferences among children revealed that boys preferred vivid colours for yellow, red, and blue, and bright light tones for yellow, green, and purple. On the other hand girls preferred light tones for yellow, green, and purple and pale tones for red and blue. Design should be based on its targeted users rather than emphasize on discussion with users and the children are not interested in the User Interface design guidelines (Shneiderman, 1998). Therefore, designers should be focused on searching the useful designs which will provide for children’s preferences such as development, health, social activities.

2.1 Why sport important for children

Exercise can reduce stress that the children who has stress, depression, anxiety as adult have. However, sport, not exercise, encourages growth and contributes to improve physical and emotional health. Sport psychologist: (Dr. Glyn Roberts of the University of Illinois) emphasizes that sport is an important thing to learn the environment for children. Besides, sport provides various kinds of functions and can attain valuable things that can apply in their life. They learn to work hard for winning, study how to cope with life if face with problems, how to continue after failing, learn to listen, to stay concentrated, to obey rules and regulations and many things that can help them to grow into mentally healthier persons. Another benefit is emotional development which contains how to cope with winning and losing, how to try again if it is fail. In addition, team sport also provides the friendship skills that mean if the children want to win, he or she must help other members to finish their part of work and that can help to success in their daily life and also future life. Sport provide healthy, physically and socially growth of children as well as emotionally and social skills. Moreover, the attitudes and behaviour taught to children in sports carry over to adult life. Participation in sports can get many benefits from being physically active for children. It can improve health, develop quality of strong bones and muscles and reduce obesity to maintain a healthy weight, reduce obesity to maintain a healthy weight, improve cardiovascular fitness, provide friendship among people, reduce stress and help relaxation, improve self-esteem.

2.2 Sport sites for children

Sport sites in Internet are very useful for children because every child can contribute from its contents. Besides, it does not need to have materials that support for sport and can play just only have computer and broadband internet connection and developing mobile services. There are many available sport sites for children in Web. In our paper, we address some useful sport sites for children called http://www.nflrush.com and http://bettersoccermorefun.com. These websites are official sites and made especially for children. It contains about the positions for football, how to play them, information about fun facts, getting advices and tips.

Figure1: Main Form of nflrush website
Figure 2: Main Form of Bettersoccermorefun website
3. Design a sports site for children
3.1 Usage of internet by children

With the ubiquitous internet access, children have more opportunities been exposed in the light of internet and carried out various online activities. According to Livingstone and Helpsper (2007), the amount of children accessing the internet has continuously increased and internet has become an indispensable tool for them to acquire information and communicate. Comparing with traditional resources, web source is more preferred and used by children (Bilal,

1998). Some data about children’s web use has been analyzed, for instance, one survey (Johnson, 2010) investigated among children whose average age is 10.7 revealed that most children prefer playing online games and visiting websites in a community place like peer’s house.

3.2 Sports sites for children

The fun and learning opportunities that provided by the Web sites is the big concern of children between 6 and 14 years old according to Baumgarten (2003). Besides, a good site should also consider expanding somewhat extent of complexity to meet children’s self-recognition and different developmental levels (Demner, 2001). Therefore, a high quality sports site can go far beyond providing sports related knowledge and skills, actually, it has much to offer to children, for instance, fun, relaxation, chances of communicate and collaborate with peers and develop their interests. This perspective may give a guideline to the designers and help them understand better about the users’ tasks and adjust design to meet their goals.

Therefore, understanding our users, testing and maximizing the degree of usability of the site is critical. After analyzing the particular aspects of children and their unique features, all these should been given high consideration when designing the sports sites. Based on the data (Livingstone & Helpsper, 2007) collected among Britain children between 9-19 years old, it has been found that generally boys and young-age teenagers use the internet more often and spend more time on it when comparing with girls and older teens. Another widely accepted fact is that boys spend more time in football games ( ), thus as the main users of the site, the site design should cater for their favours, while at the same time not ignoring their female counterparts. Thus the features of boys should be the focus of designers.

3.3 Usability of web sites

As the definition of usability (ISO 9241), it presents the “effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments.”

Brinck et al. (2001) has proposed some features that a successful web design should include, it should support independent exploration and communication, encourage the users accomplishing their objectives in a fast, efficient and easy way. All these features can also be considered when trying to design a sports site for children.

Many existing studies have adopted participatory deign with children, which means the children actively and directly involved in the design process and act as design testers and partners, have found productive results (Read, 2002). The usability engineers in Microsoft (Hanna, L. & et.al, 1999) have researched in usability testing by working with groups of children, and have concluded several design guidelines of computer products in the criteria of activity, instruction and screen design. For instance, the activities provided should be interesting and constitute some reward scheme to encourage children to interact with, and supportive instructions should be easy to comprehend. All these can be adopted for planning a sports site for children.

Considering the inhibited reading skills and comprehension ability of children, web contents transferred through intuitive formats like animation and audio is necessary. An experiment (Kahkonen & Oyaska, 2006) implemented among children has revealed that children are more likely to learn from animation instructions, as they expect to explore the functionality and have fun from the site. However, according to their research achievement, a combination with simple textual instructions is also important, as children may confused and feel lose something if only animation can be shown.

3.4 Interaction and collaborative learning of web sites

In a survey (Jonson, 2010), researchers have found that, respectively 60.7% and 62.9% of investigated children prefer to visit web sites and play online games in peers’ houses. Allen (2003) also pointed that the social motivation, sense of attachment, winning friends and recognition, for instance, is a vital factor for sports involvement of children in teenage. In addition, football is a team sports, most children may seek online role play games together. Therefore, entertainment feature of collaborative learning and interaction of the site is another essential matter before beginning the design step. Based on the research approach of a collaborative learning project (Ivan & Michal, 2006), maintaining connection among participants, recording their characters and behavior, and then establishing efficient communication tools for them is the premise for formulating an effective collaborative online environment. Just putting this into practice, a football site for children may construct membership scheme to attract participation, diverse role play games which can arouse enthusiasm, intuitive interactive activities, in addition, a corner for children to communicate with each other, like discussion boards, online chat rooms are also praiseful.

4. Children’s online behaviour
4.1 children’s online seeking behaviour

From the perspective of designers, identifying how children use the internet and their online behaviours is crucial as all these things will directly influence the design issues. Many studies have been done in this area, for instance, in one investigation carried out among British children between 9-19 years old, Livingstone and Helpsper (2007) have found that, the frequency and time spent of internet using by boys and young-age teenagers is much higher when comparing with girls and older teens. Another finding is that boys accessing to the internet in more places than their female counterparts.

During the research process of children’s online behaviour, Bilal (2000) has found that invalid switches (e.g. frequently shifting back and forth, visiting sites), continual looping and minimal navigation are the prevalent problems encountered among children’s using of the sites. The main reason has been attributed to the abstract and complex representation of the web information. In this context, straightforward icons and children’s familiar metaphors can be used to alleviate frustration of iterate actions and support their efficient navigation in the site, as well as a good arrangement of content categories.

According to the outcome released by another experiment (Kahkonen & Oyaska, 2006), researchers found that due to the limit learnability of help function, most children rarely use this part in the web sites. However, considering the cognitive capacity of children and their levels of computer experience, a useful help function is necessary and it is a critical part for their acceptance of a sports site. Thus, for this special group, the help part should be provided in a directive and intuitive way, long and tedious texts, abstract concepts, ambiguous categories should be avoided. Besides, effective real time help is more helpful.

4.2. Participation of Parents

Parents’ participation is very important for children, according to the Eccles’ expectancy-value model (Eccles & Harold, 1991), parents influence their child choices by providing differential levels of support for activities. They also proposed that the level of support is based on expectations of the likelihood that their child will be successful in that area, and the personal beliefs about the value of success in that domain. The degree of involvement of parents in their children sport activities is also important. Most of the parents under involve and most of the parents over involve in their children activities. Under involvement means parents watch on sidelines and they do not actively participate in their children programs. Over involved parents excessively involve in the running program of their children. They emphasize on winning and motivate their children to get success in their running programs. Parents’ participation in their children sport make the child to get competitive advantage, the children can actively involve and can do happily their activities with the support of their parents.

(include features for the participation of parents , teachers, interactive games, information the site provided)
5. Design Principles for Children

Since designers design the system, they must know clearly “Who are the users using the system?” If the system is for various users who have different knowledge about it, they need to focus on from different perspective like what are the user needs and interests depending on users’ profiles and personas.(children)

Norman (1988) defined user-centered design as “a philosophy based on the needs and interests of the users, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable”. He added that easy to understand and easy to use of the products are pointing out the user to let them know what to do and the user can clearly understand what is going on. According to the Rubin (1944), user-centered design is techniques and procedures for designing usable systems with the user at the centre of the process. “User-centered design principles place increased attention on developing products that are ease of use and ease of understand by focusing on the user throughout the design process” (Dumas & Redish, 1993; Eason, 1988; Gould & Lewis, 1985; Shackel, 1991).

If users are elderly, text font size should be larger than usual as they cannot see the small font size clearly, voice output should be provided more longer than as usual or instead of voice output, text output with large text font should be used as the elderly may be lost in hearing.For users with disabilities, the system designers need to use more flexible computer software in order to support special tools for them. For low vision or blind users, voice output should be provided instead of message output. For the users who have trouble in hand function, using mice and trackballs can be a problem for them. Instead of using these input devices, speech recognition device like voice input can solve the problems for disabled children.

There are many important interaction design principles and there are many way to apply those principles. As our paper focuses on children, we will describe some of the principles and point out what designers should take into account when designing the interface design for children. According to the (Heim, 2007), two main categories can be used to present the principles in a systematic and structured way: namely effectiveness principles and efficiency principles. He defined efficiency as “a design that enable users to accomplish their tasks in the easiest and quickest way as much as possible without having to do overly complex or extraneous procedures.” Efficiency and effectiveness are the principles that support usability. According to the (Usability), the term usability means “The level of ease with which people can employ a particular device in order to attain and increase usability”. There are many design principle that are applied in human computer interaction. There are three main design principles which support usability such as learnability, flexibility and robustness. Under each of these categories, there are many sub principles that affect them (usability). Among these principles, the principles that are required for children will be discussed.

Learn ability is the primary goal of the user interface design and it is the very important design principles for children. It they do not know clearly how to use the system and if it is very difficult for them to use, they can get confusion and they will not use this system anymore. For example, if too many clicks are required to complete a task, children cannot memorize at once and it can get them confused. Next time they visit back, they will not be sure how to go through to complete their tasks.

Responsiveness is also one of the design principles in which the response time of the system should not take long as users are children. If system response time is slow, they may think that the system cannot provide what they want and it cannot work properly.

Children cannot memorize many things at one time like the adult. They can memorize well only one thing at a time. For example, when installing the software, many steps are required to finish. Users need to click on “Next” button to move forward and need to choose location to place the installed software’s icon. After all the steps have been done, users need to click “Finish” button. Software installation process should not be different. It should be consistent. If installation process for different software is not the same, it can be problems for users to memorize what should they do for this software to install and what should they perform for other software. If the installation process is similar for different software, users can predict how should they move on by calling memory on past interaction history.

As the focus users are children, the designers should know the characteristics of children and should design the site to allow them ease of use and should provide required functionality. From the examples of Heim (2007), the design for a drawing program should enumerate all of the tools required to create digital drawings, another example is that in a website, all the information must be provided that are required by the visitor in order to accomplish his or her goals.

For the children who are less than five year cannot read the instructions in the form of message. Designers need to consider this factor. Instead of displaying instruction in the form of message, audio, video, animation should be used to let them know what should they do to complete their tasks. For younger children rather than older children, Sears & Jacko (2008) stated that “To eliminate the need for mouse clicking, the cursor is transformed into a big yellow star with room for five small stars inside it. As the mouse is held over a target, the small stars appear once at a time. When the fifth star appears, it counts as clicking on that target. If the child does click, the process simply moves faster”. For the adult, double-clicking is not a problem for them. For the kids, they do not know the action of double-clicking. Single click action should be provided instead of double clicking.

Conclusion

The following are design issues for children that should be considered when designing the system for children.

Multiple navigations should be avoided because it can be a problem for children and they can get confusion on it.

In sport sites, if text font size of guideline instructions such as rules and regulations for each sport is 12, they cannot focus on it. So, text font size should be larger than as usual.

