The Elementary School Child: Physical, Emotional, and Social Development



The Elementary School Child: Physical, Emotional, and Social Development

Introduction

This paper discusses the role of government policies to support the healthy prenatal development that would lead to the fewer number of students with disabilities in the elementary schools. It also analyses the government polices that should support healthy infant, early childhood and child development along with the support for parenting that lead to healthy child development. The role of other stakeholders such as teachers, parents, media and peers in the development of healthy children in elementary schools is also discussed in the paper.

Government Policies to support healthy prenatal development

The government policies to support the healthy prenatal development are the first step on combating the issue of unhealthiness among the students of elementary schools. The pregnant women should be provided with proper health care and nutrition in order to ensure that the children born through those women are healthy and posses less chances for disease and disabilities. Women should receive a proper and efficient prenatal care from the hospitals and the doctors before and after the birth of the baby in order to reduce the chances and probability of low birth weight syndrome and related diseases and disabilities among the children. The initial steps by the government would help in saving the long term cost of health care that might be provided to the elementary school children. If the children receive proper health care before their birth then they would be less vulnerable to the disabilities sand diseases at the time when they reach elementary school level. The malnutrition among the pregnant women is found to be a cause of low birth weight among the infants that probes to be a negative consequence for the rest of their lives if not treated properly. Pregnant women who use to smoke and drink provide a higher level of risk to the infants that would be borne by their fetus. The women having exposure to the drinking and smoking might cause fetal alcohol syndrome that directly affects the baby before his or her birth. These tratogens lead to the unhealthy development of the child inside the womb and the child born would possess a low birth weight. Due to the long term consequences of the unhealthy practices and lack of health care facilities to the pregnant women, the government might have to face a high cost of health are in the long run by treating the elementary school children because they would face difficulty in learning and going through the classroom lectures (Catalano et al., 2009).

Government Policies to support healthy infant, early childhood, and child development

The policies of government to support healthy infants, early childhood and child development should include a less exposure to lead. The high exposure to the lead during and after the birth of the child affects the neurological abilities of the children and it becomes difficult for the child to concentrate and learn the new things in the class ...