{"id":1470,"date":"2019-09-23T03:55:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T03:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=1470"},"modified":"2019-09-23T04:54:21","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T04:54:21","slug":"an-interview-with-cynthia-buettner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2019\/09\/23\/an-interview-with-cynthia-buettner\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Cynthia Buettner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Lauren Hoffman, September 9, 2019, 60-minute interview (abridged)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview with Cynthia Buettner | Professor, Department of Human Sciences | Human Development and Family Science<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cynthia Buettner Expert Interview Guide<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

L: One of your publications mentioned the proximal process. I\u2019m still a little unclear about what that is in regard to child development. I understand that the microsystem includes family and home life, but what are the other layers? Could you explain it a bit more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: So Bronfenbrenner was a theorist in a general area of\nhuman ecology. Basically, his position was that human development takes place\nin context. If this is the child that\u2019s developing (draws circle), so you have\nthe most proximal layer (draws circle around the first). There are different\nlayers. So this second layer is what\u2019s going on in the home and the childcare\ncenter that they might be in. What goes on in those environments is influenced\nby what surrounds that (draws another circle around the first and second), by\nwhat happens in the neighborhoods. So, it\u2019s really just these concentric\ncircles in terms of the influences. Out farthest are the policies that would\ndetermine the teacher to child ratio in child care or how in the US we don\u2019t\nsupport child care the way Norway would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just came back from a conference in Europe where I got to\nhang out with people from Finland and Norway and Sweden where parents have a\nyear of parental leave. Then their children go into high quality childcare\nthat’s free, as opposed to here where half of all the people who work in child\ncare qualify for government assistance because we pay them so poorly. So\nbasically Bronfenbrenner\u2019s theory is you know what is going on in this proximal\nprocess, what the things that are happening closest to the child, have the\nlargest impact but all of those things are impacted by the next layer what’s\ngoing on. The neighborhood that the child lives, what sort of policies we have\nat the state and federal level, what sort of subsidies that we provide for childcare,\nand even healthcare regulations. Bronfenbrenner just says that all development\ntakes place in a context and the closest context has maybe the most immediate\nin observable impact, except they’re all impacted it’s part of systems thinking.\nI mean nothing happens by itself, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: Exactly. And I guess that kind of leads to the next thing\nI want to ask about which was with preschool teachers and their stress levels\nand well being and how that affects the kids. I know for a fact that the\npreschool teachers at Champion are stressed. As of now, the most senior teacher\nhas been there for four months. So that\u2019s another layer, we don\u2019t want to overwhelm\nthe teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: Yeah so I have a couple of observations about that. A\nlarge study of Head Start teachers in Pennsylvania found a 25% rate of depression.\nSo 25% of the early childhood teachers were clinically depressed. We know from\nresearch that we\u2019ve done and others that between 60 or 70% of teachers say that\nthey are stressed and another 35-40% say that they are highly stressed. We know\nthat there are a lot of things that people are stressed about; some of them are\nthings that have nothing to do with the workplace like divorce or something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research in the last 20 years has shown us that birth to\nthree months is the most critical, but the first five years are most critical for\nbuilding the brain architecture for learning throughout our lifetime. There\u2019s a\nlot of social behavioral development that goes on, so there\u2019s been a lot of\nreally great long term research that shows the importance of early childhood\neducation and high-quality care and what an impact it has on that child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the expectations for teachers have gone up and the amount\nof pay has not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more efforts to have them be more highly\ncredentialed, but there\u2019s no financial support for them to get those degrees.\nWe pay the folks who take care of cats and dogs when we go on vacation more\nthan we pay folks who work in early care and education. Only about 19% of all\nthe people working in early care and education have a bachelor\u2019s degree of any\nkind. So frequently they\u2019re not well trained so you can imagine their feelings\nof competence in the classroom are not that strong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found that teachers who do report symptoms of depression-\nthe quality of care in their classrooms is lower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: Yeah! This was one of your studies I read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C:  Right, children\nare more likely to have behavioral problems or internalizing anxiety correctly.\nThose sorts of things which make sense because it\u2019s critical in terms of children\u2019s\nsocial-emotional development, their brain architecture, the development of\ntheir brain. If a teacher is stressed or depressed, they\u2019re less likely to\nrespond appropriately or to engage in the way you need to. My thing is we have\nto have environments that take care of the people who take care of children.