Child and Adolescent Health Essay

The two most important factors influencing adolescent’s developments are psychological and environmental factors. As they grow, they are influenced by environmental factors such as religion, culture, Schools and religion. The psychological factors that influence their development includes cognitive and emotional factors (Hall & Braverman, 2014). Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

In the western society, what is missing that would benefit health promotion for the adolescents is a focused attention on the diseases most adolescents experience, and the risk factors with their root causes. Moreover, another missing factor in the western society is emphasis on prevention since mostly they concentrate on curing or treatment than prevention, yet prevention is cost effective (Merrick, 2014). Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

The health problems faced by the adolescents impact their health and wellness in several ways in their lifetime. An adolescent who uses tobacco, has unhealthy eating behavior, uses alcohol and other drugs, has inadequate exercise or engages in sexual behaviors that may result to sexually transmitted infections’ and unwanted pregnancy may negatively impact their lives (Hall & Braverman, 2014). Some of the effects of the health problems faced by the adolescents which may impact their health and wellness include lung cancer, obesity or underweight, high blood pressure, and even contracting the incurable HIV virus or being early mothers. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

There are several areas that must be addressed when taking sexual history of adolescents. According to Hal & Braverman, (2014), “5 Ps” are used as a general guide for taking the sexual history of adolescents.

Partners- questions should ask the sex, number and concurrency, sex partners of the adolescents

Practices-the nurse should explore sexual activity types that the adolescent pained engages in such as oral, anal and anal sex

Protection- the questions should ask about the teenager’s use condoms and the circumstances making it easier or harder to use he condoms. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Past history of STD-the nurse should ask about the STD history of the teenager. These includes whether the teens has ever contracted the STDs in Pregnancy.

Prevention-lastly, the nurse should ask the teenager whether they want to be pregnant and discuss the future and current contraceptives (Hall & Braverman, 2014).

In conclusion, psychological and environmental factors are the two most important factors that influence adolescent’s developments. Focused attention on the diseases experienced by the adolescents and emphasis on prevention is lacking in the western society. Moreover, there are several health problems adolescents face that impact their health and wellness in several ways in their lifetime. Lastly, when taking sexual history, one need to consider the partners, practice, and protection, past history of STD and prevention. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Toddlers believe rules are absolute and behave out of fear of punishment.

The toddler will respond with good behavior for positive feedback. These values and beliefs are learned. Preschoolers frequently express their values by stating who or what they like or what they want to be when they grow up.

Preschoolers receive modeling of values from involved adults, peers, as they develop their morality. School-Age children’s values come from religion, cultural, and parental values influences. These factors shape a child’s moral development, and concept of right and wrong. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

School-age children are able to make decisions related to moral and ethical issues.

Parents may cater to their toddler when they are misbehaving, giving them more attention when they are bad than when they are good. This make the toddler believe that behaving badly gets their parents attention. Parents need to remember to reward good behavior, and to emphasize rewards for acceptable behavior and minimizing attention for unwanted behavior.

Parents may not have firm and established rules, making it confusing for the toddler to distinguish right from wrong. Peers or inappropriate content on television can negatively influence preschooler’s values and beliefs. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Parents may have a poor morals and value system themselves, inadvertently teaching their preschoolers the same behaviors. School-age children may bend to peer pressure to gain the acceptance of their peers.

School-Age children may cheat due a desire to win, or pressure from their parents and peers to be great.

Short Answer Questions

Address the following based on the above assessment findings. Expected answers will be 1-2 paragraphs in length. Cite and reference outside sources used.

1) Compare and contrast identified similarities as well as differences in expected assessment across the childhood age groups.

Across the stages of development from toddler up to school age children there is a significant difference in the amount of guidance needed and the amount independence required. The differences are evident when examining how each developmental phase interacts and responds within each health assessment pattern. Toddler and preschool children need more structure and routine, whether it’s brushing their teeth or bedtime rituals. School-aged children, on the other hand, require more independence and trust in decisions while still being guided and reassured as the develop their own sense of identity. There are similarities as amongst the age groups as well, such as all of the children moving towards a state of autonomy and the ability to express themselves adequately and be heard by either their parents, their peers, or both. Additionally, all of the different age groups have the need for a structured and healthy home environment in order to grow and develop. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

2) Summarize how a nurse would handle physical assessments, examinations, education, and communication differently with children versus adults. Consider spirituality and cultural differences in your answer.

