Child Care and the Youth Development - Literature review Example

Child Care Name: Instructor: Introduction Hiati claims that child care entails all the activities that involve supervision of a child and this is when they are between the ages of six weeks to 18 years old. The art of child care takes place at day-care centers, babysitter or other providers of this service. Indeed child care is a full activity covering various contexts, actions, social-cultural and institutions. Among this childcare, schools offer extensive training to children in first aid, background checks, and drug abuse and reference verification. The images of childhood as portrayed by the media influence opportunities for the infants, children, and the adolescents, therefore, it is imperative for all those working with the kids and the young people to report the children positively to the media. The images of childhood and how they get portrayed has a direct impact on assisting them and caring for them. In the article, “Too many want perfect children,” the author witnesses that in many cases the media portrays the children’s image negatively and this need a lot of scrutinizes, as well as the achievements of children, get celebrated much more widely. The essay clearly outlines how the images of childhood get used in the media and how the media should improve on portraying the childhood pictures. Early childhood is very critical, and it usually overlooks all the components of childcare and development. The child care providers are the first mentors to children. Therefore, they play a very predominant role in the systems of early child care and education (Albanese et al. 2010). This early care if conducted will ensure that the child grows up successfully. Haiti claims that in spite of the media being a center player in shaping people’s lives; they are not usually friends of children’s rights. The young people are not happy with how the media portrays them, and also research in many occasions show how the media represents the children across the globe. To make it worse is that in November, 2003, the British media Wise captured a snap-shots of three British broadsheet and the tabloid Sunday newspapers. The snap-shots showed a grim of kid’s images portraying children. This paper represented 32 items about children, and among them, only two characterized positive information about children. More laughable is that in these articles three of them championed parents’ rights at the expense of children’s (Barakso & Schaffner, 2006). This misrepresentation of children by the media has been full of stereotyping mostly in the United Kingdom as a study done by MORI for the youths’ now magazine showed. This study identified that children negatively got portrayed as problems of all the stories about them. Among the stories media present on children 71% are negative and in among these negative ones, 48% are about the crimes and violence. These stories depict young people as perpetrators, and 70% represent boys as the most offenders with only 32% depicting boys as the victims. 10% described girls as the offenders with 91% as the victims though research reveals that boys are in many cases falling victims of violence and crime compared to girls (Berk, 2012). In the article of too many want perfect children, it outlines that this stereotyping of children has become an international concern and the report accuses the media of failing to focus on the children’s civic engagements. This menace forms the trend among the mainstream media across Europe. Over the years the media has gotten in the limelight for representing children and their rights poorly. The empowering children and media have got various steps entailing participatory workshops with the children getting involved. Parents and children should monitor the media closely when it comes to images of childhood. The article contains all the items referring to childhood pictures and the relevant information on the child care and their rights. The report highlights the issues the media usually dwelling on when representing children’s model. The key points from the article are the underrepresentation of the children by the press (Havnes, & Mogstad, 2011). Among the news recorded only 6% takes about children with 26% addressing the parent’s issues, and this shows how the media is under-representing children. Another problem is that the children predominantly get represented as victims by the media with more than 25% portraying the children as the victims of various vices as rape, violence, hunger and many others which are very negative. Children feel that media is extremely representing them negatively and the media should stop this tarnish representation. The media also serve children mostly in negative stories instead of positive ones. In the comparison of the parent’s stories and the children, the children usually appear in the negative news more than their parents. Media do dwell on crime, violence, abuse of drugs and disasters befalling children and this is really in contrary to child care principles. Even though the press represents the male child and female child equally, they still stereotype them so much. It shows gender stereotyping with girls represented in stories about child abuse, rape, violence, and boys described mostly in sports stories. Indeed this proves the stereotypical portrayal of women as victims and men empowered by the media (Barakso & Schaffner, 2006).There are some ways in the article in which the images of childhood influence the opportunities of a child. Creating an appropriate environment for the infants, toddlers, and the preschool children help to examine their talent and development. It will assist in determining some unique characteristics in children in the environment. Toddlers and infants learn about their world by playing with objects, and other items surround them. In a proper child care among the opportunities that can arise include physically exploring materials. It makes the parents store these materials where their children can quickly select them. Some items also get stored in hidden places, but they can get when the need arises. Preschool children are active learners, and they continue to study the things when they are starting to use objects in sophisticated combinations (Havnes & Mogstad, 2015). Proper care enables children to develop symbolic representations as this assists them to take on some important duties in participating in dramatic plays. Language gives children an opportunity to question and find answers. An image representation of children gives them a chance to proper brain development. Young children get a lot of developmental