Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds - Early Writing and Auditory Discrimination

This post will continue the discussion of cognitive development of 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds focusing in on the components - Early Writing Behaviors and Skills and Auditory Discrimination.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

Before I get to the normal discussion, I want to discuss something very near and dear to my heart at the moment.  Since I started this blog I have discussed in great length how I have seen a deterioration in cognitive development and language development.  This deterioration baffled me and at first, I attributed to the lack of reading aloud to children.  But now, I have seen something in my own granddaughters that I feel adequately answers the question of what has happened.  My third granddaughter is showing all the signs I have discussed of language delay and cognitive delay.  My fourth granddaughter is developing according to what I am accustomed to seeing from even when my own children were small.  What is the difference?  My fourth grandchild has not been vaccinated since her first round of shots.  My third grandchild received her vaccinations through two years old.  She will get no others.  She has been vaccine-injured.  We are convinced of this.  The longer she goes without the vaccines the more she pulls up but she will lag behind for several more years.  I used to be all about getting all of your vaccines, but I will not do that anymore.  It changes you when it happens to one of your own.  Now that I have started doing my own research, I am convinced that the chemicals and additives and the sheer volume of vaccines that they administer to children now fully answers the question of why our children have all of a sudden began to exhibit all of these cognitive and developmental problems.  It does not matter to me if you believe me.  Do your own research.  Do it thoroughly.  You may come to the same conclusion that I have.

Now to the usual business at hand.  We will begin with the component - Early Writing Behaviors and Skills.  The learning expectation is:  Uses variety of writing tools to make scribbles.  The performance indicator is:  Holds tool in palm of hand using all fingers (palmar grasp) and scribbles.  Most children this age actually conquer this performance indicator when allowed to scribble.  The problem I have found is that many, many parents do not allow their children to scribble.  They hand them an electronic toy of some sort instead because it is less messy.  I have news for the parents of today.  Children are messy.  If you believe that you can alleviate all mess from childhood, then you are on the path to truly mess up your children in ways we probably cannot comprehend.  All of the inconvenient messes have their purpose.  Let the messes be and learn to live with a little mess and chaos.  It is called childhood.

Now we will move on to the component - Auditory Discrimination.  The first learning expectation is:  Is aware of and can identify many sounds in the environment.  The performance indicator for this one is:  By 30 months, child stops activity to focus on interesting sounds around her (e.g., dogs barking, birds singing, and sounds of trains, planes, sirens, vacuums, etc.).  Most children meet this performance indicator unless a hearing problem occurs.  If a child does not meet this performance indicator, a hearing test should be administered by a professional.

Lastly, we will cover the learning expectation:  Begins to distinguish between words with similar phonemes, such as pat and path.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Makes accurate distinctions between words that contain very similar-sounding phonemes, such as path-pass, hat-pat, bug-bud, map-nap, shot-shop. hit-hat.  This performance indicator assumes a great deal of auditory language development that I have not seen in years from this age range.  It has a been at least a decade since I have seen two year olds with enough language skill to discern between words this complex.  I will refer you to my opening as to why I think these delays are happening, but what do we do?  Reading to the children regularly still helps but I have seen even this to be limited to how much it can accomplice.  Removing processed foods from their diet also helps.  Our poor children have been inundated with chemicals.  What have we done?

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

The Dangers of Political Correctness

This post will look at how political correctness has permeated every aspect of our culture and the consequences and outcomes that has in the early childhood field.

What is Political Correctness?
Political correctness could be defined as socially acceptable responses developed on social norms for challenging and divisive topics.  I would say that is how the left defines it.  The right defines political correctness as a propaganda technique to shut down debate on topics decided by the left with rules defined by the left.  I tend to go with the right's definition.  I say that because what was politically correct a decade ago sends the left into hysterics now.  Political correctness is constantly evolving to take our society further and further to the left.  The right has no say in what is politically correct at all.  It is defined in the universities, which are completely dominated by progressive thought.  In fact, I am convinced that they have classes to constantly redefine what constitutes political correct thought.  For example, I went to my daughter's graduation at the University of Chicago a few years ago and made the mistake of calling people from east Asia Oriental.  I got a long lecture on how that term derides people of that area and conjures up ideas of colonialism.  You see, all things that have anything to do with Western Civilization are evil to the core.  They must be eradicated from our existence at all costs.  White people of European descent have ruined the world and must be punished for their crimes.  This, people, is political correctness in a nutshell.  I fear that Asian people may also fall into the crosshairs of the progressives as well because they tend to dominate in intellectual circles.  It is all about the crab bucket.  When one race or people tries to crawl out and make a better life, the rest of the crabs pull them back down.  That is the best picture of progressivism I can give you.  

