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Natural disasters happen suddenly and cause devastation in the form of death, injury, and destruction. The Red Cross has recorded an average of 350 disasters per year in the last decade, a 75% increase from the average 200 disasters per year in the 1990s. In 2008, 326 natural disasters occurred around the world, killing 235,736 people, affecting 213,000,000 people, and causing an estimated $181,000,000,000 in damage (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [Red Cross], 2009). Research has found that children are the most vulnerable to psychological trauma but their emotional needs are often neglected in the aftermath of a disaster (Vennema & Schroeder-Bruce, 2002). Additionally, children may be at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from the “experiencing, witnessing, or participation” in the disaster (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry [AACAP], 2008). Parents, caregivers, and aid workers need to recognize the psychological effect disasters have on children to help them cope with emotional trauma and prevent long-term repercussions.

With the rise in natural disasters and the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, researchers have been observing how children respond to disasters. A child’s cognitive, physical, and social development influences his or her understanding of the disaster and potential trauma caused by it (American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP], 1999). Because of this, the role of child development will be investigated in this paper. Finally, children are not static but are influenced by their family, community, and national institutions. While research often recognizes the effect these structures have on a child’s development and disaster response, none have examined how each of these institutions interacts to influence a child’s response after a disaster. As a result, this paper will also analyze the literature to examine the effects of disasters on these institutions, and therefore children’s disaster response.

Literature Review

Even though natural disasters are today more common than before, adults often do not recognize their prevalence or impact on children. Shen & Sink (2002) examined the effects of disasters on school-age children and the prevalence of disaster interventions and preparation among school counselors. The researchers found that children may reenact their feelings or display their mourning through their play, especially with items associated with the event. Children may struggle with how to express their emotions and thoughts about a disaster. Parents, therefore, may not help their children cope because they are unaware of their children’s emotional needs. The authors note that changes in children’s behavior as a result of the trauma often decline over a period of a couple of months. However, children’s inability to cope with the disaster can have long-term effects on their development, education, and health. Shen and Sink (2002) also address the implications of disasters for school counselors and provide several suggestions for school-based disaster interventions. They note that schools provide support for children after a disaster and can be instrumental in the recovery process. For many children, being back in school restores a sense of normalcy, security, and order (Shen & Sink, 2002).

Through a qualitative descriptive study, Beuchesne, Kelley, Patdaughter, and Pickard (2002) investigated the effects of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack on New York City children and how parents reacted to their children’s distress. By asking 88 school-age children and 51 parents of their response immediately after learning of the attack, they discovered that children felt unsafe, grief, empathy for victims, afraid of the future, and wanted retribution. Parents reported feeling unsure of how to help their child after a disaster. One significant feature of the study was the use of cognitive developmental theory to explain the developmental differences in children’s responses. For example, answers of how to avoid another attack included “don’t go in tall buildings,” “don’t fly on an airplane,” or “don’t grow up and become a pilot,” reflecting their concrete stage of development. The researchers also learned that older school-age children were concerned with the details of the attack (e.g. why, how) while younger children focused on how they felt. Similarly, school-age children understood the serious implications of the terrorist attack (loss of life, threat of war), while younger children remained focused on one aspect of the traumatic event, often how it influenced themselves directly These developmental characteristics may result in more intense reactions of grief and fear among school-age children in response to the disaster (Beuchesne et al., 2002).

Mercuri and Angelique (2004) conducted a literature review of 22 studies on natural, technological, and na-tech (natural and technological) disasters effects on children. Using content analysis, they coded for type of disaster, measurement instrument, instrument administration, and child’s age. The researchers found that children reported higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than parental measures. In addition, children whose lives had been endangered or directly witnessed the disaster had the highest rate of PTSD symptoms. This finding was especially apparent among the adolescent age group. No difference in stress level was found between the three categories of disaster. Based on these findings, Mercuri and Angelique (2004) argue that older children are more likely than younger children to be distressed after a disaster. The authors reason that older children’s cognitive development allows them to understand the implication and significance of the disaster on society as a whole, causing a deeper emotional response. The researcher’s findings also show that it is also important to ask children about their experiences after a disaster instead of relying on parental reports (Mercuri & Angelique, 2004).

Development Considerations

Children’s development influences their response to a traumatic event. For young children, a disaster interferes with their attachment to caregivers, daily routine, and development of autonomy. School-age children, who understand the permanence of loss and the deeper implications of a disaster, may react to the disaster at a more profound emotional level. Adolescents are the most likely to respond in ways similar to adults. However, their developing identity, independence, and abstract thinking influence their reasoning and reactions to the disaster (Hagan, 2005).

In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recognized the effect development plays in children’s reaction in their report of the role of pediatricians in post-disaster interventions. In this statement, the authors assert that the most powerful effect of a disaster is the disruption it causes in children’s lives. Natural disasters suspend normal routines due to physical injury, damage of homes and schools, and loss of caregivers and loved ones. Children often respond to this loss in characteristic ways based on their age and development (see Appendix A). For example, a preschool age child may express their distress by regressing to behaviors previously outgrown while an adolescent may engage in risk-taking behaviors. Disasters often elicit responses of anxiety, depression, guilt, and sleep disturbances for both children and adolescents (AAP, 1999).

Murray (2006) also recognized how development affects the impact of disasters on children in his article addressing children’s psychosocial needs following a disaster. He noted that children’s reaction to a disaster depends mainly on the amount of destruction, loss, and the child’s age. Similar to the AAP (1999) statement, Murray (2006) mentioned how the death of a family member, physical injury, and destruction of home and school increases children’s reaction to the disaster. He argues that situations of separation and stress often elicit common reactions among children of similar ages (see Appendix A; Murray, 2006).

Due to disaster trauma, some children may display symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder such as recurring nightmares, feelings of detachment, and physiological responses to exposure of reminders of the event. In their study of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among children after a disaster, Veenema and Schroeder-Bruce (2002) revealed that children’s wide range of emotional, psychosocial, and physiological response to disasters are often characteristic of the child’s level of development. Similar to the previous studies, the researchers noted that developmental growth may be disrupted by disaster trauma. However, the authors found that the most severe psychosocial reactions in children were associated with close proximity to the disaster, prolonged exposure to death and injury, and poor parental response. Veenema & Schroeder-Bruce, (2002) also illustrated how cognitive developmental theory (Piaget) and psychosocial developmental theory (Erikson) influence children’s trauma responses and appropriate interventions. For example, according to Piaget’s theory, elementary children think concretely, understand the use of symbols (one thing standing for another), begin to reason and think abstractly, and are less egocentric. Also at this age, school-age children seek to be industrious by being competent in skills and knowledge. Because of these developmental issues, a school-age child may exhibit social phobia or engage in repetitious traumatic play or retelling of the event in response to the trauma. For this reason, opportunities in which children can attempt “scary” things, such as returning to school, can restore children’s autonomy and sense of competency (Veenema & Schroeder-Bruce, 2002).

Ecological Theory

The ecological theory of development explores how a child’s family, community, and nation influence the growth and development of a child. Because a disaster affects all of these, the child’s response to a disaster will be shaped by how these structures also respond to a disaster. Below, this theory is applied to the literature to corroborate the role of the family, community, and nation in children’s disaster response.

Research has shown that children’s reactions to disasters are often intensified by their parent’s distress. During times of crisis, children are especially aware of a parent’s worries and stress (AACAP, 2008). Research has also shown that infant’s level of anxiety reflects their caregivers anxiety level (Murray, 2006). Parent’s response to a disaster expresses to children the severity of the situation and how they should respond (Beuchesne et al., 2006).Thus, parents must cope with the disaster to facilitate their children’s coping ability.

Disasters cause multiple losses for families. For example, a disaster may destroy a family’s home forcing them to live in temporary shelter, sever contact with friends and family, and lose material possessions. In addition, the disaster may affect a parent’s employment and livelihood. The ongoing stress from the secondary effects of the disaster makes children more vulnerable to stress and anxiety disorders (Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], 2004). Existent stressors, such as poverty, are often exacerbated after a disaster as opportunities for shelter, food, and employment are further restricted. Families must not only cope with the effects of the disaster, but also these additional stressors (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2006).

Disasters can have long-lasting impacts on communities by disrupting occupations, altering environmental resources (food and water), and societal structures (education and government; Murray, 2006). Community leaders can help in the recovery process of families and children by being available to discuss emotions caused by the disaster, allow the use of buildings as gathering places and temporary shelters, and collaborating with relief agencies (NIMH, 2006). Community organizations involvement in disaster relief validates a family’s feelings of grief and loss caused by the disaster (AAP, 1999). Families who have support systems through religious institutions, community organizations, or extended family are more likely to be able to cope and understand their own feelings, therefore leading to their children’s increased coping ability (FEMA, 2004).

Natural disasters occur more often in developing countries and cause a greater proportion of deaths. In developing countries, a large percentage of the population lives in poverty in poorly constructed homes, with poor or non-existent warning systems, inadequate emergency response, rural locations, and a poor national economy (Kar, 2009). Because of these factors, developing countries are often more severely affected by natural disasters (Red Cross, 2009).

In contrast, children also appear to play an active role during disasters and recovery that impacts their families and community. Penrose and Takaki (2006) interviewed children in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami and found that children often helped in the initial emergency response. The children described how they acted instinctively during the disaster in saving themselves and others. They also helped by applying first aid, searching for lost family members, and collecting food and water. Their active involvement during the disaster relief and recovery helped minimize feelings of loss and grief (Penrose & Takaki, 2006).

Conclusion

Research has established the role of families and communities in children’s response to a disaster and often provides suggestions of how these individuals can help children recover (see Appendix B). For example, resources such as the NIMH and FEMA publications are available on-line to assist parents and adults helping children recover after a disaster. The publications discuss not only the role of adults and community in the recovery process, but also risk factors for vulnerability and common reactions of children by age. However, these publications fail to distinguish the effects these risk factors have on children’s response compared to one another. For example, is a child more severely affected by losing his parents or his home? Despite this limitation, these publications are a useful guide for adults trying to help children after a disaster. Unfortunately, these agencies do not have on-site disaster interventions for children. Some organizations though, have begun to implement interventions in disaster areas and evaluate their successfulness. Current intervention programs include Rainbow Center for Global Health’s Children in Disasters Project (Olness, Mandalakas, Pairojkul, Holsinger, Bothe, & Herran, 2007) and the Indian National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience’s “train the trainer” model program (Becker, 2006). However, one topic that is often neglected in these interventions is culture. Future efforts should focus on how cultural and religious beliefs may influence children’s response to a natural disaster and how these beliefs can be incorporated into disaster interventions.

Disasters interrupt children’s lives through loss, injury, and destruction of their home and community. This disruption leads to a loss of routine and normalcy, affecting children of all ages. Children’s development affects how children react to trauma caused by a disaster. Family and social support also influence children’s reactions to disaster trauma, while children’s response impacts these institutions as well. Parents and relief workers can facilitate children’s normal development and coping after a disaster by understanding how development, families, and support systems influence children’s response to a disaster.

Appendix A

Birth – 5 years old:

Detachment from caregiver

Crying

Increased irritability

Separation anxiety; cling to caregivers

Heightened startle response

Difficulty sleeping

Nightmares

Changes in eating habits

Helplessness

Decreased level of responsiveness

Apathetic or passive

Increased temper tantrums

Withdrawn

Depressed

Regression in behavior

Fear

Guilt

Somatic complaints (headaches, stomachaches)

6-12 years old:

Aggressive

Difficulty sleeping

Need to be with family at all times

Withdrawn

Focus on direct consequences of disaster (e.g. no more school)

Need for details and information

Concerned for personal safety

Empathy for victims

Nightmares

Decline in school performance

Moody

Sad

Hostile

Reenact trauma

Loss of interest or avoidance of activities

Somatic complaints (headaches, stomachaches)

12-18 years old:

Risk-taking behaviors

Act out

Decline in school performance

Resentment

Guilt

Altruism

Increased anxiety

Depression

Fatigue

Loss of interest in activities

Difficulty sleeping

Data from American Academy of Pediatrics, 1999, Hagan and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health and the Task Force on Terrorism, 2005, and Murray, 2006

Appendix B

Be available

Answer questions honestly and do not avoid difficult questions

Provide relevant and honest information

Respect children’s readiness to discuss their thoughts and feelings

Encourage child to discuss the event when they are ready

Ask open-ended questions to clarify thoughts and feelings

Reassure child that he or she is safe and loved

Allow opportunities to mourn loss

Focus on the good that has come from the disaster and not just the trauma

Discuss potential secondary effects of a disaster (e.g. moving)

When possible, minimize the amount of exposure to the disaster area

Re-establish normal routine

Give children specific roles and tasks

Encourage parents to spend extra time with children

Use touch (e.g. hugs, comfort positioning) when appropriate

Reassure child that his/her feelings are normal

Provide consistency and routine

Watch for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder

Meet fundamental needs of child and family by providing food, shelter, and medical attention

Try to keep families intact and minimize periods of separation

Educate family on what has been done and what is being done to help

Empower family to provide for themselves

Coordinate relief services with other agencies in the community

Clarify and correct any misunderstandings about the disaster and its effects

Encourage families to utilize existing coping strategies, family, and social support networks

Data from Beuchesne, Kelley, Patsdaughter, & Pickard (2002) and Veenema & Schroeder-Bruce (2002)

In this paper we will be highlighting the major areas of children at high risk, the causes behind and the effect on their lives {as derived from child theology}. Our focus of attention will be the role and responsibilities of church and different organisations working for the rehabilitation as well as reaching out to them with the Gospel.

CHILD THEOLOGY: SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

Child Theology encompasses all children irrespective of their identity, since our God is impartial. The basic purpose of child theology is to see the pressing needs of children, their potential and to take purpose driven action on their behalf.3a?

What are Children to God? Or in child theology? Children are the most numerous and needy people we find on the earth. They are most needy people as they are small, weak, dependant, most vulnerable and powerless.