necessities from the media, and they include literacy skills. It helps the children to study letters of the alphabetical which in many cases they undertake through computer games. Other opportunities include digital skills which help them to begin counting and the social skills helping them to co-operate watching television programs and other computer games (Smith, 2006). Older children can acquire intellectual benefits from the media which will assist them in problem solving as well as other critical thinking skills. Computer games got designed to cultivate such skills, and they can cultivate ethical thinking through putting family values in contrast within factious documents (Jones, & Harwood, 2009). Young children also get education benefits through good image representations by the media as televisions ‘shows and movies encourage the young children to read. The article, “Too many want perfect children,” highlights the social benefits that the children can get from the real representation by the media. It happens by joining online clubs that assists children in practicing social media safely and sometimes through playing computer games with family friends. Creative benefits like the developing of imagination skills by children are also an opportunity the children get from the media. Video-modeling, music, and media under software and applications help in equipping children appropriately. The position the media takes in childhood image representation in a normal social life of children is very critical. As social psychological theory puts the focus on the picture of the children by the media, and it analyses how the information produced by the press house transform our day-to-day lives (Mahon et al., 2012). This information shapes our social attitudes, policies, and practices in evaluating the accuracy our shared sense. The public profile of the childhood development got expanded in the recent years with newspapers applies social representation of children. This article emphasizes the importance of the brain development of the children as highlighted in the United Kingdom print media (Rinehart, 2008). The thematic on images of childhood got performed on almost 505 articles published in newspapers from 2000 to 2010 to ascertain the early brain development. The media reporting got most fretful with guarding the early childhood brain formation. The media feed the infants brains which in turn nurturing it as per the environment (Rauhala et al., 2012). Even though research gets the media off gourd in staining the young children, it also praises the media in highlighting the role of parental actions in the childhood growth. The importance of child care got strengthened by elucidations of crucial times when inappropriate parental care would result into enduring of the children. The article outlines the how research used to promulgate rumors concerning adoption of some gender roles in the family. This article argues that the media representation of images of the childhood can help in shaping the child’s future or can as well destroy. In conclusion research in child care and the youth development has very many implications. It is far beyond the scientific sphere and it includes the parenting, education, health, and welfare policy of the children. The adoption of the media and the scientific conceptions of the child development shape perceptions, opinions, assumptions and the practices of the media against the children. It is therefore very critical to map all the media content concerning the children since these play crucial roles in shaping their general lives. The studies conducted to ascertain the role of media in the child care found that the duties for guaranteeing the safety, nutrition as well as, the proper care of young people lie directly with the press and the parents. The media hugely is silent on the probabilities of influencing the welfare of children. The prominence of parental child care got strengthened by the interpretation of the media during the cruel periods when the implied limit time-frame for encouraging the kids’ opportunities for successful futures. The article portrays the media as the threat to the development of young since they adversely represent the children and they always give negative and discouraging stories concerning the children. These bad news concerning children usually discourage them and can lead to underdevelopment. The media is found to be playing microscopic when it comes to the development and childhood care. It is in many cases do not ogre well with the young people as they feel victimizes by the media more often that they would expect. Bibliography Albanese, P Rauhala, A Ferns, C Johnstone, J Lam, J & Atack, E 2010, Hiding the elephant: Child care coverage in four daily newspapers, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 817-836. Barakso, M & Schaffner, BF 2006, Winning coverage news media portrayals of the women's movement, 1969–2004, The Harvard international Journal of press/politics, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 22-44. Berk, LE 2012, Infants, children, and adolescents 7 Ed, Pearson, Upper Saddle River. Havnes, T & Mogstad, M 2011, No Child Left Behind: Subsidized Child Care and Children’s LongRun Outcomes, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 97–129. https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.3.2.97 Havnes, T & Mogstad, M 2015, Is universal child care leveling the playing field? Journal of Public Economics, vol. 127, pp. 100–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.04.007 Jones, SC & Harwood, V 2009, Representations of autism in Australian print media, Disability & Society, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 5-18. Mahon, R Anttonen, A Bergqvist, C Brennan, D & Hobson, B 2012, Convergent care regimes? Childcare arrangements in Australia, Canada, Finland and Sweden, Journal of European Social Policy, vol. 22, no. 4, 419–431. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928712449776.. Rauhala, A Albanese, P Ferns, C Law, D Haniff, A & Macdonald, L 2012, Who says what: election coverage and sourcing of child care in four Canadian dailies, Journal of child and family studies, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 95-105. Rinehart, D 2008, Baby talk: How gender issues affected media coverage of the child-care debate in the last federal election, Canadian Journal of Media Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp.1-40. Smith, PR 2006, Welfare, Child Care, and the People Who Care: Union Representation of Family Child Care Providers, Kansas Law Review, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 231-264 Read More