Best Beginnings Quality Child Care Initiatives

The state of Montana child care development fund has created an infant and toddler merit pay program. As we have learned that early development is a very crucial time, the state of Montana has developed a program which the targeted goal is to provide quality child care for infant and toddlers by training the providers with motivating merit pay. While there are a few particular requirements such as a course of infant and toddler training that is typically held over the duration of the summer. The training includes some reading and discussion, and touring many local childcare facilities to develop ideas on utilizing space, creating enriched environments for learning, safety precautions, and more. Also to be eligible for the merit pay you have to be current members of the Montana Early Care and Education Practitioner’s Registry which also is beneficial because it requires more additional training. By completing these few steps you can then become eligible for the merit pay. The merit pay is given to those who work in child care facilities. The pay is dispensed in increments and as you continue to provide quality child care in these facilities you receive increasing payments which vary for different facilities, typically starting at $300.00 and reaching up to $800.00. Providing this merit pay to child care providers is so beneficial to the infant and toddlers that spend quite a bit of their time in these facilities. For one it provides a consistent provider for those years of life. Two the provider that spends many hours a day with your child has training and knowledge on quality care. Many child care employees make minimum wages and work in these facilities because of the option of being able to bring your child to work. If these incentives motivate providers to become skillful, caring teachers for our youth, I believe that we own them at least that. After all they spend countless hours with our youth. I have recently learned that a similar program is offered for those who are working in preschools and are currently pursuing early education degrees. While choosing the right child care that meets the needs of everyone’s own particular family; I believe that knowing that those who have received some training in caring for infant and toddlers would help in choosing a quality child care facility.
Bibliography
7-5c Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services Best ... . (2008, march 1). Retrieved march 29, 2010, from mt.gov: http://www.mt.gov

Quality Parenting

This post is written in a very harsh, one sided mind. I wrote this post this way to get people to think of the extreme opposite of what our culture is becoming. Many children today are born into this world to parents who don't have enough money to cover their needs, who are uneducated, or who are just busy. Parents argue that they don't have time to read a whole book to their kids at night, or they don't have time to set time aside to work out for their own health. Today in class we discussed the quality and quantity of parenting. In class, we started discussing how more than a minute is needed of book reading to reap the well studied benefits. I think that the excuse of having no time for your kids, but knowing the benefits of things like reading to your children, is child abuse. It is not fair to the child to bring them into a world where the parents are not completely focused on making their life great. I know that children are a blessing and can greatly improve your life but, maybe if all children that are brought into this world are 100% planned and prepared for we wouldn't have the growing problems we do today. Maybe parents would be more willing to shape their life around their child. A biology professor on campus told my anatomy class that he thought parents should have to prove their commitment to each other and to the child they want to have. When all children are born, in this professor’s world, their ability to have children is taken away until they find a mate and prove commitment to the mate and child. He thought that by making parents save up $100,000 in an emergency fund for the child before the child is even conceived then this would ensure children had money for college if an emergency never happened in the child’s life. This would also limit the number of children parents have making the world population decrease and the bond between parents and child stronger. Yes, I realize this idea is crazy. I wouldn't want the government monitoring my family that closely, but he has a good point. I do believe it is neglect and child abuse to say you don't have enough time for your kids! Life is way to short to say you don't have enough time to keep yourself or your child healthy. So please, cut back on the silly material things in life, and spent time not money on those you love. Turn off the TV for one whole week and just talk with your family or roommates, take in the world around you, go for a walk, or read your child a book. I think this experiment will greatly improve your quality of life. You may even learn something about yourself.

Reading Your Baby's Mind

In reading this article on the study of a baby's mind was fascinating. I was brought up to believe that babies would imitate what they saw, but do not have the ability to think. I was told they are like a sponge absorbing their environments constantly, but not necessarily able to interpret it. Yet, the idea of an infant knowing what jealousy, empathy, and frustration really are, has me awe struck. Those seem like such complex emotions for them to have so early in life, truly amazing.

Then how the article goes into describing an infant from time of birth to 3 months old can recognize his or her mother's face even if it is scrambled up in a picture. This must have been a survival instinct that has been developed over the last million years. If babies did not have that innate ability, maybe the human race would not have survived as long as we have.

In my own experiences with pediatricians, they do ask a lot more questions about the emotional state of the infant at every check up. I know with Jasmine, from the moment she was born the Pediatricians in the hospital were already checking her emotional state as well as the physical state. I found that to be pleasant surprise. I was told by one of the Pediatricians that Jasmine was had a very calm and pleasant attitude, even though she was only a couple hours old. I did not know they paid that much attention to the baby's emotional state so soon after birth.

