Building Resilience in Children - Courage

This post will continue the discussion on building resilience in children focusing this time on the element of courage.

The Definition of Courage
Webster defines courage as "the ability to conquer fear or anxiety."  I love that Webster uses the word "conquer" in this definition.  Courage is not the absence of fear or anxiety.  It is the ability to conquer our fears and anxieties.  This involves action on the part of the child not just a passive acceptance.  It is not enough to know about one's fears and anxieties.  We must actively work to conquer those fears and anxieties.

How to Build Courage
In our society we do a very good job of helping people to identify their fears.  However, identifying fears does not build courage.  It is only step one.  Once a fear has been identified, that fear must be actively faced on a consistent basis.  There are two very important words in the previous sentence - "actively" and "consistent."  Those are the next two steps in building courage in anyone.  People never conquer anything in a passive manner.  Change takes action.  For example, if a person has a fear of heights, in order to conquer that fear they must do actions that involve heights.  It does not have to be drastic and can even be incremental, but if they never face the fear, the fear remains.  Step three involves consistency.  Taking action only once does not accomplish much at all.  For example, I was involved in a car wreck about a year ago.  After that I was terrified of driving around big trucks.  ( I was rear-ended by a semi.)  I had to drive on the interstate around big trucks for 6 months before I could do so without anxiety.  The first couple of times required employing every stress-relieving tactic I knew.  It is not easy to drive when you are the verge of a panic attack, but if I had never gotten back out there, that situation could have crippled me emotionally for the rest of my life.  It also took much more than one time to accomplish conquering my fear.  Children need for us to show them how to conquer their fears not just make the situations go away.  We are crippling our children emotionally by not putting them in situations where their fears can be faced.  As I said, it does not have to be drastic and should be incremental with children, but it needs to be done.

How to Sabotage Courage
Is it possible to sabotage courage in our children?  One only has to look at the twenty-something population to see that it is VERY possible to sabotage courage in children.  The millenial generation is the first generation to almost fully be parented by helicopter parents and it shows immensely.  These now adults were sheltered from their fears and almost anything unpleasant, and they come completely unglued when they have to face anything unpleasant let alone scary.  Heard of "safe spaces" anyone?  Risk scares these adults to the point of needing medication.  This is ridiculous.  Unfortunately for these poor millenials they will have to face their fears eventually or be completely incapable of "adulting" anytime soon.  It is truly unfair what we have done to them.  Learning to overcome fears as an adult is 1000 times harder than learning to do it as a child.  Please, hear what I am saying.  STOP sheltering children from unpleasant experiences.  MAKE children work through their own difficulties.  BACK OFF helicopter parents before you completely ruin another entire generation.

Conclusion
These posts deal with resilience, which is the ability to bounce-back or adapt in a difficult situation.  Courage plays a pivotal role in resilience.  Early childhood people, please teach the next generation to face their fears not hide from them.  Teach them to take reasonable risks.  Help them understand that adversity requires a person to work through it not hide from it.  The real world will not provide "safe spaces" for these children when they grow up.  You are doing them the largest disservice in the world by providing this to them now.  Please, make building resilience a much higher priority than a lot of the other cultural and behavioral milestones we place so much emphasis on.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

 

Cognitive Development for 4 to 5 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 5)

This post will begin the discussion of the component - Print Awareness.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

The first learning expectation is:  Understands concept of spoken and written word and that alphabet letters have individual names.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Recognizes printed name and those of siblings or playmates; identifies some of the letters in own name; routinely puts "name" on his products.  Children that are in an environment where their names are used deliberately and often will conquer this particular performance indicator easily.  The name of the child must be used and not just posted.  Unless the printed word is given meaning to a child this age, it will simply be decoration.  Also, the teaching of the letters will not happen unless a teacher or adult points out to the child the name of each letter while pointing at it at the same time.  Direct instruction is necessary for children to learn the names of letters, numbers, colors, etc.  If you rely on children picking up this information informally, it will take 10 times longer for them to learn.

The next learning expectation is:  Shows interest in purposeful writing.  The performance indicator for this one is:  "Writes" messages as part of play activities; asks for help to make a list of things or write a not to someone special.  Only children that have had writing modeled for them will conquer this particular performance indicator.  If the adults in the child's life never model writing, the child will not exhibit these behaviors.  It is extremely important that the children in your life witness you writing lists and writing other materials.  They need to understand that writing is an important aspect of your life.  It is only when they see this that they will show an interest in "writing" on their own.