Why was Political Correctness Developed?
Political Correctness had its beginning in the 1990s on college campuses as a way to push social norms over moral norms.  What is the difference?  Social norms can evolve with the changing views of a society.  Moral norms are based on right and wrong which has stood the test of time.  Most of the time moral norms are based on absolutes such as the Bible.  Progressives of the 1990s wanted to do away with some moral norms in which they did not agree such as traditional marriage, traditional male and female roles, and most anything having to do with sexuality.  This was the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s on steroids.  Then they decided that all things having to do with Western Civilization were evil and had to not only be eradicated but had to be punitively treated.  We were given diversity as the greatest god of all time as if just having a diverse group of people made everything perfect and good with unicorns flying around with rainbows in their hair.  Multiculturalism was pushed on us, but now what was multiculturalism in the 1990s is not good enough for the progressive of today.  They want everyone to revert back to tribalism and demand exact equal treatment for all regardless of any effort on the part of the people involved.  It is socialism pure and simple.  It never stops.  We will never reach perfection of political correctness because as soon as we reach one goal, the next group begins to demand their equal treatment.  A decade ago we would never have thought that transgender rights would be pushed on us like it is.  Guess what is next?  Pedophiles.  If you do not believe me, make a note of this and revisit it in 10 years.  Pedophilia is accepted in certain cultures around the world including some Muslim countries.  We are already completely afraid of saying anything bad about Muslims because of political correctness.  It does not take a rocket scientist to see where this is going.

What is the Big Deal?
If you have ever crossed the PC police either purposely or innocently, you know the answer to that question.  Never in all of your life will you be called every name in the book so quickly as when you dare not to tow the party line on every single facet of this one.  If you do not believe me, ask Susan Collins, the senator from Maine.  She has worked all of her career to advance women's issues but as soon as she decided to have a mind of her own and go against the mob, she had to hire a security detail.  Another case would be Kanye West.  He has been derided and racially slurred for daring to be black and not progressive.  (The same sin as Clarence Thomas.)  One side of an argument cannot dictate the whole of the conversation.  How many classical liberals now find themselves on the wrong side of the politically correct mob?  They keep changing the rules.  As I said, what was once accepted is no longer accepted and if you do not keep up with it daily, you can make an innocent mistake that puts you on the wrong side of the mob.  And they are a mob.  Make no mistake about it.  Dissension is not allowed.  You must agree with them or you have to shut up and sit down.  Hillary Clinton just told us that they do not have to be civil to people that disagree with them until they get their way.  I do not know about you but that is not the type of society I want to live in any longer.

Conclusion
How does this all relate to the early childhood world?  No other field in academia except maybe psychology has a more progressive/liberal bias than early childhood.  Political correctness holds sway without much push back at all.  Have you ever tried to cross the liberal bias in this field?  I have and it is very ugly.  Only two allegations in this society get the "guilty until proven innocent" treatment.  One is sexual assault and the other is child abuse.  I was falsely accused of child abuse.  Another provider I know had her son falsely accused of sexual assault.  They do not even beat around the bush either.  They go straight to completely destroy without any ifs, ands, or buts.  Proving your innocence takes years to accomplish and you never really get your reputation back.  That is why they do it.  They do not allow dissent.  Political correctness is a cancer that is eating our society alive from the inside out.  For the first time in a long time I actually have hope that the sleeping giant will wake up and throw off the shackles that the progressives have placed on us for years.  As I said, I do not want to live in a society that has constantly shifting norms.  I refuse to tow the party line.  Who is with me?

