Throughout the cooperation between the management office of the Women's union and the department of first health care (represented by the health education for spreading healthy lifestyles branch); a trainingsession was hosted for kinder garden's supervisors in the women's union center in homs, with the title "protecting children is a common responsibility" .
the sessions included social health issues to define and acknowledge healthy lifestyles that improves the health of our children. The first session was hosted by Dr. Ismaeel Hosein, president of health education branch, who defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, psychological, and social well being, and not just a state of sickness-free.
He clarified that health is affected by many factors especially poverty, ignorance and sickness. Those are health's sworn enemies.
Dr Ismaeel pointed out that the health section is headed towards taking care of healthy people to prevent sickness -which is one of the concerns of first health care department- which was shown in the provided shots against many diseases such as Tuberculosis, Paralysis, Hepatitis, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Haemophilus influenza, Mumps, and German measles .He also stressed on the importance of watching the child's growth and working on regular examinations to detect the disease early, and on the fact that supervisors should work on teaching the child sports, good nurturing and positive social behaviors as positive types of lifestyles.
Under the title "Children's nutrition and bad eating habits" Dr Intisar Shaweesh talked about the wrong kind of behaviours that should be avoided by the parents and kinder gardens, such as drinking tea with breakfast. The right behaviour would be replacing it with milk because drinking tea with food can cause children to haveanemia .. She also pointed out the harms of chips and coca cola and the lack of appetite for real food that it can cause, and the importance of wise motherly behaviour when a child rejects his food.
The lecturer discussed the benefits of breast-feeding for both mother and child and the importance of bringing in other kinds of food to support the child's growth and make the weaning easier later. The psychological guidance Nohad Tahmaz talked about the that a kinder garden supervisor should have, she is a role model for the child and should try to pass the kinder garden's rules to the children and teach them how to respect themselves as well as others.
a supervisor should posses good communication skills to inherence the positive behavior of her relationship with the family and the administration in the kinder garden. she should also be capable of managing the class well and using the provided resources for all kinds of activities.
some of the problems of which kids go through such as stubbornness, shyness, fear, theft, laziness were discussed. Mrs. Nohad emphasized on the importance of communication between parents and supervisors to avoid all problems and ensure a better situation for the child. She said "Supervisors must walk the path of cheering, not overreacting in punishments because it can lead a child to be hard-headed, not overreacting in compliments because it can spoil the child, and lift a child's spirit by giving them assignments that fit their abilities and then complimenting them.
on the second day Dr Ismaeel talked about the accidents that a child can encounter and dividing them into two categories; the first is indoors accidents like messing with the kitchen's tools, swallowing small objects, burning and choking from all kinds of heating ways, and falling off balconies.
the second kind is outdoors accidents that involves car accidents, school dismiss time accidents (as a result of being in a large crowd) and crossing the street accidents where he pointed out that the supervisor must pay a lot of attention to the children especially when getting on and off the bus.
central educationer Thnaa Alsabaa talked about sport in the second session and the importance of taking it up as a daily routine. Studies have proved that 30 minutes of sport each day lowers down your cholesterol and blood pressure, maintains a healthy heart and strong bones and helps along with a diet to lose weight, and improves psychological health because of the natural Opium the body excretes while playing sports, plus the benefits of sport to pregnant women as it makes giving birth much easier, and to diabetes patients where sport is considered a major factor in controlling blood sugar along with diets and medicine.
and in spite of the fact that most people know the many benefits of sport, 60% of the world's population don't play sport, according to the statistics of world's health organization. One very important way of spreading sports is starting at a very young age in kinder gardens and schools and homes where grown ups (parents and supervisors) should be the child's role model..
We should mention that Mrs. Laila Dandashi, head of kinder garden's office at the women's union emphasized on sticking to sharp health rules in kinder gardens by making time for sport and physical activities and not allowing chips and junk food and escorting the child to the door of his home to protect him from accidents and taking care of the child's psychological state in cooperation with the parents.
Thnaa Alsabaa, member of Syrian Women’s work team- (Protecting children is a common responsibility)
Translated by: Areej Shmaies.