What You Need to Know About Child Care

Posted on: 30 March 2022

One of the many benefits of child care centres is that they help build children's self-esteem from a very young age. Notably, a confident child learns how to cope with mistakes and failure from early on and does not shy away from trying again. Besides, a child with high self-esteem is more likely to avoid peer pressure, which proves critical as they grow. However, do you wonder how child care centres build children's self-esteem? This article highlights precisely how child care centres manage the feat.

Promote Healthy Risk-Taking -- Typically, parents are very protective of their children and avoid exposing them to risky activities. While it is okay to be protective of your child, you should realise that the line between taking healthy risks and being protective can be blurry. Unfortunately, being too overprotective makes children risk-averse, leading to low self-esteem. Child care centres run by professionals understand that healthy risks are the bedrock of high self-esteem in children. Thus, kids can only build confidence if they take chances, make choices, and take responsibility. Therefore, rather than protect your child from failure, child care centres expose kids to healthy risks, allowing them to try, fail, then try again.

Offer Appropriate Praise -- There is absolutely nothing wrong with praising your child when they accomplish a task. When it is specific and earned, praise can be an excellent self-esteem builder in children. However, most parents misuse praise and overdo it when their children do something worth commending. According to children's experts, parents who overpraise their children do more harm than good, even if such praise is genuine. The reason is that overpraising your child's efforts sends the message that whatever they are doing is enough, and your child will stop pushing themselves. Instead of overpraising kids, child care centres offer appropriate praise that focuses on effort and is designed to teach children that practice reaps the rewards. Most importantly, appropriate praise is more effective at building children's self-esteem over time.

Match Goals with Ability -- "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid." The common phrase advises people not to be narrow in evaluating others' abilities. The same should happen when setting goals for your kids because their capabilities vary. For instance, if your child struggles with reading, but you insist that they should read the same books, they will give up and develop low self-esteem. It is why child care centres match kids' goals according to their abilities. For example, an educator could offer the child in the above case a book that is slightly below their level for easy practice. Over time, the kid's self-confidence will grow as they become better and proud of their accomplishment.