Youngest kids do not know how to scroll up and scroll down. This is the big problem for them. Instead of using scrolling, multiple pages should be used.

Radio buttons and checkboxes should not be used as they do not have ability which option to choose.

Search box should not be provided. They do not know how to search and they are slow in typing. Instead of search box, the required functions should be put together on the screen.

When you are a little child you always imagine what life will be like when youre older. As a child you think you will grow up a singer, firefighter, policeman or something special; you don’t ever think that you will become a teen mother or parent. Teen pregnancy is becoming a complex issue in the United States (Klein, 2005). It not only affects the families of the teen parents, it also affects the government, health care, educators, and the teen (Klein, 2005). When a little girl grows up she always says that she wants to be a mommy one day like her own mother, but never states that she wants to be a teenage mother. Young pre-teens and teens from ages 12-18 are increasingly having babies these days. Even though they don’t know it their young age and stage in development will have a great impact on the growing infant. Being a teen mom will not only affect their lives, it will affect their babies.

Girls around the ages of nine until about sixteen years old go to puberty and menarche which is sometimes difficult for girls to understand and be comfortable with. Going through the developmental stage of puberty girls develop into young ladies and their bodies develop more; these developments are the ones that attract the boys. When girls are ready to explore them never really think about all of the outcomes of their actions. About one fourth of American adolescents have had intercourse by the age of fifteen years old (Klein, 2005). Most of the time, an adolescents first time is without using contraception;63% of teens reported did not use a condom their last intercourse(Klein,2005) .This can be a huge factor with teenage pregnancy and the increased rates of STD’s. When teens have intercourse and experiment, they don’t think twice about getting pregnant or what could happen in the future.

Teen mothers are not full developed in their stage of development. Their brains and bodies are still immature and some aren’t even developed enough to hold a child. A child at the age of twelve is in their “awkward” stage in development when their body starts to look weird to them. Carrying a child at that age has serious risks due to the fact that the child does not have the body to carry an infant. With 20% of 740,000 U.S. teen girls getting pregnant a year, prevention strategies should be taken (Berk, 2012). Also, teen mothers often do not know they are pregnant until it is too late, which then they do not have a good start on the prenatal care of the baby. Most teen mothers still smoke, drink, and have inadequate diets that can cause complications to the infant (Berk, 2012).Teen moms also do not have the funds to get good prenatal care and care for themselves while they are pregnant. Poor prenatal care of the infant can suppress the development if the immune system and cause problems with the respiratory system (Berk, 2012). Teen mothers have a higher rate of having babies that are underweight, and there is a higher risk for Down syndrome in the fetus. The United States holds the record for the highest teen pregnancies in the world (Gallup-Black & Weitzman, 2004). The shocking part about teen pregnancy today is that it is lower than it was in 1991(Berk, 2012).

Teen pregnancy also has other leading factors to it that psychologist haven’t investigated yet. The new shows on TV called “Teen Mom” and “Sixteen and Pregnant” are factors to teen pregnancy are many ways. Teenage girls are watching these shows and saying “Oh this is all I have to do to get a show on TV” or “Wow I hope I can be a teen mom and go on that show!” Teen girls watching these shows look at the lives of other teens becoming parents but bypass the fact that they are struggling and look at the fact that they are making money for being teen mothers. Not only do the teens on these dreadful shows become TV stars, their faces start to become posted on all these different magazines such as “People” magazine or “Seventeen” magazine. This makes teen girls want to buy the magazine and influences them to get pregnant even more. MTV and other television stations should create shows on what teen pregnancy does to your life and to prevent teen pregnancy rather than have teen mothers flaunt their pregnancy around. The only positive thing about the show “Sixteen and Pregnant” is that it is more of a documentary and it does show that the teens are struggling and having a hard time being a teenager and a parent.

Adolescent teen mothers usually come from a low income or poor family. About 83% of teen moms who give birth are from a low income household (Klein, 2005). The economic circumstances of teen mothers are a huge issue. Due to the fact that most teen parents are not graduated high school and most of them end up dropping out of school, those being able to find a good job to support their new family are extremely difficult. Usually teen mothers and fathers find low-paying, unskilled jobs which can only provide the new baby with the basic necessities (Berk, 2012). Teenage mothers cannot work until about 6 weeks after the child is born, so they are more dependent on the teen father and their parents to support the teen and the baby they just delivered. Teen mothers not only have to deal with the stress of having a new baby, they also have to deal with stress of income and school.

Discussion

Teen pregnancy is a huge issue in the United States and all around the world. Teens from the ages of 12-19 are having sex and most of them aren’t realizing the full consequences of intercourse without contraception and birth control. Condoms and birth control are free in many states and all a teen has to do is go to the nearest clinic and ask for them. With approximately 900,000 teenage girls getting pregnant every year in the United states (Klein, 2005), prevention measures should be taken. Teen moms do not realize that their bodies aren’t fully developed to carry children and that they are not fully mature enough to become a parent. Most teen moms become single mothers due to the fact that the teen father runs off because he cannot handle to pressures of parenting. Teenage girls are having children and not thinking about the drastic change that the child is going to have on them and their families. Even though 35% of adolescent pregnancies end in abortion (Gallup-Black &Weitzman, 2004); teens that have their babies are unaware of what being a parent is. Also, teen mothers are most likely to drop out of high school and then will not ever get the chance to see how the rest of their high school years, graduation, and college experiences would be. Their incomes will be lower because most fathers or mothers will not have a successful job. About 50% of teen parents have also had a criminal record or have been committed of some illegal offense (Berk, 2012).

Through these facts and main ideas stated in this research paper, teen pregnancy is clearly an issue and should be pronounced as an issue. There should be more methods of prevention taken so that teens get a clear view of what their life would be like as a teen parent. High schools and middle schools should address this issue to their students to help them realize what a great impact becoming pregnant as a teen has on them and their whole world. Teens should use condoms and learn more about what the actions and consequences of sex are before and while they do it. Also there should be more support group or other centers for teen moms to meet up and discuss how their lives have changed and support one another. Becoming a teen mother is not the end of the world, and the mothers should know that. Teen mothers need support and do teens without children to learn the changes and to prevent the other teens from having children at such a young age. Throughout this research and the articles supporting this research, teens should follow through and learn about prevention and contraception so they can become successful and live their lives before becoming a parent.

Self-esteem is all about how a person views themselves. When a person has a healthy sense of self, they respect themselves and they possess the courage to try different experiences even if it means that they might fail. A positive sense of self is driven to make healthy decisions and does not search for negative influences to pattern after. Low self-esteem is the complete opposite; it entails feelings of loneliness and self-hate. Low self-esteem is a serious problem for many young people; they often feel that they are undesirable and not worthy of having long lasting friendships or love interest. These feelings are a normal part of adolescence but, children who have low self-esteem find that negative thoughts and feelings of self-loathing don’t seem to disappear. A child who has a normal and healthy sense of self has the ability to overcome these feelings or find ways to cope with them. Children with low self-esteem often can’t summons the energy to channel positive thoughts and feelings. To combat this problem, teens will search for things that will make them feel complete. According to (Bessie`re, Seay, & Kiesler, 2007; Wan & Chiou, 2006), feelings of inadequacy and meekness often leads young people to prolonged use of the Internet. Children with low self-esteem also feel that the important adults in their lives, constantly judge them on their performances in school and in other social situations. They feel a need for acceptance and love from their parents, peers and community. The Internet and Social media sites also provide children the opportunity to fill the void of despair by choosing negative and harmful role models to pattern themselves after. These role models become important to them, they feel a need to nurture them and allow them to grow. Many times, these characters are more important than actual face to face communication with peers and family.

Internet addiction in this case is characterized as a child or young adult spending excessive amounts of time and energy on the internet or on social media sites. The child will often find himself visiting sites; posting pictures and communicating all day long, while neglecting their daily responsibilities and routines. Instead of having normal peer relationships and interactions, the child seeks; people to chat with on-line. Greenfield (1999) found that young people, who use chat-rooms in a marked degree, make up a large group of compulsive Internet users. For these participators, chat rooms and Social media sites become their primary outlet for interactions; relationship building and the fulfillment of social needs. These children often miss the opportunity to make friends in the real world because they start to believe that the people they meet on line can be trusted with personal information. Polls taken on students found that Seventy-two percent of school age range youth has admitted to using internet chat rooms in excess on a daily basis. Young (1997) found that children lose out on peer interactions and academic opportunities due to compulsive internet use.

Egger (1996), found eight prevalent indications of Internet addiction: 1. the child seems to overlook time spent when on line, 2. the child gets angry when he is asked to end Internet time. 3. The child steals time on the internet without parental permission, 4. The child exhibits a loss of interest in daily activities or relationships, 5. Child seems depressed and despondent when they are not on-line, 6. Child checks e-mails and Social Media accounts constantly, 7. The child seeks out friends on-line and forms new relationships and 8. The child uses chat identification names while off-line.

A child can also find themselves developing addictive patterns like; checking media sites or entering chat rooms. On the Internet; a child who is normally shy and reserved, can create a whole new image and personality by joining on-line chat rooms. In a groundbreaking article, Rheingold (1996) argued that internet chat rooms and Social media sites are places that a child can “act out” a part in a role of their choosing. The child can create their own reality, while hiding behind a computer terminal. In these social media rooms, the child feels the freedom to “re-create” himself into the person he wishes to be. This gives the child the power to control his state of being. Instead of feeling powerless and non-existent, the child has the confidence that he never had before. On-line friendships in Social media sites become more important than actual relationships with family members and peers. This is why it is so easy for the child to become addicted to Social media; they seem to be a safe harbor for anyone who feels lonely and powerless. There are many popular sites that children use in order to chat with others; many times these sites condone sexually explicit behavior and messages. These sites have a large adolescent following; they offer the chance to chat with peers and create web pages that can be

suggestive and inappropriate. Many children often feel free enough to explore their sexuality and desires without anyone knowing who they are. Arisoy and Davis (2009, 2001) states that despite the fact that overuse of Social media and Internet sites are seen as productive and gratifying to the user; it is actually an unhealthy way of coping with feelings of inadequacy.

Facebook and MySpace are very popular Social media sites that teens with low self-esteem frequent. These sites are among the most popular social networking sites that children frequent today; with millions of teen followers (most under the age of 15). These sites allow the users to update their status as many times as they would like without fear of being reprimanded for inappropriate language or content. Lampe (2006) argued that the dominant reason why Social media sites exist is to bridge friends and family together; in spite of distance and time constraints. But what happens when these sites are abused by teens? These sites then become addictive and harmful to the user and can ultimately cause the child to perform poorly in school and in life.

The allure to these sites seems to be the fact that children can create the self-image they always wanted to have. They can create an identity that mirrors the self-image they wish to have; while inviting the same peers who tease them to be friends with them. The child feels that the friends made on line are true and loyal. The child feels a sense of excitement and joy when their peers desire to view their page; this is seen as acceptance-even if the child is being deceptive. Children with self-image issues are given the platform to voice concerns and maybe turn the tables on awkward situations. Many children will hide behind Social media sites in order to empower themselves-sometimes in negative ways.

Another effect that the internet has on self-esteem is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying entails using the internet or other electronic devises to harass or intimidate another person. Cyber bullying occurs when a child or group of children flood the internet or other electronic devises with negative images; slurs or rumors about fellow classmates of peers. Analysis establishes that cyber bullying causes both boys and girls feelings of exasperation, sadness, and desperation. Girls tend to respond with discontent but boys are preoccupied with feelings of possible revenge and score settling by the bully. This negative behavior has become a national problem; it is among the leading cause of teen suicide and school violence. Cyber bullies have many excuses as to why they harass their peers. Some say that they do it to “get back” at them for some wrong doing; another cyber bully says they did it because the class mate dressed and acted differently from other students. Children who have low self-esteem and are bullied feel unsafe in their surroundings. They feel that wherever they are, they can be touched by vicious and unfounded rumors on the Internet or physically harmed by the people who started the rumors. Children in this situation may feel too intimidated to tell a parent, family member or community leader. There is an unspoken rule that children in schools across the country follow; the no “snitching” or tattling rule. It often does not matter if the child is threatened or harmed in front of hundreds of their peers, that child feels that they can’t tell. If they are brave enough to tell, the child will most certainly face retaliation and social humiliation by not only the bully but their friends also. These feelings of helplessness and confusion often lead the victim to either take their own life or the lives of the bully or other innocent people. Kessel (2012) stated that many victims of cyber bullying dealt with feelings of emotional distress; these feelings lead to depression, self-mutilation and or suicide.

