Future Kids on Building Relationships With Their Preschoolers

Children learn, grow and develop through active interactions with others, and meaningful participation with their environment, and one of the most painful life lessons we learn as we grow is that while we are free to choose our actions, we are not free from the consequences of them. How can early childhood professionals foster environments where children are encouraged and supported to make meaningful and significant choices and be agents for real impact?

Children learn, grow and develop through active interactions with others, and meaningful participation with their environment. Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions and influence events in their world – children need to see, hear and feel that their choices are respected, heard and considered. In order to feel their power as influencers, children need to see their influence reflected in their world – be that on a local or global level.

The more deeply you know your children and families, the more authentic your responses to children will be. What can you do in your service to know the children in your care more deeply? The same thing you do when building a relationship with anyone – talk, share, be mindful of the give and take, listen, respond with care and empathy. Above all else? Spend time. Time sitting and absorbing and doing things together, and “getting to know.”

Once educators deeply know the children in their care, it becomes easier for them to provide children with opportunities to embrace their own agency. Knowing which opportunity for which child at which time makes an enormous in road into truly embedding agency within the service.

Future Kids say that by having an influential role in the lives of their children it becomes their responsibility to provide an environment that encourages meaningful encounters with rich potential to engage, communicate and form trusting relationships, empowering children to be confident learners who believe in their capabilities, so for more information on daycare Hamilton NZ, daycare New Plymouth and the cost of childcare NZ please go to http://www.futurekids.co.nz .