The next learning expectation is:  Shows good understanding of conventions of print.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Uses book reading conventions:  "reading" front to back, turning 1 page at a time, looking from top to the bottom of the page, pointing left to right.  Conquering this particular performance indicator will very much depend on the child's exposure to books.  An adult will have to model some of the parts of this indicator such as looking from top to bottom and pointing left to right.  Unless an adult has followed the text with his/her finger while they read to the child, the child will not pick that up from book exposure.  Some children will not pick up these points until they begin the reading process.  Reading front to back and turning 1 page at a time can be picked up from simple book reading exposure.  I have not found it necessary for children to know the top to bottom and left to right rules to learn to read.  Many children pick that up as they learn rather than before they learn.  This is especially true for those children that learn through the phonics method rather than whole language.  The act of sounding out words left to right usually trains the children on the left to right aspect of reading before they hit sentences.  Those children that learn to read by sight do not necessarily pick up the left to right aspect.  Therefore, children that will learn to read using the whole language method should learn the top to bottom and left to right aspects before learning to read.

Now we move on to the next learning expectation:  Demonstrates good word awareness, calls attention to print in the environment and recognizes some common words.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Identifies familiar words in books and in environment.  Again, this one does not happen magically or just because you read to the children.  Words must be given meaning for them to become anything but decorations to 4 year old children.  When children in preschool settings have to use names to claim centers or other such activities, they will begin to recognize not just their name but their friends names as well.  If other simple words are included in activities throughout the day in such a way that the children have to distinguish one from another, they will conquer this performance indicator.  Simply labeling everything in your environment will not help children learn to recognize words.

The last learning expectation for this post is:  Routinely engages in purposeful reading and writing. The performance indicator for this one is:  Includes reading and writing activities in dramatic play; initiates writing notes to people; shows pride in writing attempts.  Only children that have adults in their life that model writing will conquer this performance indicator.  Even some children that do have adults that model will not show an interest in "writing" at four years old.  It takes some children longer to show an interest in reading and writing than other children, and it simply has to do with their personality.  Usually those children would rather tinker with materials than listen to stories or do writing activities.  Do not give up on these children.  You need to model for them but understand it may take longer to kick in.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

Building Resilience in Children - Persistence/Perseverance

This post will continue the discussion of building resilience in children.  This time we will focus in on the importance of persistence and perseverance.

The Definition of Persistence/Perseverance
Webster defines persistence as the ability to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of difficulties.  Perseverance is defined as the ability to persist in an undertaking in spite of difficulties.  Because these definitions are so close we will use these words as almost interchangeable.  Persistence/Perseverance is being able to complete a task in spite of difficulties.  In the South we say it with the phrase "git-r-done."  This trait plays a crucial role in building resilience in people/children.  Every time a person works through a difficulty instead of giving up, they teach themselves exactly what they are capable of doing.  This plays into self-awareness but it takes it one step further.  When a person overcomes a weakness or a challenge, they build the true self-esteem that comes from accomplishment.  Self-esteem that is divorced from accomplishment is narcissism.  Self-esteem that stems from accomplishment makes a person stronger.  Persistence/perseverance makes that type of self-esteem possible.

How to Build Persistence/Perseverance
Since persistence/perseverance is so important to a person's success, how do you build that in children.  Number one, learn to ignore hissy fits.  A hissy fit should never, never, NEVER get a child out of anything.  If a child is throwing a hissy fit, that should signal the adult in the situation that you have hit a weakness or difficulty in the child's life.  That is something to be worked through not around or avoid.  This should start at or around the age of two years old.  I know this makes life difficult for parents and caregivers but the parents and caregivers of yesterday dealt with issues immediately.  They understood that a little bit of effort now curbs a lot of issues later.  Number two, do not do for children what they can do for themselves.  Again, this complicates life somewhat but you can be smart about it and schedule in such a way that you allow for the extra time this consumes especially with toddlers.  If you start this early and are consistent, by the time they are 3 and 4 years old it ceases to be such a big deal.  Number three, accept a no excuses policy for the necessities.  Just because something is hard should never, never, NEVER get a child out of it.  My motto at the childcare is, "If it's hard, keep trying."  Let a child struggle with a task.  It is okay to give hints and cues to help a child get back on track and heading in the right direction, but it is never okay to just step in and do it for him/her.  Let "I can't" be dirty words at your facility.

