EEB309: Children Wellness and Well-Being - Case Study Assessment Answer

Subject Name : Education

Childrens wellness and well-being

EEB309 Assessment 2 Case Study Template
Childrens wellness and well-being
Overview
Atta is a 4 year old boy who is obese. He has the bad habits of eating sugary biscuits, chocolates and crisps. He hardly goes out to play and has started to face difficulty in standing without aid. His parents cannot afford fresh vegetables on their income and give him his favourite food like crisps and chocolates to eat. The childrens wellness and well-being and its related socialization and environmental influences are discussed in detail below.
Identify the socialisation influences (for example, family, peers, media) that could be contributing the wellness and wellbeing issues outlined in the case study. Identify strategies that early childhood staff and leadership could implement to address these socialisation influences to promote childrens wellness and wellbeing in the early childhood setting
The social influences that are outlined in the case study that could contribute to the wellness and well-being of the children are the family members and the media. The mother and father should teach their son to eat right at the long day care and should replace the chocolates and crisps with fruits and vegetables. What occurs to children in their early phases has consequences all through the lifes path, so the children must be taught correct eating habits right from the childhood (vant Riet, Sijtsema, Dagevos amp De Bruijn, 2011).A study shows that good relationship between the parents and educators at daycares have a positive impact on the childrens well-being and their eating habits (Pirchio, Tritrini, Passiatore amp Taeschner et al., 2013). When the family eats together, children tend to eat more nutritious food and are less likely to be overweight (UK Green Building Council, 2016). The second socialization influence could be the media. Atta watches the television while eating meals. Television could be used as a potential contributor in promoting wellness and well-being (Guillen-Royo 2019). The media can be used because of increasing use of technology by children and young people. Highlighting the impacts on well-being, range of good practice and opportunities available on the TV could contribute in learning about the wellness of children (Pirchio et al., 2015).The parents need to educate the children to watch such programmes that highlight the wellness and well-being of children. The parents should take him out to the park regularly or atleast make him work physically. A healthy child is the one who is physically active. According to Len Saunders, exercise releasesendorphinsthat correlates to a happy child (Healthline, 2019). Physical exercise is a must for children who are battling obesity or any other related disorder.
Apart from this, the family itself is also a major socialization issue that is contributing to the problem. Attas mother and father are promoting bad eating habits unintentionally by giving their son all sort of luxuries when it comes to food. Moreover, it should also be noted that Atta, Aminah and Farshan do not have many friends in the area due to which Atta has cut off from the social world of friends. This is also contributing towards the fact that Atta has started to enjoy isolation with the sweet meals provided by Amina and Farshad. Early childhood staff and leadership should implement various strategies to address these socialization influences to promote childrens wellness and well-being in the early childhood settings. The early childhood staff includes the family, teachers and educators. Atta spends the majority of his time in long-day daycare centre. For childrens optimum development, the teacher and the child are trusting and caring relationship is essential (Naeyc, 2018). The teacher should acknowledge the good behaviour. They should regularly monitor and inform the parents about the eating habits. They should make the habit of children to eat healthy and vegetables and fruits in every meal. The long day care centre should promote the physical activity in children by playing few fun activities. They need to make time for teacher-led (structured) and free-play (unstructured) activities (The Nemours Foundation, 2019).The fun activities, games, plays, actions and exploring several emotional and physical environments and experiences should be encourages in children at their pre-school (Barbosa ampOlivieria, 2016). The family should make sure that all the members eat together on the table and not watching television while eating. The nutritious food should be served on the table and junk food should be restricted. This helps in child consuming more of nutritious food. Parents and family members should take them out to the park and the ground to play and make friends. The staff at the long day care center should monitor the childs habits of talking, eating, socializing, exercising and so on and keep updating them to the parents. The parents should monitor what the child is watching on television and help them in switching to correct channels. The children should also be monitored on the way they behave with their friends and peers. At long day care centre, all children together should be made to eat and play so that seeing others the one can imbibe those habits (Cason, 2006).
It is also recommended that Attas parents take an initiative to socialise more with people residing in the nearby area or within their respective communities. Socialising with other people will have a positive impact on the life of Atta indirectly as Atta may get a friend with this initiative. This will ultimately ensure that Atta is involved in physical activities and Attas overall lifestyle may change as well.
Identify the environmental influences (for example, aspects of the physical environment) that could be contributing the wellness and wellbeing issues outlined in the case study. Identify strategies that early childhood staff and leadership could implement to address these environmental influences to promote childrens wellness and wellbeing in the early childhood setting.
The environmental influences that could be contributing to the wellness and well-being issues in children are the aspects of physical environment. As outlined in the case study, Atta and his mother do not go to the local playground because of its poor state. The playground is scourged. This restricts the child from playing outside and making friends. This way, his physical and mental growth is delayed because he does not get a chance to go to the playground and play. The physical environment around the child starts right from his family. The parents are giving him to eat every junk that he likes to eat. The father is so busy that he is unable to spend time with the family. Fathers involvement influences the childrens health and development (Yogman amp Garfield, 2016). The father and mother both have individual as well as parental roles to play in childs wellness and well-being. According to the social-ecological model, the environmental determinants of the wellness are the housing conditions, poverty and so on (Henderson- Wilson, 2012). The family is poor and cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables. The environment around the child influences him the most. In this case study, the childs father has no time for the family, mother is feeding the child with his favourite food always that includes the sweet biscuits, chocolates and crisps. The mother does not take him out to the local playground and they both watch television while having the dinner together. The staff at long day care is concerned about him being obese but they are also not taking any action. They do not force the child to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. The physical environment around the child is very bad and is the major contributing factor to the childs wellness and well-being issue in this case. Moreover, the neighbours make racist comment against him so overall physical environment is not good around the child. This is making Atta and the family live in complete isolation since they