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

Cognitive Development for 2 to 2 1/2 year olds - Early Literacy

This post will start posts for the age group of 2 to 2 1/2 year olds.  It will focus on the area of learning - Early Literacy and cover the components  - Picture and Story Comprehension and Book Reading Skills.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the learning expectation:  Begins to understand the connection between books and personal experiences.  The first performance indicator is:  Talks about the characters and events in storybooks in ways that suggest understanding of what has been said or read.  Wow!  I have not really seen a two to two and a half year old that could do this in about 5 to 7 years.  Most of the children this age are barely speaking much less conveying that type of language.  Most of the three year olds struggle with this performance indicator.  Only those fortunate children that have parents that read to them every day might conquer this performance indicator.  However, those same parents would also have to be the ones that greatly restrict screen time as well.  More and more research is coming forward that links massive screen time to the language delays we see all the time in the early childhood world.

The second performance indicator is:  Relates events in books to personal experiences.  Again, it has been years since I have seen a two year old conquer this performance indicator.  Children in our society can work a smart phone but they have so little experience with books to conquer this until they are three years old.  This performance indicator requires quite a bit of book experience.  Most two year olds can barely get through half a book without walking away and becoming disinterested.  We must read to our children!!

The third performance indicator is:  Makes associations among similar books (e.g., child gets two books about trains and shows the adult that they contain similar pictures or events).  Some of today's two year olds might actually conquer this particular performance indicator only because it involves pictures.  We have so tilted our culture to be visually dominant that even those children over exposed to screens can find similar books based on pictures.  However, if you expect them to talk about it, you will be sadly disappointed.  The association will not go further than the similar pictures and the word "train."

We will now move on to the component - Book Reading Skills - with the learning expectation - Recognizes and enjoys reading familiar books.  The first performance indicator is:  Recites whole phrases from favorite stories if the adult pauses at opportune moments.  Again, this is another performance indicator that I have not seen two years old conquer for several years.  I have actually seen three year olds not have enough book experience to be familiar enough with any book to do this.  This performance indicator assumes that a child has a book read to them over and over again.  The sad truth is that many parents do not read to their children at all.  Many childcares do read but other activities required by all the crazy regulations make reading the same book over and over not really feasible.  Therefore, children do not receive enough exposure for this one until they are nearly four years old.

The second performance indicator for this one is:  Protests when an adult misreads a word in a familiar and usually predictable story.  I hate to be a broken record but two year olds in today's culture do not conquer this one.  No one reads to them enough to acquire that much book experience.  Many three year olds cannot conquer this performance indicator.  They have never heard a story enough to know when the adult does it wrong.  They even have so little experience with books that the repetitive nature of some stories goes over their head for months.  People, it is time to put down the tablets and phones and start reading to your children.  The language delays we are experiencing are real and are only going to get worse.

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

The Dangers of Fatherlessness

This post will look at the scourge of fatherlessness in our society and how that affects our children especially boys.  It will also look at how feminism and the push for gender neutrality in our society is absolutely reeking havoc on our social structures and foundations.

What do I mean by Fatherlessness
Of course, fatherlessness means the absence of a father/male role model figure in the lives of children.  We have seen an explosion of single mother households in the last half century as well as a nearly 50% divorce rate in this country.  These are horrible statistics that have had devastating consequences in our culture.  However, the worst part of these statistics is the glorification of new ways of defining family as if the traditional model of the family provides unsavory outcomes.  Over the centuries we have had single mother households due to death, divorce, and abandonment but we have only recently decided to celebrate that outcome as if it is to be desired more than the traditional household.  As in all things liberal, in trying to remove the stigmatization of single mothers they went WAY too far.  The liberals and feminists in our country during the 70s, 80s, and 90s wanted to help single mothers feel better about themselves since our divorce rates were skyrocketing.  They wanted to remove the guilt and shame of failing marriages.  What they should have done was to try to curb the rapidly rising divorce rates and undergird traditional marriages.  However, that would have meant that the sexual revolution of the 60s, 70s, and 80s had negative consequences and feminists would not/could not bring themselves to admit that.  I also believe that undergirding many of these progressive movements of the 20th century were people with communist/socialist leanings that had much bigger intentions.  They had ulterior motives for our social breakdown.  In the beginning most of the population did not see the harm in what they intended because they masked their true intentions behind flowery words and proposals.  Now, after nearly a century of their work, we reap the ugly truth of what they meant for us all along - the removal of God from our culture and the breakdown of our family units.  Every communist/socialist movement ever has had to truly remove those two foundational pillars of a society in order to force a revolt through uprising.  People we are almost there.