Children are the blessing of God to the families. God could have easily created prototype of Adam and Eve, instead He told them to multiply (Gen.1:28).

Secondly we also see that they are created in God’s image like any other individuals thus reflecting the nature and character of God (Gen.1:26). Though children are created in God’s image they, among all other human beings are also imperfect because of Fall and therefore needs to be redeemed.1 It is important to note that apart from physical healing they are also in dire need of spiritual healing which is often overlooked.

Thirdly it is very much evident all through the scripture that they are the focus of God and His Kingdom. In the sight of God children are very special. But God cares for them and they are the focus of His Mission. Dr. Dan Brester says that, “they are both key to Great Commission and an expression of Great Commandment”.2

DIFFERENT AREAS WHERE CHILDREN ARE AT HIGH RISK

Street Children:

These children are the once who are on their own deprived of basic necessities of childhood, thus trying to survive by living and working in a particular environment. They are categorised as – Children who live and work on street during day but return home at night, other group who find food, shelter and friends in the street. They are called children of the street. And the third category includes the abandoned ones, completely on their own for material and psychological support, so they are termed as children in the street.4a?

Kind of work they do: salvaging recyclables from waste, selling things on road junctions, polish shoes, collect alms, scavenge food from the market, pick pocketing, theft etc.

Problems they go through: They are neglected, abused by any and every kind of people passing by. Lack of roof over their heads leaves them only to be exploited sexually,abused and tortured physically. These children are deprived of proper food, education,and medical aid. They are at high risk of both physical as well as psychological problems since they are homeless and are left unattended if they suffer any health hazards. Many children are open to the dangers of addiction of tobacco, alchohol and all kinds of drug abuse.5 a?

Sexually abused Children/ Child Prostitution

There is considerable amount of increase in the sexually abused children in India during last few years. Children are dehumanized, demeaned and are reduced to mere comodities for sale and purchase just to satisfy the need of ruthless and inhuman sexually immature individuals. These children are deprived of their childhood. Prostitution has become a very profitable trade in which million of children are involved specifically girl child. Child pornography has alarmingly increased in our country, so also incest rarely coming to light but very common in our society.

The agony they go through: Apart from being sexually abused they also go through physical torture- beaten up, burnt, deprived of good food. They are kept in small cells or in very small and crowded rooms in unhygenic conditions getting very less light and air. Sometimes they are forced to take drugs to subside hunger and pain.

Reasons: Among many other, povery is the basic reason worldwide. In India we find parents selling child to gain financial aid. Children of sex worker are forced into prostitution. Sometimes parents sexually abuse their children and so they find them “ready” for sex – a good reason to earn money.a? a? a? 6a?

Effect: Looses childhood and dignity, no future, physical as well as psychological disorder. Psychologically they are depressed, post traumatic stress as disorder, anxiety, psychopathy in later life, poor self esteem, develop self destructive behaviour such as crime in adulthood and suicide. We also find they turn out to be anti-socials. Phisically they are infected with sexually transmitted deseases.

Children effected by Drugs and Alchohol:

Children who are not able to take out their anger indulge in taking drugs. Reason behind children addicted to drug are divorse of parents, family violence, lack of love and support, not being heard of and it is also because of peer presure. In some cases they pick up this habit from their parents.

Effects: It effects all areas of life such as emotional, psychological, spiritual as well as social and physically. they suffer loss of health.7a? a?

Child Labour:

In India 14.4% of children between 10-14 years of age are employed in child labour. It is effecting our society all over the world. They basically work in carpet factories, glass blowing units and firework factories. There are around 20 million child labourers in the country.

Causes: To alivate poverty families force them into it. According to Prof. Gangrade, child labour is caused by differea? nt factors eg. Social tradition, customs, and dearth of schools or parental reluctance to send children to school, industrialization, urbanization and also migration.

Effects: They are mal nourished, deprived of education, viewed as wage earner. It is hazardous to child’s developmental needs both mental and physical. They are also effected socially and psychologically.8a? a? a?

SOME OF THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE WORKING FOR THE CHILDREN WHO ARE AT RISK ARE:

1) VIVA NETWORK: This organization works among the children and do investment for their future in order to break the pattern of poverty and love, equip and support them. They are also helping them to make them free from depression, exploitation and abuse. And for this they engage themselves with mobilizing churches, communities and individuals to play their part in changing the lives of vulnerable children.

2) WORLD VISION INDIA: A Christian humanitarian organization working to create lasting changes in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice. They focus on building the community around children so that they have the opportunity to reach for a better future.

3) UNICEF: In India it is working since 1949 and known to be the driving force that builds a world where the rights of every child are realized. The purpose is to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, diseases and discrimination place in child’s path.

4) CEF: An international Christian organization seeks to evangelize and disciple children around the world. They target 10 million children worldwide to hear the good news. One of their main ministries is to do with children of prisoner’s because children of prisoner’s have 70% chance if going to prison when they grow up.

5) DIVYA SHANTI CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION: Working since 1967 in Bangalore. They search children at market, railway station where the abused and runaway children take refuge. Their ministry is done by a night mobile clinic which is run by a staffed nurse and social worker who addressed the needs of children.

6) CRIN: They envision a world in which every child enjoys all human rights promised by United Nations, Regional Organizations and National Government. They also believe that children have the right to participate and express themselves freely and openly in all mater’s affecting them.

These are some of the organizations but there are so many NGO, as well as the secular organizations which are working for the children. Now these days we also see lot of books on this subject, lot of work has been done but lots have to be done in order to accomplish the need of the children.

OUR MISSION APPROACH

Today lot of churches as well as our government has worked for the upliftment of the children who are at risk. Many churches have come forward to help children in terms of finance, material, and medical facilities and had helped them to get status in the society. Government had also started schemes for children like providing them mid day meals, free education as well as learning institutions where children are equipped to do tailoring, handicraft work from which they can learn and earn also.

But apart from physical healing we need to reach out to them trough the Gospel which will bring spiritual healing. Evangelism to children is a special ministry of the church. There are various ways which church adapt to bring the Good News to children. For example through strory telling, visual aids such as flat pictures, graphics, projected materials, video-tape, Puppet show, music etc.

Therefore being a theologian student let’s stand in the gap for the children at risk and be sensitive about their needs serving and uplifting them in whatever capacity we can, so that they will become responsible leaders to serve the nation in future.

Due to the words limitation, this essay does not explain the rights of each specific group such as indigenous children, refugee and immigrant children, children with disabilities, children from poor families etc, therefore by mentioning rights meant also rights for these specific groups in their respective contextual requirements.

1. Introduction

One basic human rights principle laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 is that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1 UDHR). However, specifically vulnerable groups such as women, indigenous people, and children have been assigned special protection by the UN legal framework (Henry J. Steiner & P. Alston, 2000).

The UN Convention for the Rights of the Child, 1989 remind us that children, whilst retaining their entitlement to the full range of human rights, are often marginalised or excluded, and represent a special case required additional safeguards (Defence for Children International (ed), 1995). Therefore, the Committee on the Rights of the Child have also adopted about twelve General Comments (in addition to two Optional Protocols) guiding States on specific issues such as HIV/AIDS, the aims of education etc (Committee on the Rights of Child-General Comments). The Committee in 2005 adopted “General Comment 7 (GC7) on Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood” (The Committee General Comment 7 of 2005). GC7 recognises that in implementing the UNCROC States parties have often overlooked young children as rights holders (GC7 para.3). The Comment seeks to redress this by clarifying State obligations for UNCROC implementation with respect to all children “below the age of 8” (GC7 para.4). The UNCROC regards young children as active meaning makers with “evolving capacities” (Art. 5) requiring age-appropriate guidance and support whom, both as individuals and as a constituency, have a voice which must be given due consideration. Parents/Caregivers and States are reminded to balance control and guidance with respect to evolving capacities of the young child, and of the obligation to facilitate genuine participation of young children in the process affecting their development (The Committee General Comment 7, 2005).

In this 21st century, when we Australians are busy counting our economic and political success both at national and international level, still is much needed to be done to improve the status of children in Australia for the coming future (Nyland, 1999). In this essay, I have tried to discuss the role of early childhood settings in enacting and promoting the children rights such as participation, protection and provision and in making these rights available to Australian children.

2. Children’s Rights: Setting Standards

2.1 Legal conceptions of children

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

The human rights movement of the 20th century, previously focused for adult rights was extended to children (Hart et al, 1991) though children were still seen as vulnerable and in need of protection but this status was subsumed in a broader understanding of children as full human beings with all the human rights and fundamental freedoms that all human beings have. Their need for protection was transformed into a right to protection. They had a right to be free from exploitation, abuse and neglect of any kind. Seeing children as rights-holders (The Committee GC7, 2005) had implications beyond child protection, however. It meant that, like all human beings, they were also entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and belief, freedom of association, the right to education and to the highest attainable standard of health, and so on.

2.2 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989

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

The Convention’s objective is to protect children from discrimination, neglect and abuse and serves as both a rallying point and a useful tool for civil society and individual people, working to protect and promote children’s rights (Berenice Nyland, 1999). In many ways, it is an innovative instrument.

3. Categories of rights under the UNCROC

Greenwood suggests that the rights set out in the Convention fall into three categories (Module 1. Topic 2: The Convention on the Rights of the Child);

i. Provision: this category includes the right to posses, receive or have access to the right to life (Art. 6), a name and a nationality (Art. 7), health care (Art. 24), education (Art. 28), adequate rest and play (Art. 31), special care for disabled children (Art. 23), an adequate standard of living (Art. 27), care after abuse (Art. 39), and respect for the cultures from which the children come (Art. 30).

ii. Protection: it grouped the right to be shielded from harmful acts and practices such as; separation from parents (Art. 9), sexual exploitation (Art. 34), and physical abuse and neglect (Art. 19).

iii. Participation: this class encompasses the right to be heard in discussion affecting the child’s life so that the child has freedom of expression (Art. 13), freedom of thought and religion (Art. 14), and the right to be heard in court (Art. 12).

The UNCROC, 1989 formally-agreed standards cover: provision rights (to necessary, not luxury, goods services and resources); protection rights (from neglect, abuse, exploitation and discrimination); and participation rights, when children are respected as active members of their family, community and society, as contributors from their first years (Alderson, P. 2000).

4. The effect of the Convention for Children in Australia

Since the ratification of the UNCROC in 1999 by Australia till 2010, we can say that the Convention has realised neither the brightest hopes of its supporters nor the most dire fears of its opponents (Butler, B., 1993). The ratification of an international instrument by Australia, such as the Convention, does not ipso facto make that instrument part of domestic law hence the UNCROC is not part of Australian domestic law. Therefore, it has not revolutionised public policy making for children, nevertheless it has led to many very significant initiatives and reforms (Module 1. Is the Convention enforceable, p 29). It has provided a new basis for examining the situation and treatment of children, bringing a rights focus to what previously were seen as purely welfare issues. The effect of this is that the Convention has been declared an international instrument relating to human rights and freedoms for the purpose of Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 (Cth) (Module 1. Is the Convention enforceable, p 29). Consequently, the Convention has provided the legal and conceptual basis for the establishment of children’s commissioners in most Australian jurisdictions.

5. Children’s rights and early childhood settings

Early childhood, the period from birth to 6-8 years, is a significant and unique time in the life of every individual. Every child needs and has the right to positive experiences in early childhood. As with every other phase in life, positive supports and adequate resources are necessary for meaningful development.

In their everyday lives, children largely stay within and relate to three settings – their home, schools and recreational institutions (Rasmusen, K. 2004). These environments have created by adults therefore quality early childhood practice is built upon the unique role of the adult. The competencies, qualifications, dispositions and experience of adults, in addition to their capacity to reflect upon their role, are essential in supporting and ensuring quality experiences for each child (Wyatt, S., 2004). This demanding and central role in the life of the young child needs to be appropriately resourced, supported, and valued. Therefore, quality early childhood care and education must value and support the role of parents (Thorpe, R., & Thomson, J., 2003). Open, honest and respectful partnership with parents is essential in promoting the best interests of the child. Mutual partnership contributes to establishing harmony and continuity between the diverse environments the child experiences in the early years. The development of connections and interactions between the early childhood setting, parents, the extended family and the wider community also adds to the enrichment of early childhood experiences by reflecting the environment in which the child lives and grows (Thorpe, R., & Thomson, J., 2003).

5.1. Basing early childhood services on children’s rights

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

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

In Australia, the importance of children’s rights to early childhood care and education is recognised in many of the key documents that express the values and goals of the sector. The first commitment to children in its Code of Ethics is to act in the best interests of the child and the second commitment is a more general one, to “respect the rights of children as enshrined in the UNCROC and commit to advocating for these rights” (ECA Code of Ethics, 1990). Its policy positions are based on principles that “reflect adherence and commitment to” the Convention on the Rights of the Child (ECA position statement consulting with young children). They are expressed in rights terms: “All children have the right to access and participate in early childhood programs and services” (Inclusion of Children).

5.2 Children’s rights issues for early childhood institutions

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

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

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

In a child care centre caregivers can create an environment focusing to strengthen child development in a more holistic way which will give to the caregivers a better understanding of the physical and social settings of children from where they belong. In the child care centre the caregivers can also identify culturally regulated customs and can use it as a culturally niches (Nyland, 1999). The adult/caregiver’s role in these developmental niches/physical and social settings is one of scaffolding the child experiences (Valsiner, 1987) through an environment that is carefully considered in relation to three metaphorical zones (Cole, 1996).

These metaphorical zones make up the developmental niche and consisted of three zones i.e. zone of free movement (ZFM), the zone of promoted activity (ZPA) and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Valsiner, 1987). ZFM is understood as the child’s access to the environment, objects, events and ways of acting (Cole, 1986). ZPA covers a child’s particular action, or response which encouraged him/her to give by a more competent member of the culture or from the same physical environment (Nyland, 1999). But when the ZPA is matched to the child’s present development state which guides further development then it is referred as ZPD (Cole, 1996).

