In an early childhood environment it is important to create a healthy environment for children. The role of educators is to model good health behaviors for children to prevent the spread of viruses. In my opinion, the early childhood professional must model good health behaviors for children so they learn health behaviors at a young age and make them part of their daily routine. For example, children could learn at a young age the importance of hand washing to prevent the spread of illness among their classmates. According to Cathie Robertson, “ One of the teacher’s most important tasks is to help children form the good hygiene habit and hand washing, to ensure a healthy environment” (Robertson, 2013, p. 443). Educators can make this task fun for children by making a song for hand washing, because some children learn faster when they are having fun. Also, it is important to give children immediate feedback after proper hand washing, so they feel motivated and will keep on doing it. As educators we need to wash hands often to we don’t pass illness to the children or from them to us. By doing this we are teaching the students that this is very important in order to stay healthy.
There are three different health behaviors that I might model for children and their families. I believe these behaviors are crucial to ensure a healthy environment for children. The first health behavior is to cover the mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing with a tissue or using the upper sleeve to stop the spread of germs that can make children sick. One step that I could take to help children to adopt this behavior is by having a box of tissues in the classroom all the time and every time a child coughs or sneezes I will hand over a tissue and ask him to cover his mouth and nose with it. I also will explain why it is important to do so. I will incorporate activities that teach children how to cover their mouth and nose if this happens to them. Also, I will talk about this with the families to ensure we work together towards the same goal.
The second health behavior that I will model for children and their families is the importance of washing hands.
This ensures that the practitioner takes necessary steps to protect a child and also promote their welfare. A practitioner will also need to promote good health of children and take appropriate action to prevent the spread of infection when a child is ill. Within the setting practitioners must work effectively to ensure that they manage the children’s behaviour effectively which is relevant to their age and stage of development.
The behaviorist and constructivist theories pose a significant debate in early childhood education that questions if curriculum should be based on the children’s natural childlike dispositions or should adults determine and decide every aspect of curriculum. The distinction between the two theories determine what and how young children learn. The behaviorist theory believes that people of all ages learn the same and that behavior is controlled by outside influences and rewards. Whereas, the constructivist theory believes young children develop cognitive structure based on interactions with other people and the environment. Most early childhood programs follow the constructivist theory and are child-centered. According to Freeney, Galper, and
Better infection control practices and hand washing techniques utilized by the general population help to reduce the incidences of easily avoidable conditions, such as impetigo caused by staphylococcal and streptococcal infections. It may be beneficial for public health departments to recommend teachers to teach students on how to properly wash hands and clean high contact fomites.
This information makes it clear that the reason that hand hygiene is being consistently advertised as highly important for health workers, visitors, patients and the general public is because we are still not taking steps to ensure that avoidable infections and diseases are in fact avoided.
Whitby, M., Pessoa-Silva, C., Mclaws, M., Allegranzi, B., Sax, H., Larson, E., Seto, W., Donaldson, L. & Pittet, D. (2007). Behavioural considerations for hand hygiene practices: the basic building blocks. Journal Of Hospital Infection, 65 (1), pp. 1--8.
Young children always see their parents and teachers as role models. The way the parents and childcare workers act and react is how children will learn to do. Hence, whatever their role models say and do is reflected in how they will think about the world in future. As the greatest imitators are children, being a good role model is important in proper child development. Secondly, a childcare worker should always be a good listener to help in proper development of the children. Children should be always encouraged to talk whenever they come with some questions. However, what might sound silly to an adult, to a child is actually a very sincere question which needs to be correctly answered. If you develop open lines of communication with a child at an early age, then as they grow older, chances are these good habit will continue to grow. Giving the child the importance they deserve is another element of child development. Further, a childcare worker should enjoying nature together with children. Hence, teaching children to respect others as well as nature will make them treat the world as their own. This starts with teaching them something as simple as the proper place to throw away their trash instead of on the ground. Never the less, children need discipline in their lives. Hence, rules which need to be strict are sometimes needed to be enforced if we expect
In early childhood education most of the caregivers; teachers, assistants teachers and parents have difficulties with the way children act or what they say in certain situations or activities. Thanks to the many early pioneers in Early Childhood Education we have now so many bases that help us to understand and promote a healthy and appropriate environment for a good development of the kids. Guidance that means “teaching children to learn from their mistakes, rather than punishing children for making them” (Gartrell, 2004) is a powerful tool we have as teachers to deal and
Child providers need to know the correct way to change a diaper and appropriate ways to teach children to use the toilet in order to prevent the spread of illness.
