What is early childhood?

                    

Hello friends,
Before moving on to early childhood education,  let's focus on early childhood first.

You must be thinking,  child is a child...... and what is early childhood?

What do we mean by early childhood? Some parents may treat their 12 year-old child as a very small child. Thus it comes to our mind, what exactly is early childhood? 

Well before entering to the arena of Early Childhood Education, we must figure out, what is early childhood.

For this, first we have to know the concept of child and childhood. In today's life, It's impossible to go deeply into any field or branch of medicine, philosophy or sociology without taking account of contribution brought by a knowledge of child life.

Now let's discuss, what is the concept of child and childhood, what are the characteristics of childhood.

Childhood, according to developmental psychology,  has been divided into the developmental stages of:

• Toddlers (learning to walk)
• Early childhood (play age)
• Middle childhood (school age)
• Adolescence (puberty)

However, my basic concern regarding such a discussion is that having proper  knowledge of the idea of early childhood and its different stages according to developmental norms will greatly help you to understand your child better.  As a parent,  you can provide quality time and teach them certain skills and train them to learn more so that their foundation stage becomes stronger and they will definitely succeed in future. 

Do you know,  intelligence and creativity,  both can be developed in the early childhood years? In fact it  is a period of rapid- physical, mental,  emotional,  social and language development of a child. Some major developmental aspects such as,  development of understanding,  moral values,  some common interests, are some common characteristics of early childhood stage. Child development refers to the the sequence of physical,  language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of adulthood. During this process,  a child progresses from dependency on their parents/guardians to increasing autonomy. 

According to research,  early childhood education goes a long way in shaping one's future. In fact,  it's interesting to know that as per another research,  children at 2 years of age who have high vocabulary are known to have better academic as well as behavioral performance once they enter kindergarten. Going forward,  kindergarten skills are known to impact earnings,  savings and more as an adult. 
Given the importance of early childhood education,  parents are often left wondering what they can do to enhance it. A lot actually! For starters, the thing to do is to start communicating with the child early. 

While it seem like a fruitless exercise to talk to a child who can not yet respond , but the fact is that the child is absorbing every bit of what you are saying and it's this continuous interaction that will go a long way in helping the child develop a strong vocabulary.  Reading to a child who seemingly may not understand what is being read to him/her is also a great enabler. 

What is imperative to keep in mind is that the brain is developing very rapidly in the  initial years of  the child's life. The brain's emotional center needs to be nurtured and nourished continuously. Any undue stress or fear can actually come in the way of child's learning. Nurturing experiences on the other hand are known to thicken the cortex of the brain and help create sophisticated neuron structures. Thus, children who grow up in nurturing environments have a great advantage over those who grow up in stressful environments. 

(In this blog,  an early childhood educator will keep on posting blog posts for:

•  parents to better understand their children and nurture them
• homeschooling  
•  the freshers or the new Preschool teachers who will definitely benefit from the same. Do comment in the comment section of the blog. Thank you. )

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