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

For better understanding of the role of early childhood settings for the protection of children rights, Berenice Nyland (1999) in article “The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Using a concept of rights as a basis for practice”, quoted a 20 minutes observation period took place in a day care centre between two babies of under two years, with no spoken language. Kallina started the play by putting a nappy on a doll. She was thoroughly engaged and her physical moments were free. She had mental picture of folded nappy because she tried many times to match reality with mental event representation. Another baby Claudia joined the play, took a doll and wrapped a nappy around it. Claudia just matched the nappy and made no effort to fold it or put it on the bottom half of the doll. Similarly Claudia found another undressed doll in the same place and take out a nappy from a nearby clean clothes basket and draped it around it. The observer was asked to put the nappies on to prevent them falling off. Claudia then took a plastic play gym from an immobile baby and placed it to the book corner. She then placed the dolls underneath the play gym, so they ‘could play’.

The role of caregiver in this exercise is the children’s actions affirmed the suitability of the available environment created by the caregiver relating to the freedom of moments (ZFM) for the babies and they had access to inside and outside. They were having free choice of space and toys, and also access to domestic equipments such as clean clothes basket. The children initiated ZPA by themselves and there was no need of adult intervention or guidance. Scaffolding and learning in the ZPD occurred between children, as they were engaged in intentional goal oriented behaviour hence established their ZPA. Such zones should be dynamic and constantly being renegotiated.

This exercise shows that observing children in such expressive way – and to see their development within the context of relationships existing in the physical environment of the setting, cultural artifacts, and social interactions – gives a comprehensive way of individual child. At one hand it demonstrates a child’s competence for understanding changes and on the other hand the early childhood setting as a learning environment. Such an approach moves away from the straitjacket of areas of development and affords the child a voice while giving the caregiver a more meaningful role within the relationship (Berenice Nyland, 1999).

6. Early childhood workers as leaders in children’s rights advocacy

We then are needed as advocates for children’s well-being and not only advocates but leaders in advocacy. The basis of our advocacy should be children’s rights, as recognised in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Why we? Because as early childhood professionals, we have responsibilities and opportunities that require we to be advocates. Our responsibilities come from our role as workers with children. We know them and their needs well (Nyland, 1999). We know what promotes their development and their happiness. We know the importance of services for them being of the highest quality. We also know the consequences of children not receiving the services and support they need for their full development and the consequences of poor quality services. Advocacy cannot be left to others when we have so much expertise and experience (Module 4. Topic 1: Advocacy for children. p 5).

8. Conclusion

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

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

So the emerging vision is one of an actively participating and socially competent young child. This young child is ecologically situated: within family and caregiving environments; in relationship with peers; as part of a community; and as a member of society. This young child is to be considered holistically: as a being whose emotional, social physical and cognitive capacities are evolving in various social and cultural settings (The Committee GC 7). Therefore require us to reconsider young, active, participant children in the broadest possible sense, both as individuals and as a constituency.

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Homeless Children refer to Children who live on the streets. They are deprived of family care and protection. Most of them are between the ages of 5 to 18 years old. It’s a new phenomenon that has been occurred in the developed and less developed countries such as USA, India and Egypt. This Problem has evolved in some countries because of the gap between the rich and the poor and unequal distribution of the income. According to the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention researchers in Egypt found that the average number of Children street is vary between boys and girls which is 45,5 respectively . This paper will examine the problem of homeless children focusing on Poverty, Child Abuse and Child labor as well as the proposing solutions to overcome this problem.

Homeless Children is a significant cause of poverty that results from low. The (UNO) in Egypt had interviewed 50 sample of street children and found that “Low income and educational level of the family (98% of the sample come from low income level families, whereas 66% of them were low educational level families)”. Many families cannot support its family because of their low income and because most of these people are not educated so they cannot be employed in high positions to support the needs of the family. In addition, these conditions encourage the parents to let their children drop their schools and support them to be source of money to provide their families with food, clothes and other basic needs. Poverty will keep the child poor throughout his life. In order to survive, children won’t have the chance to go to school and will be forced to work to get money so they will remain at the bottom of the social level.

Most of the homeless children have many siblings according to their illiteracy that will increase this problem. Most of the time, overpopulation is associated with poverty because of their families’ low income. For example in Egypt a poor family could have 8 children and the bread winner’s income is 100 EGP distributed in 8 Child which is not covering half of their needs.

Child Abuse is a cause of street children which lead the child to run away from home to avoid any kind of abuses such as physical or sexual abuses. However, running away from home may cause further abuses. “Most of street children have been beaten up or sexually abused by their parents, step parent or in the work which led them to resorting to street”, (Hussein, 1998). Furthermore, these children are forced to leave homes because they feel that they are neglected and being unwanted by their families.

Another cause of street children is child labor which lead that child bears the burdens outweighs his/her ability. Street children can work in factories and carrying heavy equipment and bags. They usually don’t live their lives as they should, they have been treated as adult because they have grew up before their times. Child labor is associated with child abuse. Children are being abused physically by their bosses who insult and beat them continuously.

Homeless Children negatively affects the entire society. It affects their unstable lifestyles where they do not have a regular place to stay in and they might not see their biological parents daily which make them unstable emotionally. In addition, These Children lack of medical care and they have higher susceptibility of getting chronic diseases gastrointestinal disorders, and sexually-transmitted diseases such as HIV. They could get these diseases as eat from garbage and are not aware of cleaning habits to avoid those diseases. In Mumbai, India “it is estimated that 30% of the prostitutes in this city are less than 20 years of age. Nearly half of them became commercial sex works when they were minors”, (Rhode, 2004). In addition, adults are using street children in drug trade and studies found that 90% of the homeless children are using some psychoactive drugs such as heroin, alcohol, cigarettes and some industrial products that are available such as shoe glue.

Street Children are more likely to acquire behaviors such as violence from the community or while working with others or with how the people react toward them in the streets. They obtain this behavior to protect themselves from the surrounding community and they don’t feel valuable in their society. Most of these children are abused and violence is a normal result of this act which is associated with most of street children. They experienced many things and they saw the black side of life very early and because they feel unwelcomed by the people based on their appearance or their behavior, people tend to drive them away using violence. Street children have a fear of being arrested by police because they are afraid of giving them back to their families.

There are some solutions that have been used previously but didn’t succeed to overcome this problem or reduce the rate of homeless children in some countries such as volunteering in organizations, government, emergency call services and provide awareness and education.

One of the solutions to reduce the problem of street children is volunteering in charitable organizations. These kinds of organizations provide help to street children to have a stable lifestyle and offer them the basic needs and rights as children. However, street children have adopt to the street and of course they don’t want to stay in streets for the rest of their lives, but these organizations offer help for the children not for their parents, so if the child went back home they will repeat the cycle again.so, these organizations actually isn’t the final solution this problem.

Another solution for this problem is the help offered by the government to eliminate this problem. Governments provide money to these children and their families, so that later there is no need to let the child work or the child is forced to leave the home. By this money, the family can afford their children needs. However, this solution has a drawback which is that the money is going to finish and the government is not and these families can’t rely on governments as source of money. Government will offer them allowance this month but maybe the next month they won’t. In addition, these children have acquired some behaviors such as the use of drugs, so these children might use the money provided by the government in the drugs and other illegal things. According to NGO,”in Brazil, sometimes governments have roundups when they remove all the children from city streets and place them in orphanages or arrest them”. Which might lead the child to leave the orphanage and go back to street again and there are some orphanages that take advantages of these children and let them work for them which cause to the same problem again.

A third solution for reducing the street children problem is emergency call. This service is done by the Human Rights to do their best in helping these children and offer them a stable life. These emergency calls are like hotline which the child dial their number and ask for help and then the responsible people come and help this child. However, most of these children have a fear of people and a fear that the community are not accepting them as part of the society, which result that not many children is going to call them. Moreover, this service also can be used by adults who are seeing street children and want to call a help for them but these children are not aware that they are being helped by the human rights and they will see it as they are being forced to go back to orphanages and child care and others.

The best solution that we recommend to reduce the rate of street children in our world is a combination between education and angle investors. First of all, these children won’t understand that they are being helped unless they understand that they are in severe danger. Education is a powerful weapon that will bring the children back into their societies and will help them to build their futures. “The main purpose of offering education for street children is that they are going to feel valuable in their society and willing to improve themselves to better”, (ANPPCAN, 1995). Small team of volunteers can offer an interesting and good environment of education to encourage them to attend school. In addition, the angle investors could help in providing money to their families as a persuasion but the money is given to start a small business with it such as supermarkets, laundry and joinery and others. So, they could have a stable source of money to provide their children with the basic needs required, and their children could attend school to improve their quality of life.

Street children have many negative effects on the entire society. In addition higher rate of homeless children could increase the probability that the country won’t be secure, stable and developed. Reducing this problem is important because they are part of our society and have needs and rights that should be achieved to get the best possible outcomes from them and raise the level of social and economy to the better. Something needs to be done to reduce and prevent street children from increase. There are several solutions you can do to decrease the disadvantages associated with the street children. While you can volunteer as a teacher, encourage investors to invest in small businesses to allow their families to work in it, support the governments to raise awareness about this problem and how it could be solved or reduced. However the best way for us to make an impact on this problem is to educate these children and make them believe that they are not the problem itself but their surrounded conditions were the problem. Solving this problem is important, we all need to take an action because we have to live in secure country and have a use of each person in our society to make it a better place to live in and create a better quality of life for everyone without exceptions.

There have been many theorists which have influenced todays early childhood education. From as early as 1698 with John Comenius to the most mentioned Jean Piaget in the 1920s? John Comenius was one of the first producers of the childrens picture books. Comenius paved the way for subsequent development in education. His understanding of learning through the senses and of the holistic nature of learning remains the cornerstone of educational theories today.

Friedrich Froebel also believed that teachers should not teach by rote but should encourage self-expression through play. He believed that the education of young children was a vital part of their development as individuals. Froebel was the 1st theorist to articulate a theory on how children learn and gave detailed instruction for putting this theory into practice. This was the first teacher training programmer for young children.

Rudolf Steiners theory is centered on all aspects of growth and development, which included spirituality. He wanted to create an education which gave children a balanced experience. The teachers attempts to engage the childs whole being in what they do, in as an artistic way as possible, by providing a warm and joyful environment in which the child can feel nurtured and at east, happy to explore and play, be busy and be still. The room is painted and in a warm colour has few hard rectangular corners, and is often furnished with soft muslins to mark off a different area or draped over a window to give a softer quality of light. The quality of sound is that of human voices rather than of mechanical toys. The materials in the room are natural and are at childrens level and are stored in aesthetic containers such as simple baskets or wooden boxes which may themselves be incorporated into the play (Drummond, MJ. Lally M. And Pugh, G. (EDS) (1989) Page 59) (Working with Children: Developing a Curriculum for Early Years). This theory and concept of teaching has influenced many types of early learning frameworks and curriculums. But his belief in the non-introduction of print to children prior to the age of 7 years remains a controversial part of his theory. As we are aware today, young children have a huge understanding of print, not just from books but from their environment.

Maria Montessori was one of the most influential theorists. Her aims were to harness childrens natural ability to learn and then offer defined experiences and materials to explain abstract principles. She wrote the child can only be free when the adult becomes an acute observer. Any action of the adult that is not a response to the childrens observed behaviour limits the childs freedom (cited by MacNaughton in Shaping Early Childhood) (Open University Press, 2003). She developed a range of equipment and materials to help develop the childrens daily living skills such as number concepts, language development, education of senses and exploration and science. Today these methods are still widely used and have been some of the most popular methods of early childhood education in the modern day.

Jean Piagets theories dominated developmental psychology in the 1960s and 70s. Like Sigmund Freud, Piaget identified stages of development but while Freud concentrated on the emotional and sexual development, Piaget focused on intellectual development. He identified these 4 stages as Stage 1: Sensorimotor, which was between the ages of 0 – 2 years. Stage 2: Preoperational, came from the age of 2 to 6/7 years. Stage 3: Concrete Operational, identified itself at age 7 years to 11 years. The final stage, Stage 4: Formal Operations, begins at the age of 12 and continues through into adulthood. His theories were covered during teacher training and influenced the education of young children during the 1970s. Today his theories are still taught but as part of a range of theories. He was created a sense of curiosity about how children learn but his emphasis on logic mathematical thinking resulted in his experiments being over-generalised from a narrow range of subjects. His theories were most influential to the modern curriculum of Highscope.

ACTIVITY 1

A

Using Highscope within the creche, I can identify many features from Steiner, McMillan, Froebel, Piaget and Melanie Klein.

Froebel theorised about the importance of outdoor experience. In our creche we ensure that all the children get outside to play every day. This is an important part of the daily routine, Froebel emphasised nature walks and gardening. The creche has limited outdoor space and the children have plenty to play with, which encourages their gross motor skills. Because of the safety flooring, we have little aspects of gardening outdoors. Melanie Klein believed that children use play to express and show their experiences. This is emphasised within the creche as the majority of the childrens learning/teaching is play-based and to manage challenging behaviour, we re-enact situations through play scenarios, i.e. puppets or stories. But we do not single children out, only observe them in group situations.

B&C

Rudolf Steiners theory concentrates on the child as a whole, balancing the childrens experiences. I can see through observations and toy selection that this is the thesis of our creche. As a supervisor, I see every child as unique. They may go through particular stage but not always at the same time! Each child needs to have positive and constructive experiences which develop their mind, emotions and will. We allow the children freedom of choice and support needed to help them make those choices. With group-time we give them the freedom to speak which builds self-worth and their listening skills. We encourage them to problem-solve which builds their confidence and teaches them patience and respect.

But unlike Steiners belief in not introducing them to the printed word, we show the books and flash cards from the babyroom up!

McMillan brought the importance of hygiene and nutrition to the forefront. Within the creche we encourage the children to be aware of self-care. Through role-play and story time, we show the children the importance of cleaning hands and face, of brushing their teeth and self-grooming. This is also taught to them through example (staff washing hands regularly, etc.). The creche has a daily well balanced and nutritious menu for the children. We liaise with parents to show them the importance of well balanced meals.