How to Sabotage Persistence/Perseverance
In many ways our current parent philosophies and practices actually sabotage building persistence/perseverance in children.  In the name of building a "perfect childhood" we have actually done great damage to a child's natural resilience.  The following entail several of the ways we have failed our children.  Number one is lack of consistency from the adult.  Nothing kills just about any good attempt to build character in children worse than a lack of consistency.  Children can spot that a mile away and take full advantage of adults that lack consistency.  I should know because my mother was one of them.  Did I take advantage that?  Absolutely.  When children know that they can outlast you, they will do it every time especially if it gets them out of work.  I know our current "experts" would have you believe that laziness is not really an issue, but they are delusional.  Most people will default to laziness whenever possible if we are truly honest with ourselves.  Therefore, the most important trait a parent/caregiver can have is consistency.  Number two is redirecting and all other behavior management techniques that avoid confrontation.  I am sorry but confrontation will always be a part of parenting/caregiving.  To avoid that confrontation equals kicking the can down the road to where it will be SOO much harder to deal with the behaviors.  We should not have 4, 5, 6, 7, etc years old having hissy fits that rival any two year old, but we do all the time.  That is enough evidence of what I am saying because that did not use to be the norm.  Number three is micromanaging a child's life.  Helicopter parenting kills persistence/perseverance.  Period.  A child must struggle and take risks in order to learn how to work through problems.  Helicopter parents swoop in and save the day to make life easier for their children not realizing they are delaying a very important maturing process.  There is a reason we have twenty-something people that are not "adulting" yet.  Their parents delayed way too many important life lessons they should have learned in childhood.  People, it starts at two years old.  Please, do not delay the process for the sake of all the other people that will have to come into contact with your children.

Conclusion
To sum all this up, resilient people are persistent people.  They know how to keep going in the face of adversity and work until the job is done.  I am sorry but sometimes what has to be done is no fun whatsoever.  Work does not have to be fun.  It just has to be done.  That is the motto of persistent people.  This needs to be instilled into children once more if we are ever going to reclaim a work ethic that produces successful people.  We are presently raising a generation of entitled victims.  This cannot continue or someday very soon we will implode as a society.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

Cognitive Development for 4 to 5 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 4)

This post will start the discussion of the component - Phonological Awareness.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

The first learning expectation is:  Develops increasing sense of syllable structure in oral words.  The performance indicator is:  Claps or beats the syllable rhythm in 2- to 4-syllable words.  This is definitely one that will not develop without direct teacher instruction.  Even with instruction, for some children this will take up to 6 months of exposure before they truly catch on to the concept.  This will greatly depend on the amount of language exposure a child has had.  The best way to expose this concept is to clap the syllables for familiar words and ask how many times you clapped.  Do not expect them to fully understand what is going on at first.  They may also struggle with being able to count the claps.  Keep working on it a little at a time until they begin to attain mastery and be very patient.  This will not come easily for many children.

The next learning expectation is:  Produces rhyming words.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Produces, independently of adult assistance, a word, real or nonsense, which rhymes with his name or another given word (make sure that she is varying her responses and not memorizing rhyming pairs).  Since nursery rhymes have fallen out of favor, the ability for children to conquer this one has diminished considerably.  The concept of rhyming does not get the same level of exposure that it once did.  That lack of exposure makes this performance indicator more difficult for children.  Factor in the great swell of language inexperience and this one becomes even further out of range.  For 4 year olds with a language delay, conquering rhyming is not within their grasp until you pull them up to a certain level of language development.  Only about 25% of 4 year olds will be able to do this without adult assistance by the time they are 5 years old.  We are just dealing with too much language delay currently in the early childhood community.

The next learning expectation is:  Starts to develop an awareness of beginning sounds in words.  The first performance indicator for this one is:  Identifies whether or not two words begin with the same sound (when an adult gives 3 or 4 oral words, child selects those that begin with the same sound and identifies the sound, not the letter).  I teach from a phonics-based approach instead of a whole language approach, and I will tell you the children struggle horribly with this one.  When I find a four year old that conquers this one easily, that child will be an early reader.  Many kindergarten children struggle with this one for the first half of the year.  I hate to tell the kindergarten teachers that this will only get worse in the coming years, but it will.  I see diminished capacity for this performance indicator escalating.  Children are requiring more and more assistance with recognizing beginning sounds than they were even 3 or 4 years ago.  I have to over-exaggerate every beginning sound for them to hear it.  What once took me a month to teach is now taking me 3-6 months to teach.  It is frustrating.  As with everything else, this is tied to the language delay uptick.