Pedophilia and predatory stalkers are also contributors to self-esteem and the Internet. In this case, children are preyed on while on certain Social media sites with the assumption that they are reaching out to young people their own age; but police reports and news articles paint a different picture. In the last few years; reports have invaded the news about the dangers of frequenting sites that have a large youth following. Pedophiles and stalkers prey on the young and naA?ve; they use and contact children through their social media pages with false identities and backgrounds. The perpetrator is only chatting with the child in order to gain their trust and to acquire their personal information. After the offender gains that child’s trust; they offer to meet them face to face with the promise of sex, drugs or some type of adventure. Often; these children are found sexually abused, psychologically scared or even worse- deceased. According to Melody (2007), in standard, there are three elements of staking:

1. there has to be a continuous sequence of unwanted behavior displayed by the stalker to the victim;

2. The stalker has to have made a threat toward the victim;

3. The victim has to have experienced a sense of uneasiness or danger as a result of the stalker.

Recently, Facebook and other sites have promised to “clean up” its content by going in and deleting the member pages that contain explicit and suggestive language and content. They also vowed to delete the pages of children who post personal information such as; phone numbers, addresses and names of schools. Facebook and other sites only agreed to do this after a group of angry parents and educators called attention to the threat against our youth.

Spitzberg and Hoobler (2002) argued that with the influx of Social media sites and other forms of technology, stalkers and pedophiles have better access to their victims. It is imperative that parents become active participants in spreading the word about the dangers of excessive internet use.

Another link to self-esteem and internet use is negative body image. Teens are often ambushed with some type of media which includes circulars, videos, radio and Internet sites. Many young people and teens spend large amounts of time searching on fashion sites for the latest trend and fad diet. Children can spend hours in their rooms on various sites “researching” pictures of the perfect nose; eyes; stomach and behind. Many times these images are photo shopped and “doctored” to be flawless; the children feel that these images are real and should be aspired to. Young people with low self-esteem feel that their bodies are ugly and flawed so they are in search of what will make them feel whole. Many young women find themselves eager to have reconstructive surgeries done on their bodies due to these feelings. The Internet fuels these feelings of self-hate by encouraging young women and sometimes boys to fixate on images and celebrities body parts that they deem as attainable. The more these images are downloaded; more time consuming it becomes for the adolescent; this causes them to loose themselves in a world of unhealthy and detrimental thoughts. This time could be better spent interacting with peers and forming; lasting relationships outside of the home. Park (2005) suggests that the issues teens face with body image has taken an upturn with the surge in popularity of the Internet and Social media sites.

There are many strategies parents can use in order to build higher self-esteem in children: parents need to create an open dialogue with children about their feelings and social interactions. Children who are disheartened feel that they have little chance to be successful in life. By opening the lines of communication; the child can express emotions and work out any aggression they might feel. This also gives the parent a better understanding on how to help the child through difficult times.

Adults should show genuine care and concern toward the child and their particular issues; this will break down the wall of uncertainty and lack of trust between parent and child. Children can feel betrayed and angry when they sense that the parent is humoring them or being condescending; these feelings might lead the child to mistrust the parent and shut down. These assumptions could also lead the child to feel that their parents don’t have their best interest at heart. To ensure that the child is not made to feel embarrassed or shunned, parents should think before they engage in an open dialogue. It is a good idea that parents establish an environment of optimism and concern about life and its up’s and down’s; be honest enough to tell them that we all face disappointments and hardships but stress the importance of not giving up. Have faith in the child/young person and display it- let the child know that they make a difference in the world. Dispense praise and positive assessment; children feel their self-worth is contingent on how their peers view of them. To help reassure the child a parent can acknowledge when they attempt a hard task then, praise them for having had the courage to try. Learn to acknowledge what a child is feeling by asking them to identify their feelings. Parents of young children can even have a feelings chart hung in sight; with the proper title under each emotion.

When the young child can’t express their emotion in words, they can point to an emotion that best describes them. This will give the child the assurance that they are heard and understood by the parent while the parent teaches the names of the emotions and the best ways child how to handle them. Parents should also try to focus on the positive actions of the child instead of the negative ones so the child will feel confident and empowered instead of degraded and singled-out. Children love to imitate or follow after adults so it is important to allow children to see you take chances and step outside the “norm”. This action sends a clear message to the child; “If I am brave enough to try, you can do it also”. Encourage your child to use the creativity they possess; if they like to draw or paint, enroll them in an art class and participate. Lastly; trust that your child can handle making their own decisions; start with small issues then work up to large ones but keep the lines of communication open. For example; allow the child to choose their wardrobe for school. If there are questionable choices made, use that situation to positively discuss it. As time goes on, both sides will learn to compromise and talk out larger issues. Parents can also get children involved in activities away from home and the computer. Engaging in physical activity helps to stimulate the mind; build muscles and allows opportunities for positive social interactions.

There are many strategies parents can use in order to combat excessive Internet usage in children.

1. Parents need to inform themselves about the internet and chat rooms; parents are not aware that their children are addicted to the internet because they know so little about it. Parents should ask their children to help them navigate through some of the social media sites. Allow them to

assume the role of teacher while the parent praises them of their knowledge and understanding of the sites. This will make the child feel easier about sharing this information and create an opening for questions and answers.

2. Take a computer literacy class. If parents are not comfortable with asking their child to show them how to navigate the web, they can sign up for free classes. Places like the public library and community centers offer free or reduced priced classes that will teach the basics of computer usage.

3. Computers should reside in an open space in the home. This way; the child will not lock himself away in a room or spend enormous hours surfing unknown and unsafe sites. If the entire family has access to the computer, the child does not have the privacy to sneak away and use the computer inappropriately.

4. Adults also need to monitor children’s use of the internet. The child should not spend more than two hours a day on the Internet with each hour broken into half an hour intervals. By allowing children to use the internet in intervals, we give them an opportunity to explore other talents and interests that might not be utilized while on-line.

5. Parents should become detectives. Parents can log on and create their own page in a site that a child frequents; this way the parent will find out the types of conversations that takes place. Some may find this as intrusive but in some cases; it has to be done to save a child’s life.

6. When choosing data plans for cell phones or other devises, limit the time and sites that the child can visit. There are many applications that can be downloaded on the phone to ensure the

safety of youth and teens. Technology can be wonderful and beneficial if we learn to use it properly.

In an effort to combat cyber bullying and online harassment it is a good idea to get teachers and school administrators involved. Some students are more comfortable confiding in teachers or counselors about cyber bullying rather than talking to their parents. They may feel that the teacher has a better understanding of these issues because they understand teens better. While in school, teachers should:

1. Discuss Internet safety and proper usage of cell phones and other devises.

2. Facilitate open dialogues in class about the dangers and warning signs if cyber bullying.

3. Give students the strategies to combat cyber bullying like; reporting it right away and keep personal business and information off the Internet.

4. Lastly, make an effort to let the student know that you are available to assist them with the issue.

Parents can also turn to churches for seminars and small group discussions about self-esteem and internet use. Parents can play a role in self-esteem building by treating the child with respect and love, seriously listening to their views and opinions. Most importantly, parents have to remember that self-esteem is paramount in every child’s development. When the child sees that this issue is important to you; they will take notice and start talk about their concerns.

Now that we have identified the link between internet addiction and self-esteem, parents must be proactive and get involved with their children and their activities. Parents have to be able to recognize the signs of low self-esteem and be ready to help the child cope with their feelings. Parents have to be the child’s first resource when their feelings and emotions seem to go awry. In order to be this resource, they have to become familiar with various strategies and plans that will aid the child. Parents should be prepared to notice the signs of low self-esteem and be willing to seek outside help. The Internet and other technologies have indeed changed our lives in meaningful and substantial ways; this why we have to help our children understand and assume the responsibilities of it.

Much of our understanding of the value of play has originated from Piaget (1962) and Vygotsky (1978), who focused on the role of play in childrens development. They saw children as active explorers of their world. With each new encounter or interaction, children were able to discover new meanings, and thus developed more complex understandings and skills. Play is therefore, an important part of the process of constructing knowledge. It enables children to control what happens and to use what they already know to further their understanding and development. Socio-dramatic play is one of the most important forms of play (Smilansky & Shefatya, 1992). Play experiences support children to be active participants in developing and strengthening their character, finding their own voice in compromising with others or directing their play ideas. When engaging in pretend play, children use fantasy, make-believe, and symbolic behavior in representing one object as another (Kaugers &Ross 2009). Play is a skill worth practicing and mastering not, as adults often seem to think of it, a mere time filler or something to do outside to blow off steam. Mastering play is as important as mastering oral or written language. All these modes of symbolic representation enable human beings to remember manage, plan, and communicate with each other (Reynolds & Jones 1997). The term play is often used but loosely defined. For the purpose of this paper when speaking of play the kind of play that will be discussed will be socio-dramatic play (Smilanskiy 1968). This type of play,also called dramatic, imaginative, or pretend play, can occur with peers, adults, or both. Characteristics of socio-dramatic play include make-believe that involves roles, objects, and

situations; and includes language and social interaction. The social aspect distinguishes socio-dramatic play from dramatic play because children can and do pretend during solitary play. Socio-dramatic play may also occur in combination with constructive play in early childhood classrooms.

Much of what we currently know about sociodramatic play started with Vygotsky’s research. Vygotsky saw play as the leading behavior in children’s development. In Vygotsky’s theory, children play beyond their years (Bodrova & Leong, 2005). The play has several elements to it. First, the play must include an imaginary element, second, involved children must have assigned role(s) with implicit rules, and finally, language must be involved. (Smilansky & Shefatya, 1992).

The Role of Teachers in Children’s Play

Because children are the active participant they have autonomy over their play and this is one of the most empowering experiences a child can have (Canning, 2007). The adults in the child’s world play an integral role. Children want support in practical difficulties, but also want to be seen as important and competent individuals (Pramling, Samuelsson, &Johansson 2009). Children want to know when they are doing the right things and want to appear in a favorable light to their teachers and other adults by informing them when peers break rules. By this the children also confirm the teachers, in the sense that they are to be trusted, they know how things should be and they have power and knowledge to mediate. The role of the teacher in play is complex and can involve a directive, non-directive, and/or elaborative role. Howard, Jenvey, and Hill (2006) indicated that higher levels of teacher verbalization can reduce play behavior. Similarly, Tamburrini (1982) suggested that re-direction devalued play as a learning activity whereas elaborative interaction facilitated play behavior. Play activities tend to occur more frequently between children rather than with teachers (Canning, 2007). Piaget’s clinical observations supported educator’s discoveries that children construct knowledge for themselves through spontaneous activity. Through the play experiences teachers provide; children acquire rules, imitate reality, and socialize with their peers (Piaget, 1962). So then in the early years for many teaching is based on observation. Teachers don’t however just watch and sit idly by. They also make play possible. The play they make possible is rich, complex, and thoughtfully-planned. Socio-dramatic play provides an excellent context for children to develop and practice many important skills and behaviors that contribute to later success in school and life. As play matures, there is a progressive transition from reactive to and impulsive behaviors to behaviors that are more deliberate and thoughtful (Bodrova & Leong, 2005). Teachers need to know how to observe play, helping children grow into master players. Like every stage of development, play does not occur automatically, it needs nurturing from a capable adult. Children must learn how to engage in satisfying socio-dramatic play and teachers must take responsibility for setting up their environment and assisting the play by taking on the role of observer, stage-manager, and co- player (Bredekamp 2005).

Within research, play has been analyzed in numerous studies. The purpose of this study will be to examine the role of the teacher’s involvement during play. Specifically can a teacher or another trained adult improve socio-dramatic play to improve other cognitive and socio-emotional abilities? In order to examine this, the following questions need to be explored: What is the level of socio-dramatic play in the classroom? How is the teacher involved? What obstacles hinder progress?