Maria Montessori had many contributions to creche curriculum but the one I see regularly in our creche is her theory and observations. The creche revolves around observing the children and planning their routines around that. Adults need to see what the children are interested in and how to enhance that so that their experience is full! Also when observing the children staff can see problems or issues which arise through play situations, i.e. social issues, developmental delays or problems. But we do not use any of the Montessori equipment as we use as much natural material as possible.

D

Although I can see concept from each theorist, I feel that Steiner/Piaget theories would be the most influential with the creche. Steiners theory about development of the child as a whole person is strong and his emphasis on the importance of play and imitation play a large part in the creche. Piagets theories of development were very influential to the Highscope approach which is used throughout the creche.

PART 2

Children love to play! It is an important part of their development. Play offers children the chance to be in control and to feel both confident and competent within relevant and open-ended experiences which are meaningful to them. It helps children make sense of the world around them. Children gain an understanding of their emotions. When children play it involves the exploration of ideas, feelings, relationships, materials and their environment. Play encourages creativity and imagination, and offers the children a chance to explore at their own pace and developmental stage without restriction or expectations. There are different types of play which can overlap and lead into each other.

These are symbolic play:

The child can use this type of play to reinforce, learn about and imaginatively alter painful experiences. Children mimic parents or pretend to be heroes theyve seen on T.V. or read in a book. This type of play helps children cope with fears.

Expressive play:

This gives children opportunities to express their feelings by using many different types of materials.

Physical play:

This has a large social aspect to it because it generally involves other children and it provides exercise which is essential for normal development.

Dramatic play:

This can be spontaneous or adult-guided. The children act out situations which they feel may happen or are fearful of or may have witnessed.

Manipulative play:

This starts in infancy. Children control and manipulate their environment and people around them. Children manipulate and move objects to better understand how they work.

Familiarisation play:

This is when children handle materials and explore experiences in an enjoyable way.

Surrogate play:

This is when an incapacitated child watches and enjoys through other children or adults.

Therapeutic play:

This is guided play used by professionals to help children understand their feelings and show them through play.

There are three main stages of play which are:

(0 2 years) Solitary Play where a child plays alone to explore.

(2 3 years) Parallel Play where a child will play alongside other children but not join in.

(3-5 years) Sharing Play where children co-operate and use conversation when playing games. This also involves children taking turns and using imagination.

Our role as Early Years workers is to facilitate and support each child in play.

Through observing practitioners can plan for play. Planning a daily routine and planning the environment around the childs play is important as through planned play a practitioner can best support the children. No matter the age group of the children they need adult support during play. By talking to the children about their play, recognising and supporting their choice of play (without interference) gives children a sense of competence and self-worth. Only participate in childrens play when invited or if you can help them develop the skills of playing. Practitioner can also support by acting as mediator teaching children skills such as problem solving and to be respectful of others feelings. Practitioners knowledge of equality and diversity will protect children from harm in play intervening in satiations that could be potentially harmful for children. Further to practitioners planning and supporting them also need to review play. Observing the children during play can show how the equipment materials and the environment is supporting or maybe hindering the childrens abilities to continue or to progress in the play.

Children today are growing up in a society where they are over-protected and parents are fearful of allowing them to play outside and explore houses are made so safe that children are stifled in their development. Things that we did to have fun and play developed our gross motor skills. We problem solved situations so as to stay out longer but today children have a lot of house based games such as PlayStation, etc., which are generally play solely and are intellectually based. I think children coming to an Early Years setting enjoy playing. Having materials and space which is suited and facilitates their interests, means they can express themselves freely and helps them explore and understand the ever changing world around them. As Froebels theory highlighted, children should be allowed to be children and enjoy the things that children enjoy.

1) What is the current framework available in Ireland? Siolta and Aistear are the most recent frameworks developed by the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (CECDE). Now the responsibility of Sioltas implementation lies with the Department of Education and Science. Aistear is the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework.

2) What will the Framework for Early Learning do?

Siolta focuses on all areas of quality within ECCE settings for children aged from birth to six years old. Aistear plays its part in giving children opportunities to learn based on their interests, strengths, culture and specific needs.

3) Who will the Framework be for?

The framework covers children from birth to six years old. This includes all Early Years settings, childrens own homes and infant classes in primary school.

4) How does the Framework consider the children?

Our society today has become more diverse. In allowing the children to learn to their abilities. It will give them quality interactions with other children and an enriched environment that encourages play indoors and outdoors, adult/child interactions, exploration, conversation and observation.

5) What themes are included in the Framework?

a) Well-being

b) Communication

c) Exploration and thinking

d) Identity and belonging

6) What are Siolta and Aistear?

7) How can you as an Early Childhood Supervisor promote a quality Framework in your service?

Introducing the National Framework to the service involves educating both the staff and the parents. Training the staff and supporting them as a supervisor with the transition is very important. Aistear will broaden the range of strategies the staff will have for interacting with the children. Introducing new assessments and methods which will progress the childrens learning across the curriculum. The staff must support the children in the learning experiences by observing, listening and interacting, when invited by the child or if intervention is required. The involvement of the parent is essential. To help them understand the benefits to the children of quality play time and helping them understand the limitations paperwork can have with children, as most parents like to see their childrens progress through pictures or writings.

The introduction of project books for the children as a group and as individuals is a great way to review activities and allows the children express themselves through pictures and photos.

PART 4

Highscope and National Curriculum

The curriculum used at my service is Highscope. This was developed by Dr. David Weikart to serve children at risk of failing school. It originated in the USA in 1962 and is now used in many countries around the world. It can be used throughout the childcare setting with children aged from birth to six years. Staff encourages children to become decision makers and problem solvers. This helps them to develop skills that enable them to become successful students as they grow and progress through school. The central principles are given through a Wheel of Learning. At the centre the active learner (the child) and surrounding that the principles that will support the child while learning these are adult/child interaction: learning environment: daily routine and assessment.

These give staff and management a base on how to provide an environment and daily routine that will enrich a childs experiences within my service. My vision is to have a quality service that children will run into every morning with smiles on their faces and at the end then to watch them become fully rounded, capable children as they make the transition to national school. I want my staff to enjoy coming to work, feeling satisfied that they have made a difference in each childs life. That they have helped each child reach their full potential and have positive experiences in the setting. I want parents to feel secure in entrusting their children to my service, that they know that their children will be nurtured and encouraged positively during every step of the day. They feel still included in every part of their childrens day, even while they are away from them.

I feel that the new National Framework can slot in easily to a service that is High scope-based, as there are a lot of similarities. Aistear curriculum can be used during a Highscope daily routing as both are play-based, learning and emphasise the value of observations to plan routines and activities.

Because of this, I feel the transition to national school should be smooth. The children have built up the abilities to problem solve and make decision and choices for themselves. This builds confidence both socially and academically. I feel the largest problem for children when progressing initially to national school is more social than academic and if a child is confident, self-aware and happy in themselves, the transition can bring more positive experiences than negative which sets a good base for a child to progress successfully as a student.

This is what some people claim. Mankind has lived for thousands of years. As generations grow, we are becoming more and more aware of the harmful effects illness and stress impact on our bodies. Our awareness of the need to take the necessary steps to achieving a healthier lifestyle and prolong our life span is also growing. The number of diseases rising around the world makes it vital that people apprehend the importance of leading and living a healthy life. They believe health is accomplished by eating healthy food and exercising, but this is only one part of the healthy living process. There is more to being healthy and achieving an overall wellness and wellbeing than just eating well and exercising. Different elements assemble the human beings overall health, these elements are referred to as “the six dimensions of health” physical, psychological, spiritual, social, intellectual, and environmental. This report will discuss and define each of the six dimensions to provide adults with an understanding of the dimensions in hope of protecting our children from illnesses and diseases, and providing them with a more stable and a better future.

Background

Why is this report needed? Explain the six dimensions of health (Donatelle, 2006) and use this to explain to the reader why wellness and wellbeing are important in early childhood education and care.

The early childhood years sets the foundation to how children view themselves, each other, and the world around them. Their character which will develop further as they grow older begins in those early years. For this reason it is vital for Early Childhood Professions to understand the six dimensions of health in order to support children’s development in achieving wellness and wellbeing.

Bronfenbrenner believed children are influenced by the ecological system, (the system of relationships that form his or her Environment) particularly the microsystem (the immediate environment, e.g. family or school)Bronfenbrenner, 1998. He mentioned that positive emotional interactions and experiences between caregivers and children are crucial for the development of social and emotional wellbeing in children.

Donatelle, 2006said “The motivation to improve quality of life within the framework of one’s own unique capabilities is crucial to achieving health and wellness”. As children’s services or early childhood settings fit into the microsystem stage of the child, it becomes imperative for us to set the building blocks for children to achieve the optimum wellness and wellbeing. Our interaction and experiences play a key role in their development, but what is wellness and wellbeing?. Donatelle, 2006identified wellness and wellbeing as follow;

Physical heath : the way we function using our bodies, how sharp our sensors are, how fit we are, the ability to catch diseases and disorders and the ability to recuperate from illness and regain health,

Intellectual health: Mentally healthy , the capacity to think with clear judgment, the ability to learn, the ability to grow from experience and the ability to make critical decisions.

Social heath: the ability to socialise and interact well with others, the ability to adjust to situations at different levels

Emotional health: the ability to recognize and express feelings appropriately, the ability to control and balance these feelings with yourself and others. The ability to feel good about yourself, love and trust.

Environmental health: the ability to appreciate the world around you and to recognise the role you play in effecting the environment.

They believe

Spiritual health: the ability to have faith, hope, and belief. The ability to connect with the world around you as one, to love and respect nature and to feel the love and pain of the world.

Discussion

Discuss each dimension of health and explain what is happening or not happening to support children’s wellness and wellbeing in your service.

Wellness is a state of optimal health that is working towards or trying to maximize the individual’s potential to achieve a vibrant state of wellbeing and enjoyment of life. This is a lifetime process of working towards enhancing your physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental wellbeing.

When we think of Wellness and Wellbeing, it is good to remember that all aspects of the six dimensions impact each other. Although every dimension is important in its self, it is the balance that gives each individual the optimum wellness and wellbeing. For example if a person focus on his/her physical health and neglects the emotional health, the physical health would deteriorate soon after. Keeping an overall balance and a holistic approach would give us a higher chance in achieving wellness and wellbeing.

Factors that affect our Wellness and wellbeing.

The individual’s attitude and behaviors.

Heredity and family history.

The influence of the people around you, positive and negative.

Health care availability.

Let’s have a closer look at each dimensions and how does the centre cater for the dimension.

Physical health;

Physical health is most visible to us and the easiest to keep an eye on. It would probably be the one dimension we pay more attention on, than any other dimension. If we eat well balanced nutritious food and exercise regularly, minimise the consumption of harmful foods such as alcohol and cigarettes, the chances of us catching diseases are reduced but not eliminated.

Good nutrition is important for child for many reasons. For one thing, proper nutrition is necessary for body growth and development. Without it the brain, nervous system, bones, teeth, muscles, eyes, heart and lungs will not grow and work as they should. Children will also learn, think, play and work with others better if they are eating right.

How can it be achieved?

Exercise least 30 minutes a day.

Eat lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains,

Replace bad fats with healthy fats, such as those found in olive oil

Visit your dentist regularly

Seek medical attention when required

Maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Centre’s approach to physical health;

The centre aims to:

Facilitate physical development by providing activities which foster fine and gross motor skills.

Provide children with 50% of their recommended dietary intake

Provide a healthy eating environment

Provide children with healthy food habits

Provide water throughout the day

Provided children with a balance of active and quiet activities

The centre focuses on providing children with a balanced nutritious food but fails to promote and link the importance of staying active to the physical health. Very little discussion is provided about health and fitness.

Intellectual health;

Intellectual health is our ability to perceive and process information accurately and the ability learn and Interact with the world around us. To achieve an intellectually healthy life, we must have the wish to learn and to have an interest in what is going on around us. Intellectual health also involves problem solving and creativity.

How can it be achieved?

Keep your mind active with learning

Participate in creative and problem solving activities.

Read the news each day.

Paint and draw.

Build something with your hands.

Work out a crossword puzzle each day, it can help keep our brains on alert.

Centre’s approach to intellectual health;

The centre aims to:

Facilitate intellectual development by providing activities and experiences which allow children to experiment, think and question the world around them and develop their problem solving skills.

Encourage children to develop a positive attitude towards learning, responsibility, self-discipline and self-esteem.

Design activities which allow children to develop their capabilities and interests at their own pace and according to their individual need.

Social health;

.

Socially healthy people engage, interact, and co-operate well with each other. That includes friends, family, co-workers and other groups. Being comfortable with oneself as well as others at different levels and maintaining relationships.

How can it be achieved?

Learn ways to relate with others.

Practice communication skills.

Try to be the kind to your friends or partner.

Be considerate and mindful of others.

Centre’s approach to Social health;

The centre aims to:

Facilitate personal and social development by group experiences with peers, friendly interactions with adults and activities which promote their sense of independence.

Develop programs which enhance children’s social and emotional skills

Emotional health;

The ability to understanding our feelings and emotions and finding vigorous ways of expressing them .Emotional wellness is one of the most important aspects of the six dimensions. It should be one of our main focus points of life in order to accomplish wellbeing. In order to be healthy or have good physical health you must have a good foundation of emotional wellness. You can notice this in your everyday life, by just noticing how having a “good day” or a “bad day” effects you physically.

How can it be achieved?

Learn to recognize your limitations.

Practice different ideas to create healthy relationships with others.

Maintain a sense of point of view.

Learn to deal with emotions such as sadness, anger, or frustration.

Centre’s approach to emotional health;

The centre aims to:

To help children recognise their feelings and emotions.

Encourage children to express feelings and emotions appropriately.

