WK7: Impacts on Early Emotional Development

I chose the region of East Asia and the Pacific. I chose it because my home country, Japan, is in the area and this made me interested in what is happening in neighboring countries.

 

Children in this region have a challenge in getting clean water. The situation has been improving by installing systems that lead clean water down from mountains but 670 million people in the region do not have access to sanitation facilities and an additional 236 million people don’t have access to clean water in any form.

 

Even though UNICEF works to provide resources and support for maternal, neonatal and children’s health like immunizations, water, as well as other nutrition , sanitation and hygiene products (WASH) “(UNICEF, 2013) to improve the health of children and mothers, there are still many children who die from diarrhea and pneumonia. So many mothers also do not survive child birth because they are ill.

 

What I thought through reading the website is that we can teach what is happening to children in the different areas from where we live and involve our children in actions that help them. I think even having time to let them think how we can improve bad situations for other children will help them to think and feel empathy for others, develop problem solving skills and it might influence how they want to live in long term.

Children in this region must have worries and concerns about how they get things that are required to survive. Many of them must also experience the deaths of family members and people that are close to them. I think these experiences might have given them tremendous stress and made them desperate which would impede their abilities to be resilient against other difficulties.  

 

Reference

UNICEF. (2013). East Asia and Pacific. Retrieved on February 23, 2013, from http://www.unicef.org/eapro/activities_3584.html

WK6: The Sexualization of Early Childhood

“So sexy so soon” was very shocking to me but it also made me realize that today’s environments make children develop sexuality so early. I agree that early sexualization is a big issue because it is related to how they use their precious time, how they develop self-esteem and how they have relationships with others.            

 

My six-year-old daughter does not show much sexuality yet. However, I recently felt that media is not so healthy and it is so hard to avoid while benefiting from fun parts of it. My daughter loves the song “Die Young”. Since she and I can’t catch exactly what the words say and liked the tune, I liked her to have a favorite song. However, when I thought about showing her the music video of the song, I was shocked how sexual it was. I used to think her trying to sing the song with music was good because she can practice her English but I found out that she was trying to learn what I do not want her to know yet.

 

I think that the messages impact children by indicating a sexual relationship is how a man and woman have relationships, using sexual appeal is a good thing and being sexy is a scale of evaluating people.

 

I think that early childhood professionals can raise awareness for parents of the negative impacts of the media in regards to early sexualization and recommend that they avoid inappropriate ones to reduce the negative effects. Another thing we can do is when we hear inappropriate words from children who are just mimicking what they heard from media, we should teach them appropriate ways. If we heard “Baby, I’m your slave. I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave,” we can explain that when we love somebody, the way to show love is not becoming a slave but understanding, caring and doing nice things for the person. And you deserve the same back too.

Resource

Levin, D. E., & Kilbourne, J. (2009). [Introduction]. So sexy so soon: The new sexualized childhood and what parents can do to protect their kids (pp. 1-8). New York: Ballantine Books. Retrieved from: http://dianeelevin.com/sosexysosoon/introduction.pdf

WK5: Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

I think my experiencing isms work both positively and negatively to children and families. I try to act fairly or speak up for victims of the isms I have experienced. For example, my mother only asked me to help with the housework; only her daughter, not to her son. Since I thought it was unfair, I try to teach children that we should be willing to help others out with their work so that gender roles associated with certain chores are not encouraged while making sure girls do not feel pressured to be subordinate to others. I feel that being humble and hiding feelings or opinions, traits that are considered virtues in my culture, do not help me to thrive in American culture. Rather, I feel that people see me as unconfident or weak and lead people act unfairly and disrespectfully towards me. So, I encourage children not to hide their abilities or feelings as well as teach them to respect others.

However, my experiences of isms may have given me a negative impression of groups that I associate with people who’ve acted in biased ways towards me. I might see a family from a certain group with the prejudice that they could have prejudice against me without reason. And this could become a barrier which would prevent me from having a truly trusting relationship with them.