Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Early Childhood Education Programs: It's Never to Early to Start Learning

Is there young children around your home right now? Running playing, making a mess sometimes, it is a wonderful time in a child's life. They're not old enough to have to attend school, yet they are developing the ability to be able to do so much. You should embrace this stage while it's here, because before you know it it's gone. Something that I wish I would've researched when my daughter was younger was childhood education programs. There are more common today then when my girl was younger. Today parents often pounce on the chance to provide their child with a head start. By placing your kids in an early childhood program they are given the chance to get a feel for what's coming in kindergarten.

If you're one of those parents that is considering an early childhood education program good for you. It's a great way to propel your son or daughter. The more they learn at an early age the better off they are as they progress into public of private schools. They'll be introduced to curriculum's, and the different learning processes. There are a lot of kids that enter the public school system when they are four or five and have trouble adjusting to what's exactly going on. Of course this is because they're only interaction each day has been with their parents, now suddenly there are hundreds of other children, and only one teacher to instruct. Often kids don't take well to this scenario right away.

If you enroll your child in an early childhood education program you will help show your children exactly what to expect when they do reach public school. You'll likely have a greater success rate of your child adjusting well when they enter school as well.

Now if you don't want to place them in early childhood education programs there are other options. Another wonderful way for your child to get a head start is with the Internet. The online world is loaded up with educational games to help teach your child new things in a fun way. I encouraged my daughter to play these games when ever she wanted from age four on. Some of these games she still enjoys playing today even at age eight.

If you are considering enrolling your son or daughter in early childhood education programs I recommend you do some research online to see what is available in your area. You'll likely find numerous websites and find the perfect program for your child close by. It's never to early for them to start learning, and hopefully they'll never stop.

Early Childhood Education

Interesting early research on resilience is showing that it is 'ordinary'. In other words we all have the potential for it and it then depends on life circumstances and how we deal with these to increase the size and strength of our resilience pot internally. So this means that the young children in our early years settings all have tremendous capacity for resilience and some may even be increasing it through finding creative ways to deal with their stressors. It also means that our own level of resilience is likely to be influential within our setting and with the children too.

How does that happen? Modelling is a well known strategy for young children to learn through. It is the easiest and most automatic thing for children to do. The more you demonstrate how you cope with any difficulties that come your way the easier it will be for young children to tuck those strategies into their mental files and call on them when the time comes for them to deal with a similar issue. This means that it is not helpful to children for you to hide the fact that you sometimes find something hard or stressful. Instead show them that you still tackle it with good humour, a wide perspective and understanding of why it is happening and why you find it a bit hard and by asking for help openly. This is very refreshing for young children as we often pretend things which they sense are not right but don't know enough to know why.

Resilience in early years education is best taught through a combination of modelling the most helpful attitudes such as respect, positivity, optimism and cooperation with one another but also by teaching specific skills gradually. These skills are to do with making and maintaining friendships. For everyone to have strong resilience they need to be able to call on support networks - and that means having the capacity to make friends and gain loyalty and love from them.

A useful task for us right now is to consider the play curriculum we have with the youngsters in our early years educataion settings and check that it is FULL of ways to make, maintain and manage friendships. This will be invaluable training for the children for the rest of their lives.