When the nurse is caring for a child, the nurse must remember that they are essentially caring for the child and the parent (Jarvis, 2012). For a nurse, the assessment, examination and interaction with a child patient offers its own set of challenges and requires a different approach from that of an adult. When dealing the toddler and preschooler, the nurse should visit with the parent first, letting the child size the nurse up. The nurse can assess child on how they interact and react to the parent and the nurse. This allows the child to see that the caregiver has accepted and trusts the nurse. For the toddler and the preschooler, the parent will be providing most, if not all of the health history. When beginning the physical assessment on the child, move slow and approach them slowly while seeming happy and unthreatening. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

The nurse should allow the child to hold instruments, like a stethoscope, during the physical exam to help them feel like they are involved in their own care. Having parents there add security and support for children, and also can help with the ease of assessing the child without them realizing that they are being assessed. With children of each stage of development, the nurse must be cognizant of verbal and non-verbal cues provided by the child. The nurse should be mindful that there could be cultural and/or spiritual considerations to take into account, like when undressing a child of the opposite sex.

The nurse needs to ensure that the caregiver and the child feel comfortable. With both children and adults, assessment should start with least invasive and progress leaving most invasive last. School-Age children should be assed like either children or adults depending on their developmental age. Adult assessment can be more direct than that of a child. Ask adults open ended questions, listen to their complaints, and educate as needed. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

I am required to carry out an assignment on Equality and Diversity. My aim is to understand more about equality and diversity and to understand about discrimination, bias and prejudice. I will be including laws and regulations for equality and diversity in ECCE settings, for example the equal status act 2000-2004 and the UN Convention on the rights of the Child 1989. I will also discuss with my supervisor in my workplace about what measures they have in place to in order that equality and diversity is in place in the setting. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

I will also make some suggestions on how to improve an anti-bias childcare environment. My aim is also to highlight activities that could benefit the setting and in which the setting ct is important for me as the student to understand and recognise the importance of equality and diversity in the setting and to understand myself when the day comes when I want to pursue my career in childcare that where improvements need to made in the ECCE setting I will be able to recognise where changes need to be and it will also help me on my knowledge of the laws that are in place for E

Equality and Diversity

Equality refers to therecognise different individuals needs and of ensuring equity in terms of access, participation and benefiting all children and their families. It is therefore not about treating all people the same. Equality is an essential characteristic of quality in ECEC. It is there to support all children’s development in Ireland. Equality is that every child’s needs are recognised and supported. Diversity refers to the diverse nature of society for example on terms of social class, gender, returned Irish emigrant, family status, minority groups and the majority groups. Diversity is that the differences in people such as gender, race, age, language, sexual orientation, religion and family structure. it states that quality in ECEC settings acknowledge and respect diversity and ensure that all children their families have their individual, personal, cultural and linguistic identity validates. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Summary “Why Universal Childcare? ” is a great title for an article such as this one. The question enters the reader into a vast pool of potential answers to the question. First off, what does universal childcare mean? For me, I believe that universal childcare means all around childcare, not only in a general sense, but all over the map childcare. Most people don’t see a problem with childcare in Canada, but it seems as if there are some issues pertaining to the system of childcare in Canada.Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

“In a country of close to five million children of 0-12 years of age, Canada now has

fewer than 900,000 regulated childcare spaces. The percentage of children for whom a space is available increased only to 17. 5 percent about a 10 percent increase over the past fifteen years”. (Prentice, 2009, p. 1). A frequent problem most organizations/programs run into is often funding the programs. Without funding, the programs usually suffer and do not meet the maximum amount of care and quality that it should be able to meet. Along with this, the childhood educators/childcare providers may be undertrained. “The quality of the care is frequently troubling: limited public financing forces programs to operate as

