Laying a solid foundation in our children’s formative years

While it is interesting to appreciate this passively, it is important to ensure that from the early or formative years (ages 0 to about 8), we get childhood development right, such that our children experience that significant beginning needed to set a solid foundation for their continued growth into pre-teens, teenagers and finally, mature adults.

This is something that some parents may take for granted, but if we take a careful look at our environment, we may observe certain behaviours in adults, which may be attributable to a weak foundation during their early years. Some examples include aggressiveness, abuse, lack of independence or even low social self-esteem.

While this is not to dispute genetics and our natural tendencies, early years programmes offered by schools through pre-school and nursery school provides aid towards these formative years.

When it comes to education, we may tend to focus on academics alone, especially for those of us who went through the “old school” styles of teaching, which was typically instruction-based and lacking in social interaction and some forms of cognitive development. But in order to become successful and effective adults, we cannot rely on academics alone, as there are many soft skills, which need to be covered in order to tackle the realities of the world.

While they are infants (0 – 2years), children are curious and explore their environment. This is the stage during which they begin to talk, repeat words they hear and actions they see. They are really just developing a “sense of self”. Then from 3 years old, they start to develop their own character, become more inquisitive and start to form their own opinions.

Many parents may not feel the need to send their children to school at the preschool and nursery school stages, and this may actually be due to the financial limits for some young parents, as the cost of quality education in Nigeria soars. However if parents can find a way around it, their children stand to benefit from some developmental elements that their peers at school experience.

Interacting with their peers and learning through play at school helps stimulate the five areas of childhood development; physical, intellectual, language, and emotional and social needs. Children cannot get all these from home, maybe except in situations where parents have carefully taken the time to implement an effective home-schooling programme and ensure that their children get social fulfilment through interaction at local parks, centres or other venues where their peers convene.

Unfortunately, the limits of our social infrastructure in Nigeria would make achieving this challenging.

The importance of the formative years cannot be overemphasised. Teachers have been observing the some of the gaps between children who had this foundation and those who did not. Now these gaps have to be closed, and this puts extra pressure not just on teachers, but also on the children themselves.

In this day where children seem to be getting smarter and smarter, getting the foundation right through the structure of preschool and nursery schools will provide lifelong benefits to the success the children and allow them to reach their full potential as individuals.

Written by Oyin Egbeyemi