I don’t believe the centre is doing enough to cater for the emotional wellbeing in children. I think a lot more can be done to facilitate positive emotional development. (Refer to recommendation).

Environmental health;

Environmental health is to appreciate and respect the natural environment around you and do whatever you can to protect it.

How can it be achieved?

Better understanding of the environment

finding ways to minimise the waste going to the landfills such as donating clothes and donate computers and mobile phones to organisation.

Recycling

Centre’s approach to environmental health;

The centre aims to:

Promote the understanding and importance of recycling and energy saving.

Reuse material for children’s activities.

Promote environmental education in children’s everyday learning experiences

Role model the positive environmental approaches in daily routines such as reducing energy output and the use of water.

Spiritual health;

The ability to know that life is meaningful and has a purpose. Our morals, values and ethical believes guide us to making decisions and the direction to life.

How can it be achieved?

Take some time to discover your morals and believes.

Try to stick to your believes during difficult times.

Believe in yourself

Centre’s approach to spiritual health;

The centre aims to:

Families are encouraged to share their culture, language and home experiences.
Promote each child’s culture and language, and facilitate experiences whenever possible
Provide an environment that is anti bias and caters for the child’s cultural, family and linguistic diversity.
Promote equality by maximising the educational outcomes for all children, regardless of their gender, cultural backgrounds or socio-economics.
.

In the present day and age television has begun support a significant role in contributing to the overall well-being of children. Since the advent of television, its technology and capability to entice the mind of a child has grown exponentially through numerous shows directly targeted for children. With the average time of television consumption growing, the television effect on a child is greater than ever. Intermittently incorporated with television programs, advertisements play a vital role in increasing the overall effect television plays on a child.

Studies have shown that the negative effects of television have outnumbered the positive effects that may be present. The common positive perception of television being that it acts as a learning mechanism and as an educational necessity for some. When in reality, television not only negatively affects the cognitive development of the child’s mental faculties, but also severely degrades the health and physicality of a growing child, through ill practices of nutrition, proper exercise and physical activity. Along with a violent tendencies and premature activities children are being exposed to sensitive content. With the amount of time spent on consuming television outweighing all other activities besides sleep, today’s children are inevitably leading themselves to a path of self-degradation.

Although some effects of television might be beneficial to children by providing several varieties of an educational and learning aspect, all forms of television and advertisements negatively affect the cognitive development of their mental faculties and the disintegration of their overall health and physicality through the incessant barrage of mindless programming and brainwashing advertisements. With intervention by a parents or a figure of authority the damage to a child growth can be greatly restricted.

Through the decades of broadcasted television, children have grown fond of their television sets and cherish it more than their common childhood activities. This outcome has been viewed by society as a negative effect on their children through the onslaught as foolish entertainment disguised as children’s programming. Studies have been conducted to prove otherwise. It has been linked that the repetitions of shows allow children to learn and retain information more effortlessly. Santomero, with the University of Massachusetts Department of Physiology stated that, “Almost any theory of comprehension would predict that children’s comprehension of a television program improves with repetition” (Santomero 630). An educational episode of Blue’s Clues was shown to 3-5 year olds for five consecutive days, recording their educational and entertainment values. Results that followed showed that with each consecutive repetition of the episode overall comprehension of the educational content improved. As a result repetition is a useful strategy for enhancing learning and program involvement in young children. Proving to be one of the useful tools, alongside many others that a child may obtain through television viewing.

With the advances in television, children are now capable of learning new material through the usage of alternative resources. Television is a key mechanism in conveying new information to children rather than less effective conventional methods. Studies have shown that children more readily retain information through television, rather than information conveyed through conventional methods such as printed information. Physiologist Walma van der Molen, with the US: American Psychological association claims:

A media comparison study of the transmission of television and print news information to children was undertaken by comparing children’s recall of news stories presented either audio visually or in print. Children learn most about the news in out-of-school situations, especially via television and to a lesser extent via newspapersaˆ¦. The present study; however, may have implications for the contribution of television and print to children’s learning both in and outside of schoolaˆ¦. Given that televised and printed news information is used in instruction, it is of interest to investigate from which medium children learn most. (Walma van der Molen 82)

This study examines that children absorb more information through television, due to its interactive characteristics compared to information conveyed through print media. The resources of television provide children with a lower proficiency in reading with the opportunity to expand their knowledge through different and more innovative resources. Allowing children to not be restrained by their reading capabilities, and giving them the chance to use new and existing methods for learning. Not all aspects of television have a negative effect on young children. Children learn and interact from using television as an instrument for learning rather than an instrument of mindless programming. By doing so, not only can children use television as a learning mechanism, but they can also have fun by engaging with television.

Although it is pretty clear some benefits surrounding the viewing of television by children exist, the negative effects outweigh the positive. The problematic issues regarding television have been growing at a substantial rate ever since its advent. Authors, Shea, Harvey-Berino, and Johnson with the Department of Nutrition and Food, at the University of Vermont state that, “On average, Americans watch television for 4 hours and 45 minutes daily. Americans spend more time watching television that participating in any other activity besides work and sleep” (Shea, Harvey-Berino, Johnson). With the average time of television consumed at an already all-time high and growing, the reproductions are immense.

Research has been linked to the influences television viewing has on the dietary quality of children:

Epidemiological studies have shown repeatedly that rates of obesity are associated with both increased media use and poor diet quality in children and adults. Such studies have also shown that hours of television watched are associated with an increased intake of nutrient-poor, energy dense foods and greater overall energy intakeaˆ¦. In particular, it seems that diet quality is affected by the amount of television a child watches. (Shea, Harvey-Berino, Johnson 165)

With the obesity rate substantially increasing in the United States, researchers were faced with the task of looking at secondary behaviors such as; television viewing, diet and obesity in children. The countless hours of television that children are encompassed by have been linked to their degrading health levels, ultimately resulting in obesity. The amount of television that is being watched children are making poor decisions regarding the foods they consume. By taking in nutrient poor and energy dense foods, children have molded themselves into unhealthy eaters, even in today’s society of larger disproportionate kids.

With the intervention to reduce the viewing of television within children, it has been proven to lead to a decrease in meals eaten in front of the television: “The results showed that children in the intervention group, who participated in the lessons taught over the course of 2 years, significantly reduced their television viewing by 3.1 hours per week” (Shea, Harvey-Berino, Johnson 168). By reducing the intake of television a child can restrain him or herself from eating poor and unhealthy foods, thus preventing morbid obesity; although, there are more aspects to television that may affect the health of a young child.

Advertisements play a key role in contributing to the overall destruction of a child’s health. With countless amounts of brainwashing advertisements being aired on prime time television, children are inevitably consumed by their convincing messaging. Today’s television advertisements present children with an incessant barrage of unhealthy food promotions that can only lead to one road, unhealthy eating behaviors and morbid obesity. Physiologist Terence Dovey claims that:

The ability to recognize the food adverts significantly correlated with the amount of food eaten after exposure to themaˆ¦. The consumption of all the food offered increased post food advert with the exception of the low-fat savory snack. These data demonstrate obese children’s heightened alertness to food related cues. Moreover, exposure to such cues induce increased food intake in all children. As suggested the relationship between TV viewing and childhood obesity appears not merely a matter of excessive [inactive] activity. Exposure to food adverts promotes consumption. (Dovey 221)

Through extensive experiments conducted on the effects of food advertisements on children, it can clearly be depicted that advertisements of unhealthy foods lead to the increase in a child’s unhealthy food intake. With television advertisements being greatly influenced by unhealthy and nutrient poor foods, children have no other alternative but to stuff their faces with sweet and fatty foods that are known to be harmful for them. Due to the negative effect of television advertisements on food, the lasting effect on a child’s health is indescribable, and inevitably leads to obesity and greater illnesses.

The effects of television and television advertisements on children today have been directly linked to the overall health degradation; however, the negative effects continue to cultivate. The effects of television on a child don’t stop at their health, but continues to escalate on their mental cognitive faculties. Studies have been conducted to provide research explaining the effects of prolonged exposure to entertainment television. In a recent study professors Ennemoser, and Schneider of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wurzburg, conducted a 4 year study regarding the relations between television viewing and reading abilities:

aˆ¦relations between entertainment program viewing and reading performance were generally negative. Children who were classified as heavy viewers (average viewing time per day = 117 min) showed lower progress in reading over time as compared to medium and light viewers (average viewing times per day 69 and 35 min, respectively). (Ennemoser, Schneider 349)

Not only is television playing a vital role in contributing to children’s health problems, but now it is also affecting their mental and cognitive development. The prolonged exposer to television has been growing exponentially as more shows are created and targeted for children.

By way of children consuming more television as time goes on, it is inevitable that their brains and mental abilities will slowly deteriorate, “Neuroscientists have shown that environmental experiences significantly shape the developing brain because of the plasticity of its neuronal connectivity. Thus, repeated exposure to any stimulus in a child’s environment may forcibly impact mental and emotional growth, either by setting up particular circuitry (“habits of mind”) or by depriving the brain of other experiences” (Healy). Preemptive action must be taken to allow today’s children to mature and still be able to pass a reading literacy test for their specific age group; otherwise there is no hope for the future generations.

It is known that many of today’s children begin to watch television soon after birth, and a significant time each day is apportioned for that activity. Television is plays such a vital role in children’s lives today, that it is almost impossible to break free even though the effects are detrimental for a child’s mental development. Playing a key part in language development, television keeps children away from important aspects of day to day life that help develop their vocabulary. In an article in the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, authors Garvis, and Pendergast state:

Links between delayed language development and television viewing have also been found. A United States study found that young children aged two-48 months had language development delayed when the television was on. During television viewing, adult interactions with the child also decreased. Adults spoke less to children, with fewer examples of turn-taking responses and vocalisations. (Garvis and Pendergast 24)

By enticing a child with television, their only source of knowledge comes from that almost magical box. They lose their connection to the real world and everyone else that is in it. Because many children are focused on their television shows, they forget to interact with the people around them, varying from parents to siblings and friends. As an outcome they forget how to socialize and build their language and vocabulary skills that are relatively imperative to a child’s mental development. Activism with the people around you is the only way a child can grow his or her vocabulary:

Research also reveals that children under two years learn vocabulary better from real-life experience than from equivalent video presentation A similar study suggests that television models are less effective than live ones preserving discrimination of found speech sounds (phonemes) in young children vocalisations (Garvis, Pendergast 24).

Television that is consuming the lives of children has created this unbalance in a child’s active role with the people that surround them. Being active in real life experiences enable kids to effectively practice and learn language, speech, and vocabulary by simply being active. The key here is to break free of the television’s hand and become independent to allow a child’s mind to fully develop as their ages grow. Otherwise the prolong exposure would inevitably lead to severe learning disabilities for a child’s education.

Playing a large role in determining that television has consequentially negative effect on a child’s mental cognitive development, it also plays a part in contributing to mental behavior and growth. With the variety of television shows that are being aired in prime television today, it is practically impossible to monitor every moment of a child’s television viewing. Violence is present in many of today’s television shows that children may have prolonged viewing too. Violent television has proven to set an underlying tone is a child’s mental behavior development, as authors Garvis, and Pendergast state:

It is argued that young children seeing violence on television leads to responses such as the desensitization to the emotional effects of violence, a lack of empathy with victims of violence, an increased tendency to aggression, and the perception of the world as scary (RACP 2004). According to Young Media Australia (2007), exposure to violent content increases the risk that children may develop a violent mental script that is likely to be gendered (male as the hero/perpetrator and female as the victim). (Garvis, Pendergast 24)

The present violence prone television that is sweeping the television market has been growing, and children have been greatly affected by this. The outcome is nothing short of appalling. Young children are being exposed to sensitive materials before they reach their respected ages for the content at hand, which ultimately leads to an unstable reaction to violence, and aggression. The exposure to violent and aggressive television, children learn and pick up certain violent aspects that they react to, in order to become violent themselves. This is why the monitoring of what young children watch is of great importance, for the prevention of a violent nature that would commonly emerge in children today.

With the arise of sexual content that’s commonly present in television today, children are exposed to a higher context of sexual material. The growth of sexual content that’s present in today’s television shows is off the charts in most cases. Even in shows targeted for kids on television networks such as, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon. The exposure to the high content of sexual activity leaves a prolong effect on children as they get older enough to become sexually active. Authors Hust, Wong and Chen in their article from the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media state:

Concern about violent and sexual content that children view is based on the

belief that media content has a strong impact on children’s attitudes and behaviors. Violence on television received the most attention in media effects research. Evidence shows that violent content might contribute mostly to behavioral effects, but also to cognitive and emotional effects. The great number of sexual messages on television also sparked concerns about television’s potential influence on youths’ sexual health. Exposure to sexual television content was linked to teens’ initiation of sexual behavior an teens’ involvement with casual sexual relationships. (Hust, Wong, Chen 382)

Although many studies have linked television to child violence, which is contributing to mainly behavioral effects, the presence of sexual content is also quite great. By embedding sexual content in a child’s mind by repeated exposure at a young age, TV enables a child to grown up into his or her adolescent years and become more sexually active as a direct result to an elongated period of sexual content exposure on television. TV Persuading an innocent child that it is acceptable to be sexually active at a young age, inevitably leading to possible STD’s, and unexpected pregnancy.

Although it has been seen that several effects of television are beneficial to a child by engaging them in a new aspect of education and learning, all contexts of television and advertisements negativity degrade the cognitive development of a child’s mental faculties, along with their overall health, with the persistent bombardment of “mindless” programing and brainwashing advertisements. Television could be and, is a useful too for educational development among young children. With its ability to convey information and language through a friendly concept enables kids to participate and become active in the learning process. But the negative effects outweigh the positive, with television being more and more affective in children’s lives its reach has grown exponentially. Its negative effects on a child’s health and overall physical abilities have been linked television. Not only does television have a prolong effect on a child’s health but it also hinders a child’s ability to learn by limiting their exposure to other sources of material. And the violence present in children inevitably affects the behavioral attitudes of children today.