Toxic Masculinity and Feminism
Our culture has gone so far beyond the feminism of the 70s, it is almost unbelievable.  Most feminists from that time period wanted to empower women not remove men from society.  Now, we have what is called toxic masculinity.  All the traits that have previously been attributed to manhood now have the label toxic.  The feminists of today want domination and maybe even extermination of the traditional male role model.  That goes so far beyond trying to make single mothers feel better about themselves.  Now they would have you believe men are not even necessary.  Not only are they not necessary, all the traits that make a man a man have detrimental effects on society at large.  The patriarchal family should be removed from our societal consciousness according to the new feminism.  It is hard to even begin to unravel this lie from the pit of hell.  The first step to begin the unraveling is to attack the underlying ulterior motive.  The progressive movement hates the patriarchal family model because it represents God's model for the family and one of their longterm goals is the removal of God from society.  God's model must be destroyed at all costs.  Therefore, the traditional male role has to be undermined.  What better way to undermine it than label it as toxic.  However, that is not where it started and to completely fix the problem we must understand the roots.  The progression of our evolution along this path as a society goes as follows - women need empowerment, women can do everything a man can do, woman do not really need men, men are basically toxic.  This progression took decades to accomplish but the end goal of emasculating men has been underlying this movement from the very beginning.  To destroy God's model for the family, men must be either emasculated to the point they are no longer men or removed from the picture altogether.  People please do not be blind anymore.  The goal of political correctness is to remove God from our culture and to destroy the traditional family.  The collateral damage of such a movement can already be felt in this culture - an explosion of depression, despondency, drug addiction, violence, hate, chaos.  The only cure for what ails our culture is a relationship with our Creator.

Gender Neutrality
One thing that must be understood about political correctness is that what counts as politically correct now will not be good enough next year.  Once one boundary has been eliminated, the progressives will set their sights on the next boundary.  No current issue describes that process better than the gender neutrality issue.  Five years ago, you would have been laughed out of existence if you had said that the progressives would move on to destroying gender when at the time they were pushing homosexual rights.  They swore up and down that once they had marriage equality, they would be satisfied.  How dumb can we be?  Now we are told that gender is fluid and a matter of how one feels.  This is ridiculous.  People, biology tells us that we have two genders - male and female.  In order for there to be other "genders" requires chemicals and surgeries to undo natural biology.  No sane person can think that there will not be devastating consequences to trying to destroy gender.  Why are the progressives trying to destroy gender norms?  It all goes back to trying to remove God from our culture every single time.  God told us to be fruitful and multiply.  We cannot multiply unless we have normal males and females to do so.  The birthrates of first world countries has been declining for decades.  This new push will only compound that exponentially.  I will tell you that if you think gender neutrality will be where all this craziness stops then you are delusional.  Their next target will probably be pedophiles.  I already hear the rumblings of that in certain progressive circles.  Do not tell yourself that they would never go there.  Five years ago, we as a society could not imagine that gender would be fluid.

We need our men
People, we need our men to be men not some sissified version of a man.  God intended men to be the provider/protector of the family.  God hardwired a man's brain to function differently to fulfill those purposes.  God hardwired women to be the nurturers.  When we fight against God's design, we bring depression and despair on ourselves and our society.  The big discussion in our society now is why have some of our boys and men turned violent and homicidal.  Could it be the byproduct of labeling them toxic?  Could it be that we have tried to remove positive male role models from their lives and then expect them to turn out okay?  Can you honestly look at how the present generation is doing and say with a straight face that our experiment with fluid gender and redefinition of family is working out?  As a woman that has been both a stay-at-home mom and a working woman, I will tell you that being a "traditional" woman can be one of the most freeing experiences you will ever have.  When all I had to worry about was taking care of my home, life became so pure and simple.  It was hard work, mind you, but it lacked the stress of trying to run a business.  When I came under the leadership of my husband and let him be provider/protector, it freed me to be fully mother and wife.  Our society not only vilifies men but also stay-at-home mothers and wives like that role has no worth at all.  They could not be more wrong about a subject if they tried.  Traditional men and women roles provide the glue that holds society together.  Either we quit fighting that or accept that our society will continue to unravel as we continue to fight God's plans and purposes for our lives.