The next performance indicator for this learning expectation is:  Names several words that begin with the same sound as his name.  If a child has had lots of exposure to their own name, then this one is a little easier for them than the previous one, but not a done deal.  I have to be so deliberate in my teaching of phonemic sounds.  A half-hearted or random exposure approach produces very little results in today's early childhood population.  It just does not come naturally anymore except for the very few.  Guess what causes it?  Language delay.

The last learning expectation for the component - Phonological Awareness - is:  Continues to increase awareness of the syllable structure of oral words.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Consistently claps the syllable beat of words of up to 4 syllables;  blends given syllables to identify a whole word; deletes a syllable form a compound word and identifies the remaining part.  This one is almost laughable.  There are many kindergarten children that do not conquer this one at the end of the year.  Syllable identification is one of those areas where I see children struggle horribly.  They cannot even count 4 syllables when they clap that amount much less do it without assistance or consistently.  I gave a good synopsis of how to teach syllables in the previous paragraph on syllables.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

Building Resilience in Children - Self-Awareness

This post will start a new series on how to build resilience in today's children.  I will also look at ways we are sabotaging resilience.  The children of today have been called the "fragile generation."  However, article after article on successful people shows that resilience is one of the main character traits all successful people possess.  Are we setting up an entire generation for failure?  What will that mean for the future of our society?

The Definition of Resilience
Webster defines resilience as the ability to recover from or adjust easily to change or misfortune.  It is basically the ability to bounce back from adversity and adapt to unforeseen situations.  How well does the "everyone gets a trophy" generation score on this one?  Do I even have to answer that question?  Yet, nearly every article you can read on successful people underscores this ability as one of the greatest contributing factors to life-long success over talent and intelligence.  The truth of life remains that someday, somehow life will knock you down and kick you in the teeth.  It happens to everyone at some point.  How you handle that situation will greatly determine the trajectory of your life from that point.  What will become of our "fragile generation" when this happens to them?  What will happen to our society if we are no longer successful in our endeavors because a large hunk of our population cannot handle the pressure?  The government cannot take care of everyone when there are no successful people left to pay taxes.  This is a huge deal, people.

The Role of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness can be defined as knowing oneself in an honest manner.  In other words, when a person is self-aware, they understand their own strengths and weaknesses.  They understand what makes them tick.  How does this play into resilience?  A self-aware person is more likely to look at mistakes as opportunities for improvement rather than failures.  Therefore, they are less likely to become discouraged over setbacks and disappointments.  They are more adaptable to change and will focus on overcoming an obstacle rather than the obstacle itself.  This self-awareness makes them resilient.  When a person understands that they have both strengths and weaknesses, they will also understand that people grow throughout life.  This gives them a big-picture perspective and helps them to recover from those moments when life kicks them in the teeth.

The Difference between Self-Awareness and Self-Esteem
How does self-awareness contrast with self-esteem?  Self-esteem involves feeling good about oneself.  This is not bad per se, but when self-esteem is divorced from self-awareness, you get narcissistic people.  Much has been said recently about unhealthy self-esteem.  A person that just feels good about themselves without having an honest appraisal of themselves usually thinks too much of themselves.  In order for a person to grow, that person must understand they have weaknesses that need to change.  A person that does not see his/her own weaknesses will not see the need to change.  Therein lies the kicker.  Resilient people have a good healthy view of themselves making them more pliable to change.  People that are not pliable shatter when faced with adversity.  Our culture's overemphasis on self-esteem without self-awareness has created an environment that sabotages resiliency in our children.