Healthy Child Care America. (2007, April). Health and Safety E-News for Caregivers and Teachers. Retrieved from Healthy Child Care America: http://www.healthychildcare.org/ENewsApr07.html
Early Childhood Education teachers know that our children deserve to learn the important lessons from us and to acquire important habits with our help. Teachers and future teachers want our children to grow up to be responsible adults. Also, teachers are trying to find the perfect way to deal with children with different type of behavior. Teachers have to deal with parents, giving them a satisfactory result of their child developmental progress and security. My philosophy of guiding young children behavior is to use the combination of collaboration, positive attitude, and patience.
Clinical Orientation was the concept of the week. Knowing what’s the importance of Hand washing or hang hygiene and knowing how to execute it well was the topic during the simulation day. It is about preventing to chain of infection from nurses to patients, family, friends and to the public. So nurses having a knowledge on how to execute hand washing properly makes the nurse to be aware of their own hygiene and the nurse would be able to provide individualised hygiene care. (Crisp et all, 2013) Knowing your way around to the hospital and knowing hand hygiene was the main focus of the clinical orientation.
...illnesses to keep their children away from infected children and to keep them healthy, and it is important for educators to be aware of the signs and symptoms of illnesses so that they can be aware of the necessary control measures and also inform the parents. If we as educators and parents do our job and educate ourselves about Communicable and Acute illnesses our children, they will be less likely to be exposed and infected.
Using good hand hygiene is a start to making sure the patient environment is safe. “Handwashing is a fundamental principle and practice in the prevention, control, and reduction of healthcare-acquired infections” (Bjerke, 2004, p. 1). Hand hygiene aids in infection control, being as most hospital acquired infections are due to improper or absence of hand hygiene. Fox, Wavra, Drake, Mulligan, Jones, Bennett, and Bader (2015) suggest that 2.5 million deaths occur from hospital-acquired infections and of those deaths, 90,000 were preventable if the workers in healthcare would have used proper hand hygiene. Piece of mind is a mutual benefit of using hand hygiene in the healthcare setting. A nurse benefits from using hand hygiene because it would reduce the risk of that nurse contaminating other patients when going from patient room to patient room. A patient benefits from using hand hygiene because it reduces the risk of that patient spreading infection from one part of the body to another. Piece of mind is the benefit for knowing that patients and nurses are protected in healthcare facilities by using hand hygiene. Patients and nurses will benefit from using hand hygiene because it is a simple way to aid in keeping the individual healthy. The hands carry many germs and constant adherence to good hand hygiene will decrease the risk of people catching illnesses and contaminating shared surfaces (door handles, tables, and
There are many documented theories about early childhood development, contemporary research still concurs with some of these theories. It suggests, however, that we should be thinking more holistically, taking into consideration; respect for diversity, the wider community and equity, play based curriculums, intentional teaching and ongoing reflective practices when planning for optimal educational experiences for children (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009). I acknowledge that ongoing professional learning and reflective practices are a key element of the Early Years Learning Framework (DEEWR, 2009). I accredit working and collaborating with other teachers, families and local communities collectively contribute
There are many benefits to quality early childhood learning one being socialization, which is teaching children to form friendship outside of family by meeting new people in school (Votruba-Drzal & Dearing, 2015). Socialization helps children overcome shyness and gain self-confidence which are essential tools to carry into adulthood. Secondly, children learn cooperation and to work with others. In a learning environment with other children a child learns the concept of sharing, taking turns and perseverance, this is especially important for children who are unused to sharing at home. Another benefit is children gain enthusiasm for learning and value for education at this stage. Learning in early childhood involves play and ensuring the learning process is fun. Having fun while learning fosters a love of learning, reading, and discovery and gives them a new perspective on why education is