Method
Participants and Setting
Dependent Variable
Independent Variable
Experimental Design and Procedures

What occurs to children in the early years has consequences right through the path of their lives. While there are many occasions to interfere and make a difference to the lives of children and young people, this report suggests that intervening in early childhood is the most effective phase to impact on the future development of the child. This statement explores the factors that effect on life-long health, growth and well-being from environmental, and life path perspectives.

Early childhood settings plays an important role in promoting health and a feeling of wellbeing for children, their families and ultimately their communities (Hayden & Macdonald, 2000). Therefore the goals of health and wellbeing promotion are supported by parents, staff and early childhood professionals who use early childhood services.

There are multiple aspects or dimensions to general wellbeing. For the purpose of this report it is convenient to identify and discuss the most important six areas of health mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, environmental and social. These six areas are overlapping and interrelated, but together provide a useful framework for thinking about children’s growth and development as health, well-rounded individuals.

2. Background

The early childhood era sets the phase for how well children view themselves, each other, and their world. Young children actively construct meanings about the world and their place in it, offering alternative but equally valid understandings to adults (Millie & Watson, 2009).

The communication between careers and children work as building blocks for the growth of children as whole (Hayden et al., 2000). In order to share positive experiences of services delivered for the development of six dimensions of health and wellness in respective childcare settings is the intended objective of this report.

2.1 Health: Towards Wellness and the Six Dimensions

Prior to the 1800s, health was simply means the antithesis of sickness (Donatelle, 2006). Therefore, when all parts of body were functioning properly called as a good body having health. However focusing on global health issues at an international conference in 1947, the World Health Organization (WHO) took a landmark step and clarified that what health truly meant: “Health is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (Donatelle, 2006). According to Donatelle (2006), Health is complex and involves the interaction of variegated factors, which includes;

Physical refers to the capability of human body structure to function properly

Social refers to the capability to interact with other individuals

Mental refers to the capability to process information and act properly

Emotional refers to the capability to cope, adjust, and adapt

Spiritual refers to conviction in some force or dynamic other than humans

Environmental consist of

· External: refers to one’s surroundings (e.g., habitat, occupation)

· Internal: refers to an individual’s internal structure (e.g., genetics)

Achieving wellness means attaining the optimal level of wellness for a given person’s unique set of limitations and strengths (Donatelle, 2006).

2.2 Wellness and Wellbeing: The importance in early childhood

One of the greatest indicators of health and wellness in a community is the extent to which it nurtures healthy children, as they will become the healthy adults citizens who make communities vibrant (McMurray, 2007).

While we have long recognized that early experiences have an effect on later life, new findings from longitudinal studies and new brain conceivable techniques, are showing that the initial years of life are serious in the purpose of physical, neurological, cognitive, emotional and social growth (Ferber, 1996). In the meantime, studies on social determinants have exposed that enduring health and well-being is predisposed not only by heredity and lifestyle, but also by economic, social and other environmental factors (McMurray, 2007). These findings recommend that accountability for health extends beyond health check professionals: doctors and nurses. Those who are concerned with promoting healthy environments may be uniformly significant in guiding health outcomes. Early childhood professionals are comprehensible contributors in this ground.

3. Six Dimensions of Wellness

The six dimensions of wellness interact continuously, influencing and being influenced by one another.

For example, spiritual wellness is associated with social skills, which can help build interpersonal relationships, which are in turn linked to physical wellness and longer life expectancy. The self-esteem that comes with emotional wellness is associated with increased physical activity and healthy eating habits, which support physical wellness.

3.1 Physical wellness

Physical wellness is basically the overall well being of a person’s physical state. This dimension includes characteristics such as size and shape, sensory acuity and responsiveness, susceptibility to disease and disorders, body functioning, physical fitness, and recuperative abilities (Donatelle, 2006).

For good health, children need physical activity. Being active promotes healthy frame, strength and joints, builds patience and muscle force, makes it easier to uphold a healthy load, increases power, and even fosters self-respect.

Children of all ages need and want places to play. To support the variety of their physical activities, they need many types of entertaining facilities, both public and private, near their homes and schools (Sallis & Glanz, 2006). Children may spend more time being immobile indoors, where they remain inactive. These inactive behaviours such as television viewing and videos are dangerous factors for obesity in youth and reducing such behaviours is another strategy for preventing weight gain in children. Similarly using less fruits and vegetables and greater dependence on convenience foods and fast foods contribute to the epidemic of childhood obesity (Sallis et al., 2006).

3.1.1 Experience of our childcare Centre

The standard length of reside in a children’s home is making an impact on individual students, so we recognize it as a challenge. We created modified tactics to give confidence to children (and staff) to eat at smallest amount five servings of fruit and vegetables each day and to connect in one hour of physical activity which consist of play and fun, five days a week. The center also provides hands-on training for forefront staff that helped those serves as role models for healthy performance. The center produced partnerships with other group of people organizations to offer nutrition-related services.

3.2 Emotional Wellness

Emotional wellness is an active condition that fluctuates with corporeal, academic, spiritual, interpersonal and social, and environmental wellness (Donatelle, 2006). Sound health results from the contentment of basic needs – the need for kindness and love; safety and clarity; social acknowledgment; to feel capable; physical needs and for meaning in life. It includes happiness and happiness, efficient social functioning and the dispositions of hopefulness, openness, curiosity and flexibility (Hood, 2009).

The infants achieve their satisfaction of basic needs by: attaching themselves to individual and groups of people who can help them survive and to find out how things around them work; to explore their soundings, so they can eventually learn to keep themselves safe and meet their own needs. And since these two behaviours are so fundamental, not achieving success with them causes distress (emotional dysregulation), which, if sustained, affects mental health (Hood, 2009).

3.2.1 Experience of our childcare center: considerations of Emotional Wellness – Promotion, Prevention, and Intervention

Staff at our center provides opportunity for involvement and plans with careful notice that successfully maintains emotional wellness.

Promotion

We provide emotionally supportive environment by holding and singing to infants and play with toddlers, and pay attention to and monitor preschoolers vigilantly.

We display problem solving skills by using role play indicating words and verbal communication with toddlers, and assist possible group discussions that direct problem solving skills with preschoolers.

Prevention

Prevent a lack of communication with families – We do proper planning for sharing strategies and information with families to better understand children’s likeness and dislikesness attitudes.

Avoid escalated situations – We do appropriate planning to make sure that all actors of working group have ordinary visions for anticipation, intrusion and endorsement to provide a complete support scheme.

Intervention

Awareness of interventions services – We keep alert ourselves from the need of intervention services such as mental health and child wellbeing agencies, early intervention programs, and medical intervention services for high threat situations.

Construct successful collaborations – We provide documented information to the intervention service program to provide a complete picture of the child’s needs in order that they correspond efficiently with one another and employ follow up strategies.

3.3 Intellectual Wellness

The uniqueness of intellectual health include the ability to think clearly, reason impartially, examine seriously, and use ‘intelligence’ effectively to meet life challenges. Academic health means learning from successes and mistakes and making sound, responsible decisions that take into deliberation all aspects of a situation (Donatelle, 2006).

Children have a talent for being inquisitive about everything around them. So the caregivers should try to regain this inquisitiveness about the world and will be astonished at how much children will learn.

3.3.1 Experience of our childcare center

Our center’s services in this dimension of wellness are not exhaustive; however we try to improve children’s intellectual wellness. To make an action plan to improve children intellectual wellness, we discover issues related to problem solving, originality, individuality, and learning. We try to figure out to children to read for fun! By choosing books for fun (like filling colours in figures), so they not only gain knowledge of about an exacting topic or concentration, but also learn about how others express themselves.

3.4 Spiritual Wellness

According to Bone (2008) Spirituality is a term with many definitions and means different things to different people and often confused with religion but my definition of spirituality is a

aˆ¦aˆ¦..means of connecting people to all things, to nature and the universe. Spirituality adds to my appreciation of the wonder and mystery in everyday life.

It alerts me to the possibility for love, happiness, goodness, peace and

compassion in the world.

Spiritual wellness refers to integrating our beliefs and values with our actions (Donatelle, 2006). A sense of purpose, direction, and awareness form spirituality.

3.4.1 Experience of our childcare center

To develop spirituality in children we teach them through fun play and demonstrations and mutual dealings in the setting;

To forgive, we replace condemnation or judgmentalism.

To love, we replace hatred.

To share or to be generous we replace selfishness.

To be compassionate, we replace intolerance.

To speak kind words we replace contentiousness and meanness.

3.5 Social wellness and wellbeing

Social health is a part of psychosocial health which includes our interactions with others and our ability to adopt to range of social situations (Donatelle, 2006). Social wellness is a significant part in every person’s life, above all because it helps him be familiar with his normal interdependence with others, despite of the relationship. Donatelle (2006) maintains that people who are more connected to others manage stress more effectively and are much more resilient when they are bombard by life crisis. The shortage of social wellness frequently leads to disruptive behavior and causes incapability to regulate in social environment.

The teachers’ openness to children, parents, and the cultures represented in their classroom influences their overall effectiveness in teaching and their ability to foster children’s social development particularly. When teachers use these strategies, they are more effective in promoting children’s social competence and maintaining a positive learning environment. Therefore, the content of teacher-child interaction should be predominantly related to activities, learning, investigations, and plans (Katz & McClellan, 1997).

3.5.1 Experience of our childcare center

To develop social wellness, behaviours, and attitudes of children we take the following important steps:

Reach out: Offering friendship environment to children as a first step to social wellness- where children of different cultural and social setups interact with each other for knowing and understanding of their mutual needs and develop mutual cooperative attitudes.

Promote chosen relationships: Promoting the relationship built between various children and to stay in healthy relationships. These relationships involve children who care about one another and their wellbeing. Since there is trust and compassion, one feels secure and contented, two vital elements for social wellness.

Communicate effectively: Effective communication is a first step of initiation of relationship – a vital component of social wellness; therefore, we remain in constant interaction with children through play and fun to develop their skills for effective communications.

3.6 Environmental wellness

Environmental Wellness means having an understanding of the exterior environment and the role persons play in preserving and improving environmental circumstances. (Donatelle, 2006). An understanding of these connections can be fostered during the early childhood years through play, productive work and daily routines. (Young & Elliot, 2003).

Opportunities to directly explore the world with all senses are paramount to a child’s understanding of their connections to the environment. The role of the adult is crucial in interpreting these connections, both verbally and physically, and in exploring the values that underpin sustainable lifestyles (Young & Elliot, 2003).

3.6.1 Experience of our childcare center

Our focus on this dimension of wellness and well being is not much thorough; nevertheless we try to give messages to children through play and fun activities relating to:

Don’t leave water running – Demonstrate children about scarcity of water resources and better use of water in daily life.

Use of recycled paper bags when shopping – To realize children to use paper bags and avoid use of plastic bags due to different biodegradable features of both.

Use waste material for play experiences whenever possible – such as cloth for sewing, and polishing etc.

Care for plants by watering as needed.

4. Conclusion

Children change and develop in response to these different health dimensions, so the developmental process plays an important role in shaping and determining their future health and wellbeing.

It can be concluded that intervening early in the life course has the greatest prospective to stop or considerably improve some of the health and wellbeing troubles seen in adult life. The most direct way of improving outcomes in childhood and thus influencing the life course is to ensure that all caretaking environments in the early years are consistently nourishing, stimulating, and organize the health and developmental requirements of young children. Therefore when young children spend time outside the home, the caretaking environment needs to be the best we can make it.

5. Recommendations

Following the conclusion it is recommended that childcare needs to be conceptualised as an opportunity for learning and socialisation rather than child minding. Actions and policies need to focus on creating a quality early learning environment; this means having staff with appropriate qualifications and training, and child/staff ratios that are appropriate to the developmental needs of the child.

Universal and primary care services across the health proportions and education sectors need to be better coordinated with one another, in order to direct various environmental risk factors and respond to the complex needs of children and their families. These services need to be more adaptable, so that they can react to the emerging needs and problems of children’s health and wellness.

The central interest of this essay is to evaluate the role of play in relation to language and communication development. Developmental psychology is the main source to explore and explain this unique interrelation, because it offers vital information about the human behavior. For this reason several developmental theories occur from many scientists such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Sigmunt Freud, Albert Bandura and other contemporary scientists, who managed to clarify the aspects of child development from different perspectives.

