Last week it was raining heavily and there was a lot of traffic on the roads. While attempting to take my girls to preschool and somehow make my 9am meeting I was getting extremely frazzled. I didn’t think much of it at the time until later that night I heard “just get out of the way” from my eldest child who was getting very frustrated by her sisters “games”. When I spoke with her about it and explained that it wasn’t polite to speak that way I was told “but that’s what you said in the car this morning”.
Children are always learning. From the time they get up until they go to bed their amazing minds are going a million miles an hour. Even when they sleep they are processing the events of the day. What is important to remember is that they have everything to learn. Their learning doesn’t just occur at daycare or preschool or even school, they learn at the park, at home, anywhere they go really. They learn through experience and observation as well as intentional teaching. Children can learn from listening to books to watching the world interact around them.
With this in mind it is worth considering what is it they are learning. Are you role modelling the kind of behaviour you want them to learn? One of the main ways your child will learn about social interactions for example is by what they see so if you set a good example then this can help tremendously. It is also important to remember that children are often listening even when you don’t realise. Clearly with the example above the ideal behaviour was not being role modelled and it certainly served as a wakeup call.
At Little Miracles we are trained to speak positively and encourage the children to be all they can be to our children and families alike, we constantly strive to ensure our interactions with the children are all ones that are positive. We aim to role model from wearing our hats outside to speaking to other team members with the same respect we ask the children to speak. We are aware that children are not just learning what we teach them, but are also watching everything we do. We believe role modelling is very important in shaping children’s development.
