Typical personality
- Quiet and thoughtful
- Shows sense of responsibility
Common problems
- Forgets instructions
- Sex play but occurring less often
8 Years
Physical development
- Play fairly lively
- Sporting skills develop
General behaviour
- Dresses
- Sleeps
- Talks to strangers
- Eats well
- Team sports
- Drawings show some proportion and perspective
Language
- Reads well
- Learns joint up writing
- Can do math’s fairly well
- Can subtract 2 or 3 digit numbers
Typical personality
- Self reliant
- Sociable
- Outgoing
- Active
- Aware of own failures
- Popularity
- Success is of importance
Common problems
- Failure hard to cope with
- Tempted to cheat
- Does not finish task
- May cry if failure is mentioned
9 Years
Physical development
- Adapt with hands and fingers
- Skills in sport and music become more evident
General behaviour
- Well behaved
- Perseveres in work or play
- Self sufficient
- May enjoy being alone
Language
- Basic technique in reading
- Writing
- Math’s
- Reads stories
- Writes brief letters
Typical personality
- Sensible
- Self motivated
- May be shy
- May talk about sex
- Interested in body organs and their functions
- Less afraid of dark
- Not afraid of water
Common problems
- Worried
- Anxious
- Physical complaints
- Rebels against authority
- Sex swearing beginning
10 Years
Physical development
- Has natural command of basic physical skills such as dressing, feeding, ball games and bike riding
General behaviour
- Acts like a little adult
- Able to shop alone
- Go to school camps
Language
- Reads well
- Good math’s
- Writes stories up to a page in length
Typical personality
- Cool
- Calm
- Peaceful age
- Accepts parents words as law
Common problems
- Interest in smutty jokes
- Name calling
- May fight with siblings
11/12 Years
Physical development
- Early adolescence
- Rapid physical change
- Pubic hair
- Breasts
- Pimples
General behaviour
- Develops strong sexual feeling
- Experiments and takes risks
Language
- Continues developing language and numerical skills
Typical personality
- Impulsive
- Strong emotions
- Large mood swings
- Self conscious
- Relates to age mates
Common problems
- Takes risks
- Rebellious
- Over sensitive
- Over optimistic
- Confident
- Unrealistic
- Preoccupation with sexual matters
- Doesn’t want to join in family activities
5 Year Olds
Looking at 5 year olds, there is a cheerful, energetic and enthusiastic aura around them. They can work out basic colours, enjoys riddles and jokes, enjoys stories and can draw pictures that represent animals, people and objects. Physically 5 year olds are becoming more active and their hand to eye co-ordination is a lot more evident for example cuts on lines with scissors, uses knife and fork well and can catch and throw balls.
Five-year-olds like to play with such toys as play dough, glue, scissors, paper, pens, puppets, dolls, trucks, cars and large cardboard boxes. So probably the best-suited activity for them would be a workshop type activity, For example, have many different options for what they want to do, as they can be very indecisive. Almost like a day care centre where they can either choose to take part in ball games or peddle trucks outside or listen to stories whilst they use their imagination to draw, sculpt or colour in what they want.
Children at this age often like to use their imagination and create their own games so leaving them to play what they would like to play is often a good method of trying to promote sharing and social development. If leaving the children to play what they want does not work then organised games such as races and other competitive games would please them to no end.
6-8 Year Olds
Six to eight year olds start a steady pace of growing and learning realising that real tasks and activities overtake pretends and fantasy. Children of this age are ready to initiate in projects, problem solving and resolve arguments. They also become a little more adventurous and start to play with toys such as skateboards, bikes, construction sets, camping and sporting equipment and musical instruments.
Also enjoying planning and building whilst their ability to problem solve increases dramatically. So perhaps a well suited activity for six to eight year olds would be problem solving as they enjoy testing their own muscle strength, showing strong desires to perform well and seeks a sense of security in group-organised play
However this must be done very carefully as children of this age find criticism or failure very difficult to handle and usually only see things as black and white with very little compromise.
9-11 Year Olds
Nine to eleven year olds tend to find friendships and accomplishments a lot more important using secret codes, made up languages and passwords to strengthen the bonds. They also tend to think that they do not need adult care or supervision so a great deal of patience is needed.
