Entries For: 2008

This morning when I was walking from my bus to the office, I was coming down a particularly steep hill. Half way down a man on crutches and only one leg came whizzing by me. His empty pant leg was flapping in the breeze as he made his way down the hill. I caught up to him at the traffic light and said “You really negotiate hills well”. He turned to me and smiled, his crutches were now resting on his shoulders and he was balancing on one leg, and he replied “I’m just doing the best I can” The light turned green and he continued, leaving me in the dust. It was interesting to see how people reacted as he went by him. People watched him until he turned the corner. I felt I could read their thoughts. If I was reading them correctly, they were thinking “Wow, would you look at him!”

In this time of the Olympics when we are seeing young people from all countries “do the best they can”, its good to remember all the unheralded folks out there, parents, grandparents, caregivers and all those little kids who may be watching the Olympics and thinking that someday they will be standing on that podium because they did the best that they could.

So to all of you out there, thank you for doing the best that you can.


Jeanne Anderson

Labels for Education Child Care Grants is a program resulting from an innovative partnership joining Campbell’s Labels for Education, Costco Wholesale Corporation and the Foundation for Early Learning. The program has enjoyed  7 great years serving the early learning community in Washington state. The program has been designed to award label credits to child care centers and home care businesses to purchase items that enrich early learning environments. Over the years, up to 10,000,000 labels have been distributed towards materials and supplies and over 3,700 children have benefited!

This July we launched the 12^th round of grants and the program provided outreach to over 900 providers in 12 different counties across Washington!

See below for the Round 12 grants program highlights:

• A total of 27 child care centers/homes were awarded LFE grants.
• 100% of awardees had both STARS training and WA state DEL licensing.
• As many as 18% of teachers had BA degrees relating to early childhood and/or education and 25% had AA degrees.
• 70% of awardees had supplemental credentials, awards or had participated in extra   training.
• Skagit county had the most providers awarded grants with 15 total.
•  A total 813 children ages 0-18 will benefit from these LFE grants.
• 614 of the children served are ages 0-5.
• 452 of the children served also receive state child care subsidies.
• A total of 292 items were ordered from the 2008-2009 LFE Catalog.
• The Silver Rider Tricycle, Cassette Recorder Listening Station and Double Sided Book Display were among the favorite items ordered.

This round was a great success! Round 13 serving King and Snohomish counties has begun and the Foundation will be accepting application through August 22. To learn more, see us on the website or contact Hannah@earlylearning.org.

Summer is here. With the sun and heat comes throwing open the shades and opening a window to help cool off. Yet with all of the joy around summer, I was deeply sadden to read about Honor Cornell Callandert, a two-year-old who fell out of a seventh story window. Seeing Honor’s picture in the newspaper reminded me of Isaiah, my friend’s vibrant toddler; I know I do not want anything harmful to happen to him. Sadly leading up to Honor’s death the newspapers have reported that several other children fell out of windows. Some of the children received bumps and bruises; others had more serious injuries and did not survive.

According to Safe Kids USA, 80-percent of fall-related injuries to children under the age of four happen in the home. Male children have two-times more fall related injuries than females. Harborview Medical Center, a trauma center in Seattle, reported that they treat 40-60 fall related cases a year. Dr. Brian Johnston, chief pediatrician at Harborview, is quoted in the Seattle Times as saying most of the children were supervised at the time of the fall; the falls were not a result of neglect.
Caregivers need to remember that window screens do not offer security. Window screens are meant to keep bugs out and allow air in. Many window screens are purposefully designed to be easily punched out or removed in case of fire. This means that screens are not meant to hold the weight of a baby or toddler. 

Here are several ways to prevent children from falling out of windows:

• Lock all unopened windows.

• Keep chairs, high chairs, beds, furniture, boxes, etc. away from windows.
• Whenever possible open windows from the top not the bottom.
• Be aware of radiators and other built in fixtures that are near windows—teach children not to climb on them.
• Place window guards over windows.

Parents please take the time to child proof your house and windows. While it is easy to put this task off, you never know when an accident can happen. For those of you, who are apartment managers or residential landlords, consider these upgrades as necessary safety precautions. Any window fall is scary to all involved. Falls can be prevented, take the steps to do so today. If you need a reason to child proof your windows, think about two- year-old Honor, I know I will.