Conclusion
Now let us take this into the early childhood realm.  My first question to you is:  How do you treat the men/fathers in your realm of influence?  Do you treat them as imbeciles that have no idea how to do anything right?  Do you treat them as lumps of clay that are not really necessary?  Guess what, the boys in your sphere of influence are watching how you treat the men in your sphere of influence.  It is beyond important that you treat the fathers of the children you serve with as much respect as the mothers ESPECIALLY if there is a divorce situation.  That man needs to know that he is just as important in the life of that child as the mother.  My second question to you is:  Do you respect the wishes of the father when those wishes contradict your "training"?  You must remember the children in your care are not your children.  They do not belong to the state.  They belong to the parents.  You do not have the right to override those parents just because some leftwing progressive trainer has told you all about "best practices."  My last question to you is:  Are you promoting the progressive ideals of toxic masculinity and gender neutrality in your setting?  Sometimes we promote things in minor ways not realizing that our little bit in that direction gets multiplied when mixed with all the other influences of our culture.  We do not want to rock the boat and come under the wrath of the progressive left.  However, remember you will not answer for what the progressive left has done.  You will answer for what you have done.  Personally, I want no part of continuing our culture down this horrible path we find ourselves.  Someone has to have the backbone to stand up to these bullies and say enough is enough!!

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

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

This post will finish the posts on development for 4 to 5 years olds finishing the discussion of the component - Physical Science.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).

We will start with the learning expectation:  Recognizes that objects have observable properties that can change over time and under different conditions.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawing, maps, and charts.  Wow!  Unless a child is in a very high quality program that includes this type of instruction on a weekly basis, there is no way a 4 to 5 year old will meet this performance indicator.  This involves yet another way that lack of outside play, unsupervised outside play, has hurt this upcoming generation.  They barely notice anything that is not specifically pointed out to them.  They basically do not have enough unhindered alone time with nature to notice the change of plants, rocks, sticks, etc. over time.  This must be demonstrated to them in a classroom setting and/or allow them to just play outside without adults hovering over their every activity.  We have helicoptered an entire generation completely out of their natural curiosity.  It is sad!

The next learning expectation is:  Recognizes that the sun gives us light.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to describe and discuss predictions, explanations, and generalizations based on past experiences.  For this one the performance indicator does not really match the learning expectation.  Most 4 to 5 year old children recognize that the sun gives us light.  However, discussing, explaining, and generalizing might be a stretch for a great deal of them.  This generation does not notice a great deal of what goes on around them.  Some four year olds do not have the language skills to discuss, explain, or generalize.  Children must be given the opportunity to develop these skills with an adult that actually engages and listens to them.  That would require the adults in their life to put down their phones.  I pray that you the teacher or caregiver will engage these children and help to look up from their phones and tablets and notice the world around them.

The last learning expectation is:  Recognizes that sound is produced when two objects collide.  The performance indicator is:  Uses senses to observe and explore classroom materials and natural phenomena.  Again, I believe this performance indicator does not really match the learning expectation.  Most children of 4 and 5 do understand that sound is produced when two objects collide.  Most of them have that much life experience even if they are constantly distracted by screens.  However, observing and exploring do not really happen organically anymore.  They can be prompted into observing and exploring, but most of the time the cattle prod is needed.  I pray our culture soon realizes the damage all these technological devices have done to our children.  Preschool children do not need screen time people or very little of it.  Send those children to play and put up with their hissy fits until they understand you mean business.

I hope you have enjoyed this series on childhood development.  This finishes the posts on 4 to 5 year olds.  We will now switch gears to 2 to 2 and 1/2 year olds.

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

The Dangers of Compartmentalization

This post will speak specifically to Christian educators and early childhood professionals.  It will look at the dangers of compartmentalization for them personally, society as a whole, and the children they serve.