Work Cited

Angela Santomero, et al. “Effects Of Repeated Exposures To A Single Episode Of The Television Program Blue’s Clues On The Viewing Behaviors And Comprehension Of Preschool Children.” Journal of Educational Psychology 91.4 (1999): 630-637. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.

Ennemoser, Marco, and Wolfgang Schneider. “Relations Of Television Viewing And Reading: Findings From A 4-Year Longitudinal Study.” Journal Of Educational Psychology 99.2 (2007): 349-368. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.

Garvis, Susanne, and Donna Pendergast. “Warning-Television Viewing May Harm Your Child’s Health: Parent Perceptions Of Early Childhood Viewing Habits.” Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 36.4 (2011): 22-28. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.

Healy, Jane M., Ph.D. “Understanding TV’s Effects on the Developing Brain.” Understanding TV’s Effects on the Developing Brain. American Academy of Pediatrics, May 1998. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Hust, Stacey J. T., W. Joann Wong, and Yi-Chun Yvonnes Chen. “FCP And Mediation Styles: Factors Associated With Parents’ Intentions To Let Their Children Watch Violent, Sexual And Family-Oriented Television Content.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 55.3 (2011): 380-399. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

Robert Kubey, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Television Addition Is No Mere Metaphor”. Common Culture. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2010. 123-131. Print.

Shea, BE, JR Harvey-Berino, and RK Johnson. “Watching Television: How Does It Influence The Dietary Quality Of Children?.” Nutrition Bulletin 35.2 (2010): 165-171. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.

Steven Johnson. “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”. Common Culture. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2010. 131-144. Print.

Terence M. Dovey, et al. “Effect Of Television Advertisements For Foods On Food Consumption In Children.” Appetite 42.2 (2004): 221. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.

Walma van der Molen, Juliette H., and Tom H. A. van der Voort. “Children’s Recall Of Television And Print News: A Media Comparison Study.” Journal of Educational Psychology 89.1 (1997): 82-91. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.

INTRODUCTION:

In this topic I have focussed on the Child labour problem in worst form in India, in India though Child Rights recognised and even many legislations passed to deal with the children rights but the children rights are continuously in one or other form violated. The topic try to expose abuse of children rights of those children who are working in hazardous work places like mines, firework industries and other informal (registered or unregistered small mines and quarries) and other sectors. In this topic I tried focus on the worst situation that children facing in the above sectors that the magnitude of the problem and conditions of the children are disclosed. The topic further discussed the role of the Government and Non Governmental Organisations eradicating this social disorder.

India continuously facing the child labour problem, in India child labour is a socio, economic and political problem. As a developing nation India facing this problem and it is hampering the growth of the nation in many ways. India’s one of the main goals is to put end to child labour. There is a huge exploitation in the marginalised groups in other terms poor among poor is more or less vulnerable sections. And if we talk about child they are more vulnerable, childhood of these exploited sections are wiped, these tender buds are muscled to take burden of unwanted. Childs are many ways are exploiting like child trafficking, child prostitution, and child labour and child slavery. India is the example for the child labour curse. Since independence, India has dedicated itself to be against child labour. Article 24 of the Indian constitution clearly states, “No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or employed in any hazardous employment” [1] . Article 39(e) directs State policy such “that the health and strength of the workers… and the tender age of children are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength” [2] . These two Articles illustrates that India has constantly had goals of taking concern of its children and ensuring the protection of workers. In regard to child labour the Indian government enacted the Child Labour Act in 1986. The purpose of this act is to “prohibit the employment of children who have not completed their 14th year in specified hazardous occupations and processes” [3] .

Children life is miserable under fourteen who has to earn for their families and they have to work with great pain for little amount. Poverty and illiteracy are main causes in these segregated sections causing exploitation. Families who are below poverty line do not have think about the any other issue of the society rather to how the day will go on every day. The governments have taken measures but they are lacking in implementation, there is a huge resentment in the civil society the application levels are very low in developing countries and they always try to escape in one or other ways give their accountability to international Agencies. India as signatory of international covenants trying to strengthen to its local and national laws to eradicate the problem. India is signatory to ILO forced labour convention, ILO abolition of forced labour convention and UN convention of the right of the child. As per the International labour organisation report 12.6 million [4] children are working in different sectors in India as per the census data on the child labour. NGOs and other social activist working remarkably to bring awareness in the society. Many activities holding awareness programmes in the society trying pull out the society from the plague of child labour. Judiciary also taking very stringent stand over the child labour issues. International covenant on convention on rights of the child recognises that children should be having special care and assistance to grow. Not only is that committee on the rights of the child the body of experts who monitors the implementation of convention by the state parties. The child must be spruced well in the decisive years of his life. He must receive education, acquire knowledge of man and materials and blossom in such an atmosphere that on reaching age, he is found to be a man with a mission, a man who matters so for as the society is concerned.

The child rights violated in the form of child slavery or bonded labour, child trafficking, child prostitution and pornography, child soldiers, domestic child servants, hazardous child labour. As the topic mainly dealing with child labour, the children are exploiting as labour in mainly following categories field of work cultivation; agricultural labour; livestock, forestry, fishing, plantation; mining and quarrying; manufacturing, processing, servicing and repairs; construction; trade and commerce; transport, storage, and communication; and other services. Not only the above categories children used as labour, children are used to manufacturing explosives like making matches, crackers, gem polishing, paper bag making, manufacturing sport goods, handicrafts, carpet weaving, gas stations, silk cultivation, glass and brass manufacturing, leather tanning etc, these are the examples of worst form of child labouring these all are some examples that we can understand that in many forms child can be abused and his rights are violated in everyday life. The topic mainly enlightening on child labour who works in mining and quarrying and Agriculture sectors in hazardous and other informal industries.

Historical background of child labour laws in India:

Before discussing further lets summarise the child labour laws and change in the course of developing nation. Any child under the age specified by law worldwide works full time, mentally or physically to earn for own survival or adding to family income, that interrupts child’s social development and education is called “child labour”. After set up of the International Labour Organisation, in 1919 under the League of Nations there is clear consciousness to set up international guidelines by which the employment of children under a certain age could be regulated in industrial undertakings. And suggested a minimum age of 12 be to work. British India adopted the same Sir Thomas Holland had introduced in the legislative assembly. Though there were many furores by the members, it is the starting of the recognition of child care at work. We can say that the International Labour Organisation is playing a vital role in eradicating the child labour from industrial exploitation. “A Royal Commission on Labour came to be established in 1929 to inquire into various matters relating to labour in this country. The report came to be finalised in 1931. It brought to light many inequities and shocking conditions under which children worked. The Commission had examined to conditions of child labour in different industries and had found that children had been obliged to work any number of hours per day as required by their masters. It was also found that they were subject to corporal punishment. The Commission had felt great concern at the placing of children by parents to employers in return for small sums of money; and as this system was found to be indefensible it recommended that any bond placing a child should be regarded as void. The recommendations of the Commission came to be discussed in the Legislative Assembly and the “Children (Pleading of Labour) Act, 1933? came to be passed, which may be said to be the first statutory enactment dealing with child labour. Many statutes came to be passed thereafter. As on today, the following legislative enactments are in force prohibiting through various provisions of employment of child labours in different occupations”.

“Factories Act, 1948” prohibit that no child under the age 14 allowed to work in factories. “Plantation of Labour Act, 1951” prohibits children under the age 12 in the field of plantation. “Merchant shipping Act, 1951” disallows who under age fifteen to carried or engaged to sea to work in any ship though there are some exemptions for who carrying family business and home trade with some restrictions. “Mines Act, 1952” in this act prohibits any child to take part in any mining operations; there is total ban on child to take work in the mines in below the grounds or in open cast work. “Motor Transport workers Act, 1961” bars no child be allowed to take any work in motor transport undertakings. “Apprentice Act, 1961” prescribes the qualification to become apprentice that person shall not qualify unless he crosses the age fourteen. “Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966” prohibits of employment in the concerned industries. “Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. (Act 61 of 1986)”. These regulations clearly show that legislatives have firmly considered necessary prohibition on Child labour. Though strong legislations in India there are many loopholes and ineffective administration authorities who splitting the wound continuously. Children rights are open to abuse in social, economic and political background of the society.

Worst form of child labour some Illustrations:

In many industries have been in the process of exploitation like match and firework industries, glass and bangle industries, stone quarrying industries etc., There are no registration industries who dealing with these kind of work in such places high hazardous situations where children were to take work quarries cutting stones brushing them loading and unloading not even shelters to take rest in all the seasons they have to work for more than 6 to 8 hours daily for meagre amount. Many diseases they have to face like bronchitis, lung and respiratory problems. The children are, as bonded labours have to work for little money or for sake of their family earnings.

Child labour mostly exploited by informal industries like small mining and quarrying industries, here the large range of work activities and practices take place, like excavating, cutting, panning, processing, breaking, blending, carrying, transporting and marketing. Here one illustration is important to give that how the child workers are working and how they are in miserable conditions. That is in Sivakasi, Tamilnadu state, India it is known as home of Match and firework industries. The region is mostly located with these industries. There are around more than 450 match and firework manufacturers are located. But the exact number of child workers in this industry is difficult to work, but as per the official report Office of the Registrar General, District Profile 1991- Tamil Nadu (1991) more than thirty thousand child between ages six to fourteen in these manufacturing units [5] . But some other sources and social activists opine the number is much more than the statistics report. Children had had to work in dangerous and hazardous units many Non Governmental Organisations, media, and labour unions continuously drawing attention of the same to government and Merchant association. But their efforts put in to vain in many ways due to negligible administrative authorities, under the power politics of Merchants association. Due to fire accidents in these industries damage is very horrible; in reported news in one accident 23 children were born alive. There are many shivering and terrified incidents took place in these mining industries. Human right activist and Advocate Sri M.C. Mehta filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India vide W.P.465/1986 [6] the Supreme court said that this is the example of worst offender who violating the prohibition of employing child in hazardous industries. Court constituted a committee for analyse and recommendations after considering the recommendations of the committee court directed that employment of children in match and firework factories is shall not be permitted. Children who are working in hazardous employment is violated the spirit of the constitution. The Supreme Court directed that the children employed in the match factories for packing purposes must work in separate premises for packing. Employers should not be permitted to take work from the children for more than six hours a day. The employers and State Govt. should provide proper transport facilities for travelling of the children from their homes to their work places and back. Facilities for recreation, socialisation and education should be provided either in the factory or close to the factory. Employers should make arrangements for providing basic diets for the children and in case they fail to do so, the Government may be directed to provide for basic diet – one meal a day programme of the State of Tamilnadu for school children may be extended to the child worker. A National Commission for children’s welfare should be set up to prepare a scheme for child labour abolition in a phased manner. Such a Commission should be to this Hon’ble Court directly and should report to this Hon’ble Court at periodical intervals about the progress.

The court decision quite surprising one many other issues that not dealt in this case when there is clear prohibition court try to segregate work in to two different sectors like packaging and processing and working child allowed to packaging section difficult to understand the court view. The most difficult side of these decisions is that they did not afford relief for children employed outside of the enumerated hazardous industries

But it show that how the miserable situations the child worker face reflects. The root cause is very simple but very strong one extreme poor condition of the families of those children, more than 75 percentage families eking their livelihood in those groups of society. These people exposed to extreme hazardous conditions no adequate measurements will take place even the prescribed laws are there. Violations are common, health conditions of the children are neglected every minute and day. Though there are many issues have to deal this is the first step towards protection of the child labour rights.

This is only one situation where brought in to light where in many other industries like mines, quarrying, glass and bangle etc like many informal industries means non registered industries, are exploiting the childhood of the nation which is intolerable.

