Week 4 Blog

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 

  

     For this weeks blog I would like to respond to question two about ADHD. I will reflect back about four years ago when I first met my husband and my daughter had just turned three. Well my husband had a nephew that was diagnosed with ADHD because he was hyper active jumping off the couches and was hard to calm him down. My three year old was definitely a little hyper but not that she hard to control. My husband did comment saying that she should be seen by a doctor I was surprised by his comment but didn't think nothing of it. I always have been against giving a child drugs to calm them down, to me I always have said of course children are hyper active, their kids.  

     Well he was a little persistent on me taking her to see a doctor so I did, to my surprise they did diagnose her with ADHD I was shocked that they prescribed a drug called Ritalin. I was very unsure about giving her this drug so I never did give my child Ritalin. Luckily I went to see another doctor and they told me that she was fine she had no signs of ADHD.  

     Watching her now she is perfectly fine she is no longer as hyper as she used to be. When she was hyper she was only three and now she is seven and she grew out of that stage.  

     Now that I see that there is not enough research done by the FDA as it explained in the video from the Front Line to be giving these young children those drugs. I was really shocked and glad that I wasn't so naive to give my child anything that perhaps instead of helping her could have probably killed her. It's also scary because so many children are diagnosed with this problem and parents say the drugs are helping them, so this leaves a question in my mind is it good for children or not.  

     I now believe there should be an age limit to kids taking drugs that effect there brains. For me this is such a tough topic. 

Week 3 blog

Topic: Interacting with others

            This topic relates to myself in real life because a close friend and I were pregnant at the same time and delivered our children 5 days apart, she had a boy, and I had a girl. First hand I was able to identify how much faster her child was developing than my child. In chapter 5.3 it explains the different stages our children went through and was able to put in perspective how each child went through each stage. When our children were infants (prior to 6 months) they did not seem to interact with each other, but were still interested in what the other was doing. Once our children were about 12 months old they began to show interest in what the other child was doing or toys they were playing with. I am now able to understand that our children were going through a stage called “Parallel play”. In the book it also explains how later when they started engaging in play, and being more sociable, this stage is called “Simple social play”. It was during this stage that I noticed our children interacting with each other the most. It was very interesting and fulfilling to see my daughter interacting during this stage because I was able to see her personality traits first hand. By the time our children reached the “Cooperative play” stage (what I call the terrible twos) although they were very temperamental, they were able to play and share together quite well. I did notice that because my daughter was in daycare her social skills and educational skills a bit elevated compared to my fiends son, I believe this is because she was interacting with many children and probably learning at a faster rate because of that. I can definitely see the advantages of my daughter being in daycare and being exposed to many children at a young age compared my friend’s son being at home with mainly mom all day. Also in the gender section of this chapter “Gender differences and play” it states that children prefer to play with children of their own sex, however my daughter preferred to play with boys because she enjoyed playing with what would be considered boy toys, and to this day she does not own a Barbie.  

Week 2 Blog

For my topic this week I chose to talk about approaches to childbirth. 

  

I would like to learn more about multicultural childbirth experiences. I was very surprised and piqued my curiosity that although Holland and Sweden have the lowest immortality rates in the world and they also have the highest rate of home deliveries. My thought was that if emergency equipment used at hospitals were not available, I expected to see the opposite when it comes in immortality rates in those countries from the research I read. I believe the reason they have such low immortality rates is due to the fact that those countries have free government sponsored healthcare for all women, they are given the care needed prior to even becoming pregnant.  

      If had unlimited funds available to do further research, I would investigate the relationship between free healthcare for all woman prior to pregnancy and more fund more research for home deliveries in regards to education for women so they can make choices about different approaches to childbirth.  

      If I had more time to read up on different cultures childbirth approaches, I would be very interested in learning more about other countries beliefs and taboos about having men present when the baby is born. I watched the UNICEF video and was really shocked that the woman actually got up and ran out when they were shown movies involving the birth process and men were present for the birth of their own child. Makes me ask the question, why would it be a taboo for the father that helped create a child to not be present when the baby comes into the world.

Alma's Chapter 1 blog

Continuity vs Discontinuity

I quickly thought of continuity vs discontinuity being a perfect for my blog topic because I was able to compare myself to this topic in chapter one. When I think back when I was young, I was continuously a person that was not afraid of saying what was on my mind. I was a very out spoken person, it didn’t matter to me if I was hurting other peoples feeling or not. My mother made me feel like I was always doing something wrong; she was worried that because I was so out spoken, I was hurting other people’s feelings. Because of various problems I had with my parents, I became rebellious through my teenage years; doing bad thing to fulfill what I had lost by my parents divorcing. Being vocal and expressing my thoughts and feeling never went away but being rebellious did.

So that being said…..

 I can compare continuity with a part of me that I haven’t lost. What has stuck with me and makes me who I am today. I still can say what’s on my mind when I feel that it’s necessary. Therefore I have to admit that sometimes I say things without thinking and I find myself later thinking; “should I have said that”? This is not always good.

I can compare discontinuity with being rebellious, with issues that brought out being rebellious at that time. So that is being discontinuity where I suddenly became that way opposed to not always being that kind of person.