“My Connections to Play”

Growing up as a child, I was lucky enough to experience play in two different scenarios, one with my grandmother in a typical African village and also the other in a city. The play I experienced in my village is totally different from the normal play in the city. During holidays in my village, the older children taught the younger children how to dance in a folktale dance, and also hide and seek around the rubber trees; it was so interesting especially the dance that we look forward to every evening.

In the city, the most common play when I was growing up was playing with dolls and kitchen utensils, and also acting mummy and daddy, and sometimes we act the part of a very mean teacher, with the support and understanding of my friends we were able to act these parts.

The play now and the play when I was growing up are similar, acting roles and pretend play has been around for a very long time the only difference in play now is the more modern play items.

My thought on the role of play throughout childhood and adulthood is that, through play a child is capable to learn and develop both socially and emotionally healthy, confident and friendly, has a good relationship with peers, he or she is able to communicate well and this transcends through adulthood.

Relationship Reflection.

Relationship is a connection, association, or involvement, it can also be defined as connection between persons by blood or marriage (Dictionary.com)

Relationships/partnerships are very important to me, I feel because of a particular relationship or relationships we tend to strive high and keep our expectations very high too, it could be a blood relationship between parents and children or between husband and a wife.

The people I currently have positive relationships and/or partnership with are my children, husband and the teachers of my children.

The relationship between my children, husband and I has been a positive one, as parents we talk with our children in a way that they don’t hold back certain things relating to their academic work. We try as much as possible to create an atmosphere that encourages communication. We make them understand that it is okay to make mistakes, but that should not stop them from working hard to achieve their goals in live. As a mother my children and husband believe in me that when I set out to achieve something I try as much as possible to get to my destination no matter how difficult it may be because quitting is not an option. We basically form a kind of support system within us that keeps us going, knowing fully well that achieving our goals makes everyone of us happy.

The relationship I have with my children’s teachers help me in knowing more about their school work, it helps me to assist my children at home to make them understand better whatever topic they treat on a weekly basis. The factors I believe contributed to developing and maintaining each relationship is, communication, respect for one another, trust, understanding and believing in one another.

One of the challenges to developing and maintaining relationships that I have learned from my experience over time is lack of communication, understanding one another and also putting biases aside, when all these things are deep rooted in someone developing and maintain relationship becomes very difficult.

What I see as special characteristics that makes partnership, is the ability to communicate, and understand that between the two parties, if there is a two-way communication, they will definitely reap the benefits.

As an early childhood educator, my main goal is to help children to get to their fullest potential, and I can only achieve this by involving their parents to be able to be successful. My collaboration with parents makes me an active and reflective contributor because I rely on their input to help bring up their children in a more better way by reflecting on the feedback I get from them as it regards to their children