The Role of Adults in Child Care
Our role with children is special and unique and unlike the role an adult has with their peers, co-workers, family or spouse. What we, as adults, do can affect the children around us and it is up to each individual adult to decide if that affect will be a positive one or a negative one.
Adhering to these simple rules will help to ensure that the affect of your role in a child’s life will indeed be a positive one.
The Five P’s:
Provide a learning environment: Adults can organize the environment to determine the type, style, and how much stimulation is involved. This goes beyond just child-proofing a home. An adult must determine what sort of life they want to expose the child to. An adult should ask themselves questions about what is important to them and what they want to instill in a child. This will vary among adults since we all have our own ideals and beliefs.
Predictability: Children need to know what is going to happen next. They need to be able to predict events in a time sequence and the adult responses to their actions. Consistency is also a key element in rules in punishment. Children need to know that if they do this action there will be this consequence and it should not be lifted or changed depending on the adult’s mood. Siblings also should all be punished equally. If both children do the same deed and receive different punishments it will confuse them and possibly cause the one with the heavier sentence to act out even more aggressively.
Ping Pong: This refers to the give and take of social interaction. Children need to respond to adults and adults to children. Adults need to play an active role in communication with children. An active role means to listen and respond to what children are telling you and showing you.
Persistence: This is especially required with teens. Being persistent will show teens to stick with something until it is done or solved. This can also apply in keeping the same rules and punishments or following through with a punishment when it has been enacted.
Professor: This is actually something to avoid, not model. Adapting the professor attitude means that you are preaching or telling your children what to do and not paying attention to what the child is saying or needs.
The Four R’s
Responsiveness: Respond to the child’s signals with help and attention. Respond to a child’s accomplishments with encouragement, praise and honesty. Response to a child’s questions with forthrightness and sincerity.
Reasoning and Rationality: These two areas go together. This means to give reasons for your rules, limitations or feelings and to give explanations for them. If you are open and honest it may help your child to respect your values and to help them be more open and honest with you.
Reading: This provides a chance to build adult/child relations. Have a child read to you or you read to a child. This promotes reading skills, imagination, language skills and emotional attachment.
TLC (Tender Loving Care)
No on can receive too much. Love is the most important factor in allowing the child to develop to their full potential. You cannot spoil a child by loving them too much, but only by not setting limits.
