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Child's Matter

Where we are as childcare providers

By Hernán ArteagaPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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I wanted to start describing our role as childcare providers, either at home, working in private families or in the public or private sector as practitioners. Both places are not far from being the same, taking in consideration the number of children you work with.

In a private home, we can have up to 4 kids. I haven’t met the family with more than 4 kids. And also I don't wish to meet a family with more than 4 kids. It can be a lot of work, dealing with different personalities and on top of that, the parents discipline in the house. You also have to remember that your only ME space is your room and the outside. You will meet the life of two strangers and make it yours as well.

That's the reason I can change from private families working positions, and nurseries. It's like creating my own balance of personal life and family life.

In nurseries, either private or public (publics, I'm talking about public schools locations) you get to manage around 15 or 20 even more, depending on the room and how many members of staff are working in the premises. This normally changes, there will always be new people and new kids to the nursery. Some nurseries have waiting lists, for more than 200 families, who want their kids to go to that specific nursery.

Child’s matter is how we describe the child's needs and how we meet them. Is also, meeting the family, locating where the parents come from, who they are and what they give to their child development. In my personal experience, I met those needs engaging one by one, instead of a group activity. Where some professionals will try in groups, I focus on one child at the time.

I enjoy listening to their crazy little heads. combining their ideas into other kids ideas to create a game or a role play activity. Always finding the way to create communication and building relations of trust.

Sharing those experiences with the parents, building a nice relation for both sides. Feedback is very important when you are working in a nursery. The parents leave their kids with you while they are working, so they will miss important events sometimes, where you have to build a bridge to make them fill part of it.

That's the reason for this story. Childs Matters is where we kind of make an assessment of the child's life. We locate their weakness, how is the family at home, child behaviour, parent style of life, external influences as well the internal ones. We also consider the environment at home, the child development comes also from home.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) here in the UK. Came with an idea of Culture Capital. Which basically tells us to always be aware of every child's needs in terms of culture and bring that child toward others culture. This came with the idea of introducing other people to our kids' life. Understanding of the world and self confidence.

These simple beginnings will help us to work around the child's needs and special qualities. Every kid is important, special and incredible. But that doesn't mean we will justify their negative behaviour. We have to understand where that anger, sadness and rage come from if we want to engage in a very positive way for a child.

For this time I'll leave you with these simple tips. For my next story i will bring some situations and activities that we work around on these ideas, to explain to the kids how other kids live around the world.

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About the Creator

Hernán Arteaga

The London Manny!

Instg: TheLondonManny

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