What Is Compartmentalization?
As I said in the opening, this post is for Christian educators and early childhood professionals.  Therefore, the definition for compartmentalization I will use for this post is the act of completely dividing their personal faith and belief system from their professional actions and belief system.  It is putting your personal faith in a box and not allowing that faith to dictate your actions in your professional life.  Most people that do this work in fields that are heavily dominated by liberal, progressive policies and procedures.  This very much includes most if not all of the educational field and early childhood professionals unless those educators work in private, Christian settings.  However, even early childhood professionals that work in Christian settings will still find themselves dealing with this scenario because of standards and best practices.  Unless you are in complete denial about the course standards and best practices are taking in this country, you know that the underlying philosophical base for nearly all education in this country is not only liberal but very liberal.  It gets worse with every passing year.  The college instruction that you received taught you to compartmentalize your faith whether you realize that or not.  Most of the time this happens under the guise of separation of church and state and making you believe that working in the public sector means that you must put your faith in a box.  That is not only not true, but as I will point out in the following sections dangerous.  The first amendment does not exclude religion from the public sector.  It protects the religious from state dominance.  We have been fed a lie for years and years.  I pray that this new administration will actually do much to undo what previous administrations did or allowed to force people of faith to compartmentalize.

The Personal Dangers
Most of the Christian people I know that work in the educational field or early childhood field are either completely miserable or in complete denial.  There really does not exist a middle ground.  Both of these states of being come with their own dangers.  Working in a field that makes you completely miserable takes a heavy toll on any person emotionally, physically, but most importantly spiritually.  The emotional and physical toll is easy to decipher but the spiritual toll may be a little harder to discern.  Most of the time the motivation that keeps people in jobs that they despise is fear - fear of loss of income or loss of prestige.  However, as Christian people our Father is our Provider.  If He calls you out of a job, He will provide.  It may not be at the level you think you need, but it will always be at the level you really need.  For example, many woman would love to be stay-at-home moms but they fear the loss of income and/or the damage they feel it will have on their career.  However, having been a stay-at-home mom I understand that there are many things I could live without if I got the opportunity to raise my own babies.  There was no contest.  Material wealth does not necessarily bring happiness and many times brings despair instead.  Remember that.  On the other side of the coin are those that live in denial.  For those, I want to pose this question.  Do you really believe that your excuse for teaching children some of the things you are forced to teach children will stand up when you are face to face with God Almighty?  His word is very explicit on how He feels about putting stumbling blocks in front of children.  Do you really believe He will accept your excuses for teaching children that He did not create this world not to mention that He created them male and female?  Get your head out of the sand and open your eyes.  Our Father does not approve of quite a few of the things that pass for education these days.  You will answer for all of it when you stand before Him.

The Societal Dangers
Most Christian educators really believe that it is important for them to be in their position because if all the Christian people left the public schools and/or licensed childcares then the world would take completely over.  My question to them is this.  If you are forced to compartmentalize your faith, how are you different from the non-believing teachers and educators?  You basically teach the same material and you do not dare contradict that material for fear of your job.  Many Christian teachers like to say they are salt and light in the public school system.  However, to be salt and light, you have to be salty and let your light shine.  If you put your light under a basket (compartmentalization), you are basically having no effect.  We also know what our Father says about salt that has lost its saltiness.  We do not affect our culture for the good when we hide our light and lose our saltiness and our culture desperately needs salt and light.  The first century Christians never, ever compartmentalized their faith and many of them lost their lives.  We are so timid and fearful that we will not even risk a job for the sake of the gospel.  Again, I ask you.  Do you really believe all these excuses will fly when you stand before your Creator?  My fellow Christians, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Let us get our priorities straight and fear the right Person.  It does not take a rocket scientist to see the decay and decline of our educational system.  The progressive left does not even pretend to hide their motives anymore.  This war is for the hearts of our children and we are losing miserably.  How many of our children have to be indoctrinated through our public school systems and turn their backs on our Lord before we wake up and realize we have been foolish and swallowed lie after lie?  Get your salt back and let your light shine and let the chips fall where they may.  God will provide.

The Dangers for the Children
I have already touched on some of the many dangers to children.  When we teach children outright falsehoods and lies, we are putting stumbling blocks in front of them.  The forces of darkness always attack the children of a society.  This is a war for the hearts and minds of our children.  Are you teaching them to love their Creator or are you teaching them to compartmentalize their faith?  Are you teaching them that religion is just something you do in your spare time to make you feel good or are you teaching them about the life-changing relationship they can have with the Creator of this universe?  Even if you are not outright teaching them to compartmentalize, you do teach them to do it by example if you are doing it yourself.  Oftentimes, our example teaches so much more than our words.  What are you really teaching the children in your sphere of influence?  We need to get real about the true answer to that question.