Conclusion
So what is the solution?  It is okay to teach children to be okay with their own skin but it is not enough.  We must teach them to understand that everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  Everyone has that one thing that makes them tick.  We actually do children a disservice by telling them that they can be anything they want to be.  That really is not true nor is it fair.  Instead we need to help them find that one thing that they were put on the planet to do, and help them to do it with all their might.  True self-esteem comes from understanding oneself in that fashion.  True self-esteem flows from self-awareness.  Self-awareness is one of the key ingredients to being a resilient person.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade

 

Cognitive Development for 4 to 5 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 3)

This post will continue the discussion of the component - Verbal Expression and Communication.  We will start with the learning expectation - Organizes major steps of an event or story in sequential order.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

The first performance indicator for this one is:  Retells story with many events in appropriate sequence, with and without pictures.  I will tell you right off the bat that the "without pictures" part will not happen for a large majority of children.  They simply do not have the reference for that type of skill anymore.  For the rest the "many events" disqualifies this performance indicator even with pictures.  I have stated over and over again that sequential tasks fall way beyond the language skills and cognitive skills of today's immature children.  The language deficiencies take a huge toll on developing such tasks.  Most of us in the field work too hard to pull up the language deficiencies to be able to tackle much else.  The only way to develop this one is for teachers to do this on a regular basis, and even then, the children have to have the language to be able to do this.  Simply, having this activity in the roster does not guarantee that children will develop this skill.

The next performance indicator is:  Verbalizes the major events of the day with some sequential order.  This one is actually easier for the children than the previous one.  Children tend to remember events more than stories because they have more experience with this events.  Children are simply not read to enough.  The sequential aspect of this one might be difficult for young or immature four year olds, but most by the age of five can conquer this one.  If a five year old struggles with this one, I would have them tested for developmental delays.

Now we will move on to the learning expectation:  Uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary and sentence structure.  The first performance indicator for this one is:  Labels objects in books using a variety of adjectives.  Four year olds vary so widely in their ability to conquer this one.  Some four year olds are so language delayed they do well to use nouns appropriately.  Adjectives are just beyond them.  Some four year olds conquer this one shortly after their fourth birthday.  The difference always remains how much the child has had an adult read to them and how many good language experiences they have had.  If you have a four year old that has language delays, the best activity for them is to read to them as much as possible.  Beyond that talk to them and use lots of vocabulary.  Even for children with language delays do not shy away from using lots and lots of vocabulary around them.  Most of these children hear such a limited amount of vocabulary (and some of it is not good vocabulary) that the more you can supplement for them the better.

The next performance indicator is:  Comments on characters and events in books and movies.  It is a sad commentary on our current country that most four year olds can do this with movies but not books.  They watch movies 10 times more than they have books read to them.  For some children that number would be 100 or 1000 times more.  Some children never have a book read to them at home.  Those same children have a very, VERY hard time listening to stories at school or childcare.  Screen time for young children does not do them good.  Please, limit children's screen time and READ to children.

Lastly, we will look at the learning expectation:  Asks many types of questions and responds correctly to many types of questions.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Asks and answers who. what, where, when, why questions.  As an author I travel to many, many schools and read to lots of preschool and kindergarten classrooms.  I have gotten to the point I do not even ask preschoolers for questions because they do not understand what a question is.  With the kindergarteners I have to explain what questions are before we start and even then I have to shut down many, many stories.  Children's inquisitiveness has diminished greatly in the last 3 or 4 years.  I have seen it in my own preschool.  I have witnessed it in every preschool I have visited in the last several years.  I blame it on the unbelievable rise in language delays we have seen in the last 3 or 4 years.  This will have major ramifications in the public school system this year and every year hereafter until we find a way to bring up children's language skills again.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!  https://linktr.ee/natawade

The Downside of Inclusion

Before I take off on the negative side of inclusion, I want to say that in many cases inclusion has more perks than problems.  However, many times, especially for new and young providers, the experts never really give you the full story on inclusion.  Personally, I have had both positive and negative experiences with inclusion, and many times, these experiences can happen in the same day.  I wanted to give providers a balanced look at inclusion in order to provide them the means to make a good educated choice for their facilities.

What Is Inclusion?
First of all, I want to make sure to define what I mean by inclusion.  Placing children with physical, emotional, and mental disabilities in classrooms with children of normal development defines inclusion.  In my discussions I will be specifically referring to those children that have moderate to severe disabilities rather than mild disabilities.  I will also be making the distinction between children with delays caused by immaturity rather than delays and disabilities caused by physical abnormalities of the body and brain.  The first group can normalize and pull in sync with their peers through intervention whereas the second group will always need intervention and resources.

