Enabling rather than inspiring is the best approach to childcare

‘INSPIRATION’ is a word we hear a lot when it comes to Childcare. But an equally important one is ‘enabling’. Why? Very often the term inspiration tends to be the projection of adult concepts and sensibilities on the child.

In short, what we perceive as inspiring doesn’t necessarily always equate to a child’s place and time in the world. Many childcare experts tend to factor in this train of thought and while ‘inspiration’ is still hugely important, enabling a child to express its own personality is perhaps a more rounded way of encouraging self-development.

Allow children to mix freely in a way in which they find their own ‘self’. Children are less likely to expressive themselves verbally. Often this is done through play and interaction with other children. Childcare centres encourage this interaction as they know it enhances emotional and social development.

In essence, using a random term like ‘inspiration’ is pretty vague. For example, most people won’t immediately equate patience with inspiration as the latter implies some sort of active process. But with childcare, having the patience to allow children develop in their own world in their own time is what eventually enables them to become better adults. Inspiration is the end result, not the starting point.

Self-development commences from the moment we’re born and at no stage in life do we stop learning. Childcare, from infants to preschool age, is a process of incremental development. At each level more is learned about a child’s personality through play and self-expression. Childcare centres are essentially gentle stepping stones where children make the transition from home to the outside world in comfort, and in their own space and time.

Playtime should be at a child’s own level and incorporating many therapeutic aspects. This basically means that by enabling a child to self-develop - instead of trying to inspire from the adult world down to the child’s - is a better approach. Reassuring and encouraging a child to familiarise themselves with the confines of their own world is the best way of enabling them to understand and make the transition to ours.