The Still Face Experiment

This is a clip from Dr. Edward Tronick's Still Face Experiments, which show emotional attunement between a parent and infant.  Particularly, it demonstrates the impact on the child of losing that attunement with his or her caregiver.  In the clip, you can see this child become increasingly stressed as her mother stops responding to her.

What interests me about these clips is the effect of stress and depression on the relationship between a baby and caregiver.  In class, we have been talking about the achievement gap between children from impoverished homes and those from financially stable homes.  Could family stress be one of the links between poverty and school performance?  When a child is stressed, they are less able to interact with the outside world.  That means, in school, they pay less attention and remember less information.  Children who are chronically stressed may perceive aggression where there is none, and may therefore be more likely to get into fights or to be reprimanded, eventually being labeled as 'bad kids'.  Stress, it turns out, has a huge impact on performance in social, academic, cognitive, and physical areas.  This argument presents evidence against a culture of poverty, and towards a culture of survival under poverty.

Neglect: A Slippery Concept in Foster Care

Neglect is one of the four categories of abuse that can cause a child to be removed from his or her home, and the most common type of child abuse.  However, neglect is a notoriously vague concept, highly dependent on cultural and social contexts and case workers' own perceptions.  As the US Department of Health and Human Services states, inconsistencies in the definition of neglect causes variability in the way that individual cases are handled, and removals from the home occur on a highly subjective basis. 


In many ways, the criteria for neglect closely mirror conditions of poverty: dangerous gas stoves, high windows without screens, rodent or  insect infestations, and the inability of caregivers to provide adequate clothing, food, or supervision for their children.  Yet the most concerning criteria for child neglect is homelessness. 


Situationally, homelessness can be considered grounds for removing a child from their parent's custody when the following are in place:

“unstable living conditions: change of residence due to eviction or lack of planning at least three times in a six month period or homelessness due to the lack of available affordable housing or the caregivers inability to manage finances." (Citation)

Considering the high number of homeless families in the United States, and how homelessness disproportionately affects people of color, a compelling argument can be made for the fact that racism is inherent in the foster care system. Additionally, thousands of families who have lost their homes in the economic downturn of 2009-2011 are now at risk for losing their children under this definition of neglect.

One person's judgement can make the difference between a shattered home and an intact one. Often, CPS case workers have little developmental training or awareness of family systems. Perhaps more rigorous standards for training and evaluation should be put into place, ensuring that poor families are not unjustly targeted and split apart due to their economic circumstances.

 

One more note about Head Start

Although my previous post took a more critical stance of the wording used in Head Start's policy guides, the program still does many wonderful things for families in the community.  And they are in danger of losing 25% of their funding (and all of the funding that keeps my center running!).

They are urging people to write to their congressfolk and urge them to vote against the budget proposal.  Here are the details and a link to a website where you can send an email to your congressional representative:

On Friday night (2/11/11), the U.S. House of Representatives introduced H.R. 1, a proposal to slash many important services during the current fiscal year.  This includes a nearly 22.4 percent cut to Head Start that would result in over 200,000 children losing services nationally (approximately 27,000 in California) and many Head Start employees losing their jobs.  The House will be debating and voting on the bill this week.

To be clear, this is not about ARRA expansion slots.  This is about core program funding in the current, FY 2011 budget.


Up until now, rhetoric in Washington about budget cutting has been in the abstract.  Now that House leaders have abruptly placed Head Start on the chopping block, we need to respond.  If adopted, this would be the largest cut in the history of Head Start.


Send an email today to your Member(s) of Congress urging them not to cut funding for Head Start.  It will only take 30 seconds to complete. Click here to send your Members of Congress the email

Are Hispanics an emerging commuinity?

I work at Early Head Start (EHS) as an intern, and so, I'm turning my blog towards thinking about federal infant and toddler care.  EHS provides developmental services to low-income children and is funded by local and federal sources.  But, knowing that EHS can't possibly serve all of the low-income families in America, how does it identify the populations that it does serve?

Community Assessments.   These are surveys of the level of need in a community which are submitted as part of grant proposals and thus, identifying populations in the community who are eligible for services is directly tied to program funding.  (Head Start centers operate locally, and must apply for federal funds once every three years).  These assessments are complex, long-term processes and, to help centers complete them, a guide to Community Assessments  (5 Steps to Community Assessment) has been published.

The latest version is subtitled: "a workbook for Head Start and Early Head Start programs serving Hispanic and other emerging populations."  But, wait a second, since when are Hispanics an emerging community?  Many of those we would categorize as part of that 'emerging' population have been a part of the population for the entirety of our national history.  Perhaps the writers were too wary of the politically-charged term 'immigrant' to state it outright in the title, but the term is sprinkled liberally throughout the document and from the context, the intention of helping centers locate immigrants with needs for developmental services is clear.

The use of this term de-centers the experience of the Hispanic in America.  Although overtaking caucasians in the national population, the normative experience in America is still that of the white child. The use of a term such as 'emerging' reinforces the concept that this country is dominated by populations other than Hispanic ones as well as displays a bias against the acceptability of immigrant/migrant status.

Here is the link for the Community Assessment guide

Attack of the Fat Babies!

On the one year anniversary of Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative to fight childhood obesity, a new study has come out that links infant obesity to the timing of solid food introduction.  The study found that children introduced to solid foods (eg. cereal, fruit, peanut butter, vegetables, eggs, and meat) before four months of age were more likely to be classified as obese at the age of three.  The researchers also found that children who were breastfed were less likely to be obese at three.

Is it rational to worry about obesity in infants?  Possibly.  There are strong links between childhood obesity and adult obesity, and Oken, et al. (2007) found that the amount of weight gained during pregnancy was correlated with childhood obesity.  Yet studies such as these also smack of media-induced panics, potentially magnifying small effects to improve readership.  Overall, a healthy lifestyle continues to be the best predictor of health throughout life.  Ms. Obama may have the right idea by encouraging Americans to get moving.


Link to the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110207-700064.html

Infant Car Seats on Airplanes

Here is an interesting article about a mother who, after purchasing an additional seat on an airplane for her infant car seat, was escorted off the plane because the seat was too big for the row.  What I find incredible about this is not that this mother was asked to switch flights to a larger airplane, but that the FAA is trying to advance policy that would make it mandatory for parents travelling with infants to buy separate seats for their babies.  Flying is expensive as hell these days, and it's no secret that airlines are struggling to (pardon the pun) stay afloat.  Is this a case of genuine concern for child safety?  Or another money-making scheme that plays off of parents' worst fears?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2014090462_webchildseats31.html

By the way... the odds of dying in a car crash during your life are about 1 in 158.

And the odds of dying in a plane crash during your life? 1 in 66,000.


**UPDATE**

January 28th, 2011: Green Bay Packers fan needs Super Bowl ticket for infant

Issues such as this face new parents on a daily basis, yet so many policies surrounding infants and young children are based on financial, rather than developmental or family-first rational.  This blog will focus on matters of policy that affect young children and their families, and seek to provide an alternate perspective on the policies that shape our lives.