Poverty in The USA and Africa

    There are children around the world that are faced with many stressors. The stressor that I chose to discuss is poverty.  There are families that struggle with providing healthy meals, clothes, affordable healthcare and attention to young children that need good nutrition, clean clothes and love to flourish mentally. I am employed in a district full of low income families that struggle with poverty daily. Children constantly complain about being hungry, but turn to bags of chips (hot fries) and candy. They and are able to wash their uniforms on campus if needed. Professionals gather baskets of basic needs to help aid the families through their rough times and assist them with resources that would help for the moment.
   “Children that are stressed act out in negative ways. They will develop social problems and their cognitive development will be affected. Children's poverty is an especially troubling form of poverty, as it is a direct affront to our commitment to equal opportunity regardless of birth. It is accordingly important to understand the demographics of children's poverty as well as the mechanisms through which poverty is transferred from one generation to the next”.  (Shonkoff, 2010)  Adults in their lives should pay close attention to behaviors of the child; for they may be acting out trying to cope.

    I chose Africa's children in poverty. Children live in poor conditions with no clean drinking water; no running lavatories and many of the children are born with HIV. The children suffer in poverty mainly because of the government focusing on economic empowerment and consolidation of power instead of focusing on the education of young children and the health of their development.

 I believe that young children’s biosocial is affected because of the lack of healthy nutrition. They will have problems with their physical development. Cognitively they will have problems thinking, and as mentioned in Shonkoff’s article. Their psychosocial development will also be affected and relationships formed will be hard to keep.

References:

Shonkoff, J. (2010-04). The Impact of Early Experience on Childhood Brain Development. The Brookings Institution

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9280481/More-than-half-of-South-Africas-children-live-in-poverty.html

Access to Healthy Water

Access to healthy water is important to infant and toddlers development. Children from six months and up need adequate water to help aid bio-social, cognitive and psychosocial development. I chose this topic because of the changes in smells of drinking water, and  it is now tasting nasty, due to the Mississippi River dropping water levels in the community that I serve, as well as others. My goal in this blog is to help open the eyes of some that lack knowledge on how it is to provide water that is healthy and accessible for our children.
 Although slowly improving, Africa along with many other countries have huge gaps of supply of healthy water. Researchers are doing the best that they can to close the gaps, but the target that they are trying to reach will not be a success if sanitation does not improve.  Many infants and toddlers lack in development because they do not have access to water and/or is drinking contaminated water. I read in an article on water.org, Water Facts: Water that stated that unhealthy water can kill children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours...powerful.

UNICEF. (2012) Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation
http://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMPreport2012.pdf

National Park Service. (2013) Water Quality in the Mississippi River

Great Educators!!!!

http://www.bnd.com/2013/03/12/2530517/two-metro-east-educators-recognized.html

Birthing Experience

My first birthing experience was an experience from the unknown. I can remember the contractions that felt like an earthquake was occurring in my belly. I had to sit up and deliver due to the lack of knowledge on child birthing. I knew better the second time around. I went to birthing classes and learned the proper way to push! I chose this example because in reading this week's resources, I learned about the many toxins that could cause harm to the fetus leading to defects in development. I chose this example due to the lack of knowledge I had and to help educate others on the importance of being in the know.
China has a list of beliefs and rituals that they follow before and during child birthing. Very interesting.http://www.hawcc.hawaii.edu/nursing/RNChinese06.htm