\nThey need to have benefits, healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So anyways there are those issues specific to Champion. From\nmy experience with them, one of the problems I saw was that the people driving\nthe intergenerational parts were people whose background was working with elderly\nfolks. In my opinion, it was conceptualized about having activities to\nstimulate the older people that were there. What\u2019s the benefit to the child\u2019s\ndevelopment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we get preschoolers in a great, big, large room like\nthat cafeteria? Children react to their environments. We give them messages\nthat invite running and jumping and chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One other thing you have to think about is that these are\nfrequently elderly people with medical conditional that die, and then how do\nyou manage that? We know that with children continuity is important, so how do\nyou manage the fact that those people might not be around? Family has a way of\ncoping and dealing with that but this is outside of their family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: From your point of view, then, what would be the benefits\nto the kids from interacting with the older adults?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: Increasing the amount of interaction with adults is a\ngood thing. We spend a lot of time training the adults who are working with young\nchildren on what kind of interactions actually are beneficial to them. Older\nadults would be less likely to do these things; where you don\u2019t necessarily\ngive them the answer to something, you have them think about what the right answer\nmight be. You try to extend their vocabulary, things like that. And, yeah,\nmaybe that\u2019s the place for something to be developed. Some sort of thing that\nhelps the older adult know that you ask the children questions about what is\nhappening in a book, those are the things that are going to be beneficial to\nthe kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: I\u2019ve also been wondering about what these children can\nteach the older adults? A lot of them just sit there all day and complain about\nplaying the same games all the time. For the adults who are more physically and\nmentally able, it isn\u2019t the most engaging experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: I would think that one of the things that kids would bring\nin terms of play would be imagination. I think something the older adults can\nprovide is someone to interact with them, to take part in the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning page 6-9<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: It would be critical that there would be lots of input\nfrom folks who were experts in early childhood activities. We teach early childhood\nteachers that just doing activities for the sake of doing an activity is not\ngood education. They activities should move towards advancing one of the\ndomains of a child\u2019s development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: I\u2019ve talked to the kids and some of them think the older\nadults are scary. So maybe that\u2019s a fundamental barrier that needs to be broken\ndown before they can choose to engage with the older adults. Maybe its more of\nstarting to get kids thinking about how they are people too- they\u2019re your neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: Yeah, yeah, it\u2019s interesting to think what sort of\norientation or prep do they give to the kids to the fact that they are there. I\nwould want to have a whole unit where we read books about older people and we\ntalk about people who might have a physical disability or what it means if you\u2019re\nin a wheelchair or need a cane. I\u2019d be doing all these things with the children\nbefore I introduce them to the adults. Prep the kids quite a bit, you know, why\ndo people need glasses? You have to just think about all the things that they\nhaven\u2019t had experience with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: It\u2019s a definite fundamental thing to get the kids to want\nto engage, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: If it were me, I\u2019d have a thing where the older folks\nhave pictures of their family and grandchildren and they could talk about\nconnections and generations. From my kid\u2019s perspective, they wouldn\u2019t\nnecessarily make the connection that the older adults were once young like\nthem. That\u2019s a developmental thing. For kids who may not have been around older\npeople. It\u2019s not just big people and little people- one goes to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L: Yeah I feel like we could easily live our lives today where\nwe aren\u2019t in contact with people that aren\u2019t our same ages. Maybe what seniors\ncan bring to the kids is the knowledge about aging and what kids can bring to\nthe seniors is a sense of whimsy or imagination. One last question I had was\nabout considering the SES of the groups I\u2019m working with. I know most of the\nstaff have training on trauma informed care, but how might I take that into account\nwhen creating activities for them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C: You would want to make sure that the children had choice about engaging. I would anticipate that a lot of older people would not think about the fact that children should be able to have control over their own bodies and it\u2019s really inappropriate to sort of try to make children give you a hug or kiss. I know with my granddaughter she\u2019s been sort of oriented towards the fact that she doesn\u2019t automatically have to hug someone. She knows appropriate boundaries about her body and I think that\u2019s counter to when I think about my upbringing where, at least among family members, a lot of older people would think it was perfectly okay to reach out and give a little kid a hug because they thought they were cute. And that is part of keeping kids safe today, is to have them understand that they don\u2019t have to touch a stranger. A part of having kids be safe for their whole life is feeling like \u201cno, if I don\u2019t want to be touched, I don\u2019t have to be touched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview really highlighted, for me, the importance of the Early Childhood Education voice in my project. I spend most of my time at Champion with the older adults and their associated nurses and staff. Due to policy restrictions, it has been more difficult to get into the preschool classrooms, and I have only been able to talk with the teachers at lunchtime. After this interview, I reached out to more Early Childhood Education professors and professionals to ensure I wasn’t missing that piece of the puzzle.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lauren Hoffman, September 9, 2019, 60-minute interview (abridged) Interview with Cynthia Buettner | Professor, Department of Human Sciences | Human Development and Family Science L: One of your publications mentioned the proximal process. I\u2019m still a little unclear about what that is in regard to child development. I understand that the microsystem includes family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-voices","8":"category-voices-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}