THE STRANGE SITUATION

This is a famous test created by Mary Ainsworth. It determines the attachment style children have with there parents.

ATTACHMENT STYLES

In Childhood development and the theory's behind it, a cue to a childs future and how they will interact with the world was discovered by Mary Ainsworth. She developed what is called "The Strange Situation", in which you can categorize a child by the attachment style they have to there mother. Here is a link to explain more in detail about the research and situation.

http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/measures/content/ss_scoring.pdf

ATTACHMENT TYPE

The thing I have found most interesting in childhood development, in relation to the kids I have been working with, have been the types of attachments the children develop. In reading and researching this topic I have thought about many of the children in the class and how they exhibit behaviors seen in certain long term effects of certain attachments. Now, the children that I am thinking about in specific have very confidential backgrounds so there is no way of knowing what there past history or home life is like. But if I were to make presumptions I could categorize most of them in an attachment type. 

RESISTANT/AMBIVALENT

 For example, one of the kids I work with, I’ll call him Timothy for confidentiality purposes, would not let me put him down today. While playing in the playground he became very attached to me and would not let me put him down for any reason. If I did he got frantic and or mad. When this happened I started to think about the Resistant/Ambivalent relationship, and how those children react to caregivers.  Now I know this could just be a sign of having a shy temperament, but again, not knowing the full backgrounds I just have to assume. But what also cued me in to think that this could be an attachment for Timothy was the way he would avoid any in depth questions I would ask him, or refuse any help from me in certain situations.  For example a week ago Timothy was working with a hard puzzle and when I came over, at first his frustration was obvious and I started to help him, but then he pushed me away and wanted his own space. Now, this is a long shot, but I thought about how when the children that do have this attachment style seek comfort but then push there comforter away, it could be seen as similar and relevant in this situation.

 There are many other children in which I have seriously been thinking about these situations and how their early childhood attachments have affected their personality and the way they interact with others and the world. I find it fascinating to say the least! I’ve even been profiling family members of mine… Secretly of course.

THE SITUATION

I have had the immense pleasure of volunteer and working with an awesome group of kids for the last two weeks. I am new to the program and have been able to start getting to know them one by one. In discussing the experiences I have had, and the situations I may describe I will not be using real names to protect them and there families.

Every friday I spend 3 hours at a care center for children with emotional or behavioral problems. On average our group of kids consists of  8 kids and 4-5 "big people" or adults. We PLAY all day long, this is very therapeutic to kids. It puts them in situations where we have the opportunity to help them with person to person interaction and helps us understand more about how they feel about themselves and the world around them. I received great advice from one of the head teachers of our group in the case of how to respond to misbehaving children or negative situations. 

ADVISE #1

USING POSITIVE DIRECTIONS

The summary of what I was taught was this: When dealing with misbehaving children there are better ways of saying "NO" or "Don't". When children develop a bad habit acting out to gain your attention in a negative way you do not want to acknowledge the bad behavior by giving them something else to feed off of.  Sometimes the way you word a question can give them the opportunity to pick a negative situation, this can be corrected through only using positive and simple directions. The best way to explain would be to give a list of examples they gave to me.

IT'S BETTER TO SAY  > THAN

Sit down when you slide  >  Don't stand up when you slide

Let's dig in the sand  >  Don't throw sand

Use both hands when you climb  > You will fall if you don't watch out

Let's keep the puzzle on the table  > Don't dump the puzzle pieces on the floor.

Use your inside voice  > Don't shout

Time to go inside  > Don't you want to go inside?

I like how Johnny is using nice words, I'll go play with him  > Don't swear

And of course besides watching yourself when reacting to situations, it is always good to make sure you acknowledge good behavior when being done. Especially when around other children. One other tip to remember, children can tell when you are being sarcastic, this will draw out very negative behavior and will make it worse, be sincere and patient when dealing with kids.

Prenatal Development

Hey everyone! I have found the neatest videos done by Nova about Prenatal Development. It's really neat to watch how the miracle of life is created. I would highly recommend this video to anyone who is pregnant or is thinking of becoming so. Here is the link to eight videos following the development of the egg, sperm and eventually the baby. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs/ht/qt/2816_qlg_03.html