I have interacted with our speech and language pathologists Beth. She works with 2 of our pre-schoolers twice a week. I ask her how she felt poverty and health affected our children. She had an article for me that would help me with my research paper. We also talked about a boy (Fred) that she was working with that was at poverty level. He never came to school clean and was always having accidents in his pants. She felt that this was affecting his chances of learning or paying attention when she was working with him.
Some of the challenges that are noticeable are that the children are dirty and do have a hard time concentrating on the task at hand. The children that I observed had a hard time sitting still, the teacher and pathologists thinks that this could be an affect of their home life and what they are missing. A challenge of making things better for the child is that the parents do not seem to care. They are happy with their family lifestyle just the way it is. There is a cycle that is hard to break, when children are raised in povery level homes, they usually end of with the same lifestyle that their parents have.
It is sad that a lot of these students will end up with the same lifestyle as their parents. I wish they could see that if they try and concentrate, they can do better and succeed and be better off. However, what they live in is normal to them, so why should it be different? I am sure that is what they are thinking because they do not know anything different. I also wish we could make parents care, but it is quite a challenge that will need a lot of people to conquer.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of these children and families all around the world. This is very sad that there are children that have to come to school dressed so bad and not clean. As Parents we are suppose to make sure that our children are safe and are well taking care, healthy, loved. When you talked about the cycle, yes there is a cycle that some people have and needs to be changed. This child's family might have been part of poverty when they were children and think that this is a life that is ok to live, I don't want to be bias and say that the parents just don't care because they might do but just don't know what to do where to go for help. As an advocate you or the Pathologists should give her some resources to help her, meet with her to find out her goals and needs to become a better parent for her self and her children. This parent night need some help/guides and you all might be the help she have been waiting on. When the child come to school not clean maybe the teachers could have some extra clothes and underwear that they could change the child into so he can feel much better and enjoy coming to school maybe his behavior would change. This child also seem to need a lot of one-on-one this would help the teachers to planned better for him, also the teachers would find out what kind of learner he is. I want to say that I feel that you were being bias when you said that the Parent is happy with her life style. I don't want to believe that, why would someone want to neglect their children or themselves. we don't know this parent situation so how can we judge her. Please keep a open mind and these educators need to reach a little more to this family.
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