The Emotional Toll of Inclusion
Many times when we attend trainings on inclusions, the presenters show all the happy warm fuzzy moments that inclusion can bring.  I will not downplay those moments.  However, that is not the complete picture.  Providing care for these children can be emotional draining and frustrating beyond anything you have ever encountered.  This is especially true for children with autism and emotional disabilities caused by drug-use by the mother during pregnancy.  These children often require you to constantly change your approach.  Methods that worked the previous day will not work the next day.  The euphoria of a breakthrough is usually followed by a setback that causes you to retrench.  It is demanding, challenging, and will call on every character strength you knew you had and did not know you had.  Will it make you a better teacher?  Yes!!!!  Will it make you a stronger person?  Yes!!!!  Will it bring you to the point of a nervous breakdown?  Yes!!!!  Is it for everyone?  Absolutely not!!!!!  That is the main point I want to make through this post.  Inclusion is not for everyone and should not be entered lightly or ignorantly.  Taking on a moderately or severely disabled child may require a level of work that you are not prepared to give.  Inclusion is an arrangement that needs to be entered with your eyes fully open and aware of the requirements.  I believe it to be unfair to require everyone to have inclusive classrooms not just for the teachers/providers but also for the disabled children.  They deserve a teacher that will commit to the task at hand and not be forced into a situation that breeds hostility, contempt, and unpleasantness for all involved.  The warm fuzzy moments happen only in situations where the teacher feels fully capable of handling the stresses of the job.  Many, many teachers/providers do not fit that description.  This represents one of the greatest unspoken reasons for teacher/provider turnover.  It is not politically correct to say that you could not handle the disabled child, but it remains the reality of the situation.  One day the powers that be will realize that forcing people to fit one-size-fits-all regulations creates more than half the problems we have in education and early childhood care.

The Reality of Resources for Providers
Now, I want to touch on probably the worst ugly truth about inclusion.  In most states resources are provided for those children with disabilities.  However, most of the time those resources involve maybe one of two visits per week leaving the majority of the care and teaching to the teacher/provider.  Sometimes, children with severe physical disabilities will have a nurse or other specially trained person to provide assistance on a daily basis.  However, those with moderate physical disabilities or emotional and mental disabilities very often come with only the once or twice per week visit.  That does not even cover the tip of the iceberg.  Let me give you a great example.  I once had a toddler in my care with hearing aids.  He had a speech/language therapist come in once per week.  The rest of the week I was left with the responsibility of his care.  I did not know but a little sign language.  He had a horrible habit of hiding his hearing aids every time I turned around.  We were constantly hunting for that child's hearing aids praying earnestly that none of the other children would find them and put them in their mouth.  The batteries for those hearing aids could be fatal if swallowed.  He needed one-on-one care at that point in his life not group care.  He was a danger to the other children, and I could not sufficiently meet his needs with my level of training.  I did not have sufficient resources to care for that child.  I would have had to hire an employee specifically assigned to him all day to provide the kind of care he needed (an expense I could not do).  Even though I had great teacher/child ratios, we were wholly unprepared to care for that child.  This scenario plays itself out every day with millions of variations in schools and childcares all over the country.  This is the ugly side of inclusion.

A Look at Inclusion from the Unincluded
Many of you will be offended by the title I chose for the normally developing children (unincluded), but I did that on purpose.  The reality of the situation even in good circumstances is that a disabled child requires 75% of your time and attention.  Some days that number goes even higher.  That only leaves 25% or less of your time and attention for the other children in your care.  Unless that child has his/her own personal attendant at all times, the other children in your care do not get the same time and attention.  This truth remains whether we like to admit or not.  A disabled child's care is time consuming.  They require more attention at mealtimes.  They require more attention at bathroom times.  They require more attention at naptimes sometimes.  The emotionally and mentally disabled can have meltdowns that require your immediate and undivided attention until you stabilize the situation.  Most of these children have these meltdowns daily and sometimes multiple times per day.  Avoiding the causes of these meltdowns is impossible because they can be as random and ever-changing as you can possibly imagine.  I have had children on the autistic spectrum in my childcare, and I have had them have meltdowns in the middle of mealtimes when the other children were also at high risk.  I had to drop everything and deal with the meltdown because I was by myself.  If I did not calm the autistic child, she could have sent herself into a seizure.  The safety of the other children had to be put on hold.  That is the ugly truth of inclusion.

Conclusion
Inclusion is a wonderful concept but the reality of that concept does not ever really match the hype.  Unless that child has his/her own personal attendant, the teacher suffers and the other children suffer.  It cannot be helped.  It is the nature of the beast.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!!  https://linktr.ee/natawade