Initially, this essay illustrates the importance of play by describing its categories. Play theories are briefly demonstrated and divided into classical and contemporary. Thereafter, it mentions the characteristics of language through the aspects of two respectful scientists, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, in order to understand the correlation between language and play development. It illustrates the existence of nine basic communicational skills and why non-verbal and verbal communication is so important. Also, this essay analyzes research which explains the direct relation between play, language and communication. Through detailed references, the idea that the role of play is salient in child’s development is supported. Next illustrates the importance of finger, mime and rhyme play to explain that even the most common games possess a significant role in language development. Last but not least, analyzes how play reinforces the literacy development and finally demonstrates the opinion of the writer.

The Importance of Play

Arguably, play is a vital part of the development of children which has many implications in their lives. Despite the difficulty of referring a commonly accepted definition, play is a vital part of the developing child (Sheridan & Howard & Aldelson, 2011). It is a fundamental action which occurs throughout children’s life and is divided to two categories, free play and structured play. Precisely, free play is an action where the child can choose the rules and the form of play, without the participation and the engagement of an adult. Hence, the child becomes the leader of the play (Tassoni & Hucker, 2000).

On the other hand, structured play is defined as an action which is directed by adults. Many researchers have claimed that free play offers more opportunities to children for learning than the second category does. At the same time, there are proponents of this view and others who do not adopt this notion. For this reason, Thomas, Howard and Miles proved by a study they conducted, that free play, in other words playful mode play, is capable of fostering children’s ability of learning. They state that through this mode children’s communication is benefited, because that playfulness creates the ability of enhancing miscellaneous types of behaviors. As a result, educational settings use this method to foster children’s language and communication development (McInnes, Howard, Miles & Crowley, 2009).

It is of importance to mention that there are play theories which are separated into two categories, classical and modern theories of play. Concisely, classical theories consist of the Surplus Energy Theory, Recreational or Relaxation Theory, Pre-exercise Theory and the Recapitulation Theory of play (Sheridan & Howard & Aldelson, 2011 & Stagnitti, 2004 & Tassoni & Hucker, 2000). Modern theories concluded by the Arousal Modulation Theories of Play, the Psychodynamic Theories of Play, the Cognitive Developmental Theories of Play and the Sociocultural theories of Play. The last category is divided into two sub-categories which are the Play as Socialization and the Metacommunicative Theory (Stagnitti, 2004). Moreover, there are five types of play, which are cited as physical play, play with objects, symbolic play, socio-dramatic/pretence play and games with rules (Whitebread, 2012).

The above five types of play help children to expand their abilities not only in language and communication domain, but also in the physical, cognitive, social and emotional development (Sheridan & Howard & Aldelson, 2011). According to the constant evolution of language and communication, play and its benefits in this domain must be analyzed in depth, in order to evaluate children’s developmental potentials through play.

Language and Communication

Language is a strong communication tool (Moyles, 1989) which fosters children’s abilities. Through language we can live the past again, evaluate the future and use this vital tool when we face complex situations (Crain, 2000). Also, many developmental theorists tried to explain, how children adopt primal abilities as they grow up and some of them, gave special emphasize to the language and communication development and how is related to play. They evaluate children’s development from birth to adulthood.

Vygotsky, claimed by his social constructivism theory, that language is the cultural tool which facilitates the processes of thinking and learning. It was his firm belief that children must comprehend language, in order to interact in the society. Hence, according to Vygotsky, play and language are interrelated (Moyles, 2005). Due to the fact that through play children master communication skills, they interpret the use of objects and imitate the attitudes and the habits of adults (Gray & MacBlain, 2012). In addition, he stated that children gain knowledge when they participate in social communication and consequently, they adopt new meanings. Therefore, according to Vygotsky, children act in the zone of proximal development (Whitebread, 1996), which means that every child has limited potential when accomplishing an activity but he can expand his skills with a suitable help (Lindon, 2001).

However, another respectful scientist did not lay emphasis, as Vygotsky did, on the importance of language during children’s development. Piaget, a Swiss scientist, stated that language mechanism is used by the young child only to express some basic satisfactions and not to foster more complex functions such as thought and logic (Gray & MacBlain, 2012). Furthermore, Piaget’s opinions did not promote children’s abilities; instead he undervalued them, by applying activities that were too complex for children competences (Whitebread, 1996). On the contrary, some scientists argue that children’s thought, started to function logically as they learn how to use language. This happens because language skills are difficult to be assimilated by young children, but when this gradually occurs, logic develops (Crain, 2000). Nevertheless, Piaget did not support the above notion by mentioning that logic derives from actions (Gray & MacBlain, 2012).

On the grounds that language is an integral part of communication, it is important to pinpoint some of the skills that children develop in this domain. In other words there are nine basic communication skills.

Initially, children learn to request reinforcement, to request assistance, to accept and reject offers. Furthermore, they respond to the order ”wait” or ”no”, they respond to directions, follow a schedule and finally they are able to do a transition from one place to another (Frost & Bondy, 2011). For instance, when children pretend to be a patient in a hospital, they learn when they have to wait their turn in order to be examined by the doctor and they give order such as ”wait”, “stay”, “come”.

Communication is a complex function. Before the emergence of words, children can communicate in a high level before adopting language production and language comprehension (Sheridan & Sharma & Cockerill, 2008). The above aspect describes the non-verbal communication type which is very important. Newborn babies communicate non-verbally to express their needs. Facial expressions, body language, proto-sounds and perception of feelings are the attributes of non-verbal communication (Whitehead, 1999).

Hence, adults start to communicate with children initially non-verbally and secondly verbally. Research argues that conversation between children and adults which contains a large number of open questions is essential because children have the opportunity to respond with spoken language. In other words, when children feel that they are active participants in an adult-child conversation, they feel playful which is salient for the development of language. (Howard & McInnes, 2012).

Fostering Language and Communication Skills through Play

To begin with, studies have proved that there is a strong connection between language and play. A research which had taken place in Japan in 1989, showed remarkable signs that play and language are correlated with each other. Specifically, the four children who participated in this research, were observed twenty times each in a free play mode, where the individual had a passive role. The intention of the study was to analyze early language development and play development (Ogura, 1991). Thus, six features of language were illustrated in order to analyze the findings better. These were the emergence of first words, naming words, vocabulary spurts, word-chains, nonproductive two word utterances and the emergence of productive two-word utterances (Ogura, 1991 p.278). Furthermore, that research divided play to thirteen subcategories. The findings showed that children managed to obtain the ability of naming words because they had been involved in preverbal communication. Also, children began to name objects when conventional naming act category of play appeared. Furthermore, words and sounds have a strong relationship each other. It was proved that children through the functional relational manipulation play and the container relational manipulation play, managed to adopt the above important function and the production of first words as well. Moreover, it was stated that the early language development is related to the subsitutional play. Also, this study illustrated that the environment is a major factor in the development of the symbolic play. As a result, language is being influenced by the social interaction. Moreover, children’s vocabulary spurts appeared with the subsitutional play. Word-chains appeared when pretend doll play, subsitutional play and pretend other play took place during the observations. In addition, the fifth language category derived in parallel with planned play and combinatorial symbolic play. The last language category was related to planned play (Ogura, 1991). Undoubtedly, this paper shows the unique interrelation between language development and play.

Researchers evaluated the connection between symbolic play with play materials and symbolic play with play situation. Firstly, during children’s play with unstructured play materials, they found that children who are at the age of three to four years old could imitate the activities of adults. However, in structured play children were able not only to imitate but also to participate slightly in role play. At the age of four to five years old children’s unstructured play evolved and they started to express questions and ideas with the mediate tool of spoken language. On the contrary, in structured play they used more conversation. This study showed that in the first type of play children at the age of five to six used their body language and voice to clarify a situation. Also, both in structured and unstructured play, children preferred to play in sex groups. We can notice that structured materials are better for younger children because they do not offer limitations in their ideas while playing. In other words, younger children need to enhance their expressive ideas by playing with structured play materials to be adequately prepared for school (Umek & Musek, 2001).

At the same time, symbolic play related to play situation showed that phonetic imitation (Umek & Musek, 2001 p. 61) is promoted and that at the age of four children use social speech. Moreover, they use social markers, in order to speak like adults (Ervin-Tripp, 1973). Later, at the age of five children used metacommunication in their play. Metacommunication is very important because children can discuss about play. They stop in order to negotiate the next step of the game. Indeed, it promotes dialogue among peers. It is very important because it can be used as scaffolding to children’s language development (Andersen, 2005). According to this study, metacommunication levels are higher when children are older. Moreover, the same study proposes that is better and more helpful for children to play in mixed groups rather than in groups based solely on their age. Hence, children can play in the zone of proximal development. Therefore, they foster their language and communication skills. Again, this study shows us that play which is depended whether from materials or situation is correlated with language development.

Apart from the above studies there are play activities which enhance language and communication skills. For instance, children are benefited by mime because they develop an alternative thought. This occurs by observing a diversity of individuals demonstrating their thoughts. Consequently, they can think more complicated situations and they are able to express their ideas with an enriched vocabulary. Furthermore, finger play helps children to the counting process (Woodard & Milch, 2012). Moreover, rhymes can provide many opportunities in children to enhance their language skills. According to a study, rhyme awareness helps children to recognize phonemes which are very important for reading skills. The sensitivity to rhyme enables children to group words together with the same spelling features (Bryant & MacLean & Bradley & Crossland, 1990).

Play fosters Literacy

Vygotsky evaluated the role of make-believe play in children development and he argued that literacy is enhanced by play. He describes that children initially act spontaneously when they play, and the process of learning happens with their will. On the contrary, when children go to school they must change their behaviors to a planned and a structured environment. Vygotsky stated that make-believe play is the important mediate tool for children to adopt written language and to succeed in school (Roskos & Christie, 2007).

Furthermore, drawing is considerable as a necessary action for children. Research has shown that children can expand their ‘graphic vocabularies’ and they can represent their meanings, which means that through drawing communication is enhanced (Whitebread, 2012). Besides, Vygotsky’s research has shown that drawings in the early childhood are connected with the ability of writing and spoken language, which means that the meaning of children’s drawings is not only the drawing as a picture but the drawing as an expressive tool of their thoughts (Roskos & Christie, 2007).

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning, that in children’s play the repetition and the renaming of play materials fosters the ability of the direct relation between words and the objects they portray. The above function is called metalinguistic awareness and it has been proven that it is necessary for written language (Roskos & Christie, 2007 p.193).

Conclusions

It is clear, therefore, that the above essay illustrated the direct correlation between play, language and communication. Despite the fact that, it has been proven that play fosters the learning process, there are still opponents of this view, who state that formal learning strategies are better than playful approaches. However, this essay contradicts the notion of formal learning methods by supporting the opinion, that play does enhance language and communication by citing adequate bibliography to prove that. Children can reach high standards in the learning process of language because during play they are motivated and are not possessed with the feeling of fear (McInnes et al., 2009).

To sum up, due to the fact that play has been decreased from school settings, it is salient to ensure that play must exist in the preschool and in the first school years of a child, because “a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself” (Roskos & Christie, 2007 p.199).

“Where do babies come from?” This is just one question that children ask their parents as they start to wonder about sex and in return hope to find out the answer. Unfortunately, however, not all parent’s want to answer that question or any sex related question for that matter, or even know how to.

Many parents’ today do indeed want to contribute to their children’s knowledge of sex. However, even though parents, who are comfortable with their own sexuality, don’t always know of the best way to approach the topic with their children or even know how talk to them about it (Crooks, Baur, 2011).

“Research shows that positive communication between parents and their children can help young people establish individual values and make healthy decisions” (Parents Sex Ed Center,” 2010). It is important for adults of school age children to maintain an open relationship with their children in order to provide the ability for them to feel comfortable enough to talk with you about whatever they may ask. Teaching sex to your own children can be a task they may make you feel uncomfortable and something that you may find difficult to do. However, by being honest at an early age can allow for honesty and open communication as your children grow (“Parents Sex Ed Center,” 2010).

As children grow, a process begins that a parent can follow in order to develop a wholesome sexual education relationship with their child. Whether it’s starting off answering questions such as, “where do babies come from,” or talking about being sexually active and how to practice safe sex, it is important to be able to talk to your children about this topic and feeling comfortable enough to do so.

