Taking Care Of The Children Essay, Research Paper

Taking Care of the Children

Last year I was able to work with a group to teach others about issues dealing with the children of today. I was approached by a group to put on an eight-hour seminar that concerns children. No one was sure what they wanted except that it would be with a church group that had a day care that operated during the day. I decided to take on the project and began to do my research.

The topic of children brings up a lot of different areas that you can go. At first, I started on a safety lecture that dealt with the home and school type setting. Dealing with automobile safety and bicycle safety. I then looked at issues that were in the local papers. What really is upsetting is the violence that children suffer from. I lectured on recognizing and reporting child abuse and how it related to domestic violence. I wanted to make sure that I did a thorough job, so I contacted the group that asked for the training. They told me they wanted to also know about childhood illnesses, how they contracted them and the general course of treatment. The course was beginning to grow. I still felt that I had a lot to learn. This was a first for me. I had written other courses but this one was new to me. I have two children and I tried to relate it to things that I wished I had known before they were born. I finally looked at the way children learn and briefly discussed learning disabilities and found information on helping to stimulate a child to learn.

As the day approached, I knew that I had just about finished what I wanted to teach. It was going to be a busy day, I had my agenda planned and was almost set. I called the church to find out how many were actually going to attend so that I would have enough materials on hand to give to everyone. I was now in for a big shock. As I was telling the owner of the training agency I work for about the outline, she was calling and letting the daycare know. They were going out and letting parents and other day care centers know about the day long seminar. What started out as training for about twenty people, was now over 200. This was going to be a challenge. I had planned to break up into several groups for part of the training and walk around as they discussed information being taught. Now I was going to need several other people to help run the groups. The final day when I arrived, the auditorium was filled and I was told that they wanted to set up another one for the next month. The individual lectures went off without any difficulty. The day turned out to be a success. I may not have been an authority on many of the topics but I was able to put out information that was available. I was asked to provide the training twice more over the next couple of months. It was a true learning experience for me. I feel it has made me a better parent as well as a better educator.