1st Trip to Chuchk-E-Cheese

14th Feb, 2009

 

Categories, Opposites and Manners

Xuanie is fast growing. Can’t always note down every progress, which to me (and probably just me alone) is super exciting.

He likes to categorize things by colors and size. Last evening, he brought his little fluffy blue dinosaur and held it against my pants and said, “Yi yang” (the same). He does similar things with his cars. Red things are his favorites. 

I found a poor little McQueen lying hidden underneath old leaves and dirt on a street where I parked. I took it home and cleaned it up. Now Xuanie has 2 little McQueens, one which is “ang zang” (dirty) and the other “gan jing” (clean). He likes to contrast them side by side.

He has also learned some manners (not that he’s anywhere close to being genteel). He often says, “Xie xie” to me when I pass him food or things. And, it’s always appended with the English version “Thank you.” 

Children have so much to learn, and when they progress, care-givers can feel so much joy. They are a gift from God to us, for they are so full of life and enthusiasm for almost everything. It’s like Springtime! I hope all little children will be loved and well-cared for. It’s the way to a better world.

What’s Mama’s name?

Xuanie does not know yet that his first name is Oscar.  Ask him “what’s your name?” and he replies, “I Xuanie” or “Wo Shi Xuanie” in Chinese. He says Papa is “bear” and Mama’s name is “Oscar.” We have tried a few times to say he is also Oscar, but he seems to think Oscar is the 3rd person in the family, and since he does not quite get my name yet, assumes that Mama must be Oscar.

Training of teachers at daycare centers

Here’s an excerpt from an article on daycare teachers’ training:

The death of 16 month old Benjamin Kingan on January 14, at the Minee Subee in Lincolnshire, raises concerns about the level of training day-care workers receive. A parent and co-worker raised concerns about the suspect, Melissa Calusinski, when she worked at an Arlington Heights daycare location. No apparent follow-up was provided. 

How can parents be sure a day-care provider is safe? What type of training do day-care aides receive? The answer is scary—very little.

 

After speaking with receptionists at two well-known daycare providers, no training is required for aides. It seems an industry standard that only a high school diploma, background check, and references are required. The Illinois DCFS website does not require much more of day-care aides. After the aide is hired some procedural training may be given annually.

 

Hopefully with the death of Benjamin Kingan, more attention will be paid to the training of day-care assistants and teachers. Of course, this attention seems unlikely. Aides make little more than ten dollars per hour. To require more training, many demand higher salaries. Day-care is already expensive.

The care and nurturing of a child are of the utmost importance. But it is of no real surprise that staff, who receive little or no training about child-care, might become enraged and unable to deal with a crying child.

I am happy Xuanie is out of daycare. That facility he was at hired A LOT of teacher aides who are college-students or even younger. In the afternoons, his “regular” teachers have gone home, and these aides are the ones watching the kids. Many a time, I saw them looking helpless and frustrated as the strain of the day takes its toll on the little ones and they become more hyper-active or cranky.

Daycare

Babies and Toddlers can be super annoying. They cry, they poop, they pee, they splatter, they destroy things etc etc. That’s because they are small and helpless. That’s because they are tiny beings unable to handle the world like we adults can. That’s because they are just learning the skills we adults take for granted ……

SO, if you ever want to be a teacher for young children, you had better be prepared for the worst!!

What’s my point? If you don’t genuinely love children, and by that, I mean you love them despite their senseless and incessant screaming,  despite their being dirty etc etc . . . and even if you genuinely love children, you had better be properly trained how to handle them physically, and emotionally, at the least. (Parents generally don’t pin high hopes on daycare teachers to provide too much of any intellectual education, so that part may be optional.)

Why am I blogging about this? Because I am deeply saddened by yet another baby who died at the hands of a care-giver who was entrusted with the responsibility of at least making sure the baby stays alive till his mother gets off work and pick him up from the daycare facility.

Mid-January, Baby Benjamin (1.5 year old) died after his daycare teacher hurled him to the ground in anger because he was noisy. He picked himself up, crawled up his bed and pulled the blanket over himself, and then never woke up. That’s in a Chicagoan suburb. He died of a fractured skull and internal bleeding.

I’m a mother. My heart aches whenever I hear/read of stories like this.

I have lots of things to say about daycare licensing and teacher-training. But, maybe not now . . . 

If anyone is reading this ever gets into a position to make a decision to protect a child, please do your part. Too many daycare centers have substitute teachers who are young and doing it merely to earn extra cash. The teachers are probably overworked, as childcare is a labor-intensive industry, but daycare owners want to cut costs whenever they can, so they hire the least number of teachers possible, and hire the cheapest teachers possible, to cater to the most number of kids possible.

The teacher in question is only 22. Much as I sympathize with her, I cannot but feel outraged. Who else has responsibility?

Daycare owners who are profit-minded are child abusers in one sense. Public centers often have  too little funds to manage well.  Child Services Dept should have more stringent rules . . . at the very least, those who are merely looking to earn extra cash should be advised to do waitressing, not handle babies or children.

Now that Xuanie is out of his daycare center, I will probably write something about the daycare facility, later.

To clarify a recent post

Got a response about a recent post, about the song ”他喜欢的是你.”

Hmm, well, that song makes me think of that girlfriend who kindly recommended me that song when I was down. Oh, those years when I lived single and with all those supportive floor-mates in the dorm. I miss those girlfriends and the time we spent together.

That song has a very catchy tune. Maybe I’ll upload it if I figure out how to, and if I get hold of the song. I post it because I like the song a lot. I sing and dance to it very often. And I think it’s melo-dramatic and funny.

Finally, that post has nothing to do with that guy . . . oh no, I mean, water under the bridge. YEARS ago. It’s UNimaginable that I should even have any more feelings for him. Yikes.

I know this is very trivial, and I really hope never to have to clarify myself this way again.

X. misses his papa

B. is away on a ski trip. 

Xuanie woke up this morning saying “Papa no” and shook his head. Later at breakfast, he grabbed my cell-phone, held it to his ear, and said, “Papa come back.”

I’m a little saddened that he’s going to be missing his papa even more when we go away to Asia, just X. and I, for more than two months.