Starting at an early age, usually by around age four, many children will ask where they came from, how babies are made, or by asking the names of their own sex organs (self-discovery). Many parents may just put off these types of questions in hopes that their child will forget about it and the parent feels a sense of relief in not having to answer. Instead, the parent is making a mistake in not answering and thus unknowingly creating a communication block (Crooks, Baur 2011).

When young children ask these types of questions, they aren’t expecting a complete anatomy lesson, but they are looking for some answer. In this case, be honest with them. Use proper names, and perhaps briefly discuss the basics of sexual intercourse (Crooks, Baur 2011). It is important to make sure that after answering your child’s question that not only do they understand but also to make sure they are aware that it is okay to ask questions and that they can come to you and ask for more information whenever they’d like (Crooks, Baur 2011).

Along the way, it is important to teach your children manners, as in we don’t touch ourselves in public and we don’t touch other people’s bodies. It is also good to teach appropriateness and privacy. If by age five or six your child has not started to ask questions, you need to initiate the conversation (Crooks, Baur 2011).

By the pre-teen years, physical changes are going to occur. At this point it is important to talk to your child about the changes that will occur and what they can expect. While this is taught in school, it is good to let your child know that you are there for them, it is not something for them to be embarrassed about, and that what they are experiencing is all a part of growing up and that they are not the only one. Even though children may not have experienced these changes yet, such as menstruation and ejaculation, it is important for them to be aware of it before it happens so as not to worry them (Crooks, Baur 2011).

The teen and young adult age is the hardest for parents to talk about with their children. No matter how much a parent may want to shelter their children, it is vital to understand that your growing child is going to experience sexual feelings.

Teens find it difficult it talk with their parents about sex because of embarrassment, the fact that their parents may not understand them or the belief that their parents will assume they are already sexually active. Parents must remember that a lot of information that children receive on sex is from friends and the media. For this reason, a parent must know that the less information they give, the more misinformation their child is going to acquire.

Some parents worry that by providing sex education to their children they are condoning certain behaviors. However, according to Avert.org, one study showed that in a review of 48 studies of sex and STD education programs, such programs either did not increase sexual activity and in some cases actually showed a decrease with an increase in condom use or other contraceptives (“Sex Education that,” 2010).

In April of 2002, Seventeen Magazine and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a survey. This survey was given to 15 to17-year olds in the United States about sexual health communication between themselves and their parents. Results showed that little over a half had discussed with their parents how to know when they were ready to have sex, 43% of teens discussed with their parents how to talk to a significant other about sexual issues, 52% of teens discussed condoms with their parents and 49% discussed other forms of contraception (“Teens and Sexual Health,” 2002).

Another study of 14 to 17-year olds shows that parents who talk to their children about the use of condoms before first sexual intercourse, had actually increased the likelihood that adolescents would used protection whereas talking about condom use after first sexual intercourse did not (Parents Sex Ed Center,” 2010).

A few important things to remember when talking to your teen:

1) Always remember how you felt and that you once experienced what they are now going through.

2) While conversing with your teen, remain respectful – share your feelings and thoughts but also listen to theirs.

3) Don’t jump to conclusions. Just because they are coming to talk to you or ask

a question, does not mean that they are sexually active

4) Don’t underestimate your teen. A parent should know their child well enough to know that they have their own values, beliefs, and are able to make responsible, mature decisions when they have proper information to go along with it (Parents Sex Ed Center,” 2010).

Before parent’s can be comfortable talking with their children about sex, they must be comfortable with themselves and with one another. It is necessary for parents to become in touch with their own feelings and develop sensitivity to their own sexual feelings. Parent’s who are not comfortable with talking to one another about sex, surely won’t be comfortable with talking to their children about sex. With that said, parents should practice if they feel that may help. They have to be able to be comfortable both saying and hearing sexual words (Gordon). “This is important because children are sensitive to the emotional value parents give to certain words or may pick up what their parents feel rather than what their parents say “(Gordon).

Most often, parents feel embarrassed to talk with their children about sex, whether their child brings it up or it is time for the parent to bring it up. It may be because they just don’t want to or possibly because they don’t know how. While many parents today really do want to contribute to their children’s sex education they just quite aren’t sure how to approach the topic. By being comfortable with yourself and letting your child know that you are able and wanting to answer sexual questions at an early age will allow them to understand that as they become older they know that you can provide accurate information and be someone that they can talk to.

References

Crooks, R., & Baur, K. (2011). Our sexuality (11th ed.). Wadsworth.

Gordon, S. (n.d.). Why sex education also belongs in the home. Education.com.

Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Why_Sex

_Education/

Parents sex ed center. (2010). Advocates for youth. Retrieved May 3, 2010 from

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content

&task=view&id=108&Itemid=206

Sex education that works. (2010, May 1). Avert. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from

http://www.avert.org/sex-education.htm

Teens and sexual health communication. (2002, July). Kaiser Family Foundation.

Retrieved May 4, 2010, from http://www.kff.org/entpartnerships/upload/

Teens-and-Sexual-Health-Communication-Summary-of-Findings.pdf

This report discusses and evaluates the role of observation within an education setting. Section 1 details the importance of observing children followed by an evaluation of a range of observational techniques. Section 2 looks at the background of the child being observed in the report whilst section 3 makes reference to the appendix which contains 3 observations demonstrating a range of observational techniques. Section 4 contains an analysis of the child’s learning and developing needs. Section 5 makes recommendations to inform the future practice of the setting and its’ practitioners whilst section 6 reflects on the practitioner’s role in the observational process.

Section 1 : The Importance of observing children.

Observation is a fundamental and crucial aspect of the practitioner’s role and enables them to understand children as learners and as individuals. Observations are an invaluable source of information which allows the practitioner to plan a more appropriate curriculum that supports children’s development according to their individual needs. It is an integral part of the assessment and planning cycle.

Observations involve watching children play and take part in activities both inside and outside the classroom. Observations allow the practitioner to acquire knowledge and understanding of what is interesting and motivating to children both as individuals and as groups. Children respond differently to activities, experiences, and areas of provision. They acquire skills, learning styles, friendships, and behavioural patterns which are individual to each child. Observations give the practitioner an opportunity to record this type of information as well as aiding them in determining where the child is on the learning continuum and highlighting any difficulties they may have. This information can have a very positive impact on children’s learning when used effectively in informing the planning process.

Observations give vital information regarding the effectiveness of provision. The development of areas within an educational setting takes into account their success with the children that use them. Observations are integral when evaluating such areas as they give a true record of how the children use the area and the effectiveness of it. Children’s behaviour, comments, body language and interactivity with their peers and practitioners give an invaluable insight into the effectiveness of the provision. Practitioners are responsible for facilitating a child’s learning. Observations allow the evaluation of the effectiveness of the practitioner’s role and can inform a practitioner of their professional developmental needs.

The planning process takes into account the needs of each individual child and this process is informed through the analysis / assessment of the observations carried out by the practitioner. Without such observations it would be an impossible task to ensure that the planned activities of the setting, the areas of provision, and the methods used by the practitioner were meeting the individual needs of each child. Such is the importance of observation.

As Sharman, Cross and Vennis (2007, p.9) state, ‘children and young people are unique and to be aware of their qualities we need to take an interest in what they are doing, listen to what they are saying, learn from what they are telling us.’

Evaluation of a range of techniques.

There are several different techniques that the practitioner may use when observing children and areas of provision. The observation method used will normally be determined by the purpose of the observation. Observation methods include narrative / free description, checklist / pre-coded, time sampling, event sampling, tracking, pie / bar charts, histograms and sociograms. Practitioners may carry out observations as either a participant or a non-participant observer. Each method of observation uses different techniques which may be more suited to observing particular characteristics or behaviours.

Free Description / Narrative : Free description or narrative observations involve watching a particular child or group of children or indeed an area of provision. The free description observation should record the name of the child, children or area being observed along with the date, time and name of the person carrying out the observation. Clear aims and objectives must be set prior to the start of the observation and should be detailed on the observation sheet. The practitioner should possess a sound understanding of the purpose of the observation and the benefits associated with it to help ensure that it is completed appropriately. It is important for the practitioner to decide whether they should observe as a participant or a non-participant. The practitioner should be aware of the affects their involvement may have on a child’s behaviour if observing as a participant. Similarly, when observing as a non-participant it is very important for the practitioner to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. The observation should also contain a conclusion and an evaluation of what has been recorded. Recommendations should then be made to move the child’s learning forward.

The practitioner records information in the present tense detailing what they observe as they observe it. This is done over a pre-set period of time which may be changed during the observation if deemed necessary. The practitioner should be mindful of the importance of remaining objective when recording details of the observation. It is important for them to ensure that personal opinions, experiences and / or prejudices do not affect their judgement. Each practitioner will however have their own perspectives and therefore it is good practice to use all practitioners within a setting to carry out observations over a period of time. This will help ensure that the information acquired will be balanced and provide a fuller picture of the child, children or area being observed.

Free description observations may be difficult to record as the practitioner may need to write a lot of information down in a short amount of time. There is the potential to miss important information. The practitioner’s judgement may be influenced by outside factors.

Checklist / Pre-coded : Checklist or pre-coded observations may be set out in a variety of formats and are normally lists of particular skills within an area of learning. They require planning and preparation prior to the observation being carried out. Information about one child or a group of children can be recorded using the checklist or pre-coded method. Checklists or pre-coded observations should contain the name and age of the child, the number of adults and children present, the activity being observed, the area where the activity takes place, and the aims and objectives of the observation. The purpose of the observation influences the information contained within the checklist. For example, an observation with an aim of determining the fine motor skills of a particular child may contain such statements as: ‘can hold a pencil with tripod grip’ or ‘can control a pencil.’ (WAG, 2011, p.9)

These skills may be given a code to aid the practitioner carrying out the observation to complete it more easily. This would be particularly helpful when observing a number of children at the same time. Checklists can also be used to record activities and their progress.

It is vital to continuously refer to the aim of the observation when preparing the assessment criteria for the checklist. The practitioner should ensure that the criteria are both relevant and appropriate in aiding the assessment and analysis of a specified purpose. For example, the practitioner must ensure the criteria is age appropriate and provisions available to the child support the skill being observed. As with the free description observation it is extremely important for the practitioner to remain objective. All practitioners should perform similar observations to help ensure that the information acquired will be balanced and provide a fuller picture of the child, children or area being observed. It is good practice for a particular skill or behaviour to be observed several times before an overall judgement is made. The observation should include a conclusion and an evaluation of the recorded information and recommendations should be made.

Checklists and pre-coded observations can be restrictive as they require a simple yes, no or nearly answer to each criteria. The information recorded may not contain much detail or background information of the child.

Time sampling : Time sampling is a technique that requires the practitioner to observe the child, children or area over a matter of time. It can be used to monitor behaviour, social interactions and dynamics within groups, language skills, and usage of areas of provision.

Time sampling observations can be completed using written descriptions or pre-coded criteria. The practitioner should remain objective when completing the observation and a variety of staff should complete similar observations to ensure reliability. It is also important for the practitioner to be aware of their involvement and the affect this may have on the child or children being observed.

This type of observation is very adaptable and can be changed to suit the individual setting. It is a quick method for recording information. It can be used for individuals and groups. There is no requirement for a background knowledge of the child.

Time sampling observations do have some disadvantages. They provide information which can be time consuming to analyse. This type of observation may need to take place over a long period of time. There is a possibility that something significant may be missed if it does not happen within the observation time scale.

Tracking : Another method of observing is tracking. Tracking can be used to record a child’s movements within the setting as well as the time they spend on a particular activity. It is an appropriate method of highlighting the areas of provision a child has a preference for along with the way in which the area is used.

Prior to the observation taking place the practitioner should complete a plan of the area and consider how they will record the movements of the child. A code may be used to aid with this. Times may be recorded if required. If it is necessary to record skills this can be done separately.

Tracking is advantageous as it can be used in any area of the setting, both indoors and outdoors. It supports the foundation phase curriculum which requires the usage of the outdoors as part of the child’s learning and involves less structured, more independent play. It can indicate more popular areas and provisions which allows the practitioner to see the preferences of the child and gives them the opportunity to adapt their planning to suit the child’s needs. It can also indicate the attention span of a particular child.

Tracking can become quite difficult if the practitioner has to track more than one child at a time. The plan may become untidy and hard to follow if the child visits lots of areas. Tracking is not particularly informative for outside professionals. A detailed description of the child’s movements may not be recorded and information can be limited.

