The all-around educational, emotional and spiritual development of a young child is so vital. And as a parent and guardian, you play a key role in amplifying the experience for your child at Archbishop Walsh Academy and Southern Tier Catholic School.
Early Childhood Education: Ways to Help Your Young Child Succeed
Here are some expert tips to further your child’s education – to help them flourish at the next level (whatever that may be) and later as adults.
1. Let Your Child Explore Their Interests
What does your child enjoy? That passion for sketching and painting may later evolve into a passion for graphic design. A talent for finding patterns at a young age may lead to a penchant for solving mathematical equations.
Let your young child take the lead. You follow.
“Go with your child to museums at a young age, see what they gravitate towards and play with – and see if they go back there,” says Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist and Harvard professor.
Experiences – whether your child enjoys being taken to a museum, park or a busy city – help to develop your child’s worldview. Continual new experiences may develop entirely new areas of interest, helping you figure out how best the child learns. This interaction is key to early childhood education.
Let your child be an individual. Don’t interject your own strengths onto your child or try to get them to do what you want them to do. Rather, be encouraging as the child explores their surroundings.
2. Nurture Different Learning Styles
Much like needing to explore their own interests, each child must be allowed (and encouraged) to operate within their own distinct learning style. Parents/guardians and educators should ensure young children can work to their own individual strengths and learning preferences, getting the most out of their environment as they best see fit.
Some are excellent visual or auditory learners. Others learn best through hands-on experience and feeling alone.
At Archbishop Walsh Academy and Southern Tier Catholic School, we have a deep reverence for the unique giftedness of each person.
3. Parental and Community Involvement
We know you’ve heard it a million times. Be involved. But it’s so critical.
Stay informed as to what’s happening at your child’s school. Take an active role in their extracurricular activities, sports and clubs. Keep up with their studies, where they are academically, and what they need on a nightly basis.
Being involved means more than helping out with homework once in a while. It takes a village to raise a child. And here at Walsh/STCS, that’s most certainly the case. We’re all here to support one another. That support system for early childhood education is important. We’re family.
4. Offer Reassurance & Continuous Support
Your child will hit road bumps and rough patches. They’ll face numerous moments of self-doubt. Keep providing reassurance to your child. “Every defeat is an opportunity,” Gardner says. “When something doesn’t work, say, ‘What can you learn from it?’ And take that moving forward.”
Our purpose is to develop confident leaders and lifelong learners who will thrive in personal lives and careers. Each day, our dedicated teachers inspire a love of learning and ensure each student maximizes their potential.
5. Bonus Tip
These traits are also important for you to develop in cooperation with your child: emotional intelligence, confidence, social ability, compassion, fine and gross motor coordination, responsibility and creativity. We provide an environment that nurtures character development and responsible citizenship through a holistic approach to early childhood education.
They’re not just students. They’re people. They’re future global citizens.
Come Visit Walsh/STCS and See If We’re the Right Fit!
No matter the tip or trick deployed above, you are an integral part of the process. Know that your child will get a well-rounded education with your help and with our expert educators.
In our elementary program at Southern Tier Catholic School, we provide a safe environment for early childhood education, in which all members of our community show respect and kindness to one another and protect and honor each other’s rights, dignity and individual differences.
Book a tour with us today and see if we’re the right fit!