In 2023 Hottest Year It is the largest storm ever recorded on Earth. We are more than halfway through 2024. Going smoothly It will surpass that figure in June Hottest month According to records, July 22 The hottest day.
Everyone I feel — Utility bills are rising, social schedules are disrupted, sleep and exercise become more difficult. In the early childhood care and education sector, children and parents are noticing that this is disrupting their daily routines and experiences.
“The heat has been different for us this year,” said Tessie Ragan, owner of Perfect Start Learning, a licensed in-home child care program in Rosamond, California, which she describes as the “desert region” of the state.
By the end of June, temperature In her area of Southern California, temperatures often approached or exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ragan runs a nature-themed summer camp for kids ages 3 to 6, but some days the weather prevented the kids from going outside.
“It was too hot for the kids,” she admitted. “Some of them started breathing heavily. It was painful for them to go outside.”
Extreme heat is dangerous for everyone, but it’s especially problematic for Young children.
Children under the age of 5 are physically more susceptible to the negative effects of extreme heat, explains Arie Schneider, an early childhood policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that recently released the report. Report On that topic.
Young children’s bodies heat up more easily and don’t cool down as easily. They also have fewer sweat glands, which can lead to poor sleep and concentration, which can negatively impact their learning and development, Schneider said. What’s more, rising temperatures can also lead to: Air quality tends to declineThis is even worse for children, who breathe in and out nearly twice as often as adults.
As temperatures rise, already hot places like Rosamond will get even hotter. Temperate regions Homes that have long been exempt from the need for indoor air conditioning or outdoor heat mitigation systems are now having to adapt to a new normal.
This puts a strain on early childhood care and education programs, whose sole responsibility is to keep children safe and healthy. Funding Needed Add or upgrade heat mitigation systems.
“They just don’t have the infrastructure they need,” said Angie Girling, senior vice president of early childhood care and education at the Raw Income Investment Fund.LIIF), a national community development financial institution with an early childhood care and education team focused on investing in the early childhood ecosystem. “Our industry is not prepared for this.”
Girling says a message she often hears from childcare workers is, “I know my kids, I know what I need for them, and I need someone to help me with the rest.”
Providers are looking for help determining how to navigate, prioritize and budget for solutions like solar panels and HVAC systems.
“They’re also very low paid and poorly compensated, so they’re very cost conscious,” Girling adds.
Ragan has been running the summer camp for many years, previously starting the camp in May at the end of the program’s school year and running it for six weeks from June 1 to mid-July.
A few years ago, struggling with unusually hot weather, she had to rethink her approach.
“We didn’t feel comfortable or safe outside,” Ragan recalled. She said she was scared for her children. “They all started turning red, no matter how much water I gave them. … They were sluggish and not having fun.”
She added: “It made it impossible for us to actually have any meaningful summer camp activities.”
Plastic play equipment could get too hot and burn children’s skin, her house doesn’t have a long overhang, so most of her backyard is exposed to the sun, and she can’t afford to buy misting systems, large shade panels, or wooden play equipment (each of which costs thousands of dollars) to alleviate the situation.
“It didn’t seem to me that running a summer camp was in the best interest of the kids. [if] “We didn’t have the ability to get out there as much as they needed to,” Ragan said. The Importance of Outdoor Play For children’s gross motor development.
She decided to shorten the camp going forward, ending it at the end of June, which meant losing two weeks of income but would save her the hottest two weeks of summer.
Ragan has made personal sacrifices to prioritize her children’s well-being, and as a caregiver, she knows what signs to look out for and when they might be reaching their breaking point.
Young children are less able to recognize or communicate the symptoms of heatstroke, so it is up to parents or guardians around them to notice and respond to them.
Schneider says it’s an important but tricky responsibility because there are no standard guidelines for parents. Some pediatricians say anything above 85 degrees can be harmful to a child’s health, but she notes it’s hard to pinpoint a specific temperature because factors like humidity, sun exposure and exercise are also factors to consider.
Still, Schneider believes clear guidelines for early childhood education programs and providers are achievable and necessary in the near future, but he doesn’t say there should be any requirements on that.
“The reason we are hesitant to include specific, enforceable requirements in child care licensing programs is because it creates financial barriers for providers who are already operating on razor-thin margins,” she explains.
Girling of the LIIF Fund agrees, which is why he thinks early childhood should be a priority for climate adaptation, which includes outdoor improvements like heat-resistant play equipment, misting systems, trees, solar panels and shade structures, as well as indoor upgrades like insulated windows, air purifiers and electric HVAC systems.
“Businesses benefit and kids benefit,” Girling said. “Kids can stay indoors and they can stay outdoors in a healthy way.”
Nancy Harvey, a home caregiver in Oakland, California, welcomed the climate change initiative at her home last year.
Thanks to a grant from LIIF, Harvey was able to replace his outdated heating system and install air conditioning in his home for the first time. (The grant was made possible through Business managed by LIIF On behalf of the state of California, we will help approximately 4,000 providers expand and improve their physical space.
Harvey acknowledged that Oakland doesn’t experience the extreme temperatures of many other parts of the country, but temperatures can still soar to nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and drop to as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter.
Last October, Harvey installed a ductless mini-split heat pump in the ceiling of her first floor home. Just the location was a big relief, she says, because their previous system was a wall-mounted heater and she was always worried her kids would get burned. (They had a plastic grill cover for safety, but “has that ever stopped a kid from getting burned?” she says.)
Harvey says the new system has made her home more comfortable in both winter and summer.
“This is a learning environment,” she emphasizes.[Now]”There’s no need to worry. It allows the kids to concentrate and have a better educational environment.”
Without the grant, Harvey says he would never have been able to afford these upgrades.
“We don’t have enough money. We’re worried about paying our bills and paying our staff,” she said. “We have very little, very little money saved up for something like this.”
Extreme heat can indeed pose serious health risks, especially for children with asthma and other respiratory conditions, but many point out that if it’s too hot for kids to go outside, they’re not allowed to go outside either. Major Gross Motor Development Opportunities and typical childhood experiences.
“Kids this age love playing outside,” Harvey said. “They thrive when they’re outside, and it’s such a shame for them not to be able to go outside and get some clean fresh air.”
Harvey incorporates numerous outdoor activities into the program, from outdoor painting to bike riding to building “castles” to play in.
Being stuck indoors because of extreme temperatures or poor air quality from wildfire smoke “is what kids are missing out on,” she said. “They can’t enjoy those things when we’re stuck inside, and those are important developmental activities.”