do not have any peer support. The strategies that early childhood staff and leadership could implement to address these environmental influences to promote childrens wellness and wellbeing in the early childhood setting are as follows. The physical environment around the child starts the environment at home. The optimum nutrition in the early life leads to healthy future. The cornerstone of good health is a well balanced, adequate diet in combination with the regular physical activity (NHP, 2016). Even though the workplace gives no pays paternity leaves, the father should once in a while take an off from work and spend time with their children. This not only boosts up the childs well-being but also their mental state (Yogman amp Garfield, 2016).The families living in the most deprived areas and surrounded by bad environment around them has a direct link with the childs bad health and well-being as no social support or peer support makes an individual isolated that results in poor health outcomes (Pouliou et al., 2015). The physical environment should be improved. The neighbours should be cooperative and friendly so that the children together can play and have daily sessions of physical exercise regularly. The EC staff should focus on improving Attas social and interpersonal skills so that he can easily make friends. The long day care centre staff should be alert about the health and should make sure that the Atta gets along with other children well and plays with them. In this regard, it is recommended that EC staff arranges for play activities like hide and seek, poem recitation etc that are to be done in a group. This practice will help Atta and other children with similar or closely similar situation to make new friends. He should never be isolated because that may have a bad impact on his mental and physical health. Outdoor games can be arranged by the EC staff to make children engage in physical activities. There are various benefits of nature contact on the childs health and well-being. The trees and natural areas are the important elements of health communities for children. Multiple scale integration is required at homes, backyards, schools, child care centers and rough ground for childrens creative play (Chawla, 2015). These factors can be integrated in the play and learning environment by the EC staff.
Identify the equity issues that could be contributing the wellness and wellbeing issues outlined in the case study. Identify strategies that early childhood staff and leadership could implement to address these equity issues to promote childrens wellness and wellbeing in the early childhood setting
The equity issues that could be contributing to the wellness and wellbeing issues in children are first the visit to the local playground. The local playground should be used by all. When Atta and his mother go to the playground to play, they face the racist comments that are made for them because that local playground is primarily used by the white people. The second issue contributing to the wellness of child as outlines in the case study is that the fellow children in the long day care make negative comments on him seeing him obese. They make fun of him when he is not able to stand up after being seated on the floor without aid. The equity issues are the impartial behaviour of the children, parents, society and anyone around that makes us feel isolated and different. Racial discrimination is one of the biggest issues that could hamper the childrens growth both physically and mentally (Hwang amp Gotto, 2009). As outlined in the case study, Atta is unable to go out to local playground and play and therefore gets restricted to home. His outdoor activity has got restricted due to the racial comments. The mother is bound to not take him out despite of him being obese. Similarly, at long day care the negative comments about his weight and related physical inability hampers his social behaviour as he looks different than other children. The small children are unaware of the ethical and social behaviour and they just make negative comments on the basis that Atta looks different than all of them. His obesity has become a source of discrimination for him. The racial discrimination is faced by the entire family on the use of the local playground that is supposedly be used by only the white people. The strategies that early childhood staff and leadership could implement to address these equity issues to promote childrens wellness and well-being in the early childhood setting are as follows. Attas mother still should take him to the local playground and play with him. She needs to conce-more on the health of her own child and think about his well-being. In such cases of racial discrimination, one should seek an organizations help to answer the people who makes such racist comments and should report to them. If someone experiences racism throughout their lifespan, it can overwhelm their health functionality (The Conversation, 2018). The racist comments should be ignored or else should be answered politely by telling them to resolve the barriers between them. In this regard, it is recommended to EC staff that they educate Atta on how to deal with someone who passes a racist comment or any negative comment. This will help Atta in dealing with negative environmental factors in a better way. At long day center care, the mother should inform the staff about the negative comments made on his child and the other children should be taught not to make him feel different rather he should be involved in playing and eating.According to National Quality Framework, standard 2.2 each child is protected. The element 2.2.3 says that the educators and staff should be well aware of their responsibilities to identify the child at risk and respond accordingly (Australian Children Education and care Quality Authority, 2017).The families of such children should be informed so that they inculcate the right behaviour qualities right from the childhood in their children. The first education of every child starts at home. The parents of these children who looks differently at Atta and make negative comments about him should be taught right values and ethical behaviour so that they grow and become nice individuals. Their nice behaviour will help Atta to be more comfortable with them and he would get involve in physical activities with them. This would improve his physical and mental well-being.
Conclusion
Childrens wellness and well-beingare a major concern these days. There are various socialization, environmental and equity issues that contributes to the wellness and well-being issues in children. There are strategies that should be adopted by the early child staff and the leadership to improve their health and well-being. As outlined in the case study, Atta is an obese child who has bad eating habits. One of the major issues in his bad health is the environmental issues. His parents give him everything to eat that he likes and pay least attention to what should be eaten. His parents should involve him in rigorous physical activities and should spend more time with him. What occurs in the childhood shows consequences all through the life. At such early stage, they should be taught to eat right and nutritious food. All the barriers and challenges to the healthy life should be mitigated using proper methods so that a child can have healthy future.
Mala, you need to ensure that the language you use is formal, objective and less subjective, judgmental. It is important to identify the issues based on the subject readings and modules rather than what you perceive or think the issues are. There is a great need in this case study for quality research and theory to be integrated throughout in a much more substantial way to support all your discussion and recommendations.
When you suggest strategies, these must be supportive, inclusive as well as realistic and practical ways that EC staff and leadership can implement to support Attas wellness and wellbeing. Once again, these must be based on quality research and theory rather than subjective opinion based.

References
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