Sociogram : Sociograms focus on social development. It shows how the child interacts with other children and adults and can demonstrate their popularity. Social observations can quickly show the social development of children. This information can be used by the practitioner to plan activities and experiences to further develop the child’s social development. Sociograms, however, do not describe the reasons why something has happened. They only detail what has happened.

Event Sampling : Event sampling is used to observe when an event has taken place. This type of observation can be used to record a child’s behavioural or emotional development. It can record any event and includes information detailing how and why the event has occurred. This type of observation can help the practitioner to analyse the cause and effect of certain relationships. The data collected may be produced as a chart making it easier for the practitioner to analyse.

Event sampling is not suitable for observing infrequent behaviour and only records the specific behaviour as detailed in the aim of the observation. The recorded data may be misinterpreted as the observation may not record any preceding behaviours. Event sampling can be used within an early years setting as it is adaptable and it provides evidence of a particular behaviour.

Pie / bar charts : Pie or bar charts can be used to give a visual representation of information recorded by the practitioner. It is an effective method to use with both individual children and groups and makes data easy to read. This type of observation is suitable for early years settings as it is very adaptable and can be used to record information such as: areas of provision used by girls or boys both indoors and outdoors (highlighting children’s preferences), which children participate in a particular activity (e.g. physical), or what children eat during snack time. This information can then inform a setting’s planning to make it more suitable to the children.

Pie or bar charts do not indicate why a particular event has taken place, only that it has happened. They may require a longer set up period than other types of observations and data may be more difficult to interpret.

Histogram : Histograms can be used to plot the development of a child over a given period of time. The information gathered is detailed on a bar graph where each type of activity is shown in a continuous fashion. Histograms allow the practitioner to focus on a particular behaviour over a longer period of time. As with sociograms and pie / bar charts, histograms show that a particular behaviour has occurred but does not give the reason why it has happened.

Other types of observation may require slightly different formats. Samples of work are sometimes included for assessment purposes. Photographic and video observations are an effective way of documenting the child’s learning process. Photographs should always be annotated or cross-referenced to relevant written observations. Practitioners should request written parental permission for using photography and video devices to record and document children’s learning.

Section 2 : Background to the individual child.

The child is 2 years and 3 months old. She has attended the setting since the beginning of September 2012. She attends 5 morning sessions per week for 2.5 hours each session. She has 1 sibling which is 3 months old. The child’s mum has informed staff that since the arrival of the new baby the child’s behaviour has become much worse than it was previously. The child has exhibited such behaviour as biting, kicking, hitting, pushing, and screaming when she is at home and also outside. This behaviour is displayed when the child does not get what she wants.

The child lives on a council owned estate which is within a Communities First area. Communities First is a community focused programme that supports the Welsh Government’s Tackling Poverty agenda. It supports the most disadvantaged people in the most deprived areas with the aim of contributing to alleviating persistent poverty. Communities First works alongside other programmes with an aim of narrowing the education/skills, economic and health gaps between the most deprived and more affluent areas. (http://wales.gov.uk)

The area has also been highlighted as a Flying Start area. Flying Start is the Welsh Government targeted Early Years programme for families with children under 4 years of age in some of the most deprived areas of Wales. The core elements of the programme are drawn from a range of options that have been shown to influence positive outcomes for children and their families. These include free quality part-time childcare for 2-3 year olds, an enhanced health visiting service, access to parenting programmes, and early language development. (http://wales.gov.uk)

The child’s place at the setting is fully funded by the Flying Start Programme. The child’s mum does not work and is at home with the children during the day. The child’s dad works full time during the week and spends evenings and weekends at home. The child’s mum has informed staff at the setting that the child has many cousins. The child sees them on a regular basis. The child is not able to share or take turns with other members of her family and frequently exhibits the inappropriate behaviour mentioned above.

Section 3 – Evidence of 3 observations using different techniques.

Appendix 1 – evidence of a free description observation.

Appendix 2 – evidence of a time sample observation.

Appendix 3 – evidence of an event sample observation.

Analysis of the child’s learning and developing needs.

Child A’s mum informed staff at the setting that she does not share or take turns and exhibits inappropriate behaviour when she does not get what she wants. Mum has noticed that Child A’s behaviour has worsened since the arrival of their new baby.

As Dowling (2005, p.105) states, ‘we expect a child to show mixed behaviour when faced with the excitement, but also the threat of a new baby in the family.’

The free description observation highlighted the behaviour of Child A when she was placed in a position of taking turns and sharing a toy. Child A was observed snatching a doll from child B whilst playing in the home corner of the setting. When Child C tried to push the pushchair which was being played with by Child A, Child A began to scream and pinched Child C on the face.

Following a discussion with a practitioner within the setting Child A apologised to the affected parties however, Child A was then observed a short time later displaying the same behaviour.

As Dowling suggests children aged 2 – 2.5 years old are still developing their sharing and turn taking skills. They need to be encouraged and given opportunities to practice these skills through carefully planned activities.

Child A is not able to share or take turns. She does not communicate appropriately with her peers when she wants to play with something. She is not able to wait until the other child has finished playing with the item before taking it. Child A is able to apologise when supported by a practitioner.

The time sampling observation was carried out 1 week after the free description observation. Child A displayed similar behaviour during this observation as they did during the free description observation. Child B was playing with a plastic box in the maths area. Child A had attempted to take the box from Child B and when she was not given the box Child A hit and pinched the arm of Child B. Child A looked around the setting and made eye contact with one of the assistants. Child A lowered her head and looked at the floor. After the practitioner spoke to Child A she apologised to Child B. With help from the practitioner Child A collected a sand timer and waited until the sand had finished running into the other side. Child A was prompted to ask Child B if she could have her turn with the box. Both children complied with the practitioner’s requests and received praise. Child A smiled and took the box to the carpet area where she had her turn to play with it.

As Sharman, Cross and Venice (2000, p.130) states ‘the developmental milestones indicate that a child aged 2 – 2.5 years is egocentric. They see the world from their point of view. They are not able to share and will hold onto things with determination.’

Child A is not able to take turns. She is not prepared to wait for her turn. Child A exhibits inappropriate behaviour when she is not given what she wants when she wants it. Child A is able to apologise when supported by a practitioner. She is also able to wait for her turn when supported by a practitioner and a visual timing device which in this case was a sand timer.

The third observation was an event sampling observation. This was carried out 2 weeks after the initial free description observation. The observation recorded the behaviour and social interactions of Child A during a morning session. Child A displayed inappropriate behaviour at several times during the day and in several areas of the classroom. She took what she wanted without asking and screamed when a child tried to take an item back or when they tried to take something that she was already playing with. Child A did not speak very much to the other children or to the practitioners in the setting. She apologised when prompted to do so by a practitioner. Child A was not always responsible for the incidents that took place.

As Dowling (2005, p.108) says ‘before children start to regulate their behaviour they must begin to learn about cause and effect’. ‘Children need to be able to empathise – to understand how others feelaˆ¦aˆ¦..’

Recommendations to inform future practice.

The first observation which was a free description concluded that Child A was not able to share. Child A showed very little understanding of this concept. She exhibited inappropriate behaviour to her peers when presented with a ‘sharing’ situation.

It is important for practitioners to understand how frustrating it can be for young children to share and to understand the concepts. The ability to share is developed over a period of time. Young children find it difficult to understand how others feel as they are not yet able to empathise.

Having more than one type of toy can be beneficial for young children as it gives them an opportunity to play in parallel with the same type of provision. Where possible, more than one of each provision should be made available to the children in each area of the setting.

As Fisher (1993, p.29) states ‘appropriately resourced and supported, child-initiated activity can bring about some of the most creative and innovative learning in the classroom”

Planning activities which encourage turn taking will allow the child to practice this skill and would also allow them to begin to realise that they will have their own opportunity to play with a particular item.

The second observation, time sampling, concluded that Child A cannot communicate her needs appropriately. Child A has not yet learnt to ask for what she wants. Instead she exhibits inappropriate behaviour such as pinching. Child A is able to apologise to the affected party when prompted to do so by one of the practitioners. She is also willing to wait for her turn when supported by a practitioner and a visual aid demonstrating a set amount of time – a sand timer.

Encouraging Child A to ask for a particular item and rewarding her with praise when she does will reinforce to the child that it is appropriate behaviour. Skinner suggests that reinforcement of a particular behaviour will prompt a repeat of the same behaviour at a later time. Sharman, Cross and Vennis (2007, p.11) state, ‘children need adults to notice their achievements and provide an environment to support their further development.’

Games such as dominoes or snap cards will strengthen and support turn taking skills. Other activities which encourage turn taking will allow the child to decide when they have finished playing with a piece of equipment. Some children may be happy to give the item to someone else when they feel they have finished using it.

The third observation, time sampling, recorded some similar behaviours as the previous observations. Child A was not able to take turns when using the pencils. It also provided evidence that Child A is able to carry out some instructions such as tidying up. Child A was following an instruction and putting the cars away. She snatched one from another child to put it in the appropriate box. Child A was not able to ask for the car and just took it. Child A was also not able to share the parachute and she screamed when another child tried to hold it.

Where a child is not able to take turns, the practitioner should support them by explaining why they should take turns and will use an item to display a set amount of time, for example, a sand timer. Whilst a child waits for their turn the practitioner should support them by suggesting an activity to do. The practitioner will give the child simple choices to allow them to choose an item, game or activity for themselves and this will allow them to feel that they have made their own choice.

Reflect on your role in the observational process.

Through observations the practitioner is able to learn what the children know, evaluate their needs and plan appropriately to facilitate their learning. Staff training is an integral part of the setting’s self-evaluation process and allows the practitioner to consider the importance of observing children and developing the necessary skills. The practitioner will organise an allocated observation time and is more aware of the need for incidental observations.

The practitioner has a better understanding of the importance of gathering information from a range of contexts, both inside and outside the setting. Observations should be a constant source of vital information concerning both the children’s and the setting’s development. They should form a fair, rounded and holistic record over a period of time. The practitioner will address their observations during the setting’s weekly planning meeting and will share information between practitioners.

The practitioner further understands the need for the effective implementation of observations and their impact on the future planning of the setting to facilitate the learning needs of all the children.

As Fisher (2000. P.19) says, ‘ensure that the planned curriculum is appropriate. This leads to planning that is tailor-made for each child because the foundations of learning are unique.

The evaluation of the setting which involves all staff helps to ensure that the learning environment supports children in initiating their own learning. The practitioner is fully aware that observations must be fed into the assessment process for individual children. Parents will be further encouraged to contribute to observations through informal and formal discussions with the practitioner. Proformas will be used to ensure consistency of information within each type of observation. Photographic evidence will be annotated to support observations to document the children’s learning.

Sharman, Cross and Vennis (2007, p.2) cites the work of CACHE (2005) who states that ‘play workers exist to support children’s natural play and they do this by creating spaces where play can happen. Then they unobtrusively observe, intervene very occasionally, and then reflect on what they have seen and done.’

Appendices.

Appendix 1

Observation 1 : Free Description / Narrative.

Date : 23rd October 2012

Time Commenced : 09:40 Time Completed : 09:45

Number of Children : 3 Area : Ty Bach Twt

Name of Child : Child A Age : 2yrs 3mths

Aim : To observe the behaviour of Child A during ‘free play’.

Objectives : To observe and record Child A’s ability to share.

Child A is playing in the home corner of the setting with 2 other children. Child A snatches a doll from Child B. Child B does not attempt to take the doll back. Child A puts the doll in a pushchair. Child C takes hold of the handles of the pushchair and tries to push it. Child A begins to scream and grabs the handles of the pushchair. Child A pulls the pushchair away from Child C. Child C keeps hold of the pushchair. Child A keeps one hand on the pushchair and uses the other hand to pinch Child C on the face. A practitioner intervenes at this point. The practitioner speaks to Child A.

‘Don’t do that. It isn’t nice. You mustn’t pinch. It hurts. Child B was playing with the doll. Can you give the doll back to child B please. Would you like to play with this doll instead?’

Child A lowers her head. The practitioner asks Child A to look at her. Child A does not respond. The practitioner asks Child A to look at her again. Child A makes eye contact with the practitioner.

P-‘Can you give the doll back to Child B please. You can play with this doll if you want to’.