I do believe we have a lot to learn about infants, yet. It looks like to me the future will bring about many more surprises about a baby's abilities with each successful study that is documented.

Montessori Schools

Montess0ri schools were something I had never heard of before class this week, so wanting to give my future children the best education, I decided to do some looking. A study done by Angeline Lillard and Nicole Else-Quest in 2006 showed that, on a Mean Z score, Montessori children, age 5, scored higher, compared to publicly schooled children, in things like applied math, word attack, positive shared play, and social cognition. Whereas the public shooled children scored higher in Ambiguous rough play. No differenc was found in picture vacabulary; this might be because vocabulary is closely related to family history. Also, no differenc was found in spatial reasoning and concept formation. The tests given were the Woodcock Johnson (WJ III) and Test Battery (7). Kids of age 12 were also tested and the findings were similar. This test was to test cognitive and academic measures by having the children complete a short story in 5 minutes, which had fill in the blank type answers. The Montessori children scored higher in sophisticated sentace structure, creative story, positive social stratigies, and a sense of school as a community. Because of costs this study was done with a lottery to pick who would be tested. The NICHD study is talked about in this study saying that their findings on parenting quality and WJ early academic testing had camparable affects to Montessori schools.

After reading this study I feel that sending a child to Montessori school would be benificial to the child. It looks like like, although the child would be learning on their own terms, the child is exceding the public school system. Also, the child is less likely to play aggresivley. From what I have read, I would prefer a Montessori school to the public school if it were available.

Readin Your Babies Mind

I found this article to be interesting, to say the least. The study on infant empathy really struck home to me. The study showed that infants will cry when they hear another baby cry. However they did not cry when they heard a recording of themselves crying. It fascinates me to see how an infant can distinguish, whether it be empathy or irritation, between themselves and another baby crying. We have always just seen children as cute little babies imitating our actions. The finding of these experiments continue to amaze me.

No Child Left Behind

No Child Left Behind--Are we finally getting it right?

While there has been much debate about No Child Left Behind regarding the shortfalls and advantages of this legislation, one thing has been clear, like healthcare, reform is needed in our educational policy. President Barak Obama has herd teachers across this nation loud and clear. It looks as though now is the time to build on a policy that has been less than effective in its objective, assisting this nations children along with educators in making the educational progress this nation is capable of.

Although there have been some bright spots in our current policy with no child left behind. Educators (those that have had to work in the confines of this policy) have been acutely aware of its flaws. Below are two concerns that have come up regarding no child left behind and the direction this administration seems to be taking regarding these concerns.

· Extreme accountability towards educators

The president’s response to this, “In short, we will treat the people who educate our sons and daughters like the professionals they are,” stated the President, in his most recent weekly radio address.

· A focus of test scores that does not take into consideration a child’s starting point.

The official response to this consern, accoording to Molly Peterson and Kate Andersen Brower, (Bussiness Week March 13, 2010)
Carmel Martin, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development, said on yesterday’s conference call.“A fifth-grade teacher who helps a student who comes into her class at a second-grade level reach a fourth-grade level isn’t a failing teacher,” Martin said. “She’s actually a very good teacher and should be applauded. We need to shift to a system that gives credit for that kind of growth.”
Although there are many other components to No Child Left Behind that are being improved, I felt these two were significant. Does anyone have any thoughts, regarding this most recent discussion of No Child Left Behind?

Nutrition

While reviewing for test 2 tomorrow, I found myself stuck thinking about the nutrition section of the “Physical Growth and Development in Infancy” assigned reading. In this section the text states, “Caregivers play very important roles in infants’ early development of eating patterns.” Later, a study is cited that provided the percentage of four to twenty four month old infants in America who eat enough fruit and vegetables per day. The study revealed that one third of babies consume no fruits and vegetables, about half were fed sugary foods, and French fries were the most common vegetables that American babies eat! Can french fries even be considered a vegetable??
I am an applied health major at Montana Tech, so maybe this is why my desire for health is strong. However, either way I believe this is a huge reason why our nation is extremely obese. One third of females will get cancer in their life time, and one half of males will get cancer in their life time. Those statistics are scary, but what is scarier is the fact that cancer is the SECOND leading cause of death in America. Heart disease is the number one killer, and almost completely avoidable with proper nutrition and exercise.
In conclusion, I would like to ask why you would have a precious child only to bring them into a world where you feed them junk. Most of the babies that I know are fed Gerber cans of fruits and vegetables daily, but once they are old enough to talk they choose to eat the crap that mom and dad provide. Our bodies are not designed to consume processed, fried, or not natural foods.