cheaply as possible, and requirements for programs are low. The early childhood educators who provide the care are underpaid and often undertrained. Overall, Canada’s early childhood education and care situation suffers from chronic neglect. ” (Prentice, 2009, p. 1). Another reason why this situation may come across as shocking to most people, is because Canada is an extremely wealthy country, so you could expect Canada to have a very strong childcare programs. Childcare programs are always changing, they have changed drastically in the last few years, most. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

programs are now looking for ways to interpret ways of learning and more social support for children. “ECEC (Early Childcare Education and Care) is about an integrated and coherent approach to policy. It is about providing care that includes all children and all children regardless of employment or socio-economic status. ” (Prentice, 2009, p. 4). Integrating social support and learning into these childcare programs will expand the knowledge and adaptability of children when entering their later childhood educations. The history of childcare helps explain why today childcare programs are poorly put together.

“The origins of childcare were in philanthropy and benevolence. From the mid- nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, most of what we know today as childcare programs were provided by educational, philanthropic, or religious organizations, often led by prominent women. ” (Prentice, 2009, p. 71). Women were the ones who normally ran the childcare centers, but as we see today, women are entering the paid workforce. The governments did not play a role back then, hence they did not play a part in the responsibility.

Today, we count on the government to help fund and organize these programs, which is still a developing task. After World War II, the federal government stopped funding childcare. This lead out into outbursts which lead to : The Day of Nurseries Act, which became Canada’s first provincial legislation. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

This lead to the number of childcare programs expanding. We saw a leading change in childcare happen in 2006, when the Harper Conservatives made childcare one of their five leading promises. “In the 2006 election the Harper Conservatives made childcare one of their five leading promises”. (Prentice, 2009, p. 84. ). Unfortunately, what was promised to parents never happened.

Childcare disappeared in importance. How were parents supposed to trust anyone with their ‘childcare money’? “Following the cancellation of the national childcare plan, childcare space expansion showed the smallest increase in regulated child care in some years: an increase of only 26,661 spaces since 2006. ” (Prentice, 2009, p. 86). The author is trying to show the reader the importance of history, and how the little things contribute to how childcare as a whole has developed over the years. Also, the importance of funding programs for childcare. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Understand the importance of equality and inclusion

1a. What is meant by diversity

The term ‘diversity’ means difference. Diversity recognises that though people have things in common with each other, they are also different and unique in many ways. Diversity is about recognising and valuing those differences. Diversity consists of visible and non-visible factors, which include personal characteristics such as background, culture, personality and work-style in addition to the characteristics that are protected under discrimination legislation in terms of race, disability, gender, religion and belief, sexual orientation and age. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

By recognising and understanding our individual differences and embracing them, we can create a productive environment in which everybody feels valued.

1b. What is meant by equality

Equality means treating people in a way that is appropriate for their needs. This could mean if someone had say a disability you need to treat them in the same way as you would another person, without showing them up but adapt the help you provide.

1c. What is meant by inclusion

Inclusion is about equal opportunities for all families, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity, attainment and background. It pays particular attention to the provision made for, and the achievement of, different groups of pupils within a school. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

1d. What is meant by discrimination

Read more: Importance of inclusive practice essay

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. For example, religion, skin colour.

1.2 Describe ways in which discrimination may deliberately or inadvertently occur in the work setting Indirect Discrimination: Indirect discrimination occurs when policies and practices, which appear fair because they are applied to everyone, but turn out to disadvantage people and particular groups within society. For example, if a job advertisement states that applicants must be able to drive then this could put a certain people at a disadvantage, such as those with a disability. Or, for example you may have a school display every year to celebrate Christmas because the majority of the children would be classed as ‘white’ ‘’Christian’, however if other faiths and celebrations are not represented then smaller groups could be discriminated against. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper

Positive Discrimination: Positive discrimination is regarded as the preferential treatment of members of a minority group over a majority group, either by sex, race, age, marital status or sex orientation. So for example if you were to allow a particular less represented group of children over another to perform a task this is classed a positive discrimination.

Racial Discrimination: If a practitioner has particular views concerning race or even religion, these views could be used in the setting unintentionally to have a negative or positive influence in a situation or particular child.

Stereotypes: A practitioner may intentionally or intentionally categorise children in a particular way. This could be for example, boys play with cars and girls dolls. Child and Adolescent Health Essay Paper