In this newest course "Building Research Competencies", we've been asked to choose a topic in early childhood that is of interest to us. I have chosen to study attachment theory and its relationship to healthy social and emotional development in young children. Recently, I have observed an increase in the number of families that are adopting children from foreign countries and I am interested in learning about the ways those children develop attachments to their new parents and how they adapt to the environment. I am also very interested in how language development plays a part in that process, particularly if the child is an English language learner.
In evaluating resources and information on the internet, I realize that I need to carefully evaluate each piece for quality and validity. The discussion this week encouraged us to look for sources that were both valid and non-valid and decide why they should be considered so. This will help in my search for information on attachment theory and language development and my colleagues have shared many great sites to search.
Social and emotional development is often overlooked in early childhood. With growing pressures for young children to perform academically, we must keep their emotional health in focus and understand that it is crucial for other areas of development. I think it is interesting that there is so much in the news these days about bullying in elementary and secondary institutions. The truth is it begins in early childhood, if you watch very carefully. And as educators I believe that we MUST partner with parents to ensure that children are acquiring the abilities to empathize and recognize emotion in others and themselves. In addition to the pressure to ensure academic success for children, teachers and administrators are now looking at having the primary responsibility of monitoring the emotional social treatment of others. I realize this is a side sub-topic that could be a research simulation in and of itself, but I think there are some similarities.
Do any of you (my colleagues) have experience with working with families that have adopted children, either from the area or from abroad? I would be interested to hear what services you know of that are available to them and how you think the process of language development affects healthy attachments. I am looking forward to studying this subtopic and learning from you all about yours as well!
Katherine
Katherine, although I do not have any experience working with families that have adopted children, I have read success stories of children being adopted from China through a wonderful organization called Half The Sky Foundation (http://www.halfthesky.org/). I feel your topic is a strong one, and I look forward to learning with you along this journey. No doubt you will share valuable findings through your research. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteKatherine,
ReplyDeleteMy oldest sister adopted her son when he was only a few months old from Florida. He is now in his late twenties. I was young when she got him, but I do remember them having to go through a process and having to spend money on legal fees. With him being so young, he was able to adapt to our family environment very well. He suffered from seizures and studdering, but they eventually stop happening throughout the years.
I currently work in a public school system prekindergarten, and I know of a child that's been adopted from Ukraine in Eastern Europe. The family had to go there and stay a month to be approved as adopted parents, then had to wait for another month for everything to be approved. They then had to return to Ukraine and stay at the American Embassy to do alot of paper work to get the child approved to come into the U.S. This child has been diagnosed as having down syndrome, but he has adapted very well with his new family and the school environment.