Conclusion
At this point many of you may be asking what is the solution to this dilemma.  If many Christian people do not compartmentalize their faith, they stand a great risk of being fired or blacklisted in their field.  I know because I have been blacklisted in many circles.  I ignored the memo on compartmentalization because I was wise enough to know the danger and damage that compartmentalization can cause.  I wanted you to know those dangers and damages.  For some of you not compartmentalizing will mean losing your job.  Are you willing to do that for your Lord?  For some of you not compartmentalizing will mean a loss of prestige in your field.  Are you willing to do that for your Lord?  Do not tell yourself that God does not call you to take such stands.  The Bible is chalked full of examples of people that took such stands.  We are called to take up our cross and follow Him.  I ask you to quit lying to yourself and telling yourself it will be okay because it will not be okay.  Our country will grow worse and worse without your salt and your light.  Also, remember that God often brings very unexpected visions and calls out of situations we think are complete disasters.  Sometimes we are so intent on hanging onto what we think we should be doing that we never discover what God truly intends for us to do.  Quit putting God in a box and let Him show you how marvelous your life can truly be.

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

Cognitive Development for 4 to 5 year olds - Science (Part 2)

This post will continue the discussion of the area of learning - Science.  We will start with the component - Earth and Space Science and then move on to the component - Physical Science.  Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Development Standards (TN-ELDS).

The first three learning expectations - Recognizes the concept of day and night; Recognizes daily weather conditions; and Recognizes that time and temperature can be measured with a clock and thermometer  - all have the same performance indicator:  Continues to asks questions about the natural world and seeks answers through active exploration.  This performance indicator makes an assumption that does not really match reality.  That assumption is that all children ask questions.  In today's society, that does not happen nearly as often as it should.  Many children have their nose buried in screens and have no concept of the world that they live in.  Therefore, the greatest gift you can give children is to take away those screens and push them out the door.  Children that play outdoors have a great understanding of day and night and weather conditions because it has become part of their experience.  The next gift that adults can give children involves conversations.  When adults talk to children about time and clocks and temperature and thermometers, those children have a foundational knowledge of those concepts.  When adults' noses are buried in screens, their children never get this experience.  Bottom line - LIMIT screen time for both of you.

The next learning expectation is:  Recognizes a variety of earth materials by their observable properties (rocks, sand, dirt).  The performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials and observe processes and relationships.  The only way today's four year olds conquer this one is if some adult models these behaviors.  If they are in a program or home where they get to experiment with simple tools and measuring devices, this will happen.  If they are not, this will not happen.  Science instruction for today's children suffers horribly because they are not allowed much if any free time outside.  Children used to create simple tools and such when they were pushed out the door and made to entertain themselves.  Now we have killed that with trying to keep them constantly entertained.  There is much to be said about the value of a bored child.

The last learning expectation for Earth and Space Science is:  Classifies materials by their elements.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Develops increasing abilities to classify, compare and contrast objects, events, and experiences.  Wow, this one does not even come up on a lot of children's radars.  Again, this is due to a lack of free time outside.  Free outside play does more to encourage science development in children than any other activity.  To compensate for that lack takes hours of direct instruction.  Maybe one day we as a society will understand that in our pursuit of the perfect childhood we have destroyed childhood.  Let those children be bored and have to entertain themselves out in the great outdoors for hours.  Centuries of children survived it and thrived because of it.

Now we will move on to the component - Physical Science.  The first learning expectation is:  Recognizes the basic concept that forces can move objects.  The performance indicator for this one is:  Begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions and form generalizations.  Oh wow!  People, you do realize that science instruction in our country has gone to pot not only in the early childhood years but also in the early elementary years.  A lot of this has to do with the lack of outdoor play.  However, another factor also comes into play.  Many of the early childhood and early elementary teachers are dealing with so many immature and emotionally underdeveloped children that a great deal of their time is spent on dealing with behavioral problems instead of instruction.  I go into classrooms all the time and what I see distresses me sometimes.  They try.  They just run out of time trying to cover the basics.  This is especially true in the inner city schools.  However, the rural schools actually have a leg up on this one.  Want to know why?  Those kids play outside and/or do chores outside.  Both playing outside and doing chores go a long way to correct A LOT of the behavior problems in children.  Therefore, those rural schools have more time for instruction.  Those children also have more foundation for the teachers to build upon.

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