It is a difficult age for children as girls may start to menstruate and grow breasts and are generally seen to be as much as two years ahead of boys in physical maturity. Whereas boys have increased body strength and start to show signs of pubic hair, also showing improved co-ordination and reaction time.
Mentally, children of this age group start developing a special interest in hobbies, enjoys planning and organising tasks whilst becoming more product and goal orientated. They also enjoy activities with more complex rules with a sense of adventure.
I feel that climbing would be a suited activity for this age range as it brings out communication, friendship and teamwork amongst peers. However this should be in a controlled environment as children of this age tend to defy adult authority, and can tease, joke or show off in front of the opposite sex whilst even being cruel to other children with harsh put downs or snide remarks.
Task 2
Legal and welfare requirements
In General
Abuse: Abuse can happen wherever young people are and comes in many different forms, but it is not only young people that suffer abuse, for example the disabled, adults or anyone! The effects of abuse are very damaging and disturbing, if left untreated it has been known to follow through to adulthood. The outcome of not treating something as damaging as abuse could lead to an unstable life and could ultimately become involved with drugs, prostitution, attempting suicide or even the abuse of a child in the future.
It is important for staff or trained people dealing with a case of abuse to deal with it in the right and proper way. See appendices for incident report.
Safeguarding trust:
- Children matter, they should be valued, listened to and have their rights respected.
- Those who work with children should also be valued, supported and have their rights respected.
- There should be correct procedures in place to deal with alleged or suspected cases of child abuse. The child’s welfare should be the paramount consideration.
- Guidelines should be provided for those who work with children. This should include procedures for the assessment, appointment and monitoring of workers.
Principles of good practise
Childcare professionals and voluntary organisations have identified many principles of good practise for the protection of children. These principles of good practise, state that all voluntary organisations working with children should:
- Promote the general welfare, health and development of children and strive to protect them from abuse of all kinds.
- Recognise that children have rights as individuals and treat them with dignity and respect.
- Raise awareness of the abuses from which children should be protected.
- Adopt and consistently apply a clearly defined method of recruiting, assessing and selecting staff and volunteers.
- Develop effective procedures for dealing with accidents and complaints and alleged or suspected incidents of abuse.
- Establish links with parents and other relevant organisations.
Local authority support for children and families
Provision of services for children and their families
- It shall be the general duty of every local authority:
- To safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need; and
- To promote the upbringing of such children by their families, by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs.
There are many different child protection organisations that I could write about, however I will only write about a couple of these as they more or less have the same aims and objectives.
NSPCC
NSPCC + Child protection research = Increasing understanding of abuse
The NSPCC Child Protection Research group carries out research on Child protection and child welfare into the causes, effects and prevention of abuse. Their aim is to increase professional and public understanding of the issues involved and to improve the knowledge that underlies policy and services for children and families. They take particular importance on listening to the view and experiences of children and those who care for them.
The research that they have gained influences the child protection policy and practise within and outside the NSPCC, which are communicated to practitioners, policymakers and the government through publications, conferences and the media.
ChildLine
ChildLine is a free 24-hour helpline based in the UK for children in distress or danger. Trained workers (volunteer counsellors) Comfort, advise and protect children who may feel they have nowhere else to go or no one else to turn to. Unfortunately every day around 4,000 children call ChildLine, but due to the lack of funds only approximately 1,800 of the calls can be answered and put through to the workers to be comforted, advised and protected.
Children call about a wide range of things, but the most common problems are abuse (sexual and physical), bullying, serious family conflicts, worries about friends’ welfare and teenage pregnancy.
Since ChildLine first started in 1986,It has saved Children’s lives, found refuges for children in danger on the streets, and has given hope to thousands of children who were once lost and alone. Since then ChildLine has counselled and helped over a million children and young people.
Organisations such as these help not only children but also the adults who work with children supplying them with advice and how to treat children of all ages. So these organisations are very important to anyone involved with children and the children themselves, If you were to enter a job that involved working with children then you should always ask for a copy of their code of conduct, procedures and a child protection information booklet (if available).