Child A gives the doll back to Child B.

P-‘Can you say sorry to Child B for snatching the doll?’ Child A ‘Sorry’. P-‘Da iawn Child A.’

You can have a turn of that doll when Child B has finished playing with it.

P-‘Child C wants to play with the pushchair with you. He is your friend. You will make Child C sad if you pinch him. Can you say sorry to Child C please for pinching him.’

Child A ‘Sorry’.

P-‘Da iawn. Merch dda. Can you push the baby together? That’s a nice thing to do. Mae’n neis i rannu.’

Child A nods. Child A and Child C push the pushchair across the room. Child A grabs Child C’s hands and pinches them. Child C lets go of the pushchair and Child A runs across the room with it. The same practitioner intervenes.

Conclusion : Child A wanted to play with a doll that was being played with by Child B. Child A snatched the doll from Child B and did not ask if she could play with it. When Child C attempted to use the pushchair that Child A was playing with, Child A screamed and pinched Child C on the face. Later, Child A agreed to allow Child C to push the pushchair with her, but after a very short period of time Child A pinched Child C’s hands. Child A ran across the room with the pushchair when Child C let go of it.

Evaluation : Child A is not able to share or take turns. She does not communicate appropriately with her peers when she wants to play with something. She is not able to wait until the other child has finished playing with the item before taking it. Child A is able to apologise when supported by a practitioner.

Recommendations :

Give opportunities to practice sharing and turn taking skills through carefully planned activities.

Encourage the child to share and remind them that it is nice to share with their friends.

Give immediate praise when child shares or takes turns.

Appendix 2

Observation 2 : Time Sampling.

Date : 2nd November 2012

Time Commenced : 10:20 Time Completed : 10:27

Number of Children : 2 Area : Maths Area

Name of Child : Child A Age : 2yrs 3mths

Aim : To observe a target child interacting with a child of similar age whilst playing in the maths area.

Objectives : To observe and record Child A’s social interactions.

Child A has just entered the maths area and looks at the jigsaw puzzles on the table. Child A approaches the table and starts to take the pieces out of the jigsaw. Another child is already playing in the area. Child B takes a plastic box from a shelving unit and begins to shake it. Child A looks at Child B and the box. Child A approaches Child B and attempts to take the box from her. Child B does not allow Child A to take the box. Child A hits Child B on the arm then pinches it. Child B starts to cry. Child B continues to hold the plastic box. Child A looks around the setting and makes eye contact with a practitioner. Child A lowers her head and looks at the floor. Child A lets go of the plastic box. The practitioner walks over to Child A and kneels down. The practitioner asks Child A to look at her. Child A does not respond. The practitioner again asks Child A to look at her.

Before an assessment of a child can take place to plan their learning and development, we need to observe them. Observation is vital for early year’s practitioners to find out what stage a child is currently at, what their needs are and what interests them. You can learn a lot about the children you work with simply by stepping back and watching them. This may at first seem to be a waste of time, but if you study the children, you are going to be more likely to meet their needs. Childcare workers automatically watch the children in their care they want to know that the children are safe, happy, healthy and developing well. Watching or observing closely can often reassure them that everything is alright but may also alert them to problems or illness. Any discussion about a child usually relates what has been seen , heard or experienced and leads to conclusions about personality , likes , and dislikes etc. anyone who works with children needs to develop the skill of observing them (sometimes to be written/recorded to check that a child is:

Safe – not in any danger from the environment, from themselves or others.

Contented – there are many reasons a child might be miserable , some may relate to physical comfort ( e.g. wet nappy , hunger , thirsty) or emotional discomfort (e.g. main carer is absent, or comfort object lost ) or lack of attention or stimulation.

Healthy – eats and sleeps well and is physically active (concerns about this may indicate that they are unwell)

Developing normally – in line with general expectations for his/her age in all areas, there will be individual differences but delays in any e.g. crawling/walking or speaking may show a need for careful monitoring and perhaps specialist help.

Any particular strength or talent may also be identified and encouraged. observing is one of the most important daily aspects involved in childcare without observation the overall planning and assessment in the setting will be affected. Early years practitioners need to base their planning on their observations so without observations we cannot be entirely sure that overall planning will meet their needs. By carefully observing the children we can learn their needs and know when they are ready to move on to the next stage. By adapting experiences, routines and activities to include things that are particularly important to every individual child we can build on their attention span and curiosity. Likewise we can use observation to pinpoint areas where a child needs additional help. There are 5 main skills associated with effective observation.

Looking – we need to look at our children and analyse what they are doing and what responses to give in certain situations.

Listening – it is vital we pay attention to the children and listen to how they interact with both children and adults.

Recording – we should accurately record any important things in which we have observed.

Thinking – we must use our observations to think how to plan effectively for each child and maybe involve the child’s parents for activity planning.

Questioning – sometimes our observations need to be clarified, confirmed or rejected. If the child is at an age to respond to questions you should involve them directly.

Do not let preconceived ideas or assumptions cloud our observations, they must be done with an open mind and judgement of the child should not affect the way an observation is carried out. For example observing children in a group and in the past one child has had difficulty in mixing with others , do not let your past assumptions hinder the observation as it will be pointless to carry out any observation if you have already decided the outcome.

4.2 Main ways in which observations can be recorded.

There are many ways in which observations can be recorded , each have advantages and disadvantages and most early years practitioners need to be familiar with several of these . The most frequently used recording methods are written notes such as

Free description (also known as narrative description or written record) – this method records the behaviour of a child over a very short period of time, often less than 5 minutes. The observer notes down what they are seeing which gives a portrait of the child’s activity during this time.

Checklists and kick charts – these are mostly used to assess the child’s development, specific activities are looked for either during a structural assessment (i.e. where a child is asked to do activities) or by observing children over a period of time.

Time sample – this is used to look at children’s activity over a predetermined length of time for example, a morning. Children are observed at regular intervals during the recording, say every 10 minutes and the observation is recorded on a prepared sheet.

Event sample – this is mostly used to look at a child’s one aspect of development or behaviour, such as how frequently a child sucks their thumb or shows aggression towards other children. Every time a child shows the type of behaviour or activity it is recorded on a prepared sheet.

Target child – this is used to record one activity over a long period without any gaps in the recording process. Several codes or signs are used during this process to allow the observer to maintain the recording.

Some methods of observing children provide more information than other methods that give plenty of info are referred to as “open methods”. For more objectivity ‘closed’ methods are useful. A checklist is an example of a closed method of recording. With all these methods available for use whilst observing it is important that you choose one to suit your purpose. For example the free description method is good for examining closely how a child achieves. Something, but it will not tell you about a child’s general activity over a long period. Other ways in which an observation can be recorded or by taking photographs of a child doing certain activities and catching developmental milestones, permission is always needed by the child’s parents to allow photographs to be taken and also to use a video camera which can used to record development milestones or just to record an activity which the children are involved in so the child’s parents/carer can also see the child doing the activity or milestone, as some parents don’t like to miss out on anything. Whichever method of recording is chosen to be used, all observations must contain sufficient information so that they are useful and that they are understood by anyone else who may need to look at them.

4.3 Analyse the 3 types of planning that can be used in early year’s settings

The observation, assessment and planning cycle assists early year’s practitioners to collate effectively the information they have gathered and to plan what to do next. There are 3 types of planning.

Long term – long term ensures the early years practitioners cover all the areas of learning and development and the principles of the early years foundation framework, the first of these frameworks published in England is called “birth to three matters “, this framework was published by the department for education and skills in 2002 and is for use by all professionals who are involved in the delivery or planning of services for young children in England. The pack comprises of an introductory booklet, poster, video, cd-rom, and 16 a4 component cards relating to four areas or aspects that have been identified as necessary for the development of all children. Long term planning enables the early years practitioners to think about the key areas necessary for supporting babies and young children and encourages them to consider ways to balance the opportunities for supporting older children which will enable them to enjoy both free play and well planned adult activities which will stimulate and interest them, long term planning needs to take into account how you will plan activities to ensure a suitable balance between indoor and outdoor experiences and quiet and active times, and needs to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum. A long term plan should usually cover a 3 month period, a term or a year; it should provide a curriculum overview. It should be based on principles of good early years practice; it should review what children need to learn and how this will be implemented. All areas of learning should be considered and that it meets the development plan or school improvement plan (sip) as required by Ofsted, it should relate to all policies and procedures of the setting and ensure advance planning and consideration of specific activities (e.g. festivals or outings ).

Medium term – this should outline an overall program over say, one to two weeks. Medium term planning take into account the overall daily routine early years practitioners, such as feeding time , school runs, playgroups, outdoor play, quiet time sleep or rest time and individual interaction . medium term plans will need to be adjusted constantly because it will be influenced by the observations made of individual children it needs to include reviews of care routines, key worker relationships and the way the day is organised to offer play and experiences including the materials and physical resources; whilst observing children, getting to know them and their characters, you need to match observations to your medium term plans. The staff planning together should look at how to create a rich learning environment which links the long term plans to each child as an individual. The medium term plan should grow gradually and must be flexible, open to changes and moderations and all observation profiles of all the children need to be looked at. Many early years settings now target particular children on particular days. This means each child is observed regular and the curriculum is planned in a differentiated way to cater for the interests and needs of individual children.

Short term plan – this includes the day to day activities, outings, resources specifically relating to the children in the setting on a daily or weekly basis. It is often helpful to use observations of the children from the previous day to enable to focus on their specific needs and to build on what they have learnt for example, the children might have asked to bake, you will need to consider ingredients and equipment will be necessary and how much time is needed to complete the task.

4.4 describe why planning is essential in the early years setting

Planning is key to the effectiveness of any early year’s settings. Settings plan curriculum in many different ways, most find a way of planning which suits their needs, plans will also vary according to the objectives or areas of development /learning to be considered. Each child will need to be considered and observed in order to be provided with appropriate activities and experiences in the setting. Good planning is essential if practitioners are to make children’s learning effective, exciting, varied and above all progressive. Planning enables us to look at each child individually and build on our knowledge of them in order to see how they learn, what motivates them and how they make progress. Plans don’t often need to be written down although recording things provides us with future reference which can be shared with others. Written plans allow us to look back so we can plan for the future.by doing this we can plan activities in which they are suitable for what we know they can already achieve and build on their interests and experiences, for example by constructing a written plan to help a child recognise the no 1-20 we would be able to see at the end of the long term plan,

The child knows the name of the numbers
The child can recognise the numbers in a variety of contexts
The child can write the numbers successfully

If at the end of the long term plan the child as reached all the goals set for them, then you know your planning has been effective. Effective planning is challenging but it is essential, it is not always easy for practitioners working alone to carry out observations of individual children when they are responsible for the care and safety of others. Observations need to be carried out regular and not just at set times you should be observing the children in your care all the time and noting how they react to certain circumstances and everyday occurrences. Keep a diary handy to jot down anything which you observe which is of particular interest or information which may help you plans for your child’s development.

4.5 critically explore the importance of assessments

Whilst assessments need to be handled extremely sensitively it can be a way of recognising whether children need additional support or challenges. They are also used as a way of learning more about groups of children so that the curriculum can be adjusted to meet their interests and needs. It is also important to realise that assessing children is not an exact science and we should see any assessment as only a guide. Young children are ever changing and their development and interests reflect this; but assessments are extremely important and have many uses

To review and check children’s overall development
To extend children’s learning
To support special needs
To resolve a particular concern
To evaluate activities and experiences
To review children’s progress
To share with other professionals
To share information with parents
To help with planning
To evaluate routine strategies to gather all the information to assess a child’s needed to be observed.

Although a lot is learnt from simply spending time and observing assessing what you have observed will enable you to deepen your understanding of what you have seen. There are no set ways in which assessments need to be written, although the following points should be considered,

The assessment should be based on what you have recorded
The link between the child’s actual stage of development and expected stage are noted
Supported evidence should be provided

Your assessment will help you collate this information so that it can be used in effective planning. For observation and planning and assessment to be effective they need to be carried out regularly, you need to get into the habit of observing children on a daily basis and assess the observations to enable you to plan the next stage for every child in your setting. Records need to be kept for each child (in a form of diary or scrapbook) and ways of extending on what they can already do to get to the next level need to be looked at. The more practice you have at observing, assessing and planning, the better you will become until it becomes second nature to you.