In quarrying industries child labour situation is unjustifiable and inhuman small children between age 6 to 14 who are working where there is no monitoring and census record shows of their exploitation but it is true that they are openly curbing the child rights every day. Child labour in the quarrying industries works for more than 10 hours a day they are used to cut the stones in different sizes, load and unload the stones. Children are illegally forced to mining works, the mining contractors engage them in digging, breaking stones, filtering, load and unload, dumping, transporting, and processing activities. In iron ore mining child labour used to make a basin of iron ore child has to hammer and fill one basin of ore hardly he earns three pence in a day a child makes 5 to t basin of iron ore earning below 50 pence a day. Every iron basin the child filled up tells the story the magnitude of the problem that they are facing. In these industries very less or no safety equipments and no prescribed pay system even. In the working areas are always open to susceptible to accidents, injuries, and chronic mining leads to severe health problems. Children who engaged in granite industries faces the similar problem they used for collecting kerosene from mine tailing and in the washer pits from their bare hands handling toxic waste. In other hand the contractors, mine owners, traders and all other merchandisers escaping from the accountability easily though they are blatantly violating the child labour laws. The shift to privatisation and open market economy after India’s new economic policies has led to pushing women and children into the informal labour force, especially in sectors like mining where deregulation of laws for attracting foreign direct investment and private investments have led to mechanisation and retrenchment of workers and have diluted the legal protections towards labourers and marginalized sections. This calls for urgent investigation of all the mines in the country. Hospet-Bellary mining industry in Karnataka is the example of such conditions 3 big mines ranging over 83 hectors, and 6 big mines in bellary regions and 37 other mines spread over the region. These mines excavate iron ore, manganese, gold, quartz, granite and decorative stones. Fact finding team who reported about the child labour violations is shocking shameful to the nation. In these mines Activity takes place with drawing out the ore, breaking the raw ore rocks into small stones and shingles and into fine powder. The mining area has vast extraction site stretching in acres. These areas consist of extraction sites, stone crushing units, stockyards, dump yards, weighing and permit yards, motor vehicle yards, and wagon laoding points across the railway line. These mines in Bellary district are on the hills stretching almost 180 km. The labour that works are migrant workers and mostly form Scheduled cast (Dalits) and tribes these poor labour were engaged by middle persons to work in the mines. In these mines to work the whole family of the poor labour migrates and whole family except old live at work place and work in the mines. In the work area again child labour divided girl labour work with women in breaking the ore into stones. When a heap of lumps is gathered girl children take them to process sieving the lump into iron ore powder. If a boy labour then he goes with men digging and loading and unloading work. And the wages depends on the child labour capability. In these mining areas labour are mostly woman and children more than half of the labour these sections only works. This situation is not only the iron ore mines, in the District Bellary and Hose pet and its surrounding areas children are engaged in granite mines. In these mines kerosene is used to cut the granite and children are used to constrict and strain kerosene tanks and children have to spend hours together dipped their waist in the kerosene tanks. How bizarre to hear and hazardous but this is the daily routine life for them who working in the granite mines in Hosepet, Bellary, Karnataka. From the surround villages of these mines children brought to work, some go to school and some don’t, some children who are the sole earners for their families who used to work in the mines. Children are usually got in to expose to accidents and health problems apart from that the children are at high risk to trafficking and sexual harassment. Usually the mines are open cast form and children labour have to work open without any shelter whatever the weather may be, they do not use any safety equipments, even no drinking water facilities available all the labour have to walk a stretch of 2 to 5 kms. No toilets are provided woman and young children has to do their natural calls openly in humiliation conditions. Conditions in the mines are so pathetic, even after the work to wash or bath there is no water facility, and more over labour have to eat with their dirty hands, though the open site dust falls in their vessels. The mine sites are with full of mosquitoes and insects where the children and woman stay and live. Due contaminated and polluted atmosphere children and people who working in the mines usually get sick, while due to meagre amount of wages labour reluctant to go for medication, due to this mining labour developing chronic illness like tuberculosis, siliceous, cancer, respiratory problems and other disorders they are effecting from. These labour work as casual labours and as a curse they cannot use public health services, and they have to go private doctors treatment, and there wages go for medicines and only for temporary relief. These are the merciful conditions of the child labour in the mines industries, traders, owners of these mines very rarely respond on any severe issues raised on. Children rights are apparently abusing by these industries with no accountability and irresponsible authorities helpless with inadequate infrastructure. Many social activists and NGOs like HAQ [7] (means right in Urdu) ( centre for child rights), Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the child movement) [8] organisations, M.V. Foundation a voluntary organisation, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, reacted and have taken some initiations to bring out the truth of the child labour conditions in these mines, and submitted report to Karnataka government, acting upon the report Government of Karnataka appointed high level of committee for recommendations. My main concern about the child labour and abuse of their rights, though there are many Acts and regulations land Apex court directions regarding the Child labour, like Mines Act, 1952 prohibits totally children to take any form of work who are below fourteen years. Who are to be blamed for the cycle of exploitation of women and child labour the society, the government, implementation body, parents, judiciary, traders, media we have to move forward in the civilisation society, we have to take collective responsibility, and try to correct every part of the section of society and with the cooperation with each of the institution we have to up lift the children rights. It’s now nation’s duty to eradicate child labour abuses in all forms the above are only the worst form of abuse the child labour rights. In many other organised and unorganised, formal and informal, registered and unregistered industries these rights of children are violated every day.

Agriculture sector is where child rights abused extensively, Agriculture is the main source in Indian economy, and in this field child labour is in the form of boned labour. Bonded labour in the farm sector arise when people who do not have any source of land to cultivate or those tenant farmers or small farmers takes loan from the landlords or other sources in return they offer their labour else their children as bonded labour until paid off. Who are considered to be in training to become adult bonded labourers, graze cattle and assist bonded adults. This system is widespread throughout the central India and south India. Bonded children are sometimes subjected to physical punishment and suffer from a high incidence of severe malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, anaemia, tuberculosis, and skin and parasitic diseases. They have no time for either leisure or education – over 90 percent of bonded labourers in India, many of whom became bonded as children, have never had the opportunity to go to school.

Children working in Zari (embroidery work on dresses) Industries in Delhi, Delhi as National capital it are destination and transit point for the traffickers. Children from the different places from other States trafficked here for exploitation, they are converted as sex workers or labour in domestic works and zari industries. Fashion and export make Delhi an important business hub. Due to demand of the work contractors engage children as cheap labour to get more marginal benefit. Traffickers lure poor families promising for good earning to send children. Nearby villages people send their children for work attracting by agents. Children are forced to work long hours as up to 20 hours a stretch despite the consequences of their age and ability and of course with total ignoring of their physical and mental requirements. If they refuse to work they were beaten up badly. While working in the embroidery children every so often cut their fingers very badly. They have to work in confined rooms, and at last children paid only 30 rupees a week (around 40 pence). And some children are trafficked to brick kilns where they have to work with adults making bricks. The families who effected with trafficking are mostly Muslim minorities. Social activists and child right defenders many times rescued these children but many times these children are re-trafficked.

Developing countries always struggle with inadequate economic growth; child labour is one of the results due to inadequate economic growth. In one sense economic development, poverty and child labour are interlinked with each other. As a developing country child labour problem haunting India but this problem is not much is to eradicate in concern with economic growth policies. India must do more to combat child labour, primarily if the causes of child labour include caste discrimination, little or no educational opportunities for

Young people and misconceptions about children’s work. Children working in the “hidden sectors”, particularly those in domestic work and prostitution, have become vulnerable to sexual abuse. This makes them more susceptible to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS [9] .

Active participation Cooperation of NGOs like Bachpan Bachao Andolan (save the child), Haq centre for the right of the child, international programme of elimination of child labour(IPEC), Global march against child labour, UNICEF India, M.V. Foundation, social activists, human right activists are remarkably working towards eradication of child labour problem. Many organisations working on child rights, they are focussed mainly in the tribal and urban informal child labours, and marginalised labour. Educating not only children their families, mobilising them to understand and bring awareness on their rights, exploitation. Social organisations try to bring fact findings of like situations in light and where enforcement authorities fail to do so, even after many fact finding reports submitted to concern administrative authorities if fail to take actions, bringing the inaction of those authorities filing public interest litigation in Supreme Court of India.

Government role:

India as large democratic country and as member of United Nation Committed to eradicate all social evils which violates Human Rights. And as party to International covenants and one of the main member of International Labour Organisation, as developing country India has many millennium Goals. Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an international monitoring body monitors implementation of the convention on the rights of the child by state parties. Under this convention every state party has to submit their periodical report to the committee. 53rd session of the committee of right of the child will be help in Geneva January 2010. India as a developing nation and high birth rates and population child labour problem is identified as Socio, Economic and political problem and it is linked with poverty and illiteracy inextricably. Gurupadaswamy Committee [10] is the first committee on child labour problem constituted in way back 1974, the committee have suggested many recommendations to the government. The committee rightly opined that as long as the poverty and illiteracy continues in the society it is very hard to eradicate the child labour problem. On base of the recommendations of the committee “The child labour (prohibition and regulation) Act, 1986” was enacted. The Act prohibits employment of children in certain specified hazardous occupations and processes and regulates the working conditions in others. To deal with the child labour problem Government of India has taken “National Child Labour Projects” [11] these projects are the main rehabilitation schemes for the child labour. The main concept of the project is to open at district level rehabilitation centres and schools through National project societies for the child labour. In these centres make available to children with vocational training, providing supplementary nutrition and non formal education, providing health care through trained doctors. Children are withdrawn from work and mainstreamed to schools. With the help of international programme of elimination of child labour programme an organisation of international labour organisation the main objectives of the programme to mobilising the society and bringing the awareness in the society in the process of elimination of child labour. “The Ministry of Labour, Government of India and US, Deptt. Of Labour have developed a project under ILO-IPEC for Prevention & Elimination of Child Labour in identified Hazardous Sectors” [12] . The main objectives of these projects is to identify the children who are working in hazardous employment, it also insists a detailed survey to be conducted to identify these children. The second aim is those identified children from the age group 8-14 working in hazardous employment withdrawing them from the such employment and providing them rehabilitation facilities and education. These projects not only encourage children to withdraw from employment, these projects recognise the family of the dependent children and assure to provide viable income sources. These projects also insist social education and awareness programmes. In the tribal areas Government of India started Girijana Vikas Kendras and Vidya Vikas Kendras these institutions educate and mobilise them to eradicate child labour. The right of children to Free and compulsory education Act, 2009, is enacted by the parliament of India amending the constitution of India, inserting Article 21-A, providing free and compulsory education for the children off age group 6 to 14 as Fundamental Right. Not only that it provides specific reservation in private schools 25% seats for poor families, without any hassle.

Conclusions:

Thus child labour is still a burning problem in India and we must be ready and, more importantly, willing to combat this evil which is spreading its wings larger day by day. However, the government is trying but without the concern of the people, this problem cannot be eradicated. The recently conducted surveys are decisive that laws enforcements leaves lot to be desired. On the other hand if a child or his/her parents are unaware of the rights they are privileged with, it makes the task harder. If the family is poor and illiteracy resides in the houses, it becomes a very difficult matter, if not impossible, to eradicate this problem solely by the government itself. Therefore, if the society and the government work together hand in hand, it would be an able effort to regulate and eradicate this problem from our country and make it a better country of our dream. The Latin Maxim “boni judicis est ampliare juridictionem”(meaning law must keep pace with the society to retain its relevance, for if the society moves but law remains static, it shall be had for both. ) must be followed practically. “Children are our assets.” The common people should consider this quote and the

He is experiencing many different changes in his body that are influencing his development during the early adolescent stage. This stage can be one of the most challenging times in a child’s life. Biologically, Luz is developing at a healthy rate of growth, which means he experiencing rapid spurts of growth in height and weight. This begins in boys around age twelve, along with other biological changes such as puberty (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010).

Psychological Influences

Luz is experiencing psychological challenges that an indicator of emotional unrest and instability. He has become withdrawn from the other kids and non-interactive in class. The Adolescent years are characterized by cognitive development and information processing. Luz’s mental actions during this development phase is has developed into a formal operational patterns. This age is governed by global evaluation of one’s self, which has caused Luz to evaluate himself in relation to his peers. Adolescents gain new levels of awareness of themselves, and others as they mature and develop cognitive growth (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Luz’s shyness is a way to avoid rejection among his peers because he has become increasingly self-conscious to how he may appear to others. Luz sees himself differently from the other kids, and his weak self concept is psychologically damaging to his academic achievements. Although Luz is a bright child and has always done well in school, his grades have fallen due to the psychological issues he is undergoing in his adolescent development.

Social influences

In the middle childhood stage of development, children prefer to spend more time with their peer groups in more formal social gatherings. At this age there are distinct roles that govern the children through rigid social rules. Children learn to regulate their emotions to fit into specifics group and to avoid rejection (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Luz, however is not able to join these social groups due to his family’s financial situation and has not been able to participate in after school programs that could enhance his social acceptance. His social groups are confined to his brothers and grandparents in the afternoon. This has been extremely damaging to Luz on different levels. When Luz is put under the care of the older brothers, it can cause conflict between them, because they may not want to take this responsibility at their ages. When put under the care of his grandparents, it can cause him to feel as though he is being treated like a “baby.” Luz’s conflicting feelings, without an adequate social group, has caused him to feel insecure and to turn his negative feelings inward and made him withdrawn.

Cultural influences

Luz’s cultural background plays a vital role in his integration into social settings. Because Luz’s father and mother come from immigrant families, Luz has been raised by a distinct set of values and traditions from other countries. Since Luz’s mother emigrated from Mexico as a small child with her parents, her culture is most likely deeply rooted in the family microsystem. Although, Luz’s father’s family emigrated from Columbia, he was born in the United States and therefore may have integrated more to the surrounding culture. Every culture has rules for rearing children, some view leaving a thirteen year old unattended as inappropriate (Rogoff, 2003). Luz’s culture obviously holds to this view. This is contrary to American culture where children are left alone for long periods from early ages (Cole & Rodman, 1987). This difference may be a catalyst for Luz’s inferiority issues. He may not feel trusted, causing him to feel as though he is incapable of caring properly for himself, decreasing his confidence, and causing him to withdraw from the other kids at school.

Jose Gonzalez, Later Adolescence Developmental Stage – 19 years of age
Biological Influences

Jose is a healthy young adult male. He is at the peak of his physical development at nineteen years old, as body performance is the strongest during the early 20s (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). This feeling of maximum physical potential has empowered Jose to assert his rights against his parent’s wishes and make harmful decisions for his future economic earnings.

Psychological influences

As an emerging adult, Jose is experiencing identity confusion (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Jose dropped out of school in tenth grade against the wishes of his parents and has been unable to transition to an adult lifestyle as defined through social and economic factors (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). He is now nineteen and still has no positive career choices available, working only in low wages positions for short periods of time. Studies show that students from racial-ethnic minority groups have a higher dropout rate. It is also, known that students from lower socioeconomic environments have a higher dropout rate (McNeal Jr., 1995). The psychological connection between the Jose’s having to drop out of sports was likely a strong factor in his decision to drop out of school. Jose was a star athlete in school and most likely had dreams of playing professional sports. These kinds of dreams are instrumental in the psychological growth of a later adolescent development. According to Levinson, dreams give focus and high self-worth even if the dreams begin unrealistically (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Jose’s spirit was crushed and because of this, he exhibited poor decision making. Jose is making an effort to become independent from his parents yet psychologically this has been a problem, because he is still financially and emotionally dependent upon them. This kind of dependency can lead to problems developing intimate relationships with women (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010).

Social Influences

Jose is working to become independent in his later adolescent development years. He is in the process of coming to terms with his identity as an emerging young adult. He asserted his right to independence when he defied his parents and dropped out of school. This is common behavior for later adolescents, it is the time that young adults focus on strengthening their inner identity, and clarifies their values separate from their parents for the purpose of developing intimacy with others. During this stage of development, intimacy becomes a primary issue in their life. Later Adolescents begin to become concerned about commitment issues and career choices that will help them establish goals for a future family (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). Jose continued loss of low wages jobs has disrupted his development maturity and has been a social handicap, because he has not been able to build long term work relationships.

