The Importance of Education and Early Childhood Development
Your child’s education is incredibly important to their development, especially when they’re under the age of 8. It often creates a path to success or failure within your child’s educational life. If kids are engaged in fun, exciting learning experiences and activities during early childhood, they’ll have a better association with school as they move forward.
Early childhood education should be heavily focused on sparking a young child’s imagination and curiosity. This focus will create a desire for learning within most children, and make their school experience significantly more effective in the long-run.
Dr. Katherine Glenn-Applegate, an associate professor of education at Ohio Wesleyan University, believes that making a decision about your child’s early education shouldn’t be so black and white. She believes that many people think the only two options are to stay at home and learn with mom or dad, or to go to a school and immediately be ingrained in social situations. However, she disagrees.
Dr. Glenn-Applegate firmly believes that the main component for a solid early childhood education is a loving environment that is stimulating and supportive and encourages children to care for themselves and others. This can happen at home, with friends from daycare, or at a school.
Your kids deserve to attend a school that recognizes and prioritizes the importance of creating a healthy environment for early childhood education. With the right environment and group settings for your child, they’ll learn social skills that they can take with them throughout their lives.
A well-rounded and engaged early education helps children learn how to relate and understand each other. Their educators should be promoting group projects and teaching them how to respect each other’s boundaries.
Supervised interaction in a space and supportive classroom environment teaches skills like patience, taking turns and listening to those around you. These are social skills that can be implemented in every classroom or work environment throughout someone’s life.
Early childhood education is also a great way to develop and grow cognitive skills like exploration, experimentation and problem solving. A solid foundation from the classroom should introduce new ideas and promote curiosity in your child’s life. In addition, if they’re listening to music, singing along with educational songs and hearing poetry, that’s promoting phonological awareness, which is crucial to cognitive development.
Studies from the National Education Association have shown that kids attending higher quality early education schools are more likely to graduate high school and move onto college and have higher paying jobs in the future. Investing in your child’s early education will reap benefits for years to come like increased social skills, higher cognitive awareness and more success in the job market.
Take the time to look into education opportunities that promote curiosity, patience and a safe space to learn and fail. Set your children up for success, starting as early as preschool. All of these will contribute to a lifetime of success and desire to learn!
