My Connections to Play

Me playing outside, 1991

“A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.” -Bill Vaughn 

“Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.” -William Stafford

Growing up, my siblings were my playmates and we were outside playing constantly, rain or shine. We did not have many material toys but we played with everything-rocks, shells, flowers, leaves-anything we could get our hands on. We imagined everything, we could be on a boat, in another country, escaping from somewhere…the possibilities were endless! We used our imaginations and everything became a toy but I think one of the essential play items was dirt. It sounds strange, but that was what my siblings and I played with the most. We could build mountains, cook soups, throw it, garden…we were always playing with dirt!

Me playing in the dirt, 1989

 When I wasn’t playing with my siblings, or when we were playing inside, I was playing with my stuffed rabbit, Yellow Bunny. I could imagine anything with my Yellow Bunny, he could be a baby or a friend; he could talk and go on adventures with me. Yellow Bunny was my constant companion and essential play object- he could even turn a long trip in the car into an adventure because we could play anything!

My sister and playing dress-up
with Yellow Bunny, 1991

My parents were very supportive of our play. My mom was always encouraging us to go play outside and gave us scraps of cloth for our doll’s blankets or old buttons for our treasures. She would help us think of ideas and adventures to go on and never laughed at our games, even though looking back now, some of them were pretty silly!

I think play has started to change from the time I was young. Today it seems that more and more children are playing inside and not using their imaginations as much, on the computer or with video games- or not even engaging in play at all and instead watching TV. Play is not really encouraged in school anymore with the stress on academic achievements, standards, and accountability so I think that true play and its importance is being lost on the future generations. I always try to encourage my students to play, but I can only do so much when they are tempted by a shiny electronic at home and not encouraged to imagine. Hopefully some of the play skills they learn with me will become ingrained and they will develop a love for play that they can carry on and share! I also hope to pass on my love of play to my son. He too loves the outdoors and playing with rocks and sticks. At 14 months, he has so much to learn about the world; he does not have many material toys either but I encourage him to play with things around the house…right now his favorite “toys” are the potatoes in the cupboard-he could play with these forever!

My son playing, 2010

Hopefully the importance of play is recognized, both in the classroom and at home. Play helps foster healthy development in so many ways and can lead to academic success as well. The benefits of play are not just found in early childhood, they carry on through adulthood as well!

Immunizations

Immunizations are an important part of child development. Since immunizations have been developed and their use has become widespread, many diseases have been prevented and childhood death rates have gone down. I recently took my son in for his 12 month well-baby visit and I was amazed at how many vaccinations he received just at this visit-a total of 6!

Schools in the United States (and many childcare programs as well) require that children’s vaccines are up to date before they can attend. This helps ensure that children are receiving their vaccinations and helps prevent outbreaks.

However, vaccines are not available to many children worldwide-often times due to their high cost. In 2009, a new initiative, Advance Market Commitment (AMC) was launched to help fund the “development and manufacturing of new vaccines for developing nations” as well as help set guaranteed prices for the vaccines and allow countries to start planning immunization programs for when the vaccines are available (Luffman, 2011).

In Nicaragua, between 80-99% (depending on the vaccination) of children are immunized with the available immunizations (UNICEF). Nicaragua was the first developing country to receive vaccines from AMC when the pneumococcal vaccination program was launched in December 2010.  Pneumococcal diseases (such as pneumonia) are the cause of death for 1/5 of Nicaragua’s children under the age of 5 (Luffman, 2011) so this program could potentially prevent many deaths.

I am lucky that my son has access to so many vaccinations and hopefully the AMC initiative will help many more children and families gain access to them as well. AMC’s goal is to include 40+ countries in its pneumococcal vaccination program by 2015- it’s estimated that if reached this could potentially save 900,000 children’s lives (Luffman, 2011)!

Researching this topic helped me gain more knowledge about the importance of immunizations in early childhood. In this field, it is important to learn about all aspects of child development, including health. The information that I gained about this topic can be shared with parents and families-one resource that I found particularly informative on vaccines was the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/.

References:

 AMC: Advance Market Commitment for Vaccines. (2007). Vaccine AMCs. Retrieved from: http://www.vaccineamc.org/index.html.

Luffman, Laurinda. (5 January 2011). Children in Nicaragua are first to receive new pneumonia vaccine. SOS Children’s Villages. Retrieved from: http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/children-in-nicaragua-are-the-first-to-receive-new-pneumonia-vaccine.

UNICEF. (2 March 2010). Statistics: Nicaragua. UNICEF. Retrieved from:  

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nicaragua_statistics.html.