For more information on window safety:

Kids Can't Fly brochure by Boston Public Health Commission

Below are several article on window guards:

Window Guards & Stops - Keep Children Safe

Are Your Window Guards Installed Correctly?

A quick note of background:  my favorite (and only) sister, Gabrielle, is expecting her first baby in November.  I can’t wait to be an auntie!

My sister has the kind of focus that allows her to accomplish more in an hour than most people do in a day.  That being said, I leapt at the chance to join her Sunday afternoon at Babies “R” Us to register for baby goodies.  When I arrived, I was assigned the task of pointing and clicking the handheld scanner, while Gabrielle juggled not one but three lists of items her baby would need:

• small items like binkies and Boppies
• large items like a stroller and infant car seat
• items the store carried, but she wanted to try out before adding to her lists

As we methodically wove our way through the aisles, I started feeling overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of products.  This morning, a quick search of the word “diapers” on the Babies “R” Us web site yielded 806 possible matches.  Some of these were actual diapers (cloth and disposable), diaper bags, diaper creams, ointments, wipes, wipe warmers (I had no idea there was such a thing), diaper Genies…You get the picture.

While I scanned and clicked in an ever-growing daze, my sister meticulously flipped between her three lists, deciding between baby first aid kits by the American Red Cross or Johnson + Johnson with seeming ease.  Finally, professional curiosity got the better of me.

“How do you know which one you want?” I asked her.

“I’ve been researching baby stuff online for a couple of weeks,” she replied, sparing me a glance from her notebook as she ticked off another item on her list.

“Is there one web site where you can learn about all of this?”

“There might be, but I looked in a lot of places.”  She rattled off all of the sites she had researched – the American Academy of Pediatrics for infant car seats, the National Parenting Center for baby slings, Consumer Reports for strollers, ConsumerResearch.com for baby monitors. She also read reviews on web sites like Babies “R” Us, Target and Amazon.com to get parents’ real life analyses.  All the while, she exhaustively cross-checked products on multiple sites.

I had ulterior motives for asking about her research.  In the coming months, the Foundation will be rolling out the Early Learning Network, an online forum for parents and experts to interact and share information.  Not everyone has the time to cross-check every item their child needs, but with a web site like the Early Learning Network, parents will have a useful tool for wading through all of the information available on the internet.

Of course, no site or resource will be the final word on any product, every family is different and every child has different needs.  No fewer than three parents made recommendations while we were pondering infant bathtubs.

According to an article in the Seattle Times “Barely in preschool and totally into “High School Musical”,   children as young as three are being swept into the demographics watching the Disney Channel show “High School Musical”. The article goes on to say that children as young as three are now avid fans of a show that is about high school with all the pathos that high school brings. Parents of some of these children have lots of reasons (excuses) for why their toddlers are watching this show. Here are some of my favorites: One mother has three older children who watch the show and she “isn’t sure she could shield her youngest, even if she wanted to” Another parent took his four year old daughter to “High School Musical: The Ice Tour and now she is “hooked”.

A social psychologist who is quoted in the article states it simply “Think before you leap. If you’ve leapt, then cut her off. There are things you have to take a stand on.” Good advice for parents caught in this trap.

The bottom line, and isn’t it always about the bottom line, is that the earlier these children are hooked into these shows and the merchandising that goes with it, the more money the companies make. It bothers me when I go to coffee houses around Seattle and see little children contentedly drinking a high calorie, whipped cream topped hot chocolate. More little customers being indoctrinated into a culture that should be for adults only.

So how are parents supposed to cope? Well, for one-turn off the TV! In the July issue of “Parents Magazine” I found these statistics:

• 74% of kids under two watch TV
• 43% of kids under two watch TV everyday
• 51% of households have their TVs on all or most of the time
• 33% of kids under six have a TV in their room
• 63% of families with TVs have them on during meals
  
• 17 Billion dollars are spent on marketing is targeted to children
   

Our children deserve better. Just because it is easy, doesn’t mean its good for the child. The saddest picture I have seen in awhile was the one in the Parents Magazine. It was of a baby/toddler sitting in front of a TV holding the remote control.

Jeanne