Caring

Caring is the active appreciation of other persons and the willingness to treat them with consideration and respect. Caring is central to early childhood education because it communicates to children that they are valuable as persons: that their feelings, ideas, and preferences are worthy. When a child lives in an environment of caring, she builds an attachment of trust with her caregivers, with her surroundings, and with her own inclinations.

At the core of caring is the teacher’s ability to see that a child is a person. This very young person cannot take care of his own daily needs independently, but he does have personal preferences, individual needs, and intrinsic desires. The caring teacher respects the child’s every effort to learn. Good child care thus consists ...