Early childhood is a crucial stage of one person’s life. It’s a period of a child’s intellectual, physical, and social and emotional development. All of us learn throughout our lives. It starts from the day we are born and that’s why babies and toddlers need positive learning experiences and early childhood education. These kinds of experiences will help their social, intellectual, and emotional development.
The experiences and relationships a child has, plus nutrition and health, affects children’s development enormously. Positive experiences help the brain to develop in healthy ways. Negative experiences such as neglect or abuse, affect brain development in harmful ways, and also contribute to emotional and behavioral problems later in life. So the experiences a child has in the early years can either support learning or interfere with it.
Children are born ready to learn and are always interested in the world and everything surrounding them. It’s natural for them to use all their abilities to learn new things. Many things affect children’s development and learning such as: their genetic inheritance, influence from the family, influence from the community, influences within their culture. All these things affect your child’s learning process from the day it’s born until the age of 8.
It is important for parents, and others who work and live with children, to keep in mind the broad range of kinds of learning that are important in the early years. Some of the most important things you must teach your children are to always have respect for others; how to use their body; how to resolve conflicts; get them used to things that make people different from one another; teach them to understand their own feelings; teach them to be confident; give them a sense of belonging to a family; teach them how to take care for themselves and how to control their own behavior.
What can you do as a parent to support your child’s learning in its early years?
You need to help your child stay safe and healthy. You need to be your child’s biggest support and to always believe in him. You need to be a parent who will appreciate your child’s uniqueness and a parent who respects your child’s feelings and emotions. Teach your child to control his behavior and to be patience. Buy your child lots of books with all sorts of pictures and always read stories to your child. And most importantly, don’t forget to tell your child you love him every single day.