Cultural Influences

Jose’s decisions are a result of his family’s culture. Although Jose’s father graduated from high school, his mother did not. In the Latino culture, a high school diploma is not as valued among its people, however in the United States, high school graduation among Latino students, has risen ten percent in ten years. The national rate is now seventy eight percent of Latinos students will graduate from high school (Garcia, 2013). Therefore it can be assumed that Jose’s decision was dependent more upon his own family’s culture than the American Latino culture which is in changing around him. Other cultural influences that are prevalent, is the historic system of Latino family’s dependence upon each other for support. Jose most likely feels responsible to help out with the household expenses since his family is struggling to make ends meet. The Latino culture is strongly enriched the philosophy that family members should help each other in any way possible (Osher et al., 2011).

Luz and Jose Gonzalez’s strengths

Luz and Jose both have strengths they should focus on to increase their developmental processes.

Jose is the oldest of three sons, has a sense of strong family values. He has gone to work to lighten the load off his financially struggling parents and is available to take care of the younger siblings when possible. He is sacrificial and supportive and should be commended because these are self-less character traits that are honorable in all cultures and are strengths for a healthy development into adulthood. He is young and physically fit and capable of doing many different jobs. He has had many different employment experiences and has been able to eliminate specific areas that he is not interested in for a career.

Luz is the youngest of the three brothers, and has a great deal of support from his older siblings. He is very intelligent and has potential to graduate with honors and gain scholarships to go to college. He is self- reflective and never disruptive in school. Hector is in good health and growing physically at a reasonable rate in proportion to his peers.

Luz and Jose Gonzalez’s Weaknesses

Jose being the oldest feels an undue amount of responsibility for his age, causing him to feel stress and anxiety in a difficult economic family situation. The largest hazard to Jose’s healthy development is the fact that he dropped out of high school. This limits his ability to find adequate employment (Garcia, 2013).

Luz’s position in the family can be noted as a hazard in the family structure, as younger children often emulate behavior of the older and his older siblings have and are making poor choices (Bank & Kahn, 2003). He also has more people seeking to control his behavior, which can lead to frustration and intimidation. He has become withdrawn, exhibiting insecurities and dissatisfaction with himself. He is at an age where belonging to social groups is vital, and he has no outlet to participate, due to his family’s financial situation. His grades are also falling due to his lack of interest in school and growing emotional instability. Immediate intervention is necessary for the healthy development of Luz to the next stage of growth.

Inferred family background or current family functioning Influences
Marital issues

Jorge and Maria are in a deeply stressful financial situation, these types of pressures often cause problems in marriages. Many couples site financial problems as the reason they divorced (Wolcott & Hughes, 1999). Both partners are tired from long hours of work. Maria works at a low wage job with no health insurance or retirement benefits, causing a great deal of insecurity for the health of their family. They struggled to get Hector glasses and he needs medication for his recently diagnosed ADD but there are no resources. The parents were forced to have their son stop playing sports because of the cost, instilling guilt and feelings of failure. There may also be some residual effects from previous years that Jorge did not have a steady job. It is important for the social worker to explore these issues to verify that there are no marital conflicts that should be resolved for the good of the adhesiveness of the family structure.

Parenting issues

Jorge and Maria Gonzalez have been married for twenty years with similar cultures but also very different experiences. They both have strong ideas about what is best for their children and there have been conflict within the family when Jose went against their wishes and quit school. This is an indicator that Jorge and Maria need to improve their parenting skills. Although they did not want their son to quit school they obviously gave into his demands, because it would require the parent’s signature. Jorge and Maria should have explored the deeper reasons for why Jose wanted to drop out of school. They also should learn skills to help their other sons learn to cope with the stresses they feel at school before they follow in their older brother’s footsteps, through motivational techniques. Both parents should determine to affirm their children while demonstrating power and authority (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010).

In-law issues

The Gonzalez family is a close operating unit and there is no doubt that each member is highly dependent upon the others, whether financially or emotionally Maria may be very dependent upon her extended family more than she should, relying upon them almost daily. In-law issues can be a cause of a great deal of conflict with a home. There should be clear boundaries set in place.

Formal Organizations that can help the Gonzalez family

The purpose of this research project is to investigate whether gender stereotypes existing in todays society affects childrens choices in play. The research will focus mainly on children around the ages of 2 – 3 years as this is when gender identity and the adopting of gender specific behaviour begins to show (Hughes, 2010). For many years society has been full of gender stereotypes and children have regularly learnt to adopt to gender specific roles as a result of this (REF). The research will also explore whether bringing children up in their set genders will have any effects on their later development.

Aims and objectives

The aim of this research is to discover whether gender stereotyping has an effect on the choices children make in their play, particularly looking at toy selection and areas the children gather in, in an early years setting. A discussion of how gender identity is formed and as to how gender roles are learnt and adopted by children will be a main focus in this study. The research will also explore how children being steered towards playing and behaving gender specific can hinder their development and what practitioners can do to avoid this.

Rationale

Past research that I have done has widened my understandings of how many children in settings adopt gender specific behaviour, for example not to cry if you’re a boy and to be innocent and pretty if you’re a girl. After doing placement in an early years setting and experiencing children playing in traditional ways for example boys with cars and girls steered towards playing with dolls and dressing up, I am extremely interested in finding out why children play in this way and as to what kind of an effect playing to a specific gender can have on children’s later/overall development. Although many of us believe in giving children as many opportunities and policy is in place to make sure this happens we still subconsciously treat boys and girls differently (REF). Therefore gender stereotyping appears to create many barriers to children receiving all the opportunities to play equal and personally I believe that this will have significant effects on their later life choices.

Research Questions

I will centre my research around these four main research areas:

How do children develop gender role behaviour?
What is the policy context around equality for girls and boys?
Does gender stereotyping hinder children’s overall development?
How can practitioners support inclusive practice for both sexes in the early years setting?
2. Literature Review 1,500

There has been extensive research carried out on gender stereotyping in children and many ideas have been formed as to how children develop gender specific roles. However before we begin looking into this topic it is fundamental that we define what is meant by gender.

How do children develop a gender role behaviour

There are many ways in which it is said children learn and adopt gender specific roles such as, paretns, peers, media, literature and practitioner interaction.. ‘there is much discussion on whether it is nature or nurture side’. According to Yellend (1998), gender development is a systematic process beginning at birth and frequently reshaped thoughtout life depending on the sex of the child.

There are many studies which have been carried out with the social learning perspective in mind which propose that parents contribute to sex-typed behaviours in children and are a great influence to shaping their child’s sex role development (Golombok, 2004). This is done through the different types of toys they buy and the way in which they respond to their children for example a positive response would be given to a girl playing with domestic type toys and likewise a boy playing with cars (Bee, Boyd, 2010).

Socialisation – Parents are key to gender roles as imitation is a vital part of young children’s lives and they learn many things through imitation especially around the ages of 2 – 3 years( REF) it has been said that children learn their gender roles by coping their same sex parent e.g. girl watching her mum do the cooking will then maybe assume that that is a role to be carried out by the female. Family are key when it comes to toy selection as they are generally the first people who buy for their children/grandsonsaˆ¦aˆ¦adults selection of toys for their children/grandson are likely to be gender specific as society is so full of stereotypes we automatically separate boys and girls toys as it has become a subconscious motive?

Many magazines will have toys under ‘toys for girls’ and toys for boys’ having product such as dolls for girls and trucks, cars..for boys

Peers can then continue the already existent believes children have about what should be played with if a girl or boy.

Interaction with practitioners also contributes, use words such as pretty, boys discouraged from crying (touch gender).

What is the policy context around equality for girls and boys?
The equality act 2012
EYFS/ECM will have wrote something on opportunism
Each setting will incorporate many policies within their setting
The Early Years Foundation Stage, unique child states that children ‘inclusive practice’.
Does gender stereotyping hinder children’s overall development?
Does gender stereotyping have an effect on childrens academic achievents and later career choices?

It is likely that traditional gender roles (stereotypes) will continue to limit both boys and girls academic opportunities – little girls discouraged from leaderships tasks, and maths steered towards nurturing roles

“persistent adult beliefs about ‘typical’ behaviour for boys or girls affect children’s experiences” (Lindon, 2012, pg. 7).

The ways in which children careers choices are relayed to children can be subtle but consistent, sending a clear message about the academic domains in which girls and boys are supposed to excel, for example giels are steered away from maths.

Can be shown through the later academic achievements of children eg, girls do better in english?

How can practitioners support inclusive practice for both sexes in the early years setting

It is important that children receive as many opportunites as possible in the early years

Hard cause we are so used to it we do it subconsciously

Follow policy

Gender neutral environment

Challenging stereotypical thoughts within your setting. If a boy tells a girl she can’t be a doctor, ask him why, and show him pictures of female doctors. If a girl tells a boy he can’t be a ballet dancer have resources to hand that show a different story

Role play is a great way to show gender equality

Showing pictures of women firefighters, women builders etc.

3. Methodology
3.1 Sample

The sample type I have chosen is a convenience sample, which refers to the “collection of information from members of the population who are conveniently available to provide it” (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010, pg.276). Therefore I have chosen to interview practitioners in early years settings in the Northumberland area, I have chosen this area as firstly I know the area which means I will save on time as I won’t have to find my way around a new place and secondly I have visited these settings before meaning they are easy accessible.

3.2 Research method – Interviews

I have chosen to use face to face interviews for my research. Interviews are a method whereby one person asks questions of an individual with the expectation of getting answers to a particular question (Mukherji & Albon, 2010). Interviews are the best suited method for my research due to the in depth collection of data, allowing for exploration of issues (O’Leary, 2010). I will be carrying out a semi structured interviews meaning I will be able to explore around the topic and not just collect responses to set questions. Interviews are a research method that provides us with qualitative data (REF). I have chosen a method that collects qualitative data rather than quantitative as the topic I have chosen to research requires in depth understandings and practitioners opinions and not just simple yes and no responses.

3.2(iii) Semi-structured approach

There are many types of interviews however I have chosen to use semi structured interviews, often called a ‘conversation with a purpose’ (REF). Semi structured interviews are where the interviewer has a checklist of topics and questions to explore however the way in which these are explored will vary dependant on the flow of conversation with each individual (Holmes, 2005). By using this type of interview I will be able to explore around the topic as there will be area for on the spot questions.

The role of the interviewer is important to know to conduct an effective piece of research. The interviewer will probe the interviewee however will know when they need to be quiet (REF). The interviewer knows the areas he or she wants to cover with the interviewee, but allows the interviewee the options to take different paths and explore different thoughts and feelings.

All interviews will be recorded and transcribed verbatim and this will contribute to the reliability of the research (Royse, 2008). After having transcribing the data I will analyse the data through content or discourse.

3.2(i) Advantages of method

Interviews are an excellent qualitative research method meaning they allow for in depth rich data to be collected about key themes (REF). One to one interviews allow for a rapport to be developed between the interviewer and the interviewee (Matthews & Ross, 2010). This could potentially lead to more information being expressed as the participant is likely to feel comfortable and therefore this gives reliable/valid data.

Face to face interviews have traditionally been seen as the most effective method in regards to the response rate (Vaus, 2002 aˆ¦) The response rate is always achieved as interviews are scheduled meaning answers are gurantueed

Another advantage of using interviews is the way in which the interviewer is able to observe the interviewees facial expressions and body language which in turn will give the interviewer a clearer indication of the interviewees true feelings. This will add to the validity of the research.

3.2(ii) Disadvantages of method

Although there are many advantages of using the research method interviews there are also many disadvantages. Firstly interviews are time consuming, scheduling the interview, conducting the interview, and transcribing recordings takes up a lot of time (May, 2011). Secondly the interviewers presence can have a great deal of an effect on the participant, factors such as tone of voice, the way a question may be rephrased, voicing an opinion, inadequate note taking, even the gender and appearance of the interviewer may lead to errors and bias (Fontana & Frey, 2000).

Thirdly achieving reliability is challenging because each interview is unique in some way (Conway,Jako & Goodman, 1995). This can be because there are differences between the way each interview is conducted, difference in the way questions are asked due to there not being standardised responses, and the data collected.

Fontana, A. & Frey, J. H. (2000) ‘The interview: from structured questions to negotiated text’ iin N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Reasearch. 2nd ed. London: SAGE

Conway, J. M., Jako, R. A., & Goodman, D. (1995). A meta- analysis of interrater and internal consistency reliability of selection interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 565-579.

4 Ethical considerations

Before carrying out any research it is crucial that ethical considerations are taken into account (May, 2011). Informed consent is essential, and should ensure that the participants are fully informed prior to participation and are aware that their involvement is completely voluntary (McLaughlin, 2007). Therefore in advance to carrying out the research it is vital that I receive informed consent from all participants, this will be achieved by obtaining a signed consent form from each participant (See Appendix). It is fundamental that participants know who is doing the research, the aims and objectives, what is being asked of them, how the data will be used and what steps will be taken to ensure confidentiality (Walliman, 2011). Another ethical consideration to consider is confidentiality, thus meaning we are obliged to protect the participant’s identity (Silverman, 2011). Information will be treated with respect and the participants would remain anonymous; both of which are extremely important to the ethics base (Hobart, Frankel, 2004, GSCC, 2002) Therefore all participants’ names will be changed so as to protect them; participants will be informed of this.

All participants have the right to withdraw themselves and their results fromthe research.

Interviews will be recorded so that they can be transcribed, this means the data will be kept for some time (Matthews & Ross, 2010) therefore it is important that this data is klept in a secure place. (data protection)

Beneficence is another ethical issue that will be key in this study. Beneficence relates to the

Non – maleficence, the principle of’ not doing harm’aˆ¦must be applied to all participants

Although my research would have benefited from me carrying out observations of children in their early year’s environment unfortunately due to the University ethics statement I am prohibited from doing this and therefore unable to observe children in their environment as part of my research.

Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach

Uma Sekaran, Roger Bougie

5, illustrated

John Wiley & Sons, 2010

Surveys in Social Research

Social Research Today Series

Research methods/Sociology

David A. De Vaus

